6 deal-saving business & negotiation strategies from a $1.7 billion broker

Feel like more of your deals have been falling through lately? It’s not just your imagination. Data from Redfin shows home purchase cancellations are up 31% from 2017. In former pandemic boomtowns like San Antonio, the problem is worse; a staggering 21% of deals — over one in five — never make it to the closing table.

Blaming our Jekyll-and-Hyde economy is perfectly rational. It’s also pointless. Excuses won’t keep your buyers from getting cold feet or convince your sellers to accept a solid offer after six months on the market. Here’s what will: Honing the business and negotiation skills that lay the foundation for bulletproof deals.

David Kramer learned this lesson the hard way. In his first six months as a Realtor in the late nineties, he made $50,000 — a small fortune at the time. Year two? $18,900. Year three? $18,000. Then his parents called. They were blunt: “Get a real job, David. Real estate is just a hobby.” He’s sold over $1.7 billion since.

I recently sat down with him to find out how he did it. He walked me through the exact business and negotiation strategies he used to go from broke to selling nearly $2 billion of real estate.

David Kramer: By the numbers

• Market: Greater Los Angeles, primarily focused on Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and Bel Air
• Niche: Luxury residential sales/trust and estate transactions
• 2024 team sales volume + sides: $170 million + 40 sides
• 2024 national RealTrends Verified ranking: 284
• Highest ROI software: Compass technology suite
• Primary lead generation strategy: Referrals and repeat clients

Go where the deals are, not where you wish they still were

When David Kramer joined his first brokerage, a scrappy but thriving office near Beverly Hills, he had no rich friends or relatives to rely on for easy, million-dollar deals. He sold his first home to a childhood friend, a police officer in a working-class neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The commission was modest, but he was hooked. He closed deal after deal in his first six months, sometimes writing offers on the hood of his car. Then the dotcom bubble burst. His phone stopped ringing. Two years later, the IRS froze his checking account. Like many new agents, he had blown through his earnings instead of setting money aside for taxes.

It was a far cry from the Beverly Hills mansions he dreamed of selling, but foreclosures gave him something more valuable: a crash course in the business of real estate.

“All of a sudden, it was like a water spigot that was turned off. But I knew this was what I was meant to do, so I persevered. It turned out to be a transformational moment in my career.

Selling foreclosures taught me the business aspect of selling real estate, which was really interesting. I learned about liability. I learned about protecting my client. I learned how to deal with lawyers and evictions. It was hard in a different way, but I loved it. And then that started me on the road to selling trusts and estates, as well as foreclosures and corporate homes.”

How to apply this strategy: If your lead generation or marketing strategy stops producing results, ditch it and never look back.

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Leave your ego and pride at the door

Don’t let Selling Sunset fool you. Nearly all of the hyper-successful brokers I’ve interviewed over the last decade, including Ryan Serhant, an actual celebrity, were shockingly humble. They’re gracious, deferential — even self-deprecating. David Kramer was no exception.

Is it just an act to get fawning press coverage? Do they turn into broker-zillas who bark orders at their assistants and preen in front of the mirror the second they hang up with me? Some might, sure. But the ones who do are successful despite their outsize egos, not because of them.

Counterintuitive, I know, but hear me out: Ego might help you fire up REDX and dial twenty more numbers after getting hung up on all morning. Pride might give you the confidence to strike up a conversation with the well-dressed woman confidently jangling the keys to a Porsche while you’re waiting in line at Starbucks.

But when it comes to fulfilling your fiduciary responsibility and actually serving your clients, ego and pride can be costly. Running on ego will make you far more likely to take rejection personally. Pride might keep you from pivoting when the market turns, and your lead generation strategy stops working as well as it once did.

How much faith does Kramer put in humility? When I asked him what he would do if he had to start over tomorrow with no sphere and none of the hard-won knowledge or skills he has today, he didn’t mince words:

“Being an assistant to somebody who works really hard and has a productive business is the best. There’s no better training than that. I would have shaved 10 years off my learning curve. Ego and pride are expensive in this business. That’s what it comes down to.”

How to apply this strategy: If you’re a new agent, research the top-performing teams in your niche and join the one that fits you best. If you’re an experienced agent who wants to break into a more lucrative niche, swallow your pride and join a team that’s already working it successfully.

Learn the other agent’s negotiation strategy — from the inside

While ego and pride will keep you from thriving, they do at least offer some insulation from another deadly, deal-killing sin: fear. Making decisions from fear with your client’s net worth on the line is borderline malpractice.

Of course, if you’re not at least a little bit intimidated delivering your first listing presentation or negotiating a deal with an agent who dominates your farm area, you’re not taking your job seriously enough. Even Kramer, who successfully negotiated an $85 million deal for Spelling Manor, the largest private residence in Los Angeles at the time, admitted he was intimidated by wealthy people during his first year in real estate. It’s more common than you think. Yes, even for extroverts.

Luckily, there is an antidote to fear: knowledge. For Kramer, that meant studying the business of real estate the way medical students study for the MCAT. Real estate is a serious business. Treat it that way.

There’s just one problem. You can’t learn a local top-producing agent’s secret sauce from a webinar or real estate conference. Kramer’s advice? Learn it from the inside:

“Negotiation is also about knowing the players, the personalities and what their goals are. I have deals right now where both sides are just lovely, and we are respecting each other’s wishes and helping each other out. And then you have other times where it’s combat.

If there’s someone you’re afraid of, bring them in. Share a listing with them and see what the secret sauce is. Once I did it, I realized there wasn’t that much secret sauce there. And later, when I went up against them, I knew exactly where they were going.”

How to apply this strategy: If you’re a listing agent, consider applying Kramer’s advice and co-list a home with a more experienced agent to learn their secrets. Or, better yet, discover that they don’t have any.

Leverage the power of silence

For many new Realtors, silence is like kryptonite. When someone on the other end of the phone stops talking, they jump in to fill the silence. I get it, silence is awkward. It feels like you’re losing control over the conversation, and for most new agents, “losing control” feels a lot like losing the deal.

For top-producing agents like Kramer, silence is a powerful tool for negotiation and lead conversion. Why? After you’ve made your ask or floated your number, silence gently shifts the pressure from you to the other side. Or, as philosopher Will Durant put it, “Nothing is always a clever thing to say.” Here’s Kramer:

“People don’t like silence. And the hardest thing I teach people when we’re on calls is you say something, and then you shut up. And then you take yes for an answer when you get it. When you hear the yes, then say, Fantastic, let’s make that work.”

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How to apply this strategy: The next time you’re on a call, and you’ve just made an ask, resist the urge to keep talking. Count to ten in your head if you have to. No, it won’t be easy, but like most good things in life, it will get easier with practice.

Control your own client first

This might sound pat, but every relationship and every interaction you’ve had in your life is a negotiation. Case in point: You’re in a negotiation with me right now. You are agreeing to spend time reading this article, and in return for your time, I am agreeing to give you actionable advice from one of the most successful Realtors in the country. A win-win.

Not all negotiations are this straightforward or this fast. Your relationship with your client is a complex, months-long negotiation. If your seller thinks their home is worth $100,000 more than the comps say, getting them back to reality is crucial.

If you can’t, no amount of charm or leverage will save the deal. Kramer’s approach is to meet them where they are, give them the space they need to make the right decision and apply gentle pressure to steer them in the right direction when needed.

“Part of the skill of negotiating is understanding where your client is relative to the other person. So give them more time without punishing them because that may not serve you well in the end. And then other times you have to use the velvet hammer.”

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How to apply this strategy: Before your next negotiation, get crystal clear on where your client actually stands. Are they too emotionally attached? Unrealistic on price? Are they dragging their feet? If so, why? Try to find out early so you can manage it before the other agent does it for you.

Avoid zero-sum thinking

Agents who walk into a negotiation trying to “win” ironically “lose” more than those who don’t. A negotiation is not a poker game. There is no pot that one person wins. Effective negotiators work hard so that everyone walks away happy. Your goal is to move two parties from disagreement to agreement.

There are two reasons why zero-sum thinking almost always backfires in a negotiation: First, because it’s not always in your client’s best interest. Second, the listing agent you try to strong-arm today might be on the other side of a dozen other deals you want access to next year. Your reputation in your market is your most valuable asset. Being unnecessarily aggressive with other agents is a surefire way to tarnish it.

“There is no enemy. The seller isn’t the enemy; the other agent is not the enemy. You all have the same goal, except that one person wants more money than the other. You’re really trying to do something collectively. I find a lot of the time there’s a zero-sum game where I win, you lose. That doesn’t go well with me. When I see that coming, it’s not going to go well, usually.

You may think you’re winning, and then later something may happen where you’ll ask, where did that come from? And it’s because you were playing hardball. I’m playing hardball, too. You just may not see it at the same time. If there’s trust and respect on both sides, you can get things done a lot easier.”

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The full picture

Know an agent who is thriving despite the odds and has actionable insights to share? We’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us here: [email protected].