Tom Ferry outlines three year-end moves: clear physical and mental clutter, reach out to key contacts before mid-December to cut through holiday noise, and plan a multi-channel thank you campaign for early 2026 hitting referrers, clients, partners, and your team.
So I was just asked this question. Hey, Tom, what are the three most important things I should do between now and the end of the year? And I literally wrote them out for you. Number one, clear out all the old stuff to make room for new stuff, for new growth, new excitement in 2026. So that could mean, like, take all the clothes out of your closet you never wear anymore and donate them to someone that actually would. It could mean clean up your office as I'm looking at my studio here. You know what I mean? You got to, like, you got to make room for the new. So you got to clear out the old tabula raza. My mentor, Mike Vance would say, Greek for like, a clean slate, a fresh start, a new beginning. That's number one. Number two, I would tell you you should call, text, communicate, send videos to everyone that matters to you between now and I would literally try and get this done before, like, I don't know, the 12th, the 15th. Right. Because if you start doing that stuff, really in the middle of all the holidays, like when the holiday bustle's going to. You get lost in the noise. So if you're going to send a gift to all your past clients, send it now. Right? If you're going to call and just say, thank you, I appreciate you. Like, you know, just thanks for being in my world. Do it now before the hustle and bustle comes. And then everybody's overwhelmed by it and you kind of miss, I don't know, the memory of it. They'll miss the memory of it. And number three, this could be the most important one. So buckle up, my friend. I want you to put together your thank you campaign for the first two months of 2026. Let me explain. I want you to put together a mailer. All these are going to be a direct mail piece, an email, it's going to be a video, it's going to be a social post. Like, you're going to publish all these everywhere. The first one is thank you to your past clients and sphere and agent to agent referrals for the referrals you got in 2025. So everybody gets it. But you're thanking your past clients, your friends, your family, your agent agent referrals. And if you're really smart, because I've seen other great agents do this, publish the list of all the people that referred you like. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Brendan. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. Thank. Thanks. Thank. Thanks. Thanks. I think that'd be a really good piece. So what Are you saying, like, people refer me business? And I'm grateful for that. The number two piece would be thank you to my clients who transacted with me in 2025. And this you're going to want to do a mailer that, I don't know, maybe you open it up and it just says, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And when I open it up, it's a map of all the dots, all the transactions. And over here could be the thumbnail photo of every house that you transacted with. And on the back, it's a list of testimonials from those customers. And again, it's not a CTA piece. It's not a call to action. It's just thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Number three on my list is a thank you to your trusted partners. And I think this is where you got to give a huge shout out to your loan officer, to your title exec, to your escrow officer or your attorney, right? To your handyman, to your runner, to all the people that support you in supporting your clients, right? And what a cool thing to do to like, give them some notoriety. Maybe put a QR code to follow each of them on Instagram or at least give their cell phone or email and say, if you need any of these services, these are my trusted advisors and they're my peeps, right? I trust them. Here's my loan officer. You gotta call her. Here's my title. He's the best, right? Like, it's just a great thing to do. And then the last one, number four, and again, no order, just on my list. And is to thank your team, to thank your mastermind partners, to thank your community, and to thank your coach. I think putting those four pieces out just with an expression, as we know 2026 is going to be better. We know that the drought we've been in, every drought ends in recovery. I think we start with a lot of gratitude and appreciation for the people that matter most, the people that helped you, the people in your business. So with that said, thank you and happy Monday.
