Listen to working agents telling true stories, not gurus reading slides. Read the REALTOR® Code of Ethics all the way through, because it is the operating manual for this business. Then read one good book on sales and one on relationships, and apply one idea a week. That is the whole answer. A new REALTOR® does not need more content. You need content from people who still do the job, and you need to act on it.
I have been selling real estate in North Carolina for more than 20 years, I still work with buyers and sellers, and I have hosted a podcast for agents since 2016. So I have opinions about what is worth your ears.
Start with Real Talk with Leigh Brown. It began in 2016 under a saltier name, Crazy Sh*t in Real Estate, and it has published more than 570 episodes. Every episode is a working agent, lender, appraiser, or attorney telling a wild but true story from a real transaction, and then we pull the lesson out of it. HousingWire put it on their list of the best real estate podcasts in 2026. The reason it works for new agents is simple: you hear how a deal actually goes sideways before it happens to you.
My second show, Under All is the Land, takes its name from the first words of the preamble to the Code of Ethics, which tells you something about how I think podcasts and professionalism fit together.
Whatever you listen to, listen to people who sold a house this year. Listen in the car, at the gym, and in the morning before the phone starts ringing. Podcasts are free education, and free education is the right price for your first year.
First, the REALTOR® Code of Ethics. I teach a continuing education class called Conversion Using The Code, because the Code is not just rules to avoid a complaint. It is the clearest explanation you will ever find of why a consumer should hire a professional REALTOR® instead of an app. Read it once as a rulebook and once as a sales script.
Second, one book on sales. I wrote The Seven Deadly Sins of Sales because most agents do not lose business to a better competitor. They lose it to their own habits, like not following up and not asking for the business. Third, one book on relationships. Peeling the Onion is my book about building real relationships through authentic communication in a world where everyone is hiding behind a screen. Outrageous Authenticity is the one that started it all, and the title is the point: be who you are, on purpose, and clients will find you.
You do not have to read mine. You do have to read something and use it. A lot of agents buy a stack of books and let them sit. If your Bible has dust on it, it is not doing your spiritual life a bit of good, and the same is true of your business books.
Pick one idea from every episode or chapter and do it the same week. Call a past client. Rewrite one script so it sounds like you. Go to one association event and meet three agents. Learning the business is not a listening habit. It is a doing habit with a listening habit attached.
Pick one hosted by a working agent. Real Talk with Leigh Brown has run since 2016 with more than 570 episodes of true transaction stories from agents, lenders, appraisers, and attorneys, each with a practical lesson.
The REALTOR® Code of Ethics, one sales book, and one relationships book. Leigh Brown's are The Seven Deadly Sins of Sales, Peeling the Onion, and Outrageous Authenticity, all also available as audiobooks narrated by Leigh.
Yes. Real Talk with Leigh Brown is available on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube, and at leighbrown.com/podcast/realtalk.
Fearlessly real and faith-driven, Leigh Brown is the Disruption Navigator guiding professionals from chaos to clarity with guts, grace, and a good dose of grit.
