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What You Can Learn From Top Producers

Jan 2, 2025

What You Can Learn From Top Producers
Not Top Producer (the software), but top producers… like super Realtors® with super-human closing abilities.

I had the privilege of attending a meeting last week in Carlsbad California, hosted by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. They were honoring four local agents who were named in the Top 250 Hispanic Real Estate Professionals in 2014. Those four top producers knocked it out of the park in the last 12 months and they shared some of the ingredients of their secret sauce in the meeting yesterday. (Full disclosure: My husband, Javier Zavala, was one of the four agents on that panel.)

Here are the top 3 takeaways that I got from listening to the top producers’ panel:



  1. These folks work hard. All four of the top producers wake up between 5:30 a.m. and 6:30 am Monday thru Friday. Javier Zapien of Platinum Realty Executives in Oceanside says, “If you are not on the phone, you are not working.” The four local honorees don’t stop when they phone isn’t ringing. They look for new and strategic ways to generate business.


  2. All four top producers have a structured schedule. Javier Zavala of Broadpoint Properties says that every morning he gets to the office at around 8:00 a.m. and spends 20 minutes or so planning his day—figuring out who to call, how to effectively put out the fires; he then spends his time setting appointments and following up.


  3. Everyone has a team. While the team may not necessarily be a large group of buyer’s agents, each of these top producers has a transaction coordinator, an assistant, a marketing assistant, and other support staff. When they leave the “dirty work” to the support staff, they can effectively work on generating leads and putting together transactions.


Patricia Villanueva and Christopher Rodriguez, the two other honorees from North San Diego County both mentioned one very important tip: Identify what you do best, and do it. Try not to spend your own time on stuff that you don’t do well when it is more effective for you to outsource that stuff to other people. If you are not good at paperwork, Villanueva suggests, “hire someone to handle that, while you work on what you are good at.”

Top producing agents seem to have great discipline, and generally they are gifted at dealing with all types of people and seeing unique and creative ways to put together a transaction. If you tell a top producer that a deal is about to fall out of escrow or cancel, it’s usually no big deal. They’ve already got another buyer in the wings or another quick and efficient way to get the transaction to the closing table.

If you ever have the opportunity to do so, try to shadow a top producer. Since my hubby is one of the top producers in San Diego County and I’ve been married for 24 years, I’ve had the opportunity to do quite a lot of shadowing. When you listen to the way gifted real estate professionals speak with others, how they relate to the public, and how they put together deals, you will learn so much. You may find that you may actually be able to break through your own glass ceiling.
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