Hey {{first_name | there}},

Aaron Kirman was 10 when he started hopping fences into empty mansions to look at the architecture. He asked us not to tell you that. We're telling you anyway, because that kid grew up to sell $25 billion of houses without a single cold call.

I’ve spoke with hundreds of the best agents and 1 thing keeps coming up. The best ones play decade-long games.

I learned that from my health. Gym, running, cycling, hiking, sleep, what I eat. You can get fit in a year. I've stayed fit for 10+ years now because at some point it stopped being a program and just became who I am.

Same with your business. You can try open houses, farming, YouTube or a new lead source for a year. The agents you're chasing have been building theirs for decades. Consistency compounds.

Aaron didn't come from money. His dad drove a truck, his mom taught school, and his first listing was a $285,000 house. He's been compounding for 20 years since, and this is his playbook.

In today's newsletter, we'll get into:

— Andrew

Aaron Kirman calls himself lazy.

Not in an interview-humble way. He means it. $25 billion in real estate sold and he has never door knocked or cold called. His words: "That sounded exhausting to me."

So at 18 he asked himself a question. I've been chewing on it since we spoke.

How do I get 200 clients in one moment?

Here's what he landed on.

Sell to the people who already have 100 or 200 of them.

Business managers. CPAs. Estate lawyers. Architects. Designers. Anyone sitting on a database of the people you want.

"Work that room of 10 and get thousands of clients."

One business manager, by his count, is about 20 wealthy families.

It started by accident. A caller asked him for a specific architect's house.

Aaron had never heard of the architect. Said yes anyway, spent months finding it, sold it. That one client was in art and fashion and is still sending him people 25 years later.

My first sales job called that person the maven. You already know who yours is.

"I want everybody considering selling above X price to know my name or think of my name."

Notice what he didn't say. He doesn't need every listing. He needs to be up to bat.

Early on nobody would write about him, so he spent $7,000 on a newswire and wrote about himself. Those stories still rank today. And every sale gets announced, because to him a listing is an ad for the next listing. Actives and solds only. Never escrows.

Here's the part I want you to sit with. Most of his listing meetings barely touch real estate.

That's the lazy part.

For a stretch he'd win a $25M listing and lose a $5M one the same week. 3 times in a row.

It wasn't the market. It was the book. The press kit built for the big house made the smaller seller feel like an afterthought. So now, below his top tier, he walks in with nothing.

3 more things he doesn't do in the room:

That last one is how two of his agents, two years in, got an appointment on a $200M house.

They called.

Read that again if you're having a rough month. He plans on 30% of his listings never selling. 3 weeks before we recorded he lost a $50M listing. 9 months in. $150K out of pocket.

He felt bad for 2 days, then: "Game of chess. I lost it. I'm gonna go get another one."

What made all of it work was a whiteboard.

His husband, a banker, asked him what his goal was. He didn't have one.

"If you don't have a goal, you're out of business."

So he wrote $50 million a month on the board and every month asked one question.

What's the easiest way to hit it?

That's the question. Everything above is just his answer to it.

Full episode: #1 Agent in LA: What Top Agents Do Differently

Andrew