How Grit and Straight Talk Build a Lasting Business

In a recent episode of The One Key Thing, I sat down with my friend Jen Carstensen, a Memphis team leader who’s been selling since 2008 and has built her business the hard way.

I asked her the same question I ask every guest: What’s the one key thing an agent needs to move the needle right now?

Her answer was grit, and the longer we talked, the clearer it became that grit and consistency are really the same muscle.

Grit is doing the hard thing, then doing it again. Jen came up in the 2008 market, working subdivisions where foreclosed families had left Christmas presents on the lawn, and what carried her through was a refusal to flinch when everyone else was calling it doomsday. That’s the version of grit I want agents to hear: not savagery, but the willingness to stay consistent when it would be easier to quit. We both built our businesses on expireds and for-sale-by-owners, and we both admitted the same thing: after a combined four decades in this business, we still don’t love picking up the phone to call them. The difference is we do it anyway.

Consistency beats talent every time. I’d take a consistent agent over a merely skilled one any day, and Jen feels the same. A good team runs a playbook, not a mood. Jen’s follow-up isn’t “I call when I feel like it.” It’s a system, and one counterintuitive piece of it stuck with me.

She doesn’t race to call an expired the first day. She sends a light, low-pressure text, then calls a few days later once the seller has calmed down, which has quietly outperformed the usual 8 a.m. scramble. The point isn’t her exact method. It’s that she has one and runs it the same way every time.

Tell clients the truth, even when it’s hard. The agents who survive this market aren’t the yes-people. Sellers don’t want flattery; they want to hear what they need to hear, backed by data. Jen puts it plainly, and I say it to my own team constantly: you are the lead duck, and your clients line up behind you only if you’ve shown them you’ll shoot straight and stay calm when the transaction gets messy. Weakness reads as a lack of confidence. Direct, honest leadership earns the trust that makes everything else easier.

Jen and I covered far more than I can fit here, from managing client chaos to why your ego is often the real problem on a hard deal.

Watch the full conversation above for the rest of what Jen shared.

00:00 — Meet Jen

01:05 — The One Key Thing

02:42 — Grit in Action

06:31 — Turning Negative to Positive

07:28 — Follow-Up System

10:14 — Consistency Matters

13:00 — Truth Over Comfort

21:37 — No Need to be Everyone

If you’re an agent ready to build this kind of business, I’d love to help. Reach me at 406-540-8211, email shonna@shonnakey.com, or visit shonnakey.com. The hard things are where your business gets made, so go do one today.