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Contributor Greg Hague shares business-growth programs he created during his 17-year career that clients loved and his competitors hated.

Inman Connect

Invest in yourself, grow your business—real estate’s biggest moment is in San Diego!

Everywhere you look in real estate training, the message is the same: “Promote yourself.” Build your personal brand. Be the neighborhood expert. Get your face out there on postcards, bus benches, and Facebook ads.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: when every agent in town is selling themselves, you’re all saying the same thing.

“I sell more homes.”
“I get higher prices.”
“I work harder.”

It’s like being in a crowded red ocean where everyone is fighting to be seen, but no one is truly different.

That’s why I’ve built my entire career around a different idea. Don’t just sell yourself. Sell a program.

A program is a system. A process. A product-like offering that sets you apart, creates curiosity and gets sellers to call you. You still need credibility, knowledge and trust, of course, but those things should back up your program, not be the lead story.

Let me explain how I learned this, and why I believe it’s the single most important marketing principle that agents are missing.

Cincinnati: Make every agent your listing agent

I started in real estate in the 1970s in Cincinnati, working for my father’s firm. Like most new agents, I tried to market myself. My pitch was that since my dad owned the company, sellers would get more advertising if they listed with me. It was weak, and sellers weren’t impressed. They knew other agents better. I kept losing listings.

So I created a program.

I printed flyers that said: “New Program in Cincinnati — Make Every Agent Your Listing Agent.” That headline alone got me calls. When I walked into living rooms, sellers didn’t ask about me; they asked about the program.

Back then, commissions were pretty much 7 percent across the board. My program was simple. Rather than keeping 4 percent and offering 3 percent to the buyer’s agent, I offered the entire 7 percent to the agent who sold the home.

The only real question sellers ever had was, “Greg, if you’re giving away the entire 7 percent, what do you get out of it?”

My answer: “This keeps me from being a lazy lister. I have to get out there and find the buyer, because if I do, I earn the 7 percent. If I don’t, and another agent does, that’s fine. You may buy a home through me, and you’ll certainly refer me to your friends.” Sellers always said the same thing: “You bet we would.”

The result? Ten listings in a row. Practically overnight, my career took off.

The only reason I had to stop was that my dad called me in and said, “Greg, the other agents in the firm are furious. They say the boss’s son has gone rogue.” I had to pull the plug, but the lesson stayed with me forever: Competitors will hate it when you break the mold, but sellers will love it.

Phoenix: The 990 opportunity

In 1981, I moved to Phoenix and joined Realty Executives, a large Arizona brokerage. That’s when I created another program that transformed my career — the 990 Opportunity.

It worked like this: I listed homes the traditional way. If the home was sold to an MLS agent’s buyer or one of mine, the commission was 6 percent (3 percent to the buyer’s agent, 3 percent to me).

But I also gave sellers “The 990 Opportunity.” If they wanted to hold their own home open, I’d provide professional signs and home flyers with my brand.

When unrepresented buyers walked through, sellers referred them to me. If I sold the home to that buyer, the total commission would drop to just $990.

Here’s the key: Even the sellers who paid me $990 received my full representation through closing. I treated those sales as marketing expenses because they turned my sellers into my best promoters. Neighbors constantly asked why they were holding open houses when they were listed with an agent, and my sellers happily explained the 990 program.

As a result, my sellers became my marketing engine. About 1 in 8 of my listings sold through the $990 path, but the other 7 out of 8 sold the traditional way at a full 6 percent commission. What I gave up on the reduced-fee sales came back many times over in referral business and full commissions.

Then I doubled down. I began advertising the program directly, telling the world I had a way for sellers to receive full representation and “pay as little as $990.” That message opened the floodgates.

My business exploded, and I built a national franchise — 121 offices, 4,000+ agents in 22 states — before selling it to a publicly traded company for several million dollars. All on the back of one disruptive program: The 990 Opportunity.

Paradise Valley: A luxury program

After selling the franchise, I developed my next program: a 22-step, 29-day luxury home sale system. I launched it in Paradise Valley, the high-end community where I lived.

Here’s what happened: Once in the door, sellers wanted to hear about the program. My credibility and track record were still important, but only as a value enhancer — not the primary reason they listed with me. The program was what caught their attention, piqued their curiosity and led them to choose me.

It worked so well that within two years, I had captured over 40 percent of an 8,500-home community. I built a team of 10 licensed agents, and together we earned millions in commissions year after year.

That program ultimately propelled me to be ranked as the No. 1 top-producing agent in Arizona and No. 19 in the nation in the annual Realtor Magazine rankings, the official publication of the National Association of Realtors. That recognition validated what I already knew: Programs generate business at a level personal branding alone never could.

The common thread

Do you see the pattern? Every breakthrough in my career has come from leading with a program. Not my smile. Not my years of experience. Not my sales record.

A program is:

Memorable: Sellers talk about it with their friends.
Adaptable: You can tweak it as the market changes.
Scalable: Other agents can use it under your guidance.
Valuable: Programs can be sold. Personal brands cannot.

Think about Tesla. Rolex. Apple. They sell cars, watches and iPhones. The salesperson matters, but the product is what draws you in. Why should real estate be any different?

Why I’m sharing this

If you want to build a real business, not just a practice that dies when you stop working, you need something that has salable value. Something beyond your name, your photo, and your reputation.

Programs are the mousetraps of real estate. And here’s the truth: The old saying, “If you invent a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door,” is wrong. If no one knows about your mousetrap, they won’t beat a path anywhere. You have to market it, relentlessly and creatively.

Once you do, you’ll see what I’ve learned over the last five decades: programs create curiosity, curiosity creates listing appointments and offering sellers unique, improved home-selling processes enables you to build a fast-growing, high-profit business that is scalable and salable — because it’s not about you.

Greg Hague is the CEO of 72SOLD and has been a real estate broker and attorney specializing in real estate law since the 1970s. Connect with him on Facebook or LinkedIn.

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