Quick history lesson today. Between 2005 and 2011, the real estate industry experienced a monstrous recession. During that period, real estate sales volume fell from over $2 trillion/year to just under $1 trillion/year. If the same percentage of GDP decline would have happened across the whole economy, economists would have classified it as a depression. Remarkably, 379 of the Real Trends 500 companies (75%) survived this multi-year recession—most of them hanging on by their fingernails. But what’s even more remarkable is that 17 of these companies not only survived but grew substantially during this period of time. In what way did they grow? On average, these outliers increased their agent counts by 88%, increased their number of sides by 134%, and increased their per person productivity by 22% during the six-year recession. Who are these companies? How did they buck the trend so successfully? Shortly after the recession, Steve Murray, founder of Real Trends, tracked down the leaders of these organizations, studied their performance, and wrote a short e-book on how they prospered during the worst of times. This weekend, I encourage you to download Steve’s e-book (Against All Odds) and see what you can learn about growing during difficult times. The prognosticators are telling us 2023 is going to be a difficult year for the real estate industry. It’s the perfect time to be an outlier.