Happy Monday, {{ First Name | closers }}.

Halloween is twelve days out, and the high in the Phoenix area finally dropped below ninety. Meanwhile, Costco has had a twelve-foot inflatable snowman up since August. Somebody over there really understands planning ahead.

Two weeks ago, we built the plan. We worked backward from what you want to keep, found your daily number, and put your life on the calendar first. If you did that homework, nice work. You’re ahead of most agents in the Valley.

Here’s the catch. Plans don’t usually fail in October. They fail in February, when a deal falls apart, the phone goes quiet, and that shiny new plan slides into a drawer. So this issue is about building a plan that survives real life. We’ll lock in the year-end money moves that only work before December 31. We’ll start next year’s pipeline right now, while everyone else coasts into the holidays. And we’ll set up the habits that keep you going when the motivation runs out.

Grab a coffee. Let’s huddle up, team.

- Steve

Here’s something most agents learn the hard way. A lot of tax planning only works if it happens before December 31. Wait until your CPA or tax preparer calls in March and the window’s already closed. At that point you’re not planning anymore. You’re just reporting.

So let’s use the next ten weeks well. Start with a year-to-date check. Pull your profit and loss through September 30 and compare your profit to what you’ve actually set aside for taxes. If you’ve been holding back fifteen percent and you’re having a big year, that might not cover it. Better to find out now than on April 14.

Next, get your fourth-quarter estimated payment on the calendar. It’s due January 15, and it sneaks up on everybody right after the holidays. Set a reminder for January 5 so the money’s sitting there ready.

Then look at retirement. Some retirement accounts need to be opened before December 31 to count for this year. If you’ve been meaning to start one, this is the month to ask your tax person which one fits and when it has to be set up.

Last, clean up the little stuff. Catch up your mileage log while you still remember where you drove in August. Track down the receipts for signs, lockboxes, and closing gifts. A missed sixty-dollar expense every month adds up to seven hundred twenty dollars in deductions you’ll never get back.

One warning. Don’t buy a new truck in December just to save on taxes. Spending a dollar to save thirty cents still costs you seventy cents you didn’t need to spend.

This is “tax prep light,” not tax advice, so loop in your tax person before December, not after. The best tax move is the one you make while there’s still time to make it.

Here’s a math problem most agents never run. A typical deal takes about ninety days from the first real conversation to the closing table. Sometimes longer. So the closings you want in February and March? They start with conversations you have in November and December.

That’s exactly when most agents take their foot off the gas. The holidays hit, the calendar fills up with parties, and prospecting goes quiet until January. Then everybody wonders why the first quarter feels so slow.

Let’s not do that this year. Pull up your daily number from two weeks ago. If it came out to three conversations a day, keep it going straight through the holidays. Not five, not ten. Just the three. Steady beats a January sprint every time.

Next, plan your holiday touches now, while you’ve still got room to think. Pick your top fifty past clients and referral partners. Decide what each one gets and when. Maybe a handwritten card by Thanksgiving, a pie drop the week of December 14, and a January call to ask about their plans for the year. Write it down with dates, and order the cards before the rush.

Then go through your sphere and ask who’s likely to move in the spring. Kids heading off to college, a growing family, a new job across town. Those folks need a conversation in December, not a postcard in April.

And here in the Valley, winter brings snowbirds and relocation buyers making big decisions while it’s seventy degrees here and snowing back home. Be the agent who’s already talking to them.

A quiet December doesn’t make a busy spring. The conversations you have this month are next year’s paychecks.

Let’s be honest about how plans usually die. It’s not one big failure. It’s a missed Friday review, then a skipped prospecting morning, then a rough week where a deal blows up and you tell yourself you’ll get back on track next Monday. By Valentine’s Day, the plan’s sitting in a drawer next to last year’s.

The fix isn’t more willpower. It’s deciding now what you’ll do when things go sideways. Coaches call this if-then planning, and it works. “If I miss my morning calls, then I make them before two p.m.” “If a deal falls apart, then I call three past clients before I go home.” Write down five of these for the setbacks you know are coming. You’ve been in this business long enough to know what they are.

Then build in a check-in. Pick one person, a coach, a peer, or your spouse, and give them a copy of your plan. Set a fifteen-minute call every other Friday where you share three numbers: conversations, appointments, and closings. Just knowing someone’s going to ask makes you show up.

Plan your rest like you plan your business, too. Burnout sneaks up like a lowball offer, quiet at first and then all at once. Protect one real day off every week and at least one long weekend each quarter. Get them on the calendar before January.

Finally, expect a bad month. Everybody gets one. A bad month doesn’t break the plan. Quitting the plan does. The agents who win next year won’t be the ones with the prettiest plan. They’ll be the ones who kept coming back to it.

Two weeks ago, I pointed you to the economic and budget models in Gary Keller’s book. This time, let’s go back for the chapters that pair with today’s issue.

Start with the lead generation model. Keller splits your world into two groups: people you’ve met and people you haven’t. Your “met” group is your sphere, your past clients, and your referral partners. His point is that this group is where your most reliable business comes from, and most agents underwork it. He lays out a steady rhythm of touches, some by mail, some by phone, some in person, spread across the whole year. It’s the backbone of the holiday plan in the Business Booster section, just taken further.

Then there’s the part of the book that’s less about systems and more about you. Keller digs into the myths that keep agents small, the stories we tell ourselves about what’s realistic, and how a bigger goal changes the actions you’re willing to take. You don’t need to want a mega-team for that to land. It’s really about not letting last year’s results set the ceiling on next year.

If you started the book after the last issue, here’s my suggestion. Jump ahead to the lead generation chapter this week, then go back to where you left off. It’s the most useful section to have in your head heading into the holidays.

Who it’s for: agents who want a real system for staying in front of the people who already know them.

My favorite takeaway: your next deal is probably already sitting in your phone. You just haven’t called them yet.

👆 Go ahead and click the image to order the book from Amazon 👆

✅ Open a separate tax savings account by Friday, October 23. Move a set percentage of every commission into it from here on.

✅ Plan your holiday touches by Friday, October 23. Pick your top fifty, decide what each one gets and when, and order the cards now.

✅ Write five if-then plans by Sunday, October 25. Cover the setbacks you know are coming, and share them with your check-in partner.

✅ Book a year-end check-in with your tax person by Friday, October 30. Ask about your set-aside, retirement accounts, and anything that has to happen before December 31.

✅ Set a reminder for January 5, 2027. Your fourth-quarter estimated payment is due January 15, and it always shows up faster than you think.Reconcile your books through August thirty-first so your numbers are real