How Beth Staeckeler sold 100 homes in her first 2 years following up with expireds

Aaron Wittenstein00:00

Are you scripting and role-playing regularly? Did you just kinda get there by just doing, or where did you learn, or what did that look like?

Beth Staeckeler00:07

So we had scripts that were for the expireds that I actually didn’t like. They weren’t working for me. They were a little passive, and so I’m very just straight to the point, and I feel like expireds need to be straight to the point with the next person that they choose because what they did was they went with the nice agent, and now they need the no BS agent who’s gonna get their house sold, ’cause now they’re annoyed.

00:27And so I rewrote the scripts, like a month into being an agent, and they worked.

Aaron Wittenstein00:31

So you’re an agent for a month. You’re like, “This doesn’t work for me. I’m just gonna rewrite everything, and then I’m gonna sell 50 listings in a year.” I love that so much. I would think then you’re probably just getting stronger every day, right?

Beth Staeckeler00:43

I mean, I would like to think so. I’m trying. So I had signed those six listings last week, or seven listings, six were expired, and then Friday I was calling expireds and I set another appointment.

Aaron Wittenstein01:16

What’s going on everybody? It’s me, it’s Aaron Wittenstein, and I would like to welcome you all to Vulcan7 Roadmap. This is where we interview agents across the country on how they take two, three, four, just a lot of listings a week. Okay? So we have somebody here I was speaking with a little bit before.

01:33I’m in shock and awe right now, okay? Beth Staeckeler from Black Hills, South Dakota. Now, Beth has been in the business now for three years. And let me ask you a question, Beth. Beth, say hello to everybody. How are you?

Beth Staeckeler01:46

Hey, guys. How are y’all?

Aaron Wittenstein01:48

Good. She’s modest too, extremely modest, by the way.

01:50Beth, how many homes did you… You’ve been doing this for how many years now?

Beth Staeckeler01:54

I’m in my third year.

Aaron Wittenstein01:55

You’re in your third year. Okay.

01:57And in your first two years, how many homes did you sell?

Beth Staeckeler02:00

In my first two years combined, I sold 100 homes.

Aaron Wittenstein02:07

100 homes in your first… 100 homes. Two full years. That’s awesome. I’m, like I said, in shock and awe right now. That’s amazing. Not ’cause you’re not awesome, but just because in the first two years, that’s amazing. So all right, what are we on pace for this year?

02:23What are we looking at?

Beth Staeckeler02:24

70 homes this year, in my third year, is kind of what I’m on pace for.

Aaron Wittenstein02:29

Only 70? You think we can’t push 75?

Beth Staeckeler02:31

I’m working on it. Have to have that stretch goal.

Aaron Wittenstein02:34

There we go. And what did you do last week?

Beth Staeckeler02:38

So last week I signed seven listings, and six of them were expireds from Vulcan7.

Aaron Wittenstein02:47

That’s what I’m talking about.

02:48That is absolutely me. All right, so, wow, this is gonna go so many different places right here today.

02:56I usually end with these questions, but I wanna start with them today. All right? So, all right, so what’s the one thing that you attribute your success to? If you had to pinpoint one thing, what would that be?

Beth Staeckeler03:08

Follow-up. It’s absolutely in the follow-up. You’re not gonna call an expired the first time.

03:14Now, it’ll happen, but most of the time you’re not gonna call an expired the first time, and they’re gonna say, “Yep, absolutely. Come list my house.” They’re gonna give you a bunch of reasons why they’re gonna hold off for a while, and so it’s really just about that follow-up and scripting past that no.

Aaron Wittenstein03:28

Okay.

03:29So let me ask you a question. So out of that 100 transactions, what percentage would you say were expireds?

Beth Staeckeler03:35

So every year, so I’m in my third year again, every year I would say 85% of my listings come from expireds and the rest is my sphere.

Aaron Wittenstein03:44

Got it. All right. Wow, that’s absolutely amazing.

03:46Okay. And then do you just do listings or do you work buyers as well? Are you pretty much just on the list side?

Beth Staeckeler03:51

So right now I’m just on the list side. Obviously, your first year as an agent, year and a half, you’re always gonna work with buyers. But I’m just very listing heavy. Especially here in the Black Hills, we get a lot of snow.

04:02It’s snowing right now. And so I like to spend my winters at home having agents call me to see if they can show my properties than showing properties.

Aaron Wittenstein04:12

Exactly. I agree with that 100%. All right. So you said something which I wanna make sure doesn’t get lost. I believe you said script past the no.

04:21Is that what you said?

Beth Staeckeler04:24

Yeah, I call it scripting past the no.

Aaron Wittenstein04:26

What do you mean by that?

Beth Staeckeler04:28

So if I call an expired and they say, “Hey, you know what? I’m actually just gonna hold off for a little bit.” “Oh, great. What has you waiting?” “Well, the weather. You know, it’s snowing, it’s Easter. I’m just gonna wait until it stops snowing.”

04:45“You know what? That sounds great, but I’m just gonna tell you really quick. Hey, do you have a second? Okay, awesome. I’m just gonna tell you really quick, last week the winds were 80 miles an hour. We had a negative wind chill of negative 30, and I had 15 people come through my open house and I wrote an offer in the house.

05:01So it’s not always about the weather, it’s about X, Y, and Z.”

Aaron Wittenstein05:06

You know, I wanna do this. I got a feeling we can script and I can beat you up pretty bad. Are you game for that?

Beth Staeckeler05:11

Sure.

Aaron Wittenstein05:12

Okay. Yeah. On a scale of one to 10, how strong can I get? I’m gonna go strong with you, okay? Because I feel the force is strong with this one here.

05:19Okay? So all right, give me a call.

Beth Staeckeler05:23

Ring, ring.

Aaron Wittenstein05:24

Hello?

Beth Staeckeler05:25

Hey, is this Aaron?

Aaron Wittenstein05:25

This is. How can I help you?

Beth Staeckeler05:27

Hey, Aaron, this is Beth with the Christians Team Real Brokers. Saw that your house went off the market without selling.

05:33Wondering what your plans were.

Aaron Wittenstein05:34

We’re gonna re-list with my agent, Sally.

Beth Staeckeler05:37

Great. Yep. What’s Sally gonna do different this time to make sure that your house gets sold?

Aaron Wittenstein05:42

Well, I mean, she has a whole plan to put in place right now with open houses and social media. So I think, like I said, we’re gonna give it one more shot with her for three months.

Beth Staeckeler05:53

Sure. So when you said that she has a plan in place, did she not the first time?

Aaron Wittenstein05:58

I don’t know. I really don’t know. That’s a good question. But so I mean, what would you do differently?

Beth Staeckeler06:04

So just a couple quick questions. Did you guys do open houses before?

Aaron Wittenstein06:08

Yeah, we had, like, four open houses.

Beth Staeckeler06:11

Okay. And how many people came through?

Aaron Wittenstein06:13

I don’t know.

Beth Staeckeler06:14

All right. What was the feedback?

Aaron Wittenstein06:14

I don’t know, a bunch. Feedback was they liked the house, and they didn’t wanna make an offer, they weren’t ready, the weather, all that type of good stuff.

Beth Staeckeler06:25

Okay. And you didn’t know how many people came through?

Aaron Wittenstein06:27

Not offhand. Like I said, I really don’t know. At this point, I’m not sure, really.

Beth Staeckeler06:34

Sure. And then what about for social media? You said that Sally has a plan now. So what was that plan before? Where were you posted? Where did you see it?

06:44How many comments were you getting? How many people were interested just through your social media posts?

Aaron Wittenstein06:51

You know, I put it all up to her. I’m the type of person where it’s like, “Just go do your job,” and I really don’t know. That I’m really not sure about.

Beth Staeckeler06:59

Okay. So I’ll tell you, what my team does is not only are we gonna do open houses, and you’re gonna get a feedback form afterwards, and I’m gonna give you a call to let you know how many people came through and the specific feedback at that time, but every Friday you’re gonna get an email from me, and it’s going to be how many people have messaged us through Facebook, how many people have clicked on it, how many people have taken the 3D Matterport tour, been on Instagram, called us, texted us, so that you know that we’re doing our job.

07:26I totally understand that you wanna kinda just step away and have your agent kind of do what they need to be doing, but if she was doing what needed to be done the first time, your house absolutely would’ve sold. It’s beautiful. From what I can tell, the CMA that I did on this house already, which I can email over to you when we’re done, this house should’ve sold.

07:45It has nothing to do with the weather. It has nothing to do with price. What it really has to do with is marketing.

Aaron Wittenstein07:52

Okay, so what you’re telling me is my home wasn’t marketed the right way, and if it was marketed the right way, it would’ve sold?

Beth Staeckeler07:57

Absolutely.

Aaron Wittenstein07:58

Okay.

Beth Staeckeler07:59

And now because you’re going back on the market, now the marketing really has to be strong.

Aaron Wittenstein08:04

So I mean, with the weather coming up and 100 mile per hour wind and 37 feet of snow, I’m thinking that it makes sense that we should just sit on it until the weather turns around in August.

Beth Staeckeler08:19

So we definitely don’t wanna do that, and I’ll tell you why. One, because once the weather does kind of slow down around here, which, as you know, is gonna be in about two, three weeks, you wanna be on the market ready to go hot.

08:31Fresh branding, maybe just a little bit of a price change, even if it’s $500, just so that they can see, “Hey, I’m back on the market, I’m motivated, let’s get this sold.” And I have another question for you. Where are you going once this gets sold?

Aaron Wittenstein08:46

We’re staying local. We wanna buy a really, really, really big house.

Beth Staeckeler08:50

Oh, nice. So you’re just gonna kind of look for that larger house.

Aaron Wittenstein08:53

Oh, big. We want like 53,000 square feet.

Beth Staeckeler08:58

Wow, that’s a mansion for sure. That’s like shack status. And then, just kind of back to the weather situation, that’s why your marketing needs to be strong because people are sitting home when it’s snowing, when the wind is crazy, and they’re scrolling, looking for houses.

09:15Their search doesn’t stop, it just changes where they’re searching. And so now they’re heavy online, and if they don’t see your house, ’cause I’ll be honest, I didn’t see your house being marketed anywhere, if they don’t see your house, they’re gonna find something else.

Aaron Wittenstein09:28

Interesting. Okay. Do me a favor then.

09:29Can you give me a call back in like a week or two when we decide better on what we’re gonna do?

Beth Staeckeler09:35

Why don’t we do this. Today is Monday. Why don’t we just set an appointment for, does Wednesday at 3:00 work for you guys? I can come by, kind of just show you what the team does. Obviously you don’t have to sign with me.

09:48If you decide you still wanna use your agent, we can part ways, shake hands, no hard feelings. But I would just kind of let you meet me, and that’s huge for me. I always say let you meet me, show you what the team does, and we can kind of take it from there. Does that work?

Aaron Wittenstein10:02

Yeah, that’s… I just wanna… Yes, yes.

10:03Okay. You’re a bulldog. That’s off script now. Yeah, you’re a bulldog. I could have went further, but for the sake of time I’m like, let’s just wrap it. No, you’re very good. I scripted a lot of people. Are you scripting and role-playing regularly?

Beth Staeckeler10:23

With the new agents I do, but not so much. I will for a little bit, and then I kinda leave them to their own devices to kind of script together. But we don’t script expireds and for sale by owners with them until after their 90 days.

Aaron Wittenstein10:37

Got it. Okay, okay, okay. So let me ask you this then. I mean, did you just get…

10:41‘Cause from what it sounds like to me, you’re pretty darn good. You have some very good skills. Did you just kinda get there by just doing, or where did you learn, or what did that look like?

Beth Staeckeler10:52

So we had scripts that were for the expireds that I actually didn’t like.

10:57They weren’t working for me. They were a little passive. And so I’m very just straight to the point. And I feel like expireds need to be straight to the point with the next person that they choose. Because what they did was they went with a nice agent, and now they need the no BS agent who’s gonna get their house sold, ’cause now they’re annoyed.

11:17And so I rewrote the scripts, like a month into being an agent, and they worked.

Aaron Wittenstein11:25

So you’re an agent for a month. You’re like, “This doesn’t work for me. I’m just gonna rewrite everything, and then I’m gonna sell 50 listings in a year.” I love that so much. I absolutely… So all right. So I would think then you’re probably just getting stronger every day, right?

Beth Staeckeler11:41

I mean, I would like to think so. I’m trying. So I had signed those six listings last week, seven listings. Six were expired. And then Friday I was calling expireds and I set another appointment.

Aaron Wittenstein11:59

Wow. And I mean, out your way, are you getting a lot of data? I mean, is there a lot of expireds that come up in your market?

12:06Or are you just… I mean, what does it look like?

Beth Staeckeler12:10

We get about probably under 10 a week.

Aaron Wittenstein12:18

So if you get 10 a week, you got 6 out of the 10?

Beth Staeckeler12:23

Mm-hmm. Yep. And what’ll happen is they’ll say, “Oh, everybody is calling me.” Yep, totally understand. “Well, how are you guys getting my information?”

12:31And I always say, “Great question. We actually have this program, and what it does is it pulls the listing once it’s expired. And I am a strictly expired listing agent. And so all I do all day long is I call expireds and I get your house sold because the first person didn’t.” I just say that.

Aaron Wittenstein12:49

No, that one, I liked that.

12:50I liked that a lot. Okay, so you’re going on the appointment, you’re meeting with the expired. I would think that your close rate is pretty high when you’re over there as well?

Beth Staeckeler13:01

Yes. Yep. I mean, it’s slowing down a little bit, but then you have to ramp up the marketing.

13:06You have to do all the things that you really didn’t have to do too much of, but now it’s open house heavy, marketing heavy. I do a lot of videos, things like that.

Aaron Wittenstein13:16

Okay. All right. So how many hours a day are you pretty much putting into lead generation right now? What’s the goal?

Beth Staeckeler13:25

So I’m a team leader. I’m director of expansion. And I am top producer on the team. And so I spend about 10 hours a week doing lead gen.

Aaron Wittenstein13:39

Is that strictly for expired listings?

Beth Staeckeler13:41

Not just expired, but I would say for expireds, it depends on how many we have. Between the follow-up and the new ones, I would say probably about an hour.

13:54And the one thing I will say that I love about Vulcan7 is you can scroll back to pages from expireds from eight months ago. And so you can still call those guys. So I’ll call those guys that haven’t put their house back on the market and ask if they’re ready to relist.

Aaron Wittenstein14:09

So you go back to the old stuff as well?

Beth Staeckeler14:11

Yep.

Aaron Wittenstein14:12

What does that conversation look like?

Beth Staeckeler14:14

So I’ll say, “Hey, saw that 123 Main Street never went back on the market. Wanted to see if you’re ready to relist.”

Aaron Wittenstein14:22

And what’s a typical response that you wind up getting for something like that?

Beth Staeckeler14:26

So the typical response will be, so out here it’s a heavy Airbnb market.

14:29So they’ll say, “Oh, I got my house rented.” “Oh, I turned it into an Airbnb.” And I’ll say, “Great. Where’s your next house? Did you move already?” “How’s your Airbnb doing?” “Oh, it’s doing okay.” “Well, have you had anybody run a market analysis to see what it would look like for you to sell it and maybe buy a different Airbnb somewhere else?”

14:52Or I just come up with all these different things. And so I’ve gotten a couple of things where people were like, “Yeah, maybe it’s kind of worth me just selling and buying a different house.” Or, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about going back on the market in the spring.” “Well, now it’s April, so let’s get you back on the market then.

15:07What’s holding you back? Are you free Friday?”

Aaron Wittenstein15:11

You script like I do. I love it. I’m, like I said, the exact same way, you just have better hair than I do. You go right to the point, you know? I love that so much.

15:25So all right, I wanna bring it back to what you started talking about in the beginning. All right? You mentioned follow-up. Okay? And I would like you to just kind of, do you have a follow-up system in place, processes that you have? What does that look like? ‘Cause that was the first thing you said, and I wanna make sure we don’t gloss over that.

Beth Staeckeler15:43

Sure. So it really depends on the situation. So basically we have a CRM that we use, and I’ll plug them into the CRM, put them on a task for it to do, and I’ll follow up, really depending. So if somebody says to me, “Well, I pulled the listing. I’m not probably gonna re-list, but I do have somebody that’s interested in buying it,” great.

16:06I’m gonna follow up with you and see if they came through. I’m gonna see if it’s actually gonna close, if they submitted an offer to you. Or, hey, you know what? If you’re pushing somebody and pushing somebody and they’re like, “I gotta talk to my husband, I gotta talk to my husband,” well, they’re clearly not the decision-maker.

16:22So there’s only so far you’re gonna go. And so it’s, “Hey, that sounds great. Instead of you calling me, ’cause I’m sure you’re busy and you have a million things going on, my job is to call you back. So why don’t I give you a call back tomorrow?” And I’ll be like, “What was your husband’s name? Joe? Okay, great.

16:38I’m gonna see if you and Joe had a chance to talk, and then let’s take it from there.” I make it really personal. “Hey, you’re busy. This is my job. You talk to Joe, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Aaron Wittenstein16:48

I’ve got a good line about the spouse. You wanna hear it?

Beth Staeckeler16:51

Yeah.

Aaron Wittenstein16:51

So what I’ll say, I’ll be like, “So Beth, how long you been married for?”

Beth Staeckeler16:55

Five years.

Aaron Wittenstein16:55

“Five years. I’ve actually been married for 13, and if your relationship is anything like mine, my wife just puts things on the schedule and I’m expected to show up. Let’s go ahead and get you set in there for tomorrow at 2:00, and we’ll get-” I just love that line. I figured you’d appreciate it.

Beth Staeckeler17:06

I love that.

Aaron Wittenstein17:10

It works really, really well too, by the way. It really does. All right. Enough of me. I had to say it. It was just an absolute layup right there. All right. So you’re following up. You’re basically, from what it sounds like to me, this entire, you’re doing your job.

17:27Am I wrong? Like, you’re doing your job.

Beth Staeckeler17:29

Yeah. And like I said, our job is to do the follow-up. It’s not when the woman on the phone or the guy on the phone says, “Well, I don’t know right now, I have a lot going on,” or, “I’m at work, let me call you back.” Hey, you know what? My job is to call you.

17:41So right away I’m setting the precedent that I know what my job is, and I know what your job is, and so this is my role, that’s your role, and let me do what I need to do and you just sit back and don’t worry about it.

Aaron Wittenstein17:54

And all you can do when she says, be like, “Yes, ma’am. Okay.”

18:00I’d be like, “Okay, that sounds phenomenal. I love the way that sounds. That sounds perfect.” And then, all right, so let’s say for example, we’re on the phone and I say, “You know what? I’m waiting three months and you’re not gonna get in my door. You’re just not. It’s three months because school or something is letting out at that point.”

18:18What does that system look like over the next 90 days?

Beth Staeckeler18:22

Great. So one thing that my team does is we do four parties, so one a quarter, for basically our sphere of influence. And so during that 90 days, you’re gonna get an invite to our Thanksgiving pie giveaway. And not only are you gonna get an invite, but I’m gonna go drop it off to you.

18:42I’m gonna go to your house, I’m gonna knock on your door. I’m gonna give you a call and say, “Hey, I have a Thanksgiving pie for you. I put you on my program that my team does, and so I’m gonna drop off a free Thanksgiving pie.” This is a true story. I did do this. And so they loved it. And then it was, “Hey, it’s Valentine’s Day.

18:59You guys still haven’t listed yet, but we do this great thing at Domino’s where they make us heart-shaped pizzas and they’re all free. Why don’t you come by, get pizza, wings, whatever you want.” So I’m still creating that. So I had called an expired, and they weren’t ready to relist. They just felt like their home wasn’t ready.

19:18They weren’t gonna use their agent. They felt like that agent didn’t tell them that their home wasn’t ready. And so they were like, “Give us a couple months.” “Okay, no problem.” Well, through that we had events, and so I invited them to the events. I knocked on their door with a pie. I would message them probably every 10 days, and just be like, “Hey, how’s the painting going?

19:39Did you need help with anything? How’s this going? Did you guys get the pool down yet?” Little things like that just to keep me top of mind. And then it also, it’s like, “Hey, I remember why you’re not ready yet. It’s okay. But what can I do to help you in the meantime?”

Aaron Wittenstein19:53

So, all right, so 90 days. We got a 90-day follow-up plan in place.

19:57How many times are you gonna reach out to me within that 90 days?

Beth Staeckeler20:01

I’m gonna reach out to you probably once every 10 days. So anywhere from 9 to 12 times.

Aaron Wittenstein20:09

Oh, wow. And people don’t get annoyed by that?

Beth Staeckeler20:11

Nope. And that’s the biggest misconception is people think that the other person is going to get annoyed, but they’re not, because they just know that you’re trying to be helpful.

20:19You’re, “I’m just asking.” “I’m trying to provide value. Did you get it painted? Do you need me to see if there’s a painter that can help you? Did you get the garbage cleaned out of your backyard? Do you need me to come and sweep your garage out?” I’m just providing value.

Aaron Wittenstein20:35

That’s great. No, it’s like you said, it’s pretty impressive, and I see why your conversion rates right now are through the roof, right?

20:45You know, because to go on seven appointments and to take seven listings, six of which are expireds. And to have 10 expireds come through your desk and to go on five, six, seven of them, I mean, those are really impressive numbers right there. Do you feel they’re impressive?

Beth Staeckeler21:05

Like I said before, I feel like you can always do more, you can always do better. But I’m really proud of the way that I’m handling these expireds. And like I said, when you can get a program like Vulcan7 and go back 10 pages, which is eight months ago, and recall those people, or maybe see something that you missed, maybe you were on vacation or whatever.

21:28I heard people take vacations. Weird. And so you can recall those people, then you can be busy all day long with these expireds.

Aaron Wittenstein21:40

All right. So I ask this question to everybody that comes on Roadmap here. All right? There’s a brand new agent, which it seems like you have a bunch of them that come through your door.

21:48One of them knocks on the door and they’re like, “Beth, give me one piece of advice.” What’s that one piece of advice that you’re gonna give to a brand new agent?

Beth Staeckeler21:57

Stay on top of your follow-up.

22:01It’s the most important thing when you’re an agent. Stay on top of your follow-up. Because if you get behind on your to-do tasks, if you forget to call somebody, there are 368 agents behind you that aren’t gonna forget.

22:13And people are buying and selling every day, and it takes more than one phone call. So get back in your office, go through your follow-up. I don’t care if you called them yesterday, call them back.

Aaron Wittenstein22:26

Every seven to 10 days, or 10 to 12 days, right?

Beth Staeckeler22:29

If you got a hold of them, yes. Yep. If you didn’t, you call them every day.

Aaron Wittenstein22:34

I love it. I absolutely love this. All right. Let’s see here. Final last words, what do you got for me?

Beth Staeckeler22:42

Ooh, final last words. Push past the no. If somebody tells you no, dig seven layers deep, because they were already on the market. There has to be a reason why they put it on the market in the first place.

22:55Find that motivation.

Aaron Wittenstein22:57

Just find the motivation, seven levels deep. I love it. You’re like me. I’m so much just right to the point. You’re from New York, aren’t you?

Beth Staeckeler23:05

Yeah, I’m from Long Island.

Aaron Wittenstein23:05

Yeah, I spent 10 years in Westchester County, so that’s why we hit it off so well.

23:10See that? Yeah. We’re neighbors. No, this is absolutely great. Okay. Beth, so someone’s coming through to South Dakota, all right? And an agent who’s watching the show is like, “Oh my God, she’s absolutely amazing. I wanna get in touch with her. I wanna learn a little bit more from her.

23:25I have a referral in your neck of the woods.” What is the best way for said agent to get in touch with you?

Beth Staeckeler23:31

So definitely give me a call, shoot me a text. 631-902-6095. I have my phone on me 24/7. I’m not one of those agents that will get back to you in eight hours.

Aaron Wittenstein23:45

Beautiful. Well, let me-

Beth Staeckeler23:45

I need about eight minutes.

Aaron Wittenstein23:45

I was about to say, if it’s less than eight minutes, it’s free. So, all right. Beth, this was amazing. Thank you so much.

Beth Staeckeler23:52

Thank you so much.

Aaron Wittenstein23:54

You’re very welcome. And guys, just remember, we do this pretty much every week, and thanks for checking out Vulcan7 Roadmap on Making Some Money.

24:01Take care of yourselves. Later.