Some Valuer:
"I constantly get ghosted by my prospective vendors when I’m chasing the listing after the free val."
Same Valuer above :
Never touting other agents' stock or calling lost listings and building relationships with the vendor nor doing vendor Management to get the price down on their overvalued old listings or ringing every previous sale from the last 7 years every 3 months to tell the homeowner where the market is.
If your focus is on the transaction, you will see yourself struggle and ultimately fail. Great Estate Agents focus on building relationships and harvesting the rewards from those relationships.