Why Most Realtors Shouldn't Hire A Coach (And The Exceptions That Prove The Rule)

Lindsey Litton:  There's a difference between being a real estate agent and a business owner. There's a big difference. And the big difference is the habits. And when I started working with a coach, it was like, oh, poop, this guy's gonna hold me accountable to some fierce habits! So that goes back into the accountability conversation, right? And so it was like, okay. So once I mastered accountability and time blocking, let's just stick that out there. Once I managed doing… Let's be honest, real estate, to be successful in our field is actually really easy. It's call the leads, prospect every day, freaking follow up with the leads in a system if you're not doing it. If you've got so much, make sure you've got a system for it. Do sales. Rinse, repeat. It's simple!

Tim Chermak: This is the Platform Marketing Show where we interview the most creative and ambitious real estate agents in the country, dissect their local marketing strategy and get the behind-the-scenes scoop on how they're generating listing leads and warm referrals. We'll dive into the specifics of what marketing campaigns are working for them, how much they're spending on those campaigns, and figure out how they have perfected what we call the Platform Marketing Strategy. This is your host, Tim Chermak. I'm the founder and CEO of Platform. I love marketing and I talk too much. So let's dive in. 

Hey guys, it's Tim Chermak and welcome back to another episode of the Platform Marketing Show. I'm joined today by Lindsey Litton of the Lindsey Litton Coaching Collective. I think I got that right. Lindsey, welcome to the show!

Lindsey Litton: Thank you, Tim. Thanks for having me. 

Tim Chermak: So we kind of have a juicy topic to discuss this morning. It's something that often I feel it gets discussed in like the back rooms and lunch and dinner and drinks when you're at a mastermind event or you're at some real estate conference. And that is, “Does coaching work?” And I start with the premise, this is my opinion here and I'll let Lindsey get into this too, but I start with the premise that coaching can work, but it often doesn't. Lindsey, what is your hot take on this? 

Lindsey Litton: I think this is a fun topic and it's kind of the fuel as to how I got into coaching. So what doesn't work about coaching? I think there's obviously, you have to be coachable. And the analogy I like to give folks, 'cause I'm a runner – I live in Colorado, I love to do outdoor sports. And the analogy I give for a lot of folks when I'm doing a discovery call is, “A good coach is a pacer runner,” right? So let's say, you're embarking on running a marathon. A good coach is gonna run alongside you. They're gonna have experience running the marathon. They're gonna whisper over and say, “Hey, this is where it gets a little tough. We're gonna be running uphill.” They've got some gels in their pocket and they're feeding you some gels and saying, “Hey, fuel up, it's gonna get a little hard here 'cause I've already run this and I know what we're doing.” 

Lindsey Litton: And the reason why I like to give that analogy, Tim, is that I think a lot of people think that the coach is gonna run the marathon for them. And that's absolutely not what coaching is. Coaching is having somebody run alongside you because they've got the experience, they've done it before. They're guiding you. They're not pushing you up the hill as you're running, but they're pacing alongside you. So the reason why I don't think a lot of coaching works is a couple reasons. Number one, are you coachable? And number two, when you're running a marathon, every runner runs a little different. Their pace is a little different. They might have a different gait than another runner. So, I do think that sometimes one-size-fits-all doesn't always work, kind of like a one-size-fits-all marathon training program doesn't always work for everyone. Same kind of situation in coaching.

And there's a lot of accountability coaching out there which absolutely works for a short period of time. But let's talk about the sustainability and growing people as leaders. And if we level people's leadership up and we get them to start thinking about their business as an actual business, I think we see more sustainability in the output from the participant in coaching. Does that make sense? 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. And obviously we will get into your background and what you guys do, 'cause I wanna dive into your story 'cause I think there's a lot of lessons in how you've built your business and now how you're building your coaching business. 'Cause surprise, Lindsey's not one of those people who just became a coach out of nowhere.

She has built a successful, real estate business that gave her all of these insights. But when I think of coaching, a couple thoughts that always come to mind is you hear people were coaching with this organization or that coach or whatever for years, and like, okay, if you hired that coach for a specific reason… Because usually when someone hires a coach, it's for a specific reason. It's not just, “In general, I think I need a coach,” right? It's because they have a specific problem they need help solving or they have a business goal that they know they want to achieve, but they just don't know quite how they're going to… I don't know.

Let's say they're at $200k GCI, they wanna get to $400k or they're at $400k and they wanna get to $700k, whatever, right? Or they don't have a team and they want to build a small team of three or four people. Whatever your goal is, right? You probably have a specific reason you hired a coach. What I find interesting is so often realtors will hire a coach and 12 months later, 18 months later, 24 months later, they're still working with that coach.

Tim Chermak: Here's the kicker: Even if they already achieved that goal. Because it seems to me if you have a specific reason that you hired a coach, if you're just paying that coach ongoing forever, at some point you have to look in the mirror and be like, “Okay, the coach just likes the fact that I'm paying them, even if they already helped me achieve the goal.” Maybe you set a new goal and the coach is helping achieve with that goal. So that's certainly possible. But very often what I see is people just think, “Oh, all the successful agents have coaches.” Because it's true, right? A lot of really successful agents, part of where they got to where they are is they had a coach. I'm perfectly willing to concede that. 

But at a certain point, it's almost like a therapist. I feel like there's an epidemic in the United States right now of people that are just permanently in therapy. And this is maybe politically incorrect and not where you thought this conversation was going, but I would submit that if you're in therapy for years and years and years, unless you had super-duper traumatic childhood or experiences or whatever, most therapies should not take two years or three years, or five years. At a certain point I almost feel like the therapist is becoming your enabler by becoming a permanent therapist I talk to every week. 

Tim Chermak: I think coaching is very similar in that, if you can't have milestones of “Hey, here's what we're gonna accomplish in six months and here's what we hope to accomplish within 12 months, and then at the end of that 12 months, we reevaluate. Do we wanna continue? Did you achieve your goal?” 

So often I just see agents getting caught in this endless loop of coaching. And I'm just not sure how healthy that is or how valuable that is for agents to be paying a thousand dollars a month or $2,000 a month, or whatever they're paying for a coach. If it's permanent, it's eternal. It's “Oh, I guess I'll always be paying this coach this much money,” It just makes me think, “Okay, but where's the finish line?” 

Lindsey Litton: Well, I think absolutely you need to have clear defined “Okay, this is where I'm at.” A good coach is gonna help you identify the gap, right? This is where I wanna be, this is where I currently am. What's the gap in between? A good coach is gonna come in and say, “Alright, we're gonna focus on the gap, getting you to where you wanna be, and then absolutely, let's reevaluate. Is there a new gap?” As you were talking, I just kept thinking of the book called Codependent No More. 

Tim Chermak: Sure, yeah. Right, right.

Lindsey Litton: And I just kept thinking like, what you're describing is codependency and what you're describing is at what point do you reflect and say, “All right, I need to change and grow as a leader so that I'm not codependent and I'm not reliant upon this person.” 

Tim Chermak: And I will share this example right now, just to be vulnerable and share something from my personal life. I hired a business coach and attended an event they did like a couple months ago. I shouldn't say I hired a coach. I went to a small group event. They had about 10 people at this event, and it was like $5,000 for this kind of long weekend where we worked through all these issues. And of course, as is most events, there's some sort of backend coaching offer where it's like, “Hey, you joined my live event. If you wanna work work with me as a coach for the next year, here's what that looks like.” 

In this particular example, the coaching for the whole year was $50,000. And I knew that going in, I knew that. and so I was like, all right, I'm not gonna sign up for this because here's my rule: If I don't take action on what I learned or what you coached me on in this two or three day small group seminar, if I don't actually take action and create momentum, why the hell would I sign up for an ongoing $20,000 a year – or in this case it was a $50,000 a year – executive coaching program if I haven't even taken action on what I learned for $5,000?

Tim Chermak: 'Cause so often I think entrepreneurs have this “shiny object syndrome” where we equate spending money on something to learn how to do it or to be coached on how to do it with actually doing the thing. And at a certain point, you just gotta go do the thing. And then if you feel that I need a coach because there's some knowledge gaps or I just would benefit from that extra context and experience, by all means.

But I almost feel like we have to draw a distinction between coaching and accountability. Because everything I'm ranting about here doesn't really apply if you're just paying for accountability. But I think where a lot of realtors are at is they are paying for accountability, but they're recategorizing that as coaching. And if you just need a coach to have a 30-minute call with you once a week, and they're just gonna remind you to follow up with your leads, or they’re gonna remind you to call more expireds or call FSBOs or reach out to your sphere? It's just literally straight up accountability, right? You're not necessarily learning anything but it's that 30-minute call that holds you accountable. I do see value in that because sometimes what you need is an outside third-party, just like having a personal trainer.

Lindsey Litton: I was just gonna say, I know exactly what I need to do for personal training, but guess what? I meet with a personal trainer once a week for that level of accountability.

Tim Chermak: Right, exactly. And that actually makes sense to me. Still, then at a certain point I'd be like, all right, you gotta put on like your big boy pants and maybe you hired an accountability coach, whatever, Tom Ferry, or there's all these coaches out there. There's Club Wealth, there's ton of them out there that charge anywhere between a $1,000, $2,000 a month. And it's basically accountability, right? 

It's like you have your weekly coaching call and they're asking you, “How many dials did you make this week?” “How many pop bys did you send out?”, if it's something in the Brian Buffini coaching world where it's like “How many touches did you have with your sphere?” et cetera. All that can be really good stuff but I think at a certain point, if you're two or three or five years or 10 years into the business and you still need accountability to do the basics, maybe you just need to grow up. You know what I mean? If you have to pay that much for just another adult to hold you accountable, it sounds harsh, but maybe you shouldn't be an entrepreneur.

Tim Chermak: I see value in that early on. But if you're doing that permanently as just a way of life, “Oh boy, I have a coach I pay $1,500 a month or $2,000 a month.” I'm like, that's an interesting choice of funds, but I'm trying to categorize that differently. That's accountability, right? If you're paying for that, as long as you're willing to admit to yourself out loud, like look yourself in the mirror and say, “I'm paying for accountability,” I think there's value in that as long as you know what you're doing. 

Coaching to me is this different thing where you're actually paying to get insight and knowledge to fill in the gaps that you don't have because you've never done the thing that the coach is coaching you on. So how would you categorize those differences between just straight up accountability and actual coaching and what is your Coaching Collective more? Is it more accountability or more coaching? 

Lindsey Litton: Good question. And I'll preface this conversation by saying I have worked with a coach for a very long period of time. And I don't think I would have been able to grow my businesses as quickly as I did or transition – I had a lot of transition when I started in real estate given I'm an active duty military spouse – I don’t think I would have had the… It's almost like you have the horse that has little blinders on? The value that I saw in the relationship was that he helped pull the blinders back a little bit so that I could see different opportunities and that was really helpful for me.

But to answer your direct question, the difference between accountability and a coach, the accountability is exactly what you described. And in the coaching world, I categorize it as productivity coaching. The accountability coaching is more productivity-based and I giggle a little bit and I was smiling as you were talking about it, because I think to myself, a lot of business owners or real estate agents, let's just say that right now are getting back to the basics, right? … In my discovery calls, I've noticed agents that got into the business three, four years ago didn't build those foundational steps that you’ve described. 

Tim Chermak: Because they didn't need to.

Lindsey Litton: They didn’t need to, because it was just like raining leaves!

Tim Chermak: Yeah. If you got into the business in 2020 or 2021, you had such a warped, just distorted picture of what it actually took to be a real estate agent. 'Cause when everyone was wanting to buy and sell, oh and by the way, interest rates were 3%. When it was that type of market we had a lot of Platform agents who just discarded all the good habits they had learned over the last 5 or 10 years and they're like, “Oh.”

People would tell me this. I have podcast episodes. If you go back and listen to previous Platform podcast episodes of successful agents that are case studies in the Platform Marketing program that are like, “Yeah, I used to follow up with my leads a lot, but right now I'm just waiting for people to call me 'cause there's so many warm leads that are just calling me. I don't even bother following up with leads anymore.” And I'm like, “Oh God, I wish you wouldn't have said that publicly on the podcast.”

And now a lot of those people are back in this position where the market has slowed down 30% to 40% or more in some markets and they're like, “Oh shit, I actually have to call my leads again 'cause it's not just people calling me, I actually have to follow up with people, believe it or not.”

Lindsey Litton: It’s kind of like you run the marathon, back to that analogy. You ran a marathon and you did it in four hours. And then you say, “Okay, cool. I'm not gonna run or train for another year, but I'm gonna run it at the four hour pace again the next year.” That's insanity! You have to continue to work on the activities that are gonna push your business forward. And the beautiful thing is the agents that didn't lean out, didn't sit on the couch and eat potato chips waiting for the leaves to fall out of the sky, they doubled, they tripled their business. And what the cool part is they gained market share. And to loop it back to your original question, the difference between accountability and coaching. 

Okay. So the accountability is more productivity-based. That's what you described early on in the call. It’s “How many contacts did you make? How many listing appointments? How many buyers rep did you get signed?” That's productivity coaching. That has a time and place. 

Tim Chermak: Right, and I wanna be very clear that I'm not against that in principle 'cause obviously if you're not doing that and hiring a coach to make sure you do it, that's a wise investment. What I'm questioning is when I hear people that have what you're calling a productivity coach or just an accountability coach, if you're doing that for two or three years, just ongoing, at what point do you grow up and be like, “I'm an adult. I can motivate myself in the morning to make my phone calls.”

Because obviously I'm biased here as the owner of a marketing agency. This $1,500 a month you're spending on this coach who's literally just telling you to follow up with your leads. If you just put that same amount of money into actual ads, you realize how many more people every month would be seeing you but you're paying that for a 30-minute call once a week with an accountability coach, that just seems like strange math to me. 

Lindsey Litton: Well, and let's be honest, let's call it for what it is: it's a habit coach. So if you're paying for somebody to tell you every single week to get on the phone and make your follow ups and get into your CRM and do your things, you just haven't developed the habits that a successful agent needs. And you're absolutely right, if you're doing that for years on end, at some point you need to do some self-reflection and say, “Okay, at what point do I need to level up?”

Tim Chermak: Or… Yeah, exactly, exactly. At what point do you level up? Or it's not that I have an issue with always having a coach. It's that almost if you've had, and maybe this is controversial, but if you've had the same coach for two or three years in a row, if you're actually growing, at some point you should outgrow what that coach is teaching and then maybe you hire a completely different coach because they're teaching you a completely different strategy or skill that you didn't know before, that actually makes sense to me. What's weird is when I see people, “Oh, I've been working with this coach for two or three or four years,” and I'm like, okay, but are you still learning something from 'em every week? Can you honestly say every week you have your call with them, they're bringing some brand new insight? Or what is the reason that you're just permanently working with this coach? Unless you're willing to admit out loud that it's just accountability and you're paying for accountability. And if you have the courage to admit that's exactly what you're doing, then right on.

Lindsey Litton: Yeah. Yeah. No! And it's interesting to me. So it's funny because I'll challenge you on this. I did work with the same coach for nine years. 

Tim Chermak: Ooh. This is about to get juicy. 

Lindsey Litton: I know! I was like, this is gonna be juicy, so I know.

Tim Chermak: Who was the coach, by the way? Obviously they were really good if you worked with them for nine years.

Lindsey Litton: Oh, he's amazing. He's amazing. I don’t know if you'd be okay with me sharing. But I did,  I worked with the same coach and I'll tell you my coaching story. So I got into coaching, let's see, I was one year into the business. Ooh, this is the perfect coaching story. I went to a Bold, right? KW. Okay. I went to Bold, got all juiced up, doing my calls, getting the pipeline built, and it was what you described. You go to the event and you get upsold, right? Bold is just an upsell into coaching, right? MAPS Coaching. 

Tim Chermak: MAPS Coaching, yep. 

Lindsey Litton: Yeah. So went and I was like, “Alright, cool. Let's try this.” And of course, like every brand new agent that's worried about taking on a monthly expense, it was like, ooh, but let's see what happens.

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