Why Your Past Clients Are Listing With Other Agents (And How To Stop It)

Right now it’s February the fourth, and some point in the month of, let’s say April, your past client — your good friend — is going to list their property 60 days from now. Not with you, but with another agent. Your past client loves you, respects you, and appreciates you. They were both actually planning on working with you, but because you didn’t have a conversation with them, they ended up having a conversation with another agent.

The Three Marketing Campaigns You Should Have Already Completed

Let’s dive into the services that you need to be marketing in 2026. This aligns with the subject of your marketing calendar and marketing plan. Here we are — it’s the month of February — and I’ve given you the three main campaigns that you should have already completed at the beginning of the year:

• Your social proof of success
• The year-end review, market forecast and prediction
• The home service Rolodex

Most people need to be working on the home service Rolodex campaign right now. Now that we’re past those three marketing campaigns, we need to look at what is the next actual marketing campaign you need to follow up with. This is where we land into the services that are currently undefined.

The Real Problem: Services Undefined

Let’s start with what I would say is the problem. At some point in the month of April, your past client, your good friend, is going to list their property 60 days from now — not with you, but with another agent. Now, your past client loves you, respects you, and appreciates you, knows that you’re a good agent. They were both actually planning on working with you, but because you didn’t do the home service Rolodex and you didn’t have a conversation with them about what fixes, improvements, and changes they were planning on making this year that you could offer some advice on — since you did not do that and you’ve had not really any real communication with them through the winter and spring market — they ended up having a conversation with another agent.

Because of that conversation with the other agent, that agent said: ‘Would you like me to help you understand what fixes, improvements, things that you could or should do prior to putting your home on the market that would cause your home to sell faster for more money? I would love to see your house.’ And they go, ‘Gosh, that would be so helpful.’ So the agent goes over there and gets into the world of your client and your friend, and then starts to give them advice. And in essence, they earn the listing right out from under you.

Why? Because you don’t do the home service Rolodex — that’s number one. But let’s talk about services undefined. You end up talking to your previous client and you go, ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ And they may say, ‘I didn’t know that you would come over and offer advice on how to prepare my home prior to putting the home on the market, and that other agent did, so I just hooked them up on it. I didn’t know that you would do that.’

Your past client — you run into them in the month of March and they say, ‘Oh my gosh, I just sold my fourplex in that next city over.’ And you go, ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ And they say, ‘Well, I didn’t know that you would be willing to sell a fourplex and work in that city over there.’ You run into one of your great clients and friends in the month of May, and they say, ‘Oh my gosh, I bought a great little townhome for my kids to live in.’ And you go, ‘Well, why didn’t you call me?’ And they say, ‘Well, I didn’t know that you would work with the first-time home buyer over in that part of town.’ Services undefined. This is a big problem.

Classically, most of our marketing is what I would refer to as sales Tourettes — ‘Bye bye now. Call me. Call me now. Tomorrow. Great time. Good.’ So what we have to do is we have to really look at what are the services that are on the customer’s journey in the month of February.

Service #1: The Room-by-Room Audit (Seller Side)

What are those services that you should be marketing today that would book appointments — that would have you build a relationship with the customer such that they’re doing business with you 30, 60, 90 days from today? To me, it’s very simple.

Service number one: would you be willing to do a room-by-room analysis of someone’s home and give them a whole list of different ways that they could improve the value of their home, increase their net return on the sale? Would you be willing to give them the list of the lowest-cost, cheapest things to do, the mid-tier options if they invested a few bucks, and give them a clear ROI — return on investment — and, or if they’re willing to actually invest a lot of money and time, give them a nice after-repair value estimate. That is a really awesome service.

A lot of you are gonna get those calls from your past clients and friends who say, ‘I just got a few questions for you.’ You’re gonna launch into some long-winded blah blah blah and then get yourself over there and get the listing. My problem is they’re calling you — you’re not signaling to them that this is what you do and how you do it. So we lose more opportunity versus actually gaining it. It’s just because you’re not signaling clearly to your database, friends on Facebook, followers on Instagram, connections on LinkedIn, your subscribers on your YouTube channel — you’re not signaling to any of them that you actually have a service where you do a room-by-room audit to help them prepare for the spring market.

Did any of you have that service? Could you show me how you present that service, how you market that service, and then last year, how many appointments did that marketing effort book? With a thousand friends on Facebook, your 2,000 followers on Instagram, your 3,000 people in your database, your 400 connections on LinkedIn, your blog post, your YouTube video — can you show me the total number of people that you have available to you right now for free to market this service? How many of those appointments were booked last year for that service? And should we probably just do this every February for the rest of your career? Probably. So that’s the service on the seller side.

Service #2: Buyer Consultations (Buy Side)

Let’s flip it over to the buy side. In the months of April, May, and June, do we have the highest number of active buyers out there shopping for homes? Of course we do. So do you have a consultation for buyers in the month of February, and what is that consultation for those buyers? What are some of the things that you would want to meet with the buyer now in the month of February so that you can help them get set up for success for March, April, May, June, when we see the highest number of available properties for sale?

Have you defined what that service is and how it works? Do you have a service for:

• Relocation buyers
• First-time home buyers
• People who are downsizing and buying into something else
• Buying new construction
• Buying an investment property
• Introducing them to an agent in another marketplace

Do you have a service for introducing them to an agent in another marketplace? Because they’re leaving yours and buying in a new marketplace — that you’ll be willing to interview 4, 5, 6 agents in a new marketplace, find the top one or two that you think would be best for them to do an interview with, so that they can then have that relationship established prior to their trip into the marketplace so they can get more clarity, reduce their stress and anxiety, and make it a better experience. Do you have that service?

My problem is there are so many of these little niche services. You perform them, but you’ve never taken time to realize that you actually need to define it and then market it. You perform them all the time. You’re like, ‘I wanna do more of those.’ But then when I look at your marketing, it’s sales Tourettes or it’s cat videos, because you don’t know what to do.

The Three-Step Framework: Define, Market, Maximize

Step one is defining your services. Step two is how do we market the service? And then step three is how do we maximize the free opportunity? What do we mean by maximize the free opportunity? You have:

• A thousand friends on Facebook right now
• Followers on Instagram
• Connections on LinkedIn
• Your important people email database and your old list email database
• Your Google Business Profile, blog posts, and YouTube channel

Could you create a Google Business Profile post? Could you create a blog post about this so that when the AI recommendation engine kicks in, it can recommend you? Could you create a YouTube video where you explain your unique perspective, experience, and authority, and showcase that you’ve done this service in the past?

What are you doing on Facebook? What are you doing on social media? Nothing. What was the last email that you sent? ‘I almost sent an email. I just signed up for some service and sent some random five flowers you should plant for the spring market.’

Okay, you guys follow me? Now with AI, this has never been easier. Go to your ChatGPT, your Claude, your Gemini, your Grok — any one of the AIs — and just say, ‘Hey, can you help me articulate what this service is, how it works, and how I can market it?’ And she’ll go, ‘Sure.’ Cool. That’s step one. Step two: ‘What’s the best way for me to present that on Facebook with my friends? Hey, I need to send this off as an email with a call to action. I’d like to book some appointments with that.’ Here’s an email. Fill in the gaps. Make it a little bit more personal. But here’s a 90% done email for you. Go ahead and send that to your database.

Five years ago, as someone who’s read a thousand marketing books, written marketing messages, and thought about marketing frameworks, this stuff used to be really hard. Now the AIs do it better and give you four options in less than one minute. So we’re good to go.

Your February Marketing Calendar

The final problem to solve is really the calendar. What can you commit to in terms of marketing a service in the month of February? Can we commit to the first two weeks marketing a room-by-room audit to help people prepare their home? Can we, within a two-week window of time, just market that one service and do your best to get it through to all the free channels?

And then in the second two weeks of February, pick one of the favorite buyer types that you tend to work with — whatever buyer type you tend to be most confident with. For example:

• Is it a relocation buyer? Do you have a lot of relocation buyers coming into your market?
• Do you have more first-time home buyers and you really love working with first-time home buyers?
• Do you like the trade-uppers or the downsizers?
• Are you confident with new construction buyers?
• Some of you might be the PCS/military buyer
• Some of you it’s the super ultra luxury buyer
• Some of you it’s the client buying a vacation home in the mountain town

So what buyer type are you committed to marketing in the second half of February? Could I get you to market two services in the month of February — two weeks to get one done, two weeks to get the second one done — and then in March we go do it again?

Services Undefined = Referrals Lost

Coming off of 2025 into 2026, your previous client says, ‘Oh my gosh, my neighbor just listed their property for the second time, and we’re close friends, and they are moving to blank.’ And then you go, ‘Why didn’t you introduce me?’ And they go, ‘They were previously on the market and they were unable to sell. And so I think they just worked with an agent that specializes in that.’ And you go, ‘Well, I could have done that.’ And then they say, ‘I didn’t know that you could do that.’

Whoops. My neighbor across the street unfortunately passed away. I met the kids, and the kids cleaned up the property, put the home on the market, and sold it. Why didn’t you call me? ‘I didn’t know that you would work with an out-of-state inherited property and fix it all up and clean it all up and put it on the market. I didn’t know that you would do that.’

Services undefined, not marketed to your community, your friends. Your clients are not empowered to recommend and introduce you because your sales Tourettes doesn’t signal real-world examples.

Patrick, I wanna be top of mind. How are you top of mind? Your good friend is at a company right now and they are recruiting someone into the marketplace. And your good friend doesn’t think of you at all. Why? Because you never told them you were really good at helping relocation buyers from outside of the market into the market. You’re just a realtor. ‘Michelle’s Homes.’ That’s it. What does that mean? I don’t know. You’ve helped me with my one unique scenario, and so that’s kind of the only scenario that I can think of.

You Are a Treasure of Resources — Start Signaling That

If we can amplify campaign number one — your social proof of success — to let people know that you’re good and be clear about that. Number two, let them know that you have an answer to what is gonna happen to the real estate market this year, and that you’re actually following certain trends and that you can actually help them have an answer to what happened last year. And then you have interacted with everybody about what plans they have with their properties and did they use any professional services, and are they doing anything this year?

And then now we’re starting to find your services — is it easier for your clients’ friends to now recommend you and refer you to more buyers and sellers in the marketplace? The answer is, of course it is, and that is the game here.

How many of your clients and friends within your farm have questions about things that they’re considering with their property this year, and you are not involved in the conversation? You’re not even connected to that conversation. You’re not an advisor on that conversation. They didn’t even know to ask you about that conversation.

The home service Rolodex is a service, isn’t it? Every year I reach out and I find out what you’ve done and who you’ve used, and I maintain a high-quality list of professional services. I love offering advice and making recommendations, because that’s a service that I offer. I’ve made a commitment to that service to my community.

Answering the question about your prediction for this real estate market and what you see — that’s also a service. And when we talk about the value of their home and understanding the unique value of their home and how to improve the value of their home — what causes the value of their home to decline — that is a service. Do you offer that? If they wanted to follow the value of their home over the next year, because they’re thinking in two years from now they’ll sell — is that a service that you offer? If they’re curious about how taxes work when they sell a home, are you someone they should give a call and ask that question of? Is that a service that you offer?

As a group, we have so much value to contribute to our community when we break down the services that we offer, the questions that we answer, the advice that we deliver. So when we think about questions and advice when it comes to home ownership, buying, and all of the variations, we really are a treasure of incredible resources for our community. But all of us are just sales Tourettes and cat videos, and that’s all we signal — versus really connecting with people where they are in these unique scenarios and signaling that yes, I’m the right person to talk to about that.

Marketing a Service That Books Appointments

Last but not least on the subject: we know that the purpose of marketing is to book appointments. Finding your services and then marketing the services then actually does book appointments — which is fantastic. So if you got really good at crafting the message of how you do a room-by-room audit prior to putting their home on the market to maximize sales price, for everything from DIY to big investments over time to get the maximum return — if you crafted a really nice message that this is the service that you offer, and you sent that through to your Facebook and got an appointment, that’d be cool. And you sent that through to your database and got two appointments. This is amazing. And then you created a blog post and a YouTube video, and you ended up with a total of maybe three or four appointments across all of these channels.

Wow — this is great. Put money behind it. There’s this thing called a Facebook Business Page. If you paid for that post marketing the service — you paid five bucks a day for seven days and got 5,000 people to look at the service you offer within that geographic territory — I wonder if you would get any leads. If you took the YouTube video and went into your YouTube channel, clicked the promotions button, and because that YouTube video was a good video about the five things that you do for your audit of how you do a room-by-room audit and how you do your ROI and how you consult with them on DIY versus cost — you talked about some case studies and the scenarios, you shared your knowledge and wisdom in a way that people were appreciative of, and it had a nice call to action. You’d go into your YouTube channel and push the promotion button. You’d spend a hundred bucks and get 3,000 to 5,000 views on that YouTube video, and maybe you’d book a couple of appointments.

So advanced: if it works, press the gas and put some money behind it and see if you can get a lot more. How many of these services would it be worth for you in 2026 to put a little money behind — to signal out into your marketplace that you are a real estate agent who offers services that connect with real-world questions and advice needed, and that you have real examples of how you help people? Specifically — have some fun with this, guys.

Watch the Full Video on YouTube

Want to go deeper on this topic? Watch the full breakdown on Patrick’s YouTube channel and start defining the services you should be marketing right now in 2026.

Watch Now: Why Your Past Clients Are Listing With Other Agents (And How To Stop It)

As always, share this with any of your friends in the business. Let’s build up the community. Have a great day, guys.

Let’s get to work.

— Patrick Ferry

Real Estate Business Architect | 25+ Years | Creator of the Leveraged Marketing Mastermind

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