I’ve been thinking about this issue for a full year now. When we put out our Real Data publication in 2019, I heard from many of you about how the lists were stacked with teams, and how solo agents didn’t have a chance at being featured as a top producer.

While true, it’s also an inevitable reaction to any ranking (see my last column for thoughts on that). As editors and publishers, we’ve grown to expect it; I used to joke at my last job that every time we published our 30 Under 30 awards, I’d get a call from an agent who wanted to know why we didn’t have an 80 Over 80 list. But these readers have a valid point about top producer lists: How can solo practitioners stand out against a growing crowd of mega-teams?

This issue contains many answers to that question. The brokers we spoke to for our feature on solo top producers have varying strategies for tackling the multitude of tasks involved in being a top-notch real estate professional, but one element ties them together in my mind: an absolute dedication to personal service.

Since I’ve been obsessing over this issue for some 12 months, it’d better be good! If you find fault (or hey, I’d take praise, too) with anything in these pages, I hope you’ll reach out to me at meg.white@agentpublishing.com. My team members don’t open my emails, so you’ll get me every time.