How to Build Predictable Referrals and Steady Clients as a TC

Sam Kitchen didn’t follow a straight line into transaction coordination. She came up through title and escrow, managed a day spa, did door-to-door sales, and spent five years running operations for a real estate team — before finally launching Elite Transaction Management three years ago in North Idaho. Today, she runs a small but highly systematized firm with her business partner Beverly, serving 80-plus clients across Idaho and Washington.

Her growth hasn’t come from aggressive marketing. It’s come from doing the job well, customizing her service for every agent, and building real relationships. Here’s what she’s learned about turning first-time clients into long-term ones — and how to grow without losing yourself in the process.

1. Get Visible Before You Market

When Sam launched ETM, she didn’t have a marketing strategy — she had something better: proximity. She rented an office space in the Keller Williams Realty office, just three doors down from the office where she’d spent five years as an operations manager. Agents already knew her face and her work ethic. They’d walk past, see her light on, and come knock.

“Getting started as a TC without any name in the industry, without having your face next to a bunch of realtors, would be really challenging,” she says. “They could see that I’m showing up every day from eight to five. That spoke consistency and work ethic.”

The practical takeaway:

• If you’re just starting out, find a way to be physically present near agents — whether that’s renting a desk at a brokerage, attending office meetings, or joining a local real estate association.
• Being licensed (even if you don’t practice sales) can give you access to brokerage spaces and builds instant credibility with agents.
• Word of mouth is still, in Sam’s words, “by far our greatest ally.” A job well done is the most powerful marketing you have.

2. Start Broad, Then Learn One Brokerage at a Time

New TCs are often told to niche down immediately. Sam’s advice is more nuanced: niching too early, before you have a stable client base, can limit your income before you’ve had a chance to get off the ground.

Instead, she recommends learning one brokerage thoroughly before expanding. Every brokerage has its own compliance system, its own paperwork requirements, and its own way of handling industry changes like the NAR settlement. Trying to master several at once while building a business is a recipe for mistakes.

ETM has organically concentrated around eXp Realty — where Sam is currently licensed  — because the relationships there are strongest. But she hasn’t closed the door on other brokerages, and she advises new TCs to stay open if your state laws allow you to while they build volume.

The practical takeaway:

• When starting out, pursue agents doing a solid book of business regardless of brokerage — you need the volume.
• Get fluent in one brokerage’s compliance system before adding another.
• As relationships deepen in one community, natural niching will happen on its own.

3. Customize Everything — Then Make It Automatic

The single biggest factor in Sam’s client retention is customization. Every agent who works with ETM gets their own tailored checklists, their own email templates, and their own standard operating procedures — all housed in Paperless Pipeline and set to auto-populate.

“The more that you can cater to their business, the more exciting it is for them to use you — and the more painful it is for them to switch to someone else,” she says. Not because clients are locked in, but because a genuinely customized service is hard to replicate.

Examples of how ETM customizes for each agent:

• Review request emails: some agents want ETM to send a review link at closing; others prefer to make that personal touch themselves.
• Vendor recommendation emails: each agent can have their own template with their preferred home inspectors, home warranty providers, and other vendors.
• Listing coordination: whether an agent does in-person or virtual listings, uses a specific photographer, or has a particular sign installation process — it’s all documented and built into their workflow.
• Even single-item checklists count: one auto-populating reminder specific to one agent is worth building.

With 80-plus clients and a couple hundred checklist templates, ETM’s system sounds complex — but the automation means it doesn’t feel that way day to day. When an agent’s needs change (they build a team, change their process, update their vendors), it’s easy to adjust their specific setup without touching anyone else’s.

4. Invest in a Real Onboarding Process

For the first couple of years, ETM’s onboarding was informal: here are our standard practices, let us know if you need anything customized. It worked — but it also left a lot of assumptions on the table about what agents expected and what ETM could actually deliver.

Now, onboarding is a structured, paid engagement that takes two to three days of work. It starts with a one-hour meeting and covers the agent’s full business: how they handle listings, how they prefer to communicate, what paperwork they use, and what they’ve been doing manually that ETM can take over.

What a thorough onboarding accomplishes:

• Sets clear expectations on both sides — no assumptions about what the agent knows or how they’ve worked before.
• Helps build out the agent’s eSign contract templates so ETM consistently receives the right paperwork from day one.
• Walks the agent through all intake forms — what to send, when to send it, and when to CC the TC.
• Demonstrates the email templates ETM will use, so agents aren’t surprised by what their clients receive.

Sam is candid that onboarding is still a work in progress — ETM is developing a take-home folder with key information and tools for agents to reference in the field. But even in its current form, the process signals professionalism and builds trust early: agents can see that the systems are real and dialed in.

5. Set Boundaries Before You Need Them

One of the most important distinctions Sam draws — and one she wishes she’d understood earlier — is the difference between a personal assistant and an independent transaction coordinator. They’re not the same job, and they carry different legal responsibilities and liabilities.

Some agents genuinely need a personal assistant. They want someone available across all hours, handling deeply personal logistics, embedded in their day-to-day. An independent TC operates differently: with defined scope, clear communication boundaries, and appropriate separation of responsibilities.

“If you don’t draw those boundaries, you will achieve burnout,” Sam says. “Achieve it. You’ve earned it. And not because realtors mean to — they have demanding careers too. But if you let it be demanding, it will be.”

Practical boundary-setting tips:

• Define your working hours and communicate them to every new agent during onboarding — not after the first time they call at 9 p.m.
• Be clear about preferred communication channels. Do you want texts? Email only? Define it.
• Understand which tasks fall within TC scope and which cross into licensed agent duties — and hold that line.
• Some agent relationships won’t survive your boundaries. That’s okay. The ones that do are usually the best long-term clients.

6. Know When to Bring in Help

Sam describes herself as “not necessarily entrepreneurial spirited” — and she’s made peace with that. She’s good at the work. She loves doing the work. Growing the business is a different skill set, and she’s learned to hire for it rather than force it.

Her business partner Beverly brought 30-plus years of escrow experience and an established reputation in the community — which expanded ETM’s credibility and capabilities overnight. Their business development specialist Jolene Barrington handles social media, partnership outreach, client appreciation, and strategic planning. Sam gets to focus on the transactions.

“Having her has been an injection of joy in the business,” Sam says of Jolene. “She finds the metrics really exciting. I love when she reports on it because she just glows.”

Signs it might be time to bring someone in:

• You’re capping your client intake to stay sane — but you don’t actually want to stop growing.
• Business development tasks (social media, outreach, onboarding systems) keep getting pushed because the transaction work always comes first.
• You have a life event coming up — maternity leave, a move, a health issue — and no plan for coverage.

7. Stay Top of Mind — Even When There’s No Transaction

Long-term client relationships don’t maintain themselves. Sam’s team has made it a habit to reach out to high-producing clients during quiet stretches — not to pitch anything, just to check in and ask if there’s anything ETM can do to support their business.

Jolene also sends thank-you cards and welcome notes to new clients. Small gestures, but they signal that ETM sees agents as people, not just transaction sources.

ETM is also building out value-add offerings for its agent community — like a partnership with CE Shop that gives agents discounts on continuing education online. These extras reinforce the relationship between transactions and give agents another reason to stay connected.

Quick Reference: Sam’s Priorities for Building a Steady Client Base

• Get visible first. Be physically present where agents work before investing in marketing.
• Do the job well. Word of mouth is still the most reliable growth engine.
• Learn one brokerage thoroughly. Start broad for volume, then deepen expertise in one compliance system before expanding.
• Build customized systems for each agent. The more tailored the experience, the harder you are to replace.
• Invest in onboarding. A structured process sets expectations, builds trust, and prevents problems down the road.
• Set your boundaries in onboarding, not after burnout. Agents will work within whatever structure you establish.
• Know your limits. Hire for the skills you don’t have rather than stretching yourself thin.
• Stay in touch between transactions. A check-in email or thank-you card goes a long way.

The Bottom Line

Steady clients don’t come from the best marketing strategy. They come from doing excellent work, making each agent feel like your systems were built specifically for them, and showing up consistently — even when there’s no transaction on the table. Sam built ETM on that foundation, and the business has grown almost entirely because of it.

If you’re ready to take the next step, we’ve put together a short TC Business Growth Series that walks through the systems and workflows that support steady, sustainable growth. It’s simple, practical, and built around real-world workflows. You can explore it here: https://getpaperlesspipeline.com/tc-business-growth-series.