The Favorite or the Fool
You are not there to win the business — you are there to find out in 15 minutes whether you already have it.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 95%
Steve Shull's central discovery is that when a prospect contacts you, they have already decided or are leaning strongly in a direction — you are either the favorite (80%+ chance) or the fool (20% or less) before you say a word. Rather than preparing a presentation to convince them, you run a short pre-listing call designed purely to find out which one you are. The diagnosis rests on five reads: are they calling you specifically, do you fit their historical profile, can you make an emotional connection, is the conversation collaborative, and will they commit. Agents who run this get listings over the phone in 15 minutes without ever visiting the house — and, more importantly, stop spending seven days a week chasing business they were never going to win. The key to a great business is learning to tell the difference between possibility and probability.
Origin
Shull spent decades in real estate coaching, teaching agents to win on presentation quality. After reading Never Split the Difference he realized decisions were emotional and largely pre-made, and he built the favorite/fool read from his NFL training as a Miami Dolphins linebacker — where a weekly scouting report of opponent tendencies let you read the play before the ball was snapped.
Core principles
- 01The playing field is never level — by the time a prospect calls you, their mind is 50-100% made up.
- 02Your job in the first conversation is diagnosis, not persuasion.
- 03Focus only on high-probability opportunities: sit at the 80% table, not the 20% table.
- 04It is not a sin to lose business; it is a sin to take a long time to lose business.
- 05Possibility is not probability — the world is a Las Vegas world.
How to run it
- 1
Replace the pitch with a 15-minute pre-call
Instead of hours of prep, a two-hour appointment, and days of follow-up on pins and needles, get the prospect onto a short Zoom or phone call whose only purpose is to find out where you stand.
Pro tip Frame it as a quick call to see if you're the right fit — that framing is honest and it is exactly what you're doing.
- 2
Read their past selection behavior
Ask how they chose a provider last time: someone they knew, someone referred, a total stranger, the number one agent in the area? Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, so their answer tells you how they will choose this time.
Pro tip Phrase it curiously: 'I'm curious, in the past, how did you figure out who to work with?'
- 3
Run the five-point cold read
Score the call on five clues: (1) are they calling you or just calling agents, (2) do you fit their profile, (3) can you make an emotional connection and earn several 'that's right' responses through labeling, (4) is the conversation collaborative and open versus guarded and interrogative, (5) will they give you a commitment.
Pro tip Once you know the clues exist, they are all over the place — the reads only become visible when you start looking for them.
Watch out A guarded prospect who only asks questions and shares nothing is extracting information, not collaborating.
- 4
Ask the surgical strike question: 'Why me?'
Tell them plainly: you have a lot of options, there are solid competitors with great resumes, why me? This is the one legitimate use of 'why' — because the why is about you, so it triggers no defensiveness. You get an unguarded honest answer or none at all.
Pro tip A specific, reason-loaded answer means favorite. 'I Googled you and I'm interviewing three others' means fool.
Watch out If they throw it back — 'it's up to you to convince me' — you are the fool in the game. Do not accept the challenge.
- 5
Ask for the commitment on the call
Use a no-oriented close: 'Would it be wrong to assume that we're going to be working together?' A favorite has no reason to withhold that information from you.
Pro tip Agents using this get listings committed over the phone in 15 minutes, before ever going out to the house.
- 6
Walk away from the fool's table
If the reads say 20% or less, exit fast and reinvest the hours in prospects where you're at 80%+. If you go on ten appointments, you want to win eight, nine, or ten — not two, one, or zero.
Pro tip Agents work seven days a week precisely because they don't work five — the extra days are spent chasing business they were never going to get.
In the wild
Shull's coached agents replaced the standard hours of prep, a two-hour listing appointment, and 24-72 hours of anxious follow-up with a single 15-minute pre-listing Zoom call built around the five-point read, ending in the line 'Would it be wrong to assume that we're going to be working together?'
→ Agents began securing listing commitments over the phone in 15 minutes without ever going out to the house — unheard of in real estate — while reclaiming the days previously spent chasing 20% opportunities.
As a Dolphins linebacker, Shull memorized a scouting report each week cataloguing opponent tendencies — on the 20 yard line, brown formation, third and four, they run this play 28% of the time. Lining up, he read what was likely to happen before the ball was snapped.
→ Shull ported the read-and-react discipline directly to real estate: the clues to favorite-or-fool are always present and become obvious the moment you know what you're looking for.
Common mistakes
Assuming a level playing field
Most agents believe a better presentation and a lower commission win the business. In reality the prospect already leans one way, and even a stranger interviewing three people arrives with personal preferences that favor one before anyone opens their mouth.
Confusing possibility with probability
It is possible to win any deal, so people chase everything. Voss's analogy: your jet's instruments fail in a storm and a non-pilot offers advice — it's possible he's right, but taking it is a bad idea. Play the probabilities.
Taking too long to lose
Losing business is not the sin. Spending hours of prep, an appointment, and days of follow-up before discovering you were the fool is the sin — the loss was fixed before you started.
Is it for you?
Best for
Service professionals, agents, consultants, and agency owners who run discovery calls and pitch for engagements.
Not ideal for
Transactional, high-volume, low-touch selling where qualification cost exceeds the value of any single deal.
From the transcript
“It's not about presenting and convincing them to work with me. It's figuring out am I the favorite or am I the fool?”
“We're coaching our agents to sit at the 80% table, not the 20% table.”
“It's not a sin to lose business. It's a sin to take a long time to lose business.”
“The real reason why real estate agents work seven days a week is because they don't work five.”
“The key to building a great business is learning to tell the difference between possibility and probability.”
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