Leaders How to Help Agents Shift from Panic to Production

June 11, 2025

Rebuilding the Pipeline: How to Help Agents Shift from Panic to Production

Have some members on your team who have been struggling lately? Create a culture of action and accountability – starting today.

In times of market chaos—lawsuits, commission confusion, rising rates—it’s easy for agents to freeze. Panic sets in, productivity stalls, and suddenly, that once-thriving pipeline is bone dry.

That’s when leadership matters most.

As a broker or team leader, your job isn’t just to reassure—it’s to rebuild. To help agents shift from fear and overwhelm into action and momentum. The good news? That shift doesn’t require a miracle; it requires a system. That system starts with you.

1. Call It Out Before It Takes Over

Panic thrives in silence. If your agents are pulling back, ghosting the office, or acting like “vacation mode” is an excuse for zero production, it’s vital to call it out. That’s right, have the real talk and normalize the struggle—but don’t allow the stall.

This clears the air and re-centers your culture on accountability, not avoidance.

We know it can be hard to have some of these conversations. Nobody wants to be the “bad guys”, but the truth is, letting it slide doesn’t do anyone any favors, especially the buyers and sellers who are not getting the help they need because your agent is lagging behind.

2. Reset the Metrics That Matter

When deals slow, agents tend to obsess over closings, but that’s backward. Closings are the end result. Refocus your analysis (and your efforts) on the actions that lead to those results.

Communicate with your team and set a summer standard:

5 meaningful conversations per day
2 handwritten notes per week
1 listing-focused activity per day
Weekly SMILE Stops™ to your farm or sphere

You can gamify this by tracking and celebrating the actions and the effort, not just the contracts. Using checklists, effort-focused leaderboards, and prizes can make this fun for everyone.

3. Host a “Pipeline Power Hour” Weekly

Getting your agents focused on building their pipeline doesn’t have to be a big event. Create a recurring, high-energy office (or Zoom) session where agents:

Set their 3 top actions for the week
Prospect or follow up live for 30 minutes
Share results or wins at the end

This creates momentum and accountability. Make it fun, fast-paced, and full of positive reinforcement. It shouldn’t be a long-drawn-out meeting; you want them to maintain their drive to get it done.

4. Spotlight Progress Over Perfection

You don’t need every agent to become a listing machine overnight, but you do need them to get in motion. Newton’s Law of Inertia tells us that it’s easier to redirect an object already in motion than to get the object moving from a standstill. If your agents need to redirect their efforts, it’s easier to do when they’re already busy with activity.

How can you get them into motion?

Celebrate effort, not just results
Highlight action and the positive results (or reframe the less ideal results)
Encourage consistency and building habits

Post a leaderboard, share “Agent of the Week” shoutouts, and showcase little wins: new CMA booked, tough call made, expired door knock that led to a conversation. This builds the belief that progress is happening—even when results feel slow.

5. Teach Them How to Stack Their Pipeline

Many agents have only one or two potential clients in their pipeline at any given time. That’s not enough, especially when the market can shift in a heartbeat. Thankfully, agents can grow their pipeline more easily if they’re organized.

Help them categorize leads into three tiers:

Now Business: People who are ready to buy or sell within 30 days
Next Business: Clients likely to act in the next 60–90 days
Future Business: People to stay in touch with over time

This shift helps them stop “chasing” and start strategizing. It also makes their business (and their income) more predictable.

6. Give Them Tools (and Reminders) That Work

Your agents don’t need more content. They need the right content at the right moment. It’s the combination that is the most impactful in growing your agent’s pipeline.

Arm them with:

Listing conversation dialogues that handle the most common objections
Seller and buyer guides they can personalize and share
Email drip templates to nurture their warm list
Conversation starters and CMAs that tie to market shifts

And then—don’t just upload it to a drive and walk away. SHOW them how to use it. Model the language, give them real-life examples, and even spend some time roleplaying these conversations with them.

7. Model Calm. Lead Loud.

In a panicked industry, calm is contagious. So is leadership. For your agents who are reading the headlines, hear people talking about the industry like it’s a cartel, and believe the (incorrect) belief that agents themselves will no longer be needed, you need to be the calm in their storm.

When you:

Speak with grounded knowledge and clarity about the market
Equip your team with solutions, not more questions.
Hold space for action and accountability while meeting each team member where they’re at.

By focusing on these things, you create a brokerage culture that moves from panic to production—and stays there.

For Your Agents:

Production doesn’t come from hysteria or trepidation; it comes from creating a plan of action. If you’re feeling stuck, start small:

Make one CMA a day.
Call three people you’ve worked with in the past.
Drop off a SMILE Stop™ this week.
Block out one hour a day for lead generation—non-negotiable.

The market doesn’t reward hesitation. It rewards hustle, consistency, and service. When you get moving, your pipeline will follow.

Darryl Davis is an award-winning international speaker, real estate and business coach, and best-selling author of three books, all published by McGraw Hill Publishers.

For more than 35 years, Darryl has spoken to and trained more than 600,000 sales professionals around the globe to more than double their production year after year. His book, How to Become a Power Agent in Real Estate, tops Amazon’s charts for one of the most sold books to real estate agents.

He was awarded the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation by the National Speaker’s Association, which is given to less than 2% of all speakers worldwide.

Whether from a stage or Zooming into a virtual room, Darryl’s extraordinary humor, relatability, and natural gift for teaching real-world, results-producing skills and mindsets to audiences have made him a client favorite throughout his career.

Audiences will laugh, learn, and ultimately walk away better prepared for a changing world, with the tools, skills, and training they need to build their businesses with more ease and less stress and to design lives and careers worth smiling about.

Bring One of Darryl’s W.O.R.K. Topics to Your Organization! 

By providing your agents with the knowledge and insights they need to stay ahead of the game, you can ensure that they are equipped to handle any situation that comes their way! 

Contact us here to learn more! 