My first script came with a clipboard and a boss listening in.

The summer between my sophomore and junior years at Baylor, I sold storm windows over the phone — except I didn’t sell anything. I read a script, word for word, while my manager listened on the line. My only job was to book the appointment so an actual salesman could go close it. And I got good at it. I learned the cadence, the pauses, and the lesson every phone room teaches: every no gets you closer to a yes. I knew exactly how many calls it took to hit my number.

Years later, in Alaska, I went through a well-known scripting program twice. I learned the inflection, where to pause for effect, the close-close-close technique. I was good at that too.

I also couldn’t stand it.

It felt pushy because it was. It left no room for the thing I actually like, which is getting to know a person. If you’ve spent any time around me, you know I want to learn about you, find out what you need, and be useful. You cannot do that while you are performing lines.

Here is the part the industry skips. A script and a conversation are not two styles of the same thing. They are opposites. A script is a set of words prepared in advance and delivered the same way every time — one direction, performer to audience. A conversation is an exchange, where information moves both ways and the words come out different every time because the other person shapes them. A script is something you perform. A conversation is something you have.

And there is a numbers problem stacked on top of the trust problem. I have notebooks full of scripts. You probably do too. So do the other 1.4 million REALTORS® in this country — the same scripts, the same cadence, the same inflection, taught in the same rooms. Which means when you call, you sound exactly like the agent who called twenty minutes ago, and the one before that.

Then consumers settled the argument for us. When I started in Alaska, the national Do Not Call Registry had just arrived. The anti-spam rules followed. You cannot work a cold list now without scrubbing it first. That was not a regulatory accident. It was millions of people saying, plainly and in writing, stop reading to us.

So here is what changes. Stop asking how many calls it takes to get a yes. Start asking the better question: what am I doing this week to have real conversations?

That does not mean throwing out the math. I still know my numbers — I built Solo Agent Academy partly on understanding how many conversations it takes to reach a closing. But a conversation and a script produce different numbers, because they produce different relationships. One of them ends when the call ends. The other ends with someone who remembers you, refers you, and comes back.

And it does not mean going in unprepared. Know your market. Know your inventory. Know the three questions worth asking before you dial. Preparation is not a script — preparation is what lets you actually listen, because you are not busy remembering your next line.

Scripts were built to get through people. Conversations are built to connect with them. Only one of those earns the right to a second call.

Membership figure: National Association of REALTORS®, 2026 Member Profile.