Clients First

Have you ever wondered what separates ordinary businesses from those that inspire fierce loyalty and exponential growth? In Clients First, Joseph and JoAnn Callaway answer that question with disarming simplicity: lasting success flows from two words—Clients First. These Arizona real estate veterans discovered, through remarkable experience and painful trial, that putting clients’ needs above personal gain unlocks what they call a “two-word miracle.”

Discovering a Simple but Revolutionary Idea

The book begins with a scene at the Mustang Library in Phoenix. A fellow real-estate agent, immaculately dressed in blue, asks JoAnn Callaway the question that haunts this entire narrative: “What’s the real reason for your fabulous success?” JoAnn answers, almost offhandedly, “We put our clients first.” But her inquisitor dismisses the response—it sounds too simple, too obvious. This moment ignites a seven-year quest for the Callaways to truly explain and codify what “Clients First” means. They eventually realize it is not a slogan or customer-service tactic but a profound way of living and doing business.

As they recount their journey—from struggling newcomers to selling more than $250 million in one year—the authors revisit pivotal moments: their late-night decision to undo a lucrative real estate deal that wasn’t right for their clients; the contagious energy that spread through their team; and their eventual discovery of the three keys that make Clients First possible—honesty, competence, and caring.

Why It Matters Beyond Real Estate

Joseph and JoAnn insist that this is not simply a manual for real estate success. They describe how the principle of Clients First applies universally—to CEOs, doctors, salespeople, teachers, and even parents. In their telling, Clients First is a transformational philosophy that alters relationships, team dynamics, and even one’s sense of purpose. Like Stephen Covey’s notion of serving others to achieve true leadership or Dale Carnegie’s emphasis on empathy in How to Win Friends and Influence People, the Callaways argue that when your focus shifts outward—toward clients, colleagues, and community—success naturally follows.

They remind readers that many people chase complex “secrets”: marketing strategies, referral hacks, pyramid models. But most neglect the very heart of their profession—the person they serve. The truth, they argue, is uncomfortable yet freeing: the customer’s wellbeing must always come before your paycheck, reputation, or convenience. The paradox is that doing so inevitably generates both moral and material rewards.

The Three Keys: Unlocking the Miracle

After years of reflection and testing, the Callaways distill the practical essence of Clients First into three interlocking keys:

• Honesty: Tell clients what they need to hear, not what they want to hear—especially when it costs you. Their defining example is rejecting a deal that wasn’t in a client’s best interest, even though they desperately needed the commission. Honesty liberates both client and agent from fear and mistrust.
• Competence: Learn enough to serve your clients exceptionally well. Their obsession with mastery turned Those Callaways into the top-selling Arizona team. Like Peter Drucker’s view of professionalism, competence isn’t just knowing—it’s caring enough to get it right.
• Caring: Treat each client’s goals as your own. Caring creates connection, loyalty, and energy that marketing money can’t buy.

When these keys are combined, the authors describe a powerful “synergy,” a multiplication effect where one plus one plus one equals far more than three. Honesty builds trust; competence builds confidence; caring builds lasting loyalty—the result is effortless growth.

Surviving the Crash and Proving the Principle

The second half of the book becomes a dramatic business case study. During the 2007–2008 real-estate crash, when most competitors collapsed, Those Callaways not only survived but thrived—with revenues dropping only 20 percent in a market down 70 percent. Why? Because their clients stayed loyal. They told the truth about pricing, endured painful decisions, and cared through chaos. As JoAnn puts it, “We owed it to our clients.” This period becomes empirical proof that Clients First works—even under pressure.

A Path to Transformation

Finally, the Callaways offer a step-by-step Path to Clients First: make the commitment, speak it aloud, keep it daily, get yourself out of the way, set your burdens down, trust others, trust the truth, love the work, love people, see through others’ eyes, and give to get. Each step deepens the transformation from “me-centered” to “client-centered,” echoing servant leadership principles from authors like Ken Blanchard and Simon Sinek.

In essence, Clients First transforms the reader’s relationship with success itself. You stop chasing techniques and start cultivating integrity. You measure wealth not by money, but by the trust you earn and the lives you help. It’s a simple, timeless promise: when you put others first, everything else follows.

Joseph and JoAnn Callaway’s first key, honesty, began on a dark, stormy night in Phoenix in 1997. Facing two families who wanted incompatible deals—the Smiths selling and the Browns buying—they realized the only right move was to undo both transactions. They risked losing two commissions, but JoAnn declared they must “keep the client” by doing what was best for them. That decision changed everything. The Callaways discovered that honesty with clients is not merely moral—it’s magnetic.

Honesty as Liberation

Before this moment, they often rationalized small compromises, like telling people what they wanted to hear or skipping over minor issues in a deal. They believed themselves ethical but not transformative. That night, honesty became a liberating force. No longer juggling half-truths, they slept better, felt stronger, and gained courage. The truth freed them from anxiety and endless second-guessing. Their clients felt the same—the Smiths avoided underselling their home; the Browns found a better property. Everyone prospered from the truth.

“When you have only the truth, you have no moral dilemmas.”

This became the Callaways’ mantra, transforming every interaction from negotiation to advertising into an ethical compass.

Truth Builds Trust and Fairness

The Callaways show that honesty creates fairness and stability. Fairness invites clients to respond in kind, transforming relationships from transactional to collaborative. Buyers and sellers trusted the Callaways because they felt seen and respected. The couple rarely lost clients or suffered lawsuits—an industry rarity. They called honesty “the best insurance you can buy.” (Compare this mindset to Jim Collins’s concept of Level 5 Leadership: humility with fierce moral purpose.)

Embracing Fear and Risk

Honesty isn’t easy—it invites risk. What if clients walk away? What if you lose money? But the Callaways discovered that people intuit truth. When they admitted mistakes or advised against deals, clients stayed anyway. Truth triggered loyalty. Later, this radical transparency saved them when a bank-client error could have cost their business. JoAnn confessed immediately, offered to pay the cost, and instead earned the manager’s admiration and future referrals. She was rewarded for risking authenticity.

Applied Beyond Real Estate

Honesty as a principle applies far outside real estate. In any career—consulting, sales, leadership—truth reveals competence and respect. People recognize genuine intent instinctively. The Callaways’ story echoes Warren Buffett’s adage: “Honesty is a very expensive gift; don't expect it from cheap people.” But when you give it freely, you attract loyalty, prosperity, and peace. The lesson is simple: stop managing impressions and start being transparent. Clients, colleagues, and even competitors will respond with confidence. Honesty doesn’t just feel good—it performs.

The second key, competence, turns sincerity into skill. The Callaways learned early that good intentions without mastery mean failure. Their first contract collapsed because they misunderstood terms—marking every cost “seller pays.” Mortified, they vowed never to let ignorance embarrass them again. That commitment to competence transformed them from well-meaning novices into Arizona’s leading real estate team.

Competence as Continuous Learning

Competence begins with humility—the willingness to admit what you don’t know. Joseph stayed up until 2 a.m. studying listings; JoAnn attended seminars, conventions, and mastermind lunches. Their motto became “Nothing unreturned.” Every call was answered, every inspection handled meticulously. This practice mirrors Anders Ericsson’s concept of “deliberate practice”—focused improvement that separates amateurs from professionals.

Building Systems for Excellence

Competence also fueled innovation. Those Callaways created a team model called “Super Service.” Instead of overloading one agent with everything, thirty licensed specialists handled specific steps—from staging to photography to escrow. Each learned their role deeply, driven by one instruction: Put the Client First. This specialization magnified expertise, consistency, and care. Like Toyota’s lean production system, it built quality through shared standards rather than hierarchy.

Competence and Compassion

What makes competence powerful is motive. It’s not knowledge for ego’s sake—it’s mastery to better serve. The Callaways’ assistants, such as Marta, mirrored this ethos. When asked what she thought of redoing a deal, she simply said, “I’m glad—it wasn’t best for either of them.” Competence became contagious, shaping a culture of conscientious expertise. Their clients noticed. People trusted their advice as both informed and sincere, creating loyalty that no advertisement could match.

Becoming the Best

Competence ultimately means striving for excellence, not perfection. JoAnn’s refrain, “We should be the best,” captured this spirit. Their pursuit led to innovation, reputation, and resilience when markets shifted. During the crash, this competence built credibility with lenders and clients alike. Like Daniel Pink’s Drive, which defines mastery as one of three human motivators, competence satisfies the deep need to improve. It’s a moral as much as professional pursuit—serve better because you can, learn because you care.

After honesty and competence, caring completes the transformation. Caring is where motivation shifts from self-interest to service. For Joseph and JoAnn, the revelation came when they stopped equating every conversation with commissions and began focusing on others’ dreams. To care, they realized, meant becoming the client—sharing goals, fears, and hopes as if they were their own.

Defining True Care

Initially, like most professionals, the Callaways saw caring as empathy or sympathy—feeling bad when clients suffered or happy when they succeeded. But “Clients First” redefined caring as commitment. The measure of care became action: doing the hard things for someone else’s peace of mind. Caring meant asking more questions, understanding deeper motives, and sometimes protecting clients from themselves. They became “obsessed with the client,” not the closing.

Caring Through Crisis

When the 2007–2008 crash hit, caring revealed its power. Thousands of agents jumped ship, abandoning unsold listings. Those Callaways stayed. JoAnn called every seller weekly, advised price reductions honestly, and assured anxious homeowners they weren’t alone. Their caring transformed despair into trust. Many clients stayed loyal through multiple listing extensions and even returned years later, saying, “We couldn’t find anyone who worked like you do.” That is the spiritual dividend of care—it binds people beyond contracts.

Caring Creates Community

Caring also spreads inward. Within the Callaways’ office, team members treated each other with the same principle—putting teammates first. Stuart, who installed lockboxes, saw his job as service, not labor. “I save deals because clients love me,” he declared, turning technical work into human connection. Caring became their organizational DNA, strengthening morale and competence together. It’s unity through empathy.

Beyond Business

Caring’s ripple extends beyond commerce. The Callaways’ donation to Habitat for Humanity—building a home in honor of their clients—epitomizes “giving to get.” That act later attracted unexpected opportunities, proving karma’s real-world math. Caring made wealth multidimensional: joy, purpose, reputation, and human connection. As JoAnn says, “Some clients may move away, but the relationship endures.” Caring ensures success is sustainable and personal. In truth, it’s love turned into leadership.

The Callaways observed that honesty, competence, and caring each generate power—but combined, they create synergy. This alchemy turns ethical principles into unstoppable growth. When all three keys align, business becomes effortless, relationships deepen, and work feels joyful rather than burdensome.

Synergy in Action

Those Callaways’ marriage mirrors this fusion. JoAnn excels with people; Joseph excels with systems. Together, they embody “one plus one equals three.” Like electricity, synergy amplifies output beyond individual energy. Clients feel it instantly—they intuit honesty, expertise, and genuine care radiating at full volume (“a jillion megawatts,” as Joseph jokes). This resonance attracts referrals effortlessly. Their phone never stopped ringing, even when they stopped asking for business.

Why Synergy Matters

Synergy creates ease. When truth, skill, and care coexist, actions align naturally with values. There’s no manipulation, no hard sell, no need for hype or stress. Work becomes an expression of integrity. This mirrors Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “flow”—effortless focus where productivity and joy merge. The Callaways describe their post-transformation life as “one long series of enjoyable exchanges with people we help.”

The Science of Influence

Clients perceive combined authenticity as rare. According to the authors, synergy works almost like energy physics—honesty amplifies competence, competence legitimizes caring, and caring humanizes the other two. Together, they form an electromagnetic field that draws clients like a beacon. The authors compare it to the one good movie script glowing among thousands of bad ones—it will be found, even in darkness. Companies and individuals that embody all three keys stand out instinctively.

The Lesson of Integration

Synergy demands wholeness. Partial application fails. “Remove one leg from a three-legged stool,” Joseph writes, “and all you have left is kindling.” Honesty without skill breeds naïveté; skill without care creates cold professionalism; care without truth turns sentimental and ineffective. Balance them, and the result multiplies. The Callaways warn readers not to fragment Clients First into slogans or trainings—it must be lived daily as a unified principle.

Synergy, finally, makes work meaningful. It evolves success from “making deals” to “lifting people.” It’s a model of sustainable excellence—what Jim Collins calls “Built to Last.” When all three keys fuse, Clients First shifts from business philosophy to spiritual practice, creating peace, prosperity, and impact.

One of the book’s most powerful lessons is to never give up on a client. Many coaches advise firing difficult customers—the 20 percent who create 80 percent of problems (the Pareto Principle). The Callaways reject that approach completely. They believe every person deserves care, even the cranky, fearful, or unprofitable ones. To practice Clients First is to serve universally—not selectively.

Serving the Emotional Client

Residential resale is emotional. Homes symbolize identity and safety; moving can trigger grief or panic. The Callaways felt this daily but never walked away. They handled 150 listings and 40 escrows at a time, absorbing their clients’ stress so others didn’t have to. “We never fired anyone,” Joseph insists. “We would have missed opportunities to help those in need.” This compassion built their reputation—and what they call “deposits in the karma bank.”

Turning Pain into Power

Their philosophy echoes Churchill’s wartime ethos: “Never, never, never give up.” Each difficult client became an exercise in empathy. They noticed that one hard-earned success story from a tough case spread faster than praise from a hundred easy ones. Serving the distressed amplified their impact exponentially. Like Viktor Frankl’s notion that meaning emerges through suffering, Clients First transforms frustration into growth.

Rejecting Cynical Models

JoAnn and Joseph also critique business gurus who preach elimination—bottom 10 percent rules, suppressive personality concepts, or sociopath theories. While these may work for internal management, they violate Clients First’s universality. You serve all humans, they argue, not just profitable ones. The paradox: unconditional service often yields greater profit because compassion creates word-of-mouth and long-term loyalty.

Faith, Karma, and Gratitude

The Callaways liken their results to karma: serving with care deposits goodwill that compounds with time. Difficult cases taught them patience, perspective, and grace. Many of those challenging clients later returned, moved, or referred friends. The message resonates beyond business. Whether you lead, teach, or counsel, practicing unconditional commitment shapes your legacy. The goal of Clients First is not convenience—it’s character. In enduring others, you refine yourself.

To bridge principle and practice, the Callaways outline eleven steps—a path anyone can walk toward a Clients First life. It begins with commitment and culminates in giving to get. Each step deepens humility, service, and self-awareness.

Steps 1–3: Commitment in Action

The first three steps—make, speak, and keep the commitment—create foundation. Saying “yes” to Clients First must be intentional, not casual. Speaking the promise aloud anchors it in accountability; keeping it requires vigilance, daily renewal, and resilience after mistakes. The Callaways compare it to diets or recovery programs—consistency sustains transformation.

Steps 4–6: Surrendering Control

Next comes ego management—get yourself out of the way. Joseph uses the elephant metaphor: your ego is a huge animal; unless tethered, it will destroy your village. Combine humility with confidence, free yourself from arrogance, and learn to delegate. Step five, set the monkey down, means letting go of worries and burdens—stopping the self-imposed martyrdom. Step six, put your faith in others, embraces trust and teamwork. Those Callaways multiplied impact by empowering others; faith created community.

Steps 7–9: Living the Virtues

Turning inward, step seven urges you to trust the truth. Lies and cover-ups corrode peace; honesty restores integrity. JoAnn’s confession to a bank manager proves how courage builds reputational capital. Step eight—let the work be the reward—draws from a hospital-sanitizing story where Joseph found joy in diligence, echoing Confucius’s advice to “love what you do.” Step nine—learn to like people—shifts empathy into curiosity: ask questions, discover stories, and embrace diversity.

Steps 10–11: Expanding Perspective and Generosity

Step ten—turn it around—invites you to see through others’ eyes, from customer to teammate to family. This perspective corrects self-centeredness. Step eleven—give to get—completes the cycle: generosity sustains prosperity. Their Habitat for Humanity gift returned blessings far beyond expectation. This final step embodies the book’s moral: you can’t give too much. What you share multiplies.

Walking the Path Daily

Together, these steps form a lifelong journey, not a checklist. The Callaways remind readers that Clients First is not a department or campaign—it’s a mindset. Transformation begins with conviction but thrives with discipline. They challenge readers to live in the moment, serve others one at a time, and let each day reaffirm faith in honesty, competence, and care. Like a pilgrimage, the reward is both the travel and the awakening it brings.