There’s a big difference between money going out and money working for you. In his latest piece for REM, David Greenspan breaks down why so many agents waste their marketing budget without even realizing it — and what to do instead.

Every agent I talk to wants more business.

Always looking for more leads, more opportunities and more deals. That’s usually how the conversation starts.

Then I ask a simple question: “How much did you spend on marketing over the last few months, and what actually worked?”

That’s where things usually get quiet, or they just start rhyming off all sorts of random ideas.

Ads. Mailers. Social. Sponsorships. Lead platforms. Bright shiny objects. Keeping up with the Joneses.

Money goes out. But when it comes to what came back, there’s usually no real clarity. They haven’t really been tracking. They’ve just been spending.

Very few people can actually point to the ROI clearly. And that’s where the problem starts.

 

No strategy, just spending

 

Most agents don’t really have a marketing strategy. They wake up, build a to-do list and start working. They try things. Hear something works. Test something new. Keep things running because they’ve always run them.

And underneath all of it, there’s this assumption that something must be working. Or at least it should be. So they keep spending.

Then the stress shows up: bills, pressure, that feeling of really needing the next deal to come in. Which usually leads to working more, spending more and chasing more.

But nothing actually gets cleaned up. Nothing gets clarified. It just keeps going.

Because there’s a disconnect most people don’t even realize they’re living in. Money going out. Time being spent. Effort being made. But no real understanding of what’s producing results and what isn’t.

So decisions get made based on emotion: fear of cutting something, hope that something else will work, pressure to keep everything running “just in case.” And before long, you’re spending money in places that don’t deserve it, while ignoring the areas that actually drive your business.

 

Where deals actually come from

 

Most deals don’t come from strangers. They just don’t. They come from people who already know you. People who have seen you before. Heard from you. Thought about you at the right time.

They come from real one-on-one conversations that were started and continued. Two people actually speaking with each other. That’s where business lives.

And yet that’s usually where the least amount of consistency shows up. Follow-up is sporadic. Communication is random. Staying in touch becomes something you “should” do, not something you actually build into your day.

But the spending? That stays consistent.

If those conversations aren’t happening consistently, it doesn’t matter how much you spend. Your business will always feel harder than it should.

 

The fear of pulling back

 

There’s also a hesitation people have when it comes to pulling back, even when something clearly isn’t working. Because the thought creeps in: “If I stop this, where is my business going to come from?”

Which is interesting, because if it’s not producing now, what exactly are you protecting?

That’s the part most people don’t want to acknowledge, or simply never make the time to strategically review. Of course, I can’t include my coaching clients in this, because we do.

If you’re not having real conversations, you don’t just lose deals. You lose confidence. And when confidence drops, you hesitate. You second-guess. You avoid the very things that would actually fix the problem.

So you spend more, hoping it makes up for what you’re not doing.

Busy on paper, not productive where it counts

I’ve seen it over and over again when first starting to work with agents. Agents pouring money into things they can’t measure, while sitting on databases they barely communicate with. Hoping the marketing does the work for them instead of supporting the work they should already be doing.

Running ads, but not making calls. Posting content, but not starting conversations. Busy on paper, but not productive where it counts.

Marketing builds mindshare to open the door. You still have to walk through it to get the market share.

The moment we actually track what’s happening, where the business is coming from and where the money is going, things change fast.

 

Clarity changes everything

 

This isn’t about cutting everything. It’s not about becoming cheap or avoiding marketing. It’s about knowing what’s actually working, tracking it and reviewing it, and making decisions based on reality instead of assumption.

Because when you actually look at it, really look at it, things get clear pretty quickly. What’s producing. What’s not. Where your time is going. Where your money is going. And more importantly, where your business is actually coming from, so you can get more of it, more easily.

Once that becomes clear, the next move becomes obvious. Not necessarily easy, but obvious: more time where there’s traction, less time where there isn’t. More conversations. More follow-up. More consistency with the people who already know you.

Because that’s where momentum builds. Not in the next thing you try. Instead, in what you already have.

 

The bottom line

 

At the end of the day, your business doesn’t grow because you spent money. It grows because of what you did: the conversations you had, the relationships you maintained, the follow-up you actually followed through on.

Spending on marketing can support that. It won’t replace it.

But most people will just keep spending and hoping something clicks. The ones who win pick up the phone, reach out and stay in touch, over and over again. Not exciting. Not new. But it works.

Before you move on with your day, take a look at your business. Where is your money actually going? Where are your deals coming from? And do those two things even line up?

If they don’t, that’s your gap. And that gap, between perception and reality, is where most of your money gets wasted. So fix it.