Most business owners I talk to want more leads. Fair enough. But when we dig in, a lot of them really want better leads. They want customers who value the work and keep coming back.
So I sat down with Brandon, a commercial real estate broker here in Northern Utah who works mostly in Davis and Weber counties, to talk about how to attract better clients. Brandon got his start at 18, knocking on doors for a guy selling luxury homes. He says he looked like he was 12. They brought in about $12 million in listings in less than a year. By 25, he and his team were doing about 150 commercial transactions a year.
About ten years later, he did something most people would call crazy. He scaled way back.
You don't have to be in real estate to use what he learned. If you sell anything, these lessons apply to you. I'll hit the highlights below, but I'd really encourage you to watch the full interview. Brandon tells these stories better than I can.
Key Takeaways
- Fewer deals with the right clients can pay more. Brandon went from about 150 deals a year to about 20 and earns more now.
- Pick clients you trust instead of hoping the right ones pick you.
- Telling someone a deal is wrong for them, even when it costs you, builds trust for years.
- People connect with the real you faster than with a polished image.
- A cash cushion is what lets you say no to bad-fit work.
1. Do Fewer Deals With Better Clients
At 150 transactions a year, Brandon was producing a ton. He was also worn out. He's the first to say he's not the guy who can work 15 or 20 hours a day. He wanted to be there for his family, so he ran everything as efficiently as he could. By 25, he was coming home emotionally exhausted.
So he made a 10-year plan. He'd live on a set amount, and everything he made above that went into commercial buildings. If it worked, by 35 he'd have enough passive income to choose what came next.
It worked. Then at 35 he hit a wall and found himself asking, now what? He left his firm on good terms, left a lot of his business with the guys there and went out on his own. He expected his income to drop, and he was okay with that.
It went up instead.
"I probably only do maybe 20 deals a year now, but make more than I did when I was doing 150 deals."
Brandon, commercial real estate broker
Brandon talks about the 80/20 rule. In his world, he says it's closer to 97/3. A tiny slice of the work drives almost all the results. Once he cut out the rest, he started seeing opportunities he hadn't been able to see before.
Everyone tells you to do more and scale more. What I've seen in my own business, and with a lot of other owners, is that people often scale better by cutting things out. My mentor Garrett Gunderson says something similar: build a river before you build a stream.
The hard part, and Brandon was honest about it, is that scaling back messed with his identity. He was wired to produce. He'd been the guy grinding on the phones every day, and he wasn't as visible in the market anymore. He asked himself, "Who am I?"
His advice if you're feeling that way is to give yourself space for those feelings and be okay being uncomfortable for a while. He also recommended a book that helped him, The Middle Passage by psychologist James Hollis. And he's honest that at 48, it's still a work in progress.
2. Pick Clients You Can Trust
You've heard the old sales line that people do business with people they know, like and trust. Brandon flipped it. He only wants clients he knows he can trust.
Most of us start out hoping a client will pick us. Brandon decided he'd pick his clients. Today he mostly works with people he has real relationships with. They know his kids, and he knows theirs.
That's what relationship selling looks like when it's done right. The whole business gets built around people you'd want to work with for years.
What does that look like for you? Think about your best three or four customers ever. What did they have in common? How did they find you? That's the profile you want to go after on purpose. When you know who you want, it's a lot easier to spot who you don't.
3. Tell People When It's the Wrong Fit, Even When It Costs You
In his early twenties, a client came to Brandon wanting to buy the building across the street. They'd already made up their minds and just needed him to write up the offer. His commission would have been about $150,000, which is life-changing money for a guy in his early twenties.
But Brandon knew some things about that building and about what the company was trying to do. It would have been a bad decision for them. So he went to their CEO, told him they shouldn't do it and explained why. They hadn't thought of what he brought up. They passed on the building and ended up building somewhere else.
Brandon walked away from a $150,000 check. The company was so appreciative that they've done a lot of deals with him since.
"I think I'm really good at killing deals."
Brandon, commercial real estate broker
Some of the best deals he's ever done came after he told a client not to do something. He doesn't tell clients to buy very often, so when he does, they take it seriously.
When you're willing to tell a customer you're not the right fit, or that they don't need what you sell right now, everything else you say gets more believable. Brandon tells the whole story in the video, and it's worth hearing in his own words.
4. Drop the Polished Act
In his late twenties, Brandon felt like he always had to project success. He was a little stiff and didn't feel like he could show any vulnerability.
Then he met one-on-one with a big local developer. The developer was asking him real questions, and Brandon kept giving the answers he thought he was supposed to give. The developer finally called him out and told Brandon he needed to open up and quit putting on a polished image all the time. "This isn't working for me," he said.
Brandon admits he was a little angry on the drive home. Then some insecurity crept in. But once he let go of the act and let himself be vulnerable, he found he could connect with clients much better when he wasn't trying to convince them he was worthy and successful. He and that developer are still friends, and they've done a lot of work together over the years.
I love this one because I see it in marketing all the time. Businesses try to sound big and corporate, and their ads end up sounding like everyone else's. People can smell a script. The owners who show up as themselves and talk like real people usually build trust faster.
Brandon has also gotten comfortable saying "I don't know," which takes guts when you've spent years acting like you have every answer.
5. Build a Cushion So You Can Afford to Say No
Most advice about firing bad clients skips one thing. You can only say no if you can afford to.
Brandon's 10-year plan is what made his whole shift possible. Because he'd lived on a set amount and put the rest into buildings, he had the passive income to scale back and start choosing his clients. Even now, he keeps more cash on hand than most people would advise.
Brandon said that when you're living right up against what you're spending, every little deal matters. You can't take risks. You might be running a business, but you're really just in survival mode.
I learned this one the hard way. Back when I had my first personal training business, I told a friend I was working with that we should probably be putting some money aside. He asked me why sales would ever go down. We were growing every month, so to him it didn't make sense. We were young. Sure enough, we had a month where sales went down, and it was a good thing we had something set aside.
A cushion lets you swing the bat, as Brandon and I talked about. It also means you can turn down a customer who's going to drain you, or walk away from a deal that's bad for them like Brandon did. Desperation makes you say yes to everything.
The same goes for growth. A lot of people brag about revenue while their cash flow is negative. I'm not interested in that. Somebody at dinner might be impressed for about two seconds, and then they walk away. I'd take profitable growth over impressive-sounding growth. We get into this a lot more in the interview, so give it a watch.
Know Your Numbers and Who Your Marketing Is Bringing In
One story from Brandon stuck with me more than any other. At 19, he had buildings to fill and didn't really know how to do it. So he walked into every business around and started asking questions. How much space do you have? What do you need to grow? When is your lease up?
Then he tracked every answer. Within a couple of years, he had data nobody else had and knew which 20 companies would need space next. Rather than "doing mass marketing and hoping people showed up," he could go to a building owner and say he already knew who the next tenants were.
Later he had his business so dialed in that he knew how many building owners he needed to talk to for one listing, and how many listings it took to close a deal. "I could literally equate a cold call to a dollar amount," he said.
Most business owners can't say that about their marketing. They get reports full of numbers and still can't tell if anything is working. They're paying for clicks and leads without knowing which ones turn into customers worth having. A good place to start is your CAC payback period, which tells you how long it takes to earn back what you spent to land a customer.
That's where we come in at Fiture Marketing. Our whole focus is marketing that sells your business. Brandon picked his clients one relationship at a time. Good ads and a clear message can do something similar at scale. They speak straight to the customers you want, and the ones who aren't a fit tend to scroll past.
Want More of the Right Clients?
Fiture Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Utah that builds customer acquisition systems for businesses here and across the country. If your leads feel like a lot of volume and not enough of the right people, let's look at it together.
Our free strategy call includes a full audit of your ads and marketing, so you can see who your ads are actually attracting. You'll walk away with a clear picture either way.
Book Your Free Strategy CallAnd if you haven't yet, watch the full interview with Brandon. There's a lot more in there than I could fit here.
Frequently Asked Questions About Attracting Better Clients
How do I attract better clients for my business?
Start by getting clear on who your best customers are and what they have in common. Then make your message speak to them directly. Brandon's approach was to pick clients he trusts and build his business around those relationships.
Is it better to have fewer clients or more clients?
It depends on the clients. Brandon went from about 150 deals a year to about 20 and makes more now. You still need enough coming in to stay healthy, which is why a cash cushion matters.
How do I say no to a bad-fit client?
Be honest and tell them why. Brandon told a CEO not to buy a building, even though it cost him a $150,000 commission, and that company has done a lot of deals with him since.
What is relationship selling?
Relationship selling means building long-term trust with customers so they keep coming back. For Brandon, it means working with people he knows well and being honest with them, even when it costs him a commission.
How do I know if my marketing is attracting the right customers?
Look past the number of leads and track which ones turn into customers you actually want. Know what each lead and each sale is worth to you. If you can't tell, a marketing audit is a good place to start, and it's part of Fiture's free strategy call.