The Readiness Brief
Who's behind you?
There's an unwritten rule in real estate that the agent leads. You open the door, you walk in first, you present the space. It's hospitality, it's habit, and in an empty property it puts you exactly where you have the least information: with someone behind you and a room you're facing away from.
The correction is small enough that no client will ever register it. Open the door, step aside, and let them enter first — “go ahead, take it in.” It reads as generous. It also means you're never walking into a room with someone at your back, and you always have the doorway.
Same principle on stairs and in hallways. Let them lead going up; you take the landing. In a narrow hall, hang back a step rather than squeezing past. None of this looks like caution. It looks like an agent who isn't crowding a buyer while they think.
The habit is worth building precisely because it costs nothing. You don't have to decide whether a situation warrants it. You just always do it, and on the one showing in a thousand where it matters, you're already standing in the right place.
Watch what the alternative costs. An agent leading through an unfamiliar property is splitting attention — half on presenting, half on the person somewhere behind them. That's not a conscious worry. It's a background process, and it runs on the same fuel as reading a buyer.
The agents who convert best in showings are the ones actually watching the client: which room they linger in, what they touch, the question they almost ask. You cannot notice any of that from in front of someone.
Standing where you can see the room is a safety habit that happens to be a sales advantage. Most good safety habits are.
In thirty years of teaching, the single most common correction I make has nothing to do with strikes or escapes. It's where people stand.
Position decides how many options you have before anything happens. Trained people don't move faster than untrained people — they were already somewhere better. That's the entire advantage, and it's available to you in an empty house on a Tuesday afternoon for the price of a half step.
— Carmen "The Momba" Gulliksen
On your next three showings, say “go ahead” at every doorway and let the client enter first. Notice how much more you see of them when you're not the one in front.
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