Zero To One, From Scratch
I got my license in January of 2024. I was brand new to the industry, brand new to the city, brand new to the state. I wasn’t starting from a network of people I knew. I was starting from scratch. There was no sphere of influence to work through, so I had to begin brand-new relationships in every single sense.
It was a zero-to-one business for me. I had a family to feed, and I wasn’t gonna let anything stop me from feeding them. If I’m not on the phone with people who own real estate, then what am I really doing? That was the whole equation. So I knew I needed to be on the phone, 8:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday.
A Dialer, Leads, And A CRM In One
I found REDX Googling around for a triple-line dialer service. I think I compared Vulcan7 and Mojo, but pricing-wise REDX was the most competitive, the data was solid, and it had everything I was looking for in an easy, user-friendly interface. So I started with REDX from day one — it’s been functionally my CRM and fueled my business ever since.
The way I’d describe it to another agent: it’s a dialer, a lead source, and a CRM all in one. You don’t need a separate CRM — Vortex serves as that for me. I organized my folders by neighborhood and by lead source: FSBO, expired, pre-foreclosure, FRBO. Staying organized on the left side of the interface was huge. Honestly, I wish I could tell you something I got stuck on, but there really wasn’t anything.
Twenty Calls To The First Win
My first real win took three months — a tiny little condo, all cold call, all through Vortex. It was funny: I called the guy 20 times before he picked up. When I finally met him I said, “Sir, do you know how many times I called you? I called you 20 times. I hope that demonstrates how hard I’ll work to get your property sold.” I got the business. Two and a half years later I’ve got his primary listed right now.
From there it compounded. I made six figures in year one and almost double that in year two, all courtesy of the software. I pull 7,500 credits a month for owner information, and I’m sitting at about 215,000 contacts in Vortex. In 2025 I made 148,000 calls — I’d bet I made more calls than anybody in a calendar year. The software nudges me when to follow up, and I make notes on every conversation so I always know exactly where I left off.
Just Do It
My business looks very different today than it did two years ago. I’ve shifted into heavy commercial, all off-market, direct-to-owner — the paychecks tend to be bigger. The same time I’d spend on a $300,000 home, I can put toward something 10 or 20X that. But REDX still functions exactly the same for me: I pull GeoLeads when I need to, drop contacts in, and use it as my CRM and dialer.
If I were coaching agents, here’s exactly what I’d tell them: if you’re not on the phone dialing, have a really solid reason for whatever else you’re doing. Dialing is a money-generating activity — posting on Facebook never made me a dime. Load up a triple-line dialer and go to town. Work on your scripts, but you set them aside pretty quickly once you’ve had a hundred conversations. In the words of Shia LaBeouf: just do it.
