We’re into the middle of January. The clock is already ticking on your year.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking it’s still early. That’s the lie. Too many agents look at the calendar and say they’ll catch up later.
But the calls you did or didn’t make this week are going to show up in your pipeline 60 to 90 days from now. That’s how this business works. Results are delayed, and momentum compounds.
So here’s the real question you should be asking yourself right now: Are you actually on pace for the year you say you want, or are you already behind and hoping to catch up later?
Because there is a very real benchmark that answers that question. And once you know it, you can’t hide from it anymore.
The trap of thinking you still have time
The good news is there’s a lot of opportunity in 2026.
The bad news is that opportunity doesn’t wait for anyone to get organized.
A lot of people hit mid-January and tell themselves they’re fine because there are still 11 months left in the year. Technically, that’s true. Practically, it’s how people fall behind without realizing it.
This business runs on delayed results. The calls you make today show up as listings and contracts 60 to 90 days from now. That means January is not a warm-up month. It’s the foundation for what your spring and summer actually look like.
If you wait until February or March to get serious, you’re already chasing instead of leading. And chasing is how you spend the rest of the year trying to catch up instead of building momentum.
The benchmark that keeps you on pace
Over the years, we’ve tracked exactly when our business produces contracts and closings, not in theory but in actual numbers.
When you line it all up, one pattern shows up every single year. By the end of January, you should have about 13.5% of your annual goal either under contract or already closed.
If your goal is 100 homes, that means you should be sitting on 13 or 14 deals right now. There’s no such thing as half a sale. You’re either on pace or you aren’t.
And here’s the part most people miss. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be close enough that you can still make adjustments while there’s time left in the month.
If your goal is 24 homes and you’re supposed to be at three, but you’re only at one or two, you’re not dead in the water. You’re just behind. And behind can be fixed when you still have weeks on the clock.
How to calculate your own numbers
All you need to do is take your annual sales goal, multiply it by 0.135 on your calculator (13.5%). That’s the number of deals you should have pending or closed by the end of January if you want to be on pace for the year.
Your market might be more seasonal. Your sales flow might look different. That’s fine. What isn’t fine is flying blind.
January gives you a benchmark. It tells you whether you’re building momentum or digging a hole you’ll be trying to climb out of all spring.
How to actually move the needle
If you’re behind, or even if you’re just barely on pace, there’s only one thing that moves the needle fast enough in January: conversations.
That’s why we’re running a Q1 Call Challenge right now inside our team and inside BAMx. The challenge is this: Can you get to 100 dials a day?
We didn’t pull that number out of a hat. We know the studies, and our internal organization data shows that for every four to six dials, you get one real conversation.
That means if you want 15 conversations a day, you need to be making somewhere between 60 and 90 calls.
Using daily activity to hit your monthly goal
This is where everything starts to connect.
Once you know your January target and you know how many conversations you need each day, the rest becomes a lot simpler. You have a real plan and the math to back it up.
On average, it takes about 10 to 20 conversations to book one appointment. Call it 15. If you set one appointment a day, you’re doing better than most people in this business.
I know 50% of the time, the conversation will result in an appointment. And out of every two appointments, I convert one client and I can add them to my top prospects list.
Now run the numbers backward. If it takes 60 to 90 calls to get 15 conversations, and about half of those conversations turn into appointments, and half of those appointments convert, you can see exactly how activity turns into deals.
Quick breakdown of the daily math:
- 90 calls
- 15 conversations
- 7 appointments
- 3 new clients
Remember, those are averages, not fixed numbers. But that’s how you build momentum, by stacking the right actions every single day.
That’s how you ramp up your year and get back into volume lead generation, whether you’re a little behind at this point or you’re a little ahead and you want to keep the momentum going.
What to say when you call people in mid-January
Now let’s talk about the part that makes most people freeze. What do you actually say?
By mid-January, calling someone and saying “Happy New Year” feels awkward. The holiday window is gone, and pretending it isn’t just makes the call worse.
That said, a lot of agents haven’t talked to some of their contacts in weeks. The holidays got in the way. Now the longer you wait, the more pressure you feel about picking up the phone.
Take the pressure off by acknowledging it and moving straight into value. There are two simple ways to open these calls that do exactly that.
Two things you can say at the beginning of these phone calls:
- “Hey Nick, it’s been a while. It’s Tom Toole here with ReMax.” Then go into your normal opener, whether it’s about interest rates, inventory or something else.
- “Hey, I’m sorry I dropped the ball during the holidays, and wanted to keep you updated with what’s going on in the market. Not sure if you saw that interest rates hit their lowest levels in three years and I was curious how that might impact your real estate plans.”
Those two openers do something powerful. They remove the awkwardness, they tell the truth, and they give you a clean path into a real conversation.
Your On-Pace Plan
This is where everything either comes together or falls apart.
If you ignore these numbers now, January disappears fast. One minute, it’s mid-month. Then it’s February. Then it’s March. Suddenly, you’re staring at the spring market and wondering how you got so far behind.
That’s how people end up with goose eggs in January and February and spend the rest of the year chasing instead of building.
There’s also another cost most people don’t talk about. The longer you wait to call people, the heavier it feels. You start wondering what to say. You start avoiding the phone. That hesitation compounds just like missed opportunity.
My advice? Nip that in the bud right now. Acknowledge the gap. Own it. Then move straight into value-based OFQs.
When you know your numbers and you know what to say, the anxiety disappears.
At that point, there’s no mystery left. You know exactly what to do. We’ve given you the words. We’ve given you the math. The only thing left is execution.
This is where daily or at least weekly roleplaying comes in to close the gap. You can do that by joining Lisa Chinatti, Byron Lazine and myself for our live roleplaying mastermind in BAMx every Tuesday morning at 9:00 am Eastern Time.
Not a BAMx member yet? Sign up for a 7-day free trial and join us next Tuesday for some roleplaying practice and live feedback.
