Touch the Dream Every Day: Amy Spence on Building a Real Estate Career That Lasts
Real estate has a way of making you question yourself.
You can do everything you're supposed to do—reach out to people, show up, learn, follow up—and still go days or weeks without seeing much happen. For a newer agent especially, it can be difficult to know whether you're building toward something or simply spinning your wheels.
Amy Spence has watched a lot of agents reach that point.
And she's watched plenty of them get very close to quitting right before things started working.
Today, Amy is one of the brokers at Bolst Real Estate, where much of her time is spent helping new and newer agents navigate exactly this stage of their careers. But more than ten years ago, she was figuring out the business herself.
In this week's episode of The Justin Landis Show, Amy sits down with Justin to talk about what she's learned along the way—and why one of her biggest pieces of advice to agents is surprisingly simple:
Touch the dream every day.
From Selling Real Estate to Helping Other Agents Build Their Careers
Amy's relationship with Justin goes back more than a decade, when she became the Justin Landis Group's very first expansion partner.
There wasn't exactly a blueprint for what that meant yet.
What drew Amy in wasn't a particular script or sales system. It was an approach to real estate that felt like her: build relationships, have conversations and take care of people.
She wasn't expected to spend her days cold calling or knocking on doors. She could build a business around genuine relationships—and it worked.
As Amy gained experience, she also began mentoring newer agents. Eventually, she realized something about herself.
She was becoming more excited about helping other people grow their businesses than she was about continuing to grow her own.
That realization ultimately led Amy to earn her broker's license and eventually into the role she has at Bolst today.
Real Estate Is Supposed to Be Humbling
Spend enough time in this business and eventually you're going to encounter something you don't know.
For Amy, that's not a weakness. It's part of the job.
One of the things she emphasizes most with newer agents is that it's okay to ask questions.
In fact, she'd much rather an agent call a broker before making a decision than stay quiet because they're afraid the question is too basic and learn the answer later in a much more expensive way.
Mistakes are going to happen. The goal isn't to somehow become the one real estate agent who never makes one.
It's to have people around you who can help you recognize the mistake, respond appropriately, learn from it and keep moving.
Why More Leads Aren't Always the Answer
When agents aren't getting traction, it's natural to think they need more opportunities.
More internet leads. More referrals. More people to call.
Amy has seen a different problem play out again and again: agents chasing leads before they actually know what to do when someone answers.
A lead doesn't do much good if you aren't yet comfortable having the conversation that comes next.
Can you confidently explain the buying process? Conduct a buyer consultation? Talk through financing? Explain a contract? Navigate an inspection issue? Price a property? Guide a nervous client through a difficult decision?
Those aren't skills you automatically acquire when you pass your licensing exam.
They're learned.
That's one of the reasons Bolst built Elevate & Advance, a structured training program designed to teach agents how to actually do the job before expecting them to simply figure it out transaction by transaction.
From there, agents can decide what makes sense for their business—continuing independently, exploring Bolst's Lead Share program, joining a team or building toward something else entirely.
The important part is having a foundation first.
What Should Your First 90 Days in Real Estate Actually Look Like?
Amy is refreshingly candid about her own start in real estate.
When she first got her license, she didn't exactly launch an elaborate marketing campaign.
She told a few people she was in real estate.
And then she waited.
She also kept her previous job for about a year because, like many new agents, she wasn't completely convinced this real estate thing was going to work out.
Looking back, she knows exactly what she would change.
Tell people what you're doing.
Don't quietly get your license and hope someone eventually remembers you're an agent when they decide to buy a house.
Get the word out. Start conversations. Build relationships. Make a plan for staying in touch.
And while you're doing that, learn the business.
Amy recommends newer agents go through structured training alongside other people who are at a similar stage. That cohort can effectively become your first real estate team—a group of people learning, asking questions, making mistakes and gaining confidence together.
Instead of spending those first 90 days waiting for something to happen, you're building the skills and relationships you'll need when it does.
Should a New Real Estate Agent Join a Team?
It's one of the biggest questions new agents face, and Amy doesn't believe there's one answer that's right for everyone.
In many cases, she recommends starting as an individual agent, completing your initial training and taking some time to understand how the business works before committing to a particular team.
That gives you an opportunity to see how different teams operate and understand what you actually need.
For someone ready to commit full-time, a team can provide significant advantages: mentorship, signs, lockboxes, systems, administrative resources and infrastructure that would otherwise require a substantial investment to build independently.
But not every new agent is in that position.
Some are transitioning from another career. Some need to maintain another source of income while getting established. Amy points to agents who have successfully built their businesses while continuing to work another job, using flexible training and consistent activity to gain momentum over time.
The better question isn't necessarily, "Should I join a team?"
It's:
"What environment gives me the best opportunity to learn, take action and keep moving forward right now?"
Touch the Dream Every Day
This is where Amy's advice becomes especially useful.
Don't wait until you have four uninterrupted hours to work on your business.
Don't decide a day "doesn't count" because you couldn't do everything you planned.
Just touch the dream.
Send five texts.
Schedule a coffee.
Make the social media post.
Watch the training module.
Follow up with the person you met last week.
Ask your broker the question you've been sitting on.
Do something that moves you toward the business you're trying to build.
Because real estate rarely provides instant gratification. The conversation you have today might not turn into a transaction for six months. The relationship you're building might not produce anything you can measure this week.
That doesn't mean it isn't working.
Consistency creates momentum, and momentum has a way of building quietly before the results become obvious.
So if you're in the stage of your real estate career where you're wondering whether you're doing enough—or whether any of this is going to work—Amy's advice is worth remembering:
Don't quit too early.
Touch the dream every day.
Hear Amy's full conversation with Justin on this week's episode of The Justin Landis Show.
[Watch on YouTube] | [Listen on Spotify] | [Listen on Apple Podcasts]
Ready to Build the Foundation?
If you're building your real estate career and realizing there's a big difference between having a license and knowing how to actually run the business, that's exactly the gap Elevate & Advance was built to fill.
The 16-week program combines on-demand curriculum with weekly instruction from agents who are still actively selling, covering the real-world skills agents need to build a repeatable process and serve their clients confidently.
