The anniversary call gets skipped because it has no purpose beyond saying hello, and a call with no reason feels like begging. The second one has a reason attached, and it is the reason a past client would move at all.
The coach opens with a number of his own: he says only 5 percent of agents call a client on their one-year home anniversary. His fix is to make the note in the CRM the day you close, on both sides of the transaction, because sellers like hearing it too.
The one-year call comes with something in hand. He suggests running an updated home valuation first and opening with it — you have already done the work, and you can offer the same to anyone they know, with no obligation to sell.
The two-year call is the one with a real reason behind it. He scripts it as the same valuation update plus: "did you know now if you wanted to move up into your next home, if you sell this home, you can do so capital gains-free because of the capital gains exclusion?" In most cases, he says, the second year is when that becomes available.
He does not leave the client with the tax claim alone. The script continues by offering to send information from the IRS, and points them to their accountant as well — then frames it as how a lot of people climb the housing ladder toward the home they actually want.
“did you know now if you wanted to move up into your next home, if you sell this home, you can do so capital gains-free because of the capital gains exclusion?”
An anniversary call without a reason is a check-in, and check-ins get a polite reply and nothing else. The two-year call has news in it, which is the whole difference: you are not asking how they are, you are telling them something about their own money that they probably do not know.
Keep the deferral in the script exactly as it is. You are pointing at a rule and handing them the IRS page and their accountant, not giving tax advice, and that is also what makes the call credible rather than salesy.