Real Estate Agents Face a 'Mirror Problem': Why Self-Perception and Messaging Matter More Than Ever

There is a line that Courtney Poulos, Founder of SERHANT. CA and Team Lead of ACME | SERHANT. in Los Angeles, used to describe the state of her profession: “We have a mirror problem.” She is not talking about vanity. She is talking about how real estate agents are perceived, and how much responsibility the industry carries for that perception.

“A lot of people see real estate agents as overpaid paper pushers who don’t earn what they make,” she says. “And while the class action lawsuits and the public relations battles are largely driven by forces outside agent control, the way we show up, how we communicate, how we position ourselves, that is on us.”

Poulos has spent the past year in Harvard University’s Advanced Management Development Program (AMDP) at the Graduate School of Design, working alongside urban planners, commercial developers, and stadium builders from around the world. She graduates in July. The experience sharpened something she had long observed from the floor of the Los Angeles market.

“The only thing that is really missing,” she says, “is real estate agents considering themselves as senior-level executives in a business. We are not taken as seriously as we ought to be, like a lawyer. And we are still contending with a degradation of our perceived value, even at the senior level.” She cites a recent example: a client chose to rent their property rather than give the sales process three months, and attempted to negotiate her commission down to a figure that would not have covered the marketing she had already spent on the listing. “That is the level of disrespect I am talking about,” she says.

One of the standout sessions in her AMDP coursework was led by Carmine Gallo, who has trained executives globally on communication and presentation. The lesson that stayed with her was about audience-centric messaging: the discipline of starting with what matters to the person you are trying to reach, rather than what makes you look credible to your peers.

“Real estate agents fall into the trap of marketing to each other,” Poulos says. “We post about our sales for other agents to see. We compete on metrics that our clients don’t actually care about. And we miss the opportunity to explain, in plain terms, what we actually do and why it matters.” The core of the work, she argues, is not that different from what executives in any complex industry do: data analysis, risk management, negotiation under pressure, sustained client relationships across long timeframes. “We protect our clients. We navigate. We clarify. That is the message. And most agents are not saying it.”

Poulos is translating these ideas into something concrete. She is developing a series of workshops and seminars, with the first session launching in Orlando this week, open to agents at all brokerages. The goal is to help agents build messaging that holds up with clients, with the press, and with regulators, and to rebuild public trust in a profession that has taken a significant reputational hit in recent years.

“If what we can clarify for the public is that we are not overpaid, that we are experts, and that our public relations battles are not actually about whether we deserve to be paid, then we start to reverse the narrative,” she says. “And the housing market is a place where there is a lot of good stuff going on, despite the headlines. It is the moment for something optimistic.”