The thing that’s killing your real estate business, coach Ricky Carruth writes, is the way you’ve been programmed to think about leads.
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Let me drop some truth on you about why you’re not crushing it in real estate. It’s not your work ethic, your market or your competition. It’s the way you’ve been programmed to think about leads, and I’m going to blow your mind about why that’s killing your business.
The lead source trap
Think about how we’re taught to find business in real estate. We’re given these neat little lead boxes to work from:
- For sale by owners (FSBOs)
- Expired listings
- Open houses
- Zillow leads
- Google pay-per-click
- Your sphere of influence
- Direct mail/farming
Looks organized and professional, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. This system is programming you for scarcity and failure. Let me show you why.
Why traditional lead sources are a trap
Every single one of these sources is inherently limited:
- FSBOs? There are only so many at any given time. Once you’ve called them all, you’re stuck waiting for new ones.
- Expired listings? Same story. Limited daily supply.
- Open houses? You’re at the mercy of foot traffic.
- Zillow leads? They’re selling you “exclusive” access to a tiny slice of the market.
- Your sphere? Just a static list that you’re afraid to burn out.
See the pattern? Every traditional lead source they teach you is limited by design. That’s creating a scarcity mindset that’s destroying your potential.
The truth about unlimited business
Here’s the reality that’s going to shake your world: Every human is a lead. Yes, EVERY. SINGLE. HUMAN.
Why? Because every person will either:
- Buy or sell property in their lifetime
- Know someone who will buy or sell?
- All of the above
It’s like breathing air or watching waves crash on the beach — there’s an endless supply. You can’t possibly talk to every potential lead, just like you can’t breathe all the air or eat all the food at a buffet.
Why agents stay stuck
So why do 99 percent of agents keep playing in these tiny lead source boxes? Three reasons:
- Bad programming: You’ve been conditioned to think in terms of scarcity. When old-timer agents get mad about you farming “their” neighborhood, that’s scarcity thinking in action.
- Fear in disguise: Your brain actually uses this scarcity mindset to protect you. If you believe leads are scarce, you have an excuse not to make those “scary” calls. It’s your mind’s way of keeping you in your comfort zone.
- The ‘I already know’ trap: Most agents think they already know everything they need to know to succeed. They hit a plateau and keep doing the same things harder instead of learning new approaches.
Breaking free from the trap
The first step to crushing it in real estate is reprogramming your mind around the unlimited abundance of business. When you truly get this, everything changes:
- You stop fighting over scarce leads
- You start seeing opportunities everywhere
- You focus on building trust with a high volume of property owners
- Your business becomes about relationships, not transactions
Remember: Deals are happening every single day of your life. They happened yesterday, they’re happening right now, and they’ll happen tomorrow, regardless of market conditions.
Your path forward
The truth is, the real estate world is your oyster. There’s more than enough business for everyone to have more than enough, with plenty left over.
But first, you have to:
- Recognize and reject the scarcity of programming
- Start seeing every human as a potential connection
- Focus on building trust at scale
- Never stop learning and growing
When you make this shift, you’ll stop being trapped by limited lead sources and start operating in a world of unlimited opportunity. And that’s when the real magic happens. Once you realize the truth of “all humans in your market are leads,” you start to realize the next truth, which is that you can’t possibly talk to every human in your market.
This is where you can narrow down to the exact type of property you want to specialize in and focus all your energy on targeting the owners of those properties. Disregard waiting for more FSBOs or Expired listings to hit the market. Dive into the massive abyss of the entire market.
There are many ways to find all the contact information of any property owner you wish, and hardly any agent is doing this. Since the main objective of any lead generation activity is to create conversations with the right prospects, why not pick out the exact prospects you want and have a conversation with them right now?
Remember, you’re not just competing for deals — you’re building the empire of your career. And empires aren’t built by fighting over scraps. They’re built by seeing and seizing the unlimited opportunities that others miss.
Ricky Carruth is a coach, speaker and real estate expert. Connect with Ricky on Linkedin and YouTube.
