Above, Jon Acuff
“A crisis will filter out people who are casual and encourage true professionals to rise to the challenge. The excellent are going to rise and build during this moment and come out of this even stronger.”
If there was ever a more accurate word to describe what the real estate industry has been through over the last year it would be crisis. But with it always comes opportunity, as author and speaker Jon Acuff put so succinctly above.
For more than a decade, Acuff has been a New York Times bestselling author of 10 books on personal development and leadership, and a keynote speaker for INC’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers, having spoken to hundreds of thousands of people at conferences, colleges and companies around the world.
Brian Buffini, chairman and founder of Buffini & Company, America’s foremost real estate coaching company, recently teamed up with Acuff, bringing his leadership-in-business training to the company’s new designation program, the Certified Full-Service Professional (CFSP), an online, on-demand learning program split up into five business-building modules and designed to provide agents with actionable guidance to level up their communication, negotiation, marketing and professionalism in the wake of the legal changes brought about by the NAR settlement ruling.
RELATED: We introduced readers to the new certification earlier this year in an August cover story, as well as highlights of the first training module with coverage of Brian Buffini’s Mid-Year Bold Predictions.
Regular attendees of Buffini & Company’s live events would be familiar with Acuff, who has been a featured keynote speaker at several of their events, including their most recent at the Biltmore in Arizona this past summer. In Module 2 of Buffini’s CFSP program, Acuff provides a Master Class in mindset, sharing lessons from his recent book “Soundtracks,” which addresses the problem of overthinking and how to turn it into a super power, and how agents can apply these lessons to their real estate business practices. Through an easy-to-follow conversation with Buffini, Acuff explores ways to replace “negative soundtracks” agents may be telling themselves as they navigate the new rules of real estate, and how to replace them with “anthems” or positive soundtracks that lead to a better mindset and increased business.
RISMedia recently sat down with Acuff to learn more about his participation in Buffini’s new training program and what agents will learn from the lessons in Soundtracks.
RISMedia: When the opportunity came to participate in Buffini’s CFSP platform, what was it that made you want to put your brand and Soundtracks book behind it?
Jon Acuff: It’s kind of like saying you make car engines and Ferrari approaches you and says, ‘Do you want to do a partnership?’ And so for me, I couldn’t do it fast enough. I love the concept of Soundtracks. It’s been so fun to teach people that in a ton of different industries. And after the first time I did an event with Brian Buffini, I spoke to him and we thought if we customize this (for real estate), we can go even deeper on this conversation. He essentially said, if you’re willing to do the work, I think there’s real fruit here for a lot of people. And so for me, it made all the sense in the world because he could see a path to that. He was essentially saying, I’ve been serving his audience for decades.
RISMedia: How did you work together to create the content?
JA: We really wanted to customize this for the unique needs that are happening in real estate right now. Brian and the team worked with me, and we got busy and said, ‘Okay, what’s happening right now? Let’s talk about the NAR ruling. What are we hearing from agents? What’s happening in the field? What are they saying in the forums when they’re on Facebook and they’re talking to each other? And then using the Soundtracks framework for mindset, because mindset is such a big part of what they’re going through right now. One of the reasons I was excited about it was because I’d experienced (Buffini’s) audience and Brian and I knew the type of product and module he would create. He’s the kind of guy and his team is the kind of team that runs to the fires. There’s a lot of teams that would’ve been like, let’s sit out this NAR situation, we’ll do something in 2025. But he was like, no, we can’t. This is the time people need it most. And so once I saw that, I was like, oh man, I’d love to play a small part in that.
RISMedia: Why do you think the industry is ready for this type of certification? How do you think it will help raise the level of professionalism in the real estate industry?
JA: I think it’s an invitation. This is, ‘Welcome to the big leagues.’ A crisis will filter out people who are casual and encourage true professionals to rise to the challenge. I think there are a lot of agents who are saying, ‘Okay, things have changed in a way that I wasn’t expecting or I wasn’t ready for.’ And I think the offer Brian is suggesting is, this is your time. The excellent are going to rise and build during this moment, and going to come out of this even stronger. But it’s going to take some skill, time and some effort. He’s essentially saying, I know you’re capable and here’s the path. I look at the certification as these are the skills that you’re going to need the most in this moment. Let’s hone them. Let’s sharpen them. And the great agents are going to do that and they’re going to trust Brian because of the excellent quality of his programs.
RISMedia: How do you think the new certification can help illuminate to consumers the difference between an agent who’s highly trained and one who isn’t?
JA: I think it’s a signal. I think consumers are looking to see, is this person vetted? Are they serious? Are they doing additional things to get even better at their craft? Are they going to have the skills to take care of me? And I think this is a flare to every consumer to show them this isn’t your side hustle or your hobby. That this is a serious individual who is putting in work when they’re not with me. I want to know as a consumer, you’re going to help me, but not only are you helping me in this transaction, you’re getting additional training, additional learning. You’re not getting caught surprised by this year; you’ve done something voluntary to learn in this new environment.
RISMedia: How do the marketing materials and scripts as part of the program help support the certification?
JA: That’s one of the things I love about the content. There are real scripts, there are real answers to questions. Every angle of it has been thought through. Sometimes you see training and they essentially say, here’s a clump of ideas, good luck. With this certification, you can see that every inch has been thought about. Every tool has been added deliberately so the agent can use it immediately–they can use it on a Tuesday. That’s one of the things I challenge myself with when I speak from the stage–what can somebody do with this on a real Tuesday? We’ve all been to events where you get really inspired and by the time you get to the car, you’re like, what was I supposed to do again? And I know every agent has a real Tuesday headed their way, so how do I create something that helps them on that Tuesday? And for me, that’s part of what this certification does.
RISMedia: Can you tell us a little about your book, Soundtracks, and how the lessons in that specifically apply to the CFSP certification.
JA: The book came about because I started to see overthinking as an issue. I’m a self-admitted goal nerd. I love goals. And I saw in my own life and other people’s lives, their mindset getting in the way. And specifically, they were getting stuck in overthinking. So I commissioned a research study with a PhD named Mike Peasley, a professor here in Nashville, and we asked 10,000 people if they struggled with overthinking. And 99.5% of them said yes. It was an epidemic. So that’s where the book Soundtracks came about, I saw there was a real need. I was overthinking in my own life, and I wanted to figure out how do you deal with mindset in a practical and tactical way. I wanted to know how it impacted the work I was doing, the life I’m trying to build, the business I’m trying to build. And so it came down to simply the idea of great thoughts turn into great actions. Great actions turn into great results.
RISMedia: What are some negative soundtracks agents might be telling themselves?
JA: Agents can overfocus on the results they want, but then they don’t change the underlying thoughts that are driving everything, so they don’t get results. One that I can certainly share that I’ve heard over and over again from agents, is that the NAR ruling has changed everything for the worse. That’s what I would call a ‘broken soundtrack,’ meaning it’s a negative, it’s going to hold you back. And so what I would say instead is–and Brian and I thought this was really easy to remember–is, replace that with ‘it’s still houses, still humans.’ (The ruling) doesn’t change everything. There are still so many things that make you successful that you’re going to bring forward into this new real estate world. And so that’s the kind of positive soundtrack that makes someone pause and say wait a second, you’re right. I was throwing away all my skills, all my previous experience. Fear loves to exaggerate your problems and hide your successes.
My favorite thing to do as a writer is to simplify complex situations and mindset is certainly a complex situation. So how do you retire broken soundtracks? How do you replace them with new ones? How do you repeat those new ones? They can become as automatic as the old ones. So retire, replace, repeat.
RISMedia: Can you give some examples of that specifically for real estate professionals?
JA: I got a great card from an agent just the other day, and she said, her soundtracks are, ‘My business will be there in the morning’ and ‘My gut is never wrong.’ She had been telling herself every night, ‘If you don’t do this last thing, it’s all going to fall apart.’ So she wrote to me and said she has this new soundtrack up on her wall, that she’s been working on it and she’s starting to trust her instincts. So that’s what Soundtracks can do. Think about all the ‘head time’ you have as an agent. You’re driving to a showing and it’s just you and all those thoughts. You’re driving home from an open house that didn’t go as well as you wanted. I joke with agents all the time, has anybody ever brought too many cookies? And you have to do the cookie walk of shame back to your car with three dozen cookies and nobody ate them, and you try not to shame-eat them on the way home out of sadness. And every agent goes, oh, I’ve done that before. You’ve got all these situations as an agent where it’s easy to overthink and I want you to think the things that are helpful. I want you to think of soundtracks that move you in the direction you want to go.
RISMedia: How can brokers support this training?
JA: I think it really depends on the broker’s relationship with the agent. And that’s what was fun talking to Brian from a Soundtracks perspective, what is an agent thinking through right now? What is a broker thinking through right now? And it’s interesting, I talked to a couple of brokers about this and they said this designation is the kind of thing that hones an agent’s skills. It sets them apart from their competition. It attracts and retains top-producing professionals to their office. We talked about how it’s a sign to the consumer; it’s also a sign to agents. It also says, the broker really cares about them getting even better and sets them up for success.
RISMedia: How can Buffini’s new CFSP certification and Soundtracks fit into agents’ planning activities for the new year? Can you share some ideas for starting the New Year off right?
JA: One of the things I love to say is, make tomorrow easy today. What can I do today to make tomorrow easy? One of the mistakes people make when it comes to the New Year and goals and resolutions is that they wait until the last week of December and come up with a bunch of goals and say, I’m going to run and write and sell 50 more homes. And then the first week of January hits them and they realize they don’t have the time for any of that, but they planned it when they had a ton of time. And if you start planning January, you already feel behind.
I use this principle in my weekly planning too. If I plan my week on Sunday at 7 p.m., I don’t have phones ringing or emails coming in. I don’t have the stress of the week already started. I sometimes joke that ‘night me’ is the decider and ‘morning me’ is the doer. Monday mornings I wake up, I already know what I’m doing so I don’t have to decide.
I think what happens with a lot of agents is they wait. And I would just say, what if you gave yourself a little bit of time, and instead of trying to cram your goals together at the end of December; what if you said, okay, in November I’m going to do that.
One of my soundtracks is ‘awesome is never accidental.’ I’ve never met somebody who accidentally got in shape. And so the people I know who are the most successful, if you say to them, when do you plan your goals? It’s always earlier than you think.
I’d much rather you in November and December, say, ‘I’m going to test this goal for a week to see if I even like it. And if I like it, I’ll do it for a month in January.’ One of the things I say is great years aren’t built in January. They’re built in November. And I love giving myself that amount of time to actually prepare because then I get a fun year ahead.
To learn more about Jon Acuff, visit his website and podcast, “All It Takes Is a Goal.” To learn more about Soundtracks or his other publications, click here.
To hear the Module 2 conversation and detailed insights between Brian Buffini and Jon Acuff and learn more about Buffini & Company’s Certified Full Service Professional designation, click here.
And don’t miss Brian Buffini’s Bold Predictions 2025 Real Estate Market Outlook featuring NAR Chief Economist Dr. Lawrence Yun on Monday, December 9 at 10 a.m. PT. Sign up here.
