Ryan Serhant says he has a list of all the billionaires he’s met—all 101 of them. For the real estate mogul whose brokerage, Serhant, is on track to close $6 billion in sales this year, building relationships with the ultrawealthy is his “number one job.”
Serhant transformed himself from a struggling actor who only earned about $9,000 from his first year in real estate—in 2008, the week Lehman Brothers collapsed—into one of America’s most successful brokers. He’s closed more than $15 billion in real estate over his career, built a brokerage with more than 1,100 agents across 14 states, and parlayed his work into a Netflix series, Owning Manhattan. His estimated net worth is around $40 million. And at 41, he continues to set records: In the first 35 days of 2025 alone, his brokerage, Serhant, surpassed $1 billion in closed and in-contract sales.
In a recent TikTok interview with the School of Hard Knocks, Serhant revealed the deceptively simple networking approach that has fueled his rise from struggling actor to one of the most successful real estate brokers in the world: “Every room I go into, I use the two C’s.”
The formula? “You give someone a compliment, and you find something in common.”
Relationships > transactions
Serhant doesn’t stop at the initial conversation. Once he gets someone’s contact info, he says he follows up within 10 minutes. “I send them a quick note, a quick text. So, great meeting you seven and a half minutes ago. Let’s do something great together,” he said.
Serhant says he keeps the message unread as a visual reminder, then continues to engage “until they buy or I die.” He says he tries to meet between five and 15 new people every day, and his contact list is actually “contact currency”—a network built on relationships, not just transactions.
Serhant said his $6 billion sales strategy revolves around approachability: “People hate being sold, but they love shopping with friends,” he said. “Your number one job as a salesperson is to create relationships. It’s not to sell product.”
This philosophy has driven some of his most significant deals. Earlier this year, Serhant said he sold properties in Palm Beach totaling $308 million over the phone, which he attributes entirely to “the trust in the relationship that I was able to create between a person who wanted to buy and a person who wanted to sell.”
“I don’t think I ever actually sell apartments or sell buildings,” Serhant added.
Advice for the next generation
Since launching Serhant in September 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, his firm has since become one of the fastest-growing real estate companies in the U.S. Serhant boasts a 99% agent retention rate at his brokerage.
When asked what message he would leave for younger people, Serhant shared wisdom gleaned from his billionaire clients: “Most people are in a race against time. Time is their greatest asset. The wealthiest people are in a race against moments,” he said. With this in mind, Serhant says he’d “rather regret the things I did than the things I never tried,” recommending others similarly “take the risk or lose the chance.”
You can watch Serhant’s full interview with the School of Hard Knocks below:
@theschoolofhardknocks $6 BILLION THIS YEAR 🤯 I interviewed real estate MOGUL @Ryan Serhant in New York City and I asked him how he got RICH! Since he’s met over 100 billionaires, I asked him for his best networking advice for anyone in business. I also asked him for his secret to sales since his company is going to do over $6 Billion in sales this year. Lastly, I asked him the best advice he’d give to the younger generation. #wealth #entrepreneur #financialfreedom ♬ original sound – The School of Hard Knocks