Quick Cut | Affinity Groups: The Secret to Building a Business You Actually Enjoy

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What if the secret to a bigger business wasn't better scripts, a new CRM, or another lead source — but just becoming more fully yourself? In this Quick Cut, Garrett unpacks the concept of affinity groups: a simple, organic strategy for building community, trust, and referrals around the things you already love to do.

Garrett shares real stories from agents in his organization — a fishing enthusiast who closed 7 deals from a 40-person Facebook group, a stay-at-home mom who launched a neighborhood walking group, and an agent who built a wine-and-true-crime podcast night that women actually showed up to. The secret isn't the activity. The activity is just the hook. What people are really after is community — and you get to be the one who creates it.

This episode is a challenge to stop asking "how do I get more leads?" and start asking "who are my people?" Because the agents who thrive long-term aren't the ones who perfected their personal brand — they're the ones who gave themselves permission to show up as who they actually are. Your affinity group isn't a marketing funnel. It's a front door to genuine relationship, and genuine relationship builds the kind of trust that turns into referrals for life.

Key Takeaways

• People work with people they like — and people they are like. The fastest path to a business you love may not be becoming more professional. It may be becoming more yourself.
• The affinity group concept. An affinity group is a community you build around something you already enjoy — fishing, walking, wine, bourbon, gardening, pickleball. You don't manufacture it. You just invite people into what you're already doing.
• The hook vs. the real reason. People don't show up for the activity. They show up because they want community and don't know where to find it. The activity is what gets their attention. The relationship is what keeps them.
• Real examples, real results. Jesse created "Real Estate Reel" for fellow fishing enthusiasts — just 40 members his first year, zero from his existing database, and 7 closed deals. He later added a bourbon group and landed an $850K cash purchase from it.
• This is a second leg, not a replacement. Your database and systematic follow-up come first. The affinity group is an additional, joy-filled way to grow — not a shortcut around the fundamentals.
• Alignment over performance. The industry pushes agents to disconnect from who they actually are in order to look more "professional." Garrett calls that submission, not strategy. The greater you are in alignment with who you naturally are, the greater your success will be.
• Your people are already out there. They're looking for someone familiar, someone who shares their values, someone authentic. You don't need to become mo

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Transcript

 Most agents are trying to market to everybody. Everybody with the pulse. Everybody with the house. Everybody who might someday move. But what if that's actually the problem? What if the goal isn't to appeal to everyone, but to deeply connect with your people? The people who already think like you, value what you value, enjoy what you enjoy, live the way you live. Because here's the truth. People work with people they like and people they are like in the fastest way to build a business you love may not be becoming more professional, it may be becoming more yourself. What's a faithful agent? If you listen to Last Week Quick Cut episode, you'll know that I kind of am starting to run out of Christian dad jokes. Now. If you have some. Email me Garrett. Com I'd love to hear them, but I've been doing this so long and so I decided that I would try some funny Christian pickup lines. Now, you know I don't want you to hate me. I want you to think highly of me. And I think these are funny. And if you don't, then you know your sense of humor is not as amazing as mine. That's a joke. Okay? Don't get offended. Don't turn it off. It's. It's going to be a quick episode. I promise you'll like it. So without further ado, here are some Christian pickup lines to all my single brothers out there. You are welcome. Number one. How would you like to join my purpose driven life? That's funny. So last night, and finally. So last night, I was reading in the Book of numbers. And then I realized I don't have yours. That's funny. What if you could build a business that you actually enjoy? The industry keeps trying to create a one size fits all approach to success. We talked about that last week on last week's quick cut. If you didn't listen, go listen. Generic branding. Cookie cutter social media agents copying agents. Professionalism, becoming performance. But I'm tired of this industry telling us we must disconnect our internal wiring and become someone that we've never actually been before in order to succeed. That's not alignment, my friend. That's submission. So I want to talk today about what I call affinity groups. So a couple years ago, the lead agent on my team, Jesse, who's a phenomenal agent, he loves to fish so much so that he would take his boat out fishing 2 or 3 times a week. Well, as his business was building, I told him, let's figure out a way for you to go fishing more, and we're going to use that to grow your business at the same time, because I think people work with you if they like you and they are like you. So here's what Jesse did. He created a Facebook group called Real Estate Reel, which is a play on fishing and selling homes, which was genius. And his payoff in 2022, his first year with the group, he only had 40 people in the group. None of them were in his database, and he closed a whopping seven deals just from that group. Now, what does that mean and how does this work? Well, here's what I want to encourage you with in the affinity groups. This is your opportunity. Now, this does not replace the reality that you need to have a database. You need to consistently and systematically stay in relationship with that database. That's what you need to do. First and foremost, this is the second piece that you get to build. And it's a way that I can say to you, you get to go do what you naturally love to do. Just invite people in. So let me give you some examples before I really unpack this. So first I had an agent who was a stay at home mom, and I asked her, what do you naturally do on a given day given week anyways? And so she said, well, I don't really do anything. I'm a stay at home mom and I sell ten, 15 homes a year. And I said, well, you got to do something. She said, well, I do go on a walk almost every single day. So I asked her, how many moms in your neighborhood do you think also love to go on walks and would love to join you? The whole point of this side note is not about what are you doing. It's a fact that everyone wants community and no one knows where to find it. You are going to be the centerpiece of community, and the what that you're doing is just the hook to get them to pay attention. They really want community. They don't know that. They think they want someone to go on a walk with. Okay, that's what we're talking about. They they really want community. They think they want to go fishing more. That's not what they're really after. That's just the hook. No pun intended to get them to actually show up. So she said okay. She started a group, moms on the move in the 803. Her area code. Brilliant. Every once a week they'd get together. They'd go for a walk together. Those building community. And her idea, not my idea, was a great idea. Once a month, they were going to meet at a new construction community, walk around that, and then she'd take them into one of the model homes. Great way to bridge real estate and mom life, right? Real estate and going on a walk. I had an agent who I was helping a top agent, and she said, well, Garrett, I don't have anything that I do. I said, there's absolutely something. She's a single mom. There's absolutely something that you do that's not just selling real estate. And she looked at me. She said, I don't really want to say what it is. And I said, okay, well, you can tell me. And it was in front of a group, you could tell me and then we'll decide. And so she says, Garrett. Reality is, when I have free time, I listen to real crime podcasts and I drink wine. That's what I love to do. It's how I relax. And I said, first of all, there's probably millions of women like you, right? There are millions. So what I want you to do, and this is up to you. What I want you to do is just go ask your community. Hey, once a week, once a month. I'm just going to have women over anybody that loves real crime podcasts and drinking wine. I'd love for you to come over. Right. And so she started doing it and she was getting a great response. Why? Because there's lots of people that are like you. What did they really want? Community. What did they think? They want a place to have wine and listen to real crime podcasts. They can do that anywhere. They're showing up because they want community. And here's the beauty. Your job. When you create your affinity group, it's just to show up as who you naturally are and invite people in because they will work with you if they like you and they are like you. It's just another opportunity to meet more people on common ground. That's what this is about. People trust familiarity. They're going to go to the person, not the person. That's just like, oh, I see them once in a while at the soccer field. Now maybe they're going to go to the person that's like, oh yeah, she and I both love wine and Crime podcast. Oh yeah. He and I both love to fish. Oh, yeah. She's a stay at home mom like me. And we go on walks together. They trust familiarity. Not because of manipulation, because of a shared identity. You know, it would have been foolish for us not to incorporate what Jesse was already doing and what he was already good at into his business. Because this affinity group builds trust, and trust builds relationships and relationships build referrals. So Jesse took that, sold seven homes his first year. He took it. He created a bourbon group. There's I don't know anything about bourbon, but there's a group of people, apparently, that collect fancy Bourbons, and I don't know anything about it that he I wasn't his audience, and they would come together once a month at his house. They would just sit around and they'd let everybody try these really nice Bourbons they had collected. They were building community. Right. Community is what they wanted. The hook was the bourbon. And so they showed up and he sold an $850,000 cash purchase from that group. How do you show up and invite people in to what you're already doing? The purpose of the events, the purpose of the coffee dates that we do, and the coffee meetings that we do in my database training and our systematic relationship training. The purpose of the affinity group, the whole point is to engage them in community and celebrate something they already want to do to be a friend, a real friend, and not just a real estate agent. To them, that's the point. They think of Jesse as their fishing buddy who's an agent. That's huge because you're not building a marketing funnel. You're now building community. Now contrast this with hustle culture because most agents ask, how do I get more leads? But maybe the right question for you is who are my people? Because as I said last week, the greater you are in alignment with who you naturally are, the greater success you will have. I want you to find out what you love to do, crush it and build a big business by being exceptional at being yourself. Invite people in to the life that you already enjoy living. Not into everything, but pick something. What do you love to do? What do you want to show up and do it more often? They want community, but they think they coming to play volleyball. They think they're coming to play pickleball. They think they're coming to get together and plant plants and learn how to garden. That's not why they're coming. They're coming for community. Invite them in. Build another leg to this business. Have your affinity group. Because maybe the business breakthrough you're looking for isn't hidden in another script, another CRM, another lead source, another marketing trick. Maybe it's hidden. And finally giving yourself permission to fully become yourself. Your people are already out there. They're waiting for someone who feels familiar, someone who understands them, someone who shares what they value, someone authentic. And you don't need to become more fake to grow. You may actually need to become more real. I love you, faithful agents. I'll see you next time. Hey Christian agent, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If it resonated, would you take 30s and share it with another agent who's also trying to grow their business without losing their faith, family, or peace? That's how this message spreads. And if you haven't yet, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss future episodes. I release new ones each Thursday to help you build success that actually lasts. It genuinely fires me up knowing this podcast is helping you pursue excellence to the glory of God, both at work and at home. I'll meet you back here next week for another episode of The Faithful Agent.