How Alexis Scott gets 75 to 85% of her listings by booking expired follow-up calls

Alexis Scott00:00

Make your calls. Make your calls and figure the rest out later. Do not try to learn everything, right? Do not sit here and read all these books and listen to all these videos. Do that, but actually take action, make your calls, and make sure that you are following up with those calls. If you are not setting listing appointments on the initial call, set a follow-up call, and I promise you, those follow-up calls that you scheduled and set will turn into signed listings. Promise you.

Aaron Wittenstein01:03

What’s going on everybody? It’s me, it’s Aaron Wittenstein, and I would like to welcome you to Vulcan7 Roadmap. This is where we teach you how to take two, three, four, just a lot of listings a month, okay? And we speak with agents across the country. We’ve actually got someone here who I think is pretty special, okay, I think is pretty awesome. Alexis Scott from wonderful New Orleans, Louisiana. How you doing, Alexis?

Alexis Scott01:26

I’m good. How are you?

Aaron Wittenstein01:26

I’m doing well. I’m doing well. Thank you for asking. So how long have you been selling real estate for?

Alexis Scott01:36

I have been selling real estate for just under two years. It will be two years in May of 2024.

Aaron Wittenstein01:42

Okay. So you’ve been doing this for less than two years, and from what I hear, you’re doing pretty well for yourself. Like, what did you do today? Can you tell everybody what you did today?

Alexis Scott01:54

Well, I got a listing agreement signed, so that’s awesome.

Aaron Wittenstein01:58

And tell them a little bit about how that came about.

Alexis Scott02:04

Well, from calling expireds. So that’s primarily what I focus on. I love expireds. As Jim from Take 52 Group says, expireds are the lowest hanging fruit, right? They wanted to sell, but they didn’t sell for whatever reason. And me being a newer agent, it’s the easiest thing for me to sell because you call them, and pretty much all the information is there. You just have to price it differently or market it differently.

Aaron Wittenstein02:33

Okay, hold on. Wait a second. Wait. I wanna just retract… Not retract. That’s not the right word. I just wanna rehash what you just said. Did you say expireds and easy in the same sentence? Did I hear that correctly?

Alexis Scott02:54

They’re easy to me. I know that they’re not easy in general, but if you make enough expired calls and you land your scripts and you handle those objections that come up, they are easy to convert.

Aaron Wittenstein03:02

So what you’re telling me, okay, from what I’m hearing here, is that when you practice, when you know what you’re supposed to say, the low-hanging fruit, the expireds, becomes a little bit on the easy… I’ve been doing this a long time, but very rarely do I ever hear someone say expireds are easy, which is like an amazing breath of fresh air right there. I heard that right, right?

Alexis Scott03:26

Yes, sir. In my opinion.

Aaron Wittenstein03:29

That’s absolutely amazing. That’s absolutely amazing. So just kinda walk us through the path of how you started calling expireds. Like, how did that all begin?

Alexis Scott03:40

Well, I was a new agent, and I thought that whenever I became licensed, I was going to have an influx of people come to me, and that did not happen. So I started YouTube-ing, ’cause that’s where I get all my information, on how to get leads as a real estate agent, and there was so much information, and a lot of it was not relevant to me. What stuck out to me was calling expireds. And so I started researching, how do you get the numbers to call expireds? And Vulcan7 came up. I did a ton of research, and I went ahead and I paid for Vulcan7. I was like, the ROI is fantastic for what you get. Me being a new agent, I had a very small budget, and I just started calling expireds because they said the numbers, if you make enough calls, you will get something.

04:35I started in August of 2022 calling expireds. I scheduled four listing appointments for September of 2022, and of those four appointments, I got two listings signed, and I closed on both of them. And I was like, “This is amazing.”

Aaron Wittenstein04:57

So, all right. So right now I’m just going to assume this is a consistent pillar of business that you’re doing on a regular basis. Am I correct?

Alexis Scott05:06

Yes, that is correct. This past month, I went on four expired listing appointments, and I actually got all four signed. So my conversion rate has definitely gone up.

Aaron Wittenstein05:18

So you went 100% last month?

Alexis Scott05:21

For the month of March. Yes, sir, I did.

Aaron Wittenstein05:25

That’s absolutely amazing. That’s absolutely amazing. So, all right, so I gotta ask here, okay? How many hours a day are you calling right now? Are you doing like two, three, four, 17? Like how many hours a day are you calling?

Alexis Scott05:36

Three hours consistently every day. If I don’t have any appointments for that day, then I will go to four hours.

Aaron Wittenstein05:44

So you’re calling between 15 to 20 hours a week, is that right?

Alexis Scott05:47

Yes, sir.

Aaron Wittenstein05:48

Okay. And then out of 15 to 20 hours, from what it sounds like, it should get you how many appointments set per month, per week, would you roughly say?

Alexis Scott06:01

Honestly, I don’t necessarily set appointments the first time that I call them. It’s all in the follow-up for me.

Aaron Wittenstein06:12

Okay. Talk to me a little bit about that. Like how does that look? So all right, so let’s say we get on the first phone call and yada, yada, yada, so on and so forth, and I’m like, “You know, I’m kind of interested,” okay?

06:23But I’m not interested yet, okay? ‘Cause I think a lot of agents really get, what’s the word? Caught up in the follow-up. They’re like, “What do I do?” So like I say, “You know what? Maybe like two weeks.” What do you do from there?

Alexis Scott06:38

Okay. So this is how it kind of goes when I get on the phone with somebody. I like to hear no three times before I settle for a follow-up call. So when I get on the phone, my primary focus is to get a listing appointment. That’s my whole goal. And a lot of times, of course, sellers say no. That’s going to be their very first thing that they say. “No, I don’t want to meet with you. I’m frustrated with the process.” That is what expireds’ main objection is. So then I push for the appointment, and they’re like, “Nope, nope. I want two weeks.” If they give me a timeframe, “I wanna wait two months, I wanna wait four months,” I cut that time in half. So if they say four months, I say, “Okay. I’m going to follow up with you in two months. Is that okay?” Because I want to set that expectation from the moment that I talk to them that I’m going to follow up with you, and I’m going to be setting appointments of when I’m going to be following up with you, just as I would of scheduling an actual listing appointment with you.

07:49I want to set that expectation from the very beginning that I set appointments, that I am the professional here. And they’re like, “Okay, that sounds great.” And I’m like, “Great. What time?” “It’s 10:00.” And then, well, I do my follow-ups from 1:00 to 2:00 in the afternoon. So I say, “Is 1:00 on April the 6th a great time to follow up with you?” And I actually have that scheduled right now, so they’re like, “Yes, that’s great.” “Okay, cool. Do you mind writing that down in your calendar or putting it in your phone? And I’m gonna send you either a text reminder or an email reminder. What’s best for you?” You know? And that’s what I do.

Aaron Wittenstein08:29

I love that. So you’re engaging them in the follow-up, right?

Alexis Scott08:36

Yep. Yep.

Aaron Wittenstein08:37

So you’re actually saying, “I’m gonna follow up with you on April 6th. Does that sound fair?” And they’re like, “Sure.” Right? And then when they hear from you, it’s like, wait a second. Do a lot of people expect to hear from you, or how does that usually look?

Alexis Scott08:57

No. A lot of times whenever I do follow up with them, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, you’re that real estate agent. I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name though.” ‘Cause they never remember my name. Sometimes they do. But they’re like, “Oh, yeah.” They’re like, “Yeah, I still wanna sell my house.” And I’m like, “Okay.” And I give them value when I follow up with them. I don’t just say, “Hey, I’m calling because I said I was gonna follow up with you. Do you still wanna sell?” Obviously, they still want to sell. I say, “Hey, this is Alexis Scott. I’m the real estate agent who spoke with you two months ago.”

Aaron Wittenstein09:32

Can we play this out for a sec? Would you mind role playing this out real quick? Okay, cool. So give me a call. We spoke, and I said call me back in two months, so it’s a month time period. Why don’t we do that?

Alexis Scott09:44

Okay. Okay. So ring, ring.

Aaron Wittenstein09:47

Hello?

Alexis Scott09:48

Hey, is this Aaron?

Aaron Wittenstein09:49

This is. How can I help you?

Alexis Scott09:51

Hey, Aaron. This is Alexis Scott. I had spoken with you about two months ago, and I told you I was going to follow up with you today at 1:00. Is this still a good time?

Aaron Wittenstein10:03

Alexis, right? Yeah, yeah, sure. Okay, yeah, this is fine.

Alexis Scott10:04

Yeah. Yeah, you probably don’t remember me. I know we had only spoken for about five minutes, but I’m Alexis. I had called you about your house because it was on the market, and I just wanted to follow up with you. I wanted to tell you that this home in your neighborhood just went under contract, and I also wanted to tell you that another home just closed last week. Are you still interested in selling your home?

Aaron Wittenstein10:32

You know, I think we are, but we’re gonna sit tight for, like, another month because we wanna make it work with my kids’ school schedule.

Alexis Scott10:41

Okay. Okay. That sounds fair. You know, another month. Well, a month, it comes up very fast. Would you like to sit down and talk about it, just fifteen minutes of your time? We can do tomorrow at two o’clock if that works for you, and we can talk about what I would do to sell your home just so that you have the information to use for later. Does that sound fair?

Aaron Wittenstein11:07

No, like I said, if you could call back in, like, a month, that would probably be the most beneficial.

Alexis Scott11:14

Okay. I completely understand that. How about if I call you, I don’t have my calendar in front of me. If I call you April the 16th, same day of the week, same time, one o’clock?

Aaron Wittenstein11:26

Sure. Sounds good.

Alexis Scott11:28

Okay. We will do that. I’m gonna go ahead and send you over a link, and my name is Alexis, okay?

Aaron Wittenstein11:34

Sounds good.

Alexis Scott11:36

All righty.

Aaron Wittenstein11:37

And then I’m just gonna assume it’s just rinse and repeat from there, right?

Alexis Scott11:41

It is, yep. Yep.

Aaron Wittenstein11:44

So with lead follow-up, I think it’s such a smart idea to actually… ‘Cause once you get on their calendar, you’re on their calendar, right? And I just think that’s such a smart idea because then people remember you, and I also like what you did, is you led with value by sharing with them that, like, A, XYZ sold and 123 is under contract. That’s such a good idea. So if you had to guess, what percentage of your listings taken come from lead follow-up? What percentage?

Alexis Scott12:19

Definitely it’s high. It’s seventy-five to eighty-five percent of my listings. Unless it is sphere of influence or somebody who I know, my follow-up and the listings that I’ve taken, I had to follow up with those people to get it. Some of it twice, some of it… One of my listings I only had to follow… or actually two of my listings last month, I only had to follow up with the sellers twice. This listing that I just took today, I had to follow up with that seller five times. Sometimes it’s nine times.

Aaron Wittenstein12:58

And see, people, what happens is, and I’m thinking you’ll agree with me on this, is people expect to just come out of the gates swinging, right? When it’s like, it just takes time. So how long did it take from August of ’22 to really find your stride, if you will? I think I have an idea, but I wanna hear you say it.

Alexis Scott13:19

It took me a long time. Yeah. It did. I’m not gonna lie, it took me a long time. I lost a lot of deals because of follow-up, and that hurt. I was leaving money on the table.

Aaron Wittenstein13:33

There’s nothing worse than when you’ve been following up with someone, and you look, you’re like, “Oh.”

13:39They list it, and then it happens again. And you’re like, “Oh my gosh, what am I doing wrong?” And then, no, I love that you have a system now. So everybody take in what Alexis said here about the lead follow-up. Get on their calendar, okay? This just makes so much darn sense. This makes so much sense. So all right, so when you’re following up, you went four for four on your appointments, right? What would you say is your conversion rate right now from listing appointment to listing taken? What would you say?

Alexis Scott14:11

I would say it is 75% right now. I do not get all of my listings. I am not perfect. I don’t think any of us are. But I would say 75%.

Aaron Wittenstein14:23

Okay. ‘Cause that’s a very good percentage rate of listings taken.

14:31What are you doing that separates you from the other agents out there?

Alexis Scott14:36

So I… And I do, just because I know that I was like this at one point. I would call somebody one time and they wouldn’t answer, and I actually have this really bad habit, and my coach was like, “Do not do that, Alexis.” But when somebody would not answer when I first started calling, and I didn’t have a coach at the time, I just would delete their number. Like, I was like, “Oh, they didn’t answer, so they’re not a lead.” And so I would just delete their number altogether. And then I’m sure that y’all have heard about the follow-up folder system. There’s lots of YouTube videos on it. Jim at Take 52 with Vulcan7 has a YouTube video on this as well. But seven to nine folders. Label it folder one, folder two, et cetera, all the way down to however many you want. And if those leads don’t answer, you put them into the next folder. Call the new leads, then you call the leads in folder two. Those who didn’t answer in folder two, you move them to folder three, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s what I do. I swear by that follow-up system. Those who I do get on the phone with, who I have set an appointment with, they go in my expired follow-up folder, and they also go on my calendar as well, and I follow up with them. And normally I get listing appointments because of that.

Aaron Wittenstein16:07

That’s really good. No, and like you said, I mean, ’cause, what am I trying to say here? Now when you’re actually on the appointment, okay, when you’re on the appointment, I think a lot of people, I see conversion rates 50% and below a lot of the time. Like, other than being awesome, okay, because we all know you’re awesome. You know what I mean? And I’m just gonna venture to guess you connect with people very well. When you’re actually on the appointment, what are you doing at a high level to make them consider working with you? What would be your secret sauce?

Alexis Scott16:38

I do three things, and you would be amazed at how many sellers tell me, “The other real estate agents who I interviewed with did not do this, that you did.” I have a listing presentation. I have these cool booklets that I have. It’s just spiral bound. I mass printed them at every single quarter. I have a goal of how many listings that I want to take. So this past quarter for me was 10 listings. I didn’t necessarily take 10 listings, but I had 10 listing presentations printed out in a spiral bound book. And it has what I do for marketing, what I do for pricing, and it explains my services to them. So I have that, I bring it in a paper form. And then in that booklet, I also have a seller net sheet. I get the seller net sheet from pre-qualifying them before I go in on the appointment. I never, ever go on an appointment without pre-qualifying them first, because I don’t want to be surprised, and I don’t want them to be surprised, right? So if they are upside down on a house, I don’t want them… And that has happened to me before. I don’t want to go into an appointment and I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t know this,” you know? So I don’t wanna be surprised. And then the third thing that I do is, of course, have the comps printed out as well. Y’all would be shocked at how many agents do not bring a presentation and a seller net sheet and comps, and they just throw numbers out of the air, and they don’t even show sellers why they should be hired.

Aaron Wittenstein18:32

So what I’m hearing is be professional.

Alexis Scott18:36

Yes. Be professional. Dress like you want the appointment, act like you want the appointment, because every single day we are unemployed, and we go on these listing appointments as a job interview. This listing agreement I just got signed this morning, she interviewed with four other agents, right? I didn’t just get this because I just threw numbers out of the air, or… She was like, “Oh, can you show me where you can back that information up at?” I don’t wanna be like, “Oh, no, I can’t, ’cause I don’t have anything to show you.” Whether it’s on your computer, iPad, or actual paper, you need to have something that shows sellers why they should hire you.

Aaron Wittenstein19:26

Once again, it’s be professional, right? And it’s like, put yourself together and have… And I don’t think it matters what you have, right? As long as you have something, it’s gonna put you steps ahead of everybody else out there, right?

Alexis Scott19:40

Right.

Aaron Wittenstein19:41

Right. And yeah, it’s just like, and the crazy part is, is you don’t know it until you speak with someone. I just find that absolutely mind-blowing, you know what I mean? The people that don’t have the professionalism as much as they should.

Alexis Scott19:54

Yes. Yes. And then on top of it, I think what gets me a lot of listings, because I love circle prospecting, but I do tell sellers, “Hey, when you move into an area, or when people are looking to move into an area, normally neighbors like to move close to somebody who they know, like, and trust, right?” In my neighborhood, I can tell you a lot of the people here, they’re friends with their neighbors or they’re family with their neighbors. And so I do tell them, I’m like, “I’m an active real estate agent. I circle dial the neighborhood. I actively call the homeowners in the neighborhood, and I ask, ‘Who do you know who is looking to move into your neighborhood?'” Family, friends, coworkers. And then of course, when you start conversations with people, you get listings and leads from circle prospecting as well, you know? So it all comes into fruition.

Aaron Wittenstein21:00

See, that’s where the three to four hours a day goes, right? ‘Cause there’s more than enough stuff to call. You should never run out, right?

Alexis Scott21:08

Yep. Yeah. Unless you have babies.

Aaron Wittenstein21:14

So all right. So let me ask you this. Let’s say a new agent walks across your office, knocks on your door, and says, “Alexis, I hear you’re amazing. I hear you’ve been doing this and you’re getting four out of four listing appointments. What piece of advice do you have for me?” What do you got?

Alexis Scott21:33

I would say, “Who are you calling right now?” I would ask you, I’d be like, “What are you doing for lead generation right now, and how long are you spending on that lead generation?” Most of them are gonna say, “Well, I don’t really know what I’m doing,” or, “Oh, I’m spending, like, an hour.” “I try calling,” or, “I try posting on social media,” or, “I tried doing open houses once,” right? Or for one week. And I would say, “I want you to sit down, and I want you to call through expireds or through FSBOs.” There’s not really enough FSBOs in my market, but more so expireds or circle prospecting around an agent’s listing. I would say, “I want you to start calling people and track it, and follow up with those people who you have good conversations with.” That’s what I would tell them.

Aaron Wittenstein22:31

That’s good advice. It’s just a good start.

Alexis Scott22:33

I would… “You’re going to get something.” And like, I mean, with Vulcan7’s, y’all’s, like the 30-day challenge where you have to attend four of the Take 52, I do tell new agents that all the time. I have new agents who come to me in my office all the time, and I’m like, “Look, if you don’t believe in it, then why would they write this guarantee, right? Why would they say if you attend four Take 52 sessions and then call this many people and not set an appointment…” Like, it works, you know?

Aaron Wittenstein23:09

It does. It’s amazing what happens.

Alexis Scott23:14

Yeah, and why would I tell you to do this if I don’t think that it works, right? I would be just like the agents who left the business and not believe in it. It works.

Aaron Wittenstein23:25

When you put in the time and effort, it’s magical what happens when it works, right? All right. So final last words as we’re gonna wrap up here. What do you got?

Alexis Scott23:36

Make your calls. Make your calls and figure the rest out later. Do not try to learn everything, right? Do not sit here and read all these books and listen to all these videos. Do that, but actually take action. Make your calls, and make sure that you are following up with those calls. If you are not setting listing appointments on the initial call, set a follow-up call. And I promise you, those follow-up calls that you scheduled and set will turn into signed listings. Promise you.

Aaron Wittenstein24:21

All right, Alexis. Someone’s moving to New Orleans, all right? And they need a phenomenal realtor. How do they get in touch with you?

Alexis Scott24:31

Well, you can find me on… I have a Facebook business page, I have an Instagram, and I have a TikTok, and it’s all Alexis Scott Realtor. All of it. I have all my information right there. I have forms that you can fill out. I have my number. I make it very easy.

Aaron Wittenstein24:49

Awesome. Well, I wanna… We jammed a lot into this. This was amazing. Thank you so much. So I really appreciate you coming to hang out with us. Thank you very much. And everybody, do me a favor. Go make some money. Take care of yourselves. Alexis, we will be in touch. All right, guys and girls, take care of yourselves. Bye-bye.