How Real Estate Coaching Was Born…In the Worst Market EVER

by Steve Shull

If you’ve been following Performance Coaching for a while, you probably already know that I’ve been coaching real estate agents for 32 years.

What you might not know is that back when I started, NOBODY was coaching real estate agents. There were conferences and training seminars, but once the agents left the classroom, they were on their own. No guidance, no feedback, no accountability.

Individual coaching for agents simply didn’t exist…until I created it. 

It was 1990, and I had been working on Wall Street for 5 years. Then I heard an interview that Mike Ferry did with two real estate agents in Long Beach, CA, Kim and Daryl Rouse.

They were in their second year in the business and on pace to close 100 deals. They described the business as a simple progression: contacts led to leads, leads led to appointments, appointments led to listings, and listings led to sales.

It all just clicked—it made perfect sense. No need to reinvent the wheel.

So, I partnered up with an agent who had been in the business for a while. Prior to my arrival, she had been averaging 10 - 12 deals a year. 

From day one, my goal was 50 deals a year. 

(According to the top agents I was following, if you didn’t do 50 deals a year, you were a loser. Of course, that’s not true, but I’m glad I set the bar high from the start.)

If you wanted to do 50 deals a year, they said, you had to talk to 50 people a day. 

There were 4 different ways to talk to people: cold calling, calling for sale by owner listings, door knocking, or calling expired listings. The first two held no appeal for me, so that left door knocking and expired listings.

I started by knocking on 25 doors a day…then 50…then 75…all the way up to 200 a day.

At the same time, called every expired listing every day, across 14 cities in Orange County, CA. 

Whenever I made contact with a potential lead—someone who might move within the next 2 years—I put their contact information on an index card. I sent them a handwritten note and followed up with every single one every 30 days.

I was spending a MINIMUM of 4 - 5 hours a day on prospecting and follow up, 5 days a week. Eventually, I had so many contacts that my index card system became unmanageable, and I had to pay a computer programmer $10,000 to build me a basic CRM.

I didn’t WANT to do any of this.

But I knew from listening to the top agents that it was what needed to be done, so I just followed the formula: memorize the scripts, prospect, follow up.

This was in a TERRIBLE real estate market—I mean really awful. If you got an offer on a listing in 90 days, that was considered a miracle. Listing agreements were 1 - 2 years. NOTHING was selling. 

At one point during that first year, my partner and I had 40 listings and ZERO under contract—talk about scary.

But by the end of the year, we had closed 53 deals.

In our second year, we were on track to close 100 deals—a 10x improvement on what my partner had done without me. 

That’s when I reached out to Mike Ferry. 

I told him: I’m an athlete. I understand the transformational power of coaching. What I did for my partner, I think I can do for a lot of agents.

He liked the idea, so I joined his firm. At the first seminar we did together—for a Coldwell Banker office in Las Vegas—we pitched a coaching program that didn’t even exist yet, and we signed up 9 people. At our next seminar—a much bigger one in San Francisco—we signed up 90 people.

So we went back to the office and created the very first one-on-one real estate coaching program.

It started out as a 15 minute phone call every other week. Our clients faxed us a report every day with their stats—contacts, leads, listings, and sales—and we held them accountable for hitting their targets.

In 2 years, we went from 0 to over 2,000 coaching clients, with a team of 9 coaches…and that was the birth of real estate coaching.

A couple years later, I went out on my own and started Performance Coaching, and I’ve been coaching ever since. 

The format has changed, obviously. We now have a range of programs to fit different needs: weekly one-on-one coaching, small group coaching, bootcamps, and of course, our Daily Accountability Calls.

More importantly, my philosophy and approach to the business have evolved tremendously, especially with the influence of Chris Voss (author of Never Split the Difference) and Michael Singer (author of The Untethered Soul).

Last year I added it up, and over the last 32 years, I’ve spent over 60,000 hours coaching agents one-on-one.

I can confidently say I’ve coached more agents one-on-one than anyone else on Earth.

I’ve seen this business from every angle—not just as a coach but also as an agent, the spouse of an agent, a brokerage owner, and a consultant to the top companies in this industry.

All this knowledge and perspective has been distilled into the guidance you get from Performance Coaching today.

It’s NOT about chasing a deal. 

I’ve watched people do that endlessly for decades. It doesn’t work. It’s a race to the bottom…a treadmill to nowhere.

We’re here to help you build a REAL BUSINESS—one that’s sustainable, scalable, and stress-free.

That’s our focus every day, and we do it in three ways: community, content, and coaching.

Community comes first for a reason. 

If you’ve been in real estate for any period, you know it’s a lonely business. It often feels like you’re on an island. I want agents to have a safe place they can go every day, where they can get everything they need to realize their full potential.

If you don’t know it already, the agents in our community are a special breed. They’re committed, curious, collaborative, courageous, and coachable—that’s who we aim to serve every day.

Our content distills everything you need to know down to the 6 Core Building Blocks. 

There are a LOT of ideas and information out there, and our goal is to filter out the noise and make things as simple as possible—to reduce everything down to only that which is MOST important and essential to you.

It comes down to just 6 things…

1. Practice Mindfulness - Get your head on straight.
2. Optimize Time - Do what’s most important.
3. Cultivate Relationships - Lead with love.
4. Embrace Standards - Raise the bar for your life.
5. Master Communication - Make people feel understood.
6. Plan Strategically - Live and work smart.

Our coaching is all about keeping you focused on what truly matters.

You don’t need new ideas. You need to execute the fundamentals consistently. This is what we coach to every day.

All the coaches on our team are people I’ve worked with for many years. I know them. I know they are life-tested. I know how much they care about the wellbeing of their clients. 

Every single one was hand-picked for their skill, experience, and dedication…and the entire team is committed to one thing: getting better every day. 

This is the story of Performance Coaching.

If any of this resonates with you in any way, I strongly encourage you to join the community. 

Subscribe to our emails, if you haven’t already—that’s real coaching in your inbox for free, every single week.

Read our books—you can download the first chapter of each one for free.

Try our coaching free for 14 days.

Attend one of our monthly workshops.

That’s 4 ways to reach out without making a big investment…

And if you want to REALLY see what this community is all about, join us for Game Plan 2025: Vision, Strategy, and Focus for a Winning Year.

This one-day workshop on Dec. 3rd is designed to set you up for success in the coming year. We'll zero-in on the knowledge and skills that will give you an edge—no matter how the rules change or what the market is doing.

If you’re still reading at this point, you know there’s something for you here at Performance Coaching. 

Come find out what it is.