How Charlene Collier took 8 listings in 4 months working warm FRBO handoffs

Charlene Collier00:00

Vulcan7 Nation, let me tell you, the system works if you work it. This industry has taught me to pack your patience and it will come. You just gotta keep going. And people are watching even when you don’t know they are.

Aaron Wittenstein00:14

Hey, what’s going on, everybody? It’s me, it’s Aaron Wittenstein, and I would like to welcome you to Vulcan7 Roadmap.

00:20This is where we talk to agents across the country to teach them how to take an additional, just a lot of listings a week, all right? And we actually spoke with Joss, if you guys remember Joss. I didn’t realize you guys are friends. I mean, you guys are cool.

Charlene Collier00:34

It’s my sister in arms, and it’s a crazy real estate game.

Aaron Wittenstein00:38

And it’s like, all right, she’s like, and then Charlene Collier, by the way, she’s out of Atlanta too. I don’t wanna forget to mention her name. She’s like, “You talked to Joss.” I’m like, Joss is awesome. And she’s like, “I’m even more awesome.” And I’m like, “This is just going to be really fun.”

00:52So Charlene, how are you doing today?

Charlene Collier00:55

I am good, Aaron. Thanks so much. I’m glad we finally got a chance to connect.

Aaron Wittenstein00:59

I know, I know. Charlene is brand new to the real estate industry. She’s been doing this for almost a year in January. Is that correct?

Charlene Collier01:07

Yep.

Aaron Wittenstein01:07

Okay. And in the last four months,

01:12she has done eight listings attributed to Vulcan7. Did I catch that correctly?

Charlene Collier01:17

Correct. As soon as I got Vulcan7. So Joss told me about Vulcan7. I’d heard about Vulcan7. I heard about different dialers and stuff like that. I didn’t really know what a dialer did. But when Joss told me about Vulcan7 and how she was getting it, and that you have two lines, and so we can essentially…

01:33I always tell all new realtors, “You can split it with another realtor too if it’s cost prohibitive.” And so I said, “You know, why not?” I’d rather try my bet to see if this’ll work. And it just worked out. When I refer people to Vulcan7 and they’re like, “Hey, how do you do?” I was like, “Hmm.”

01:49They have a great chat feature. You can talk to customer service, because I know nothing. I’ll also tell you, fun fact, all my listings, I probably only met in person one or two owners. I’ve never really met them in person.

Aaron Wittenstein02:07

I love those. I love those. Those are my favorite, because when you’re on a Zoom, not many people even know how to Zoom, so it’s a really, really effective way.

02:17All right, let me ask you this. All right.

Charlene Collier02:18

No, wait a minute. Not even. I haven’t even Zoomed with them.

Aaron Wittenstein02:22

Did you just call? You just send paperwork?

Charlene Collier02:22

I don’t even know what they look like. Oh my gosh. I had one that I sold a piece of land and a house for. Well, we ended up not selling the land, but I had the land and the house.

02:34But never, to this day, still never saw her. When we close on the house, I typically, because I know sellers don’t like to sit through closings, because it’s like, why are we just sitting here? So I usually set it up so that my seller is able to sign early, so they don’t have to sit through all the paperwork with the buyer.

02:53And so she signed early, and she was going on a trip. And she got her money directly wired, and that was it. So I have yet to see her in the flesh. I’m an anomaly like that. There’s a lot of them I haven’t actually seen in person.

03:09Not even on a Zoom, we’re just on a phone call.

Aaron Wittenstein03:12

I’m totally cool with that. So, yeah, sometimes that just works. All right, let me ask you this. All right. Okay, let’s say it’s an expired. Would you mind role-playing that out with how that handoff goes?

Charlene Collier03:23

Sure.

Aaron Wittenstein03:24

Okay.

03:24Why don’t you give me a call. I’ll be the expired, and we’ll go from there.

Charlene Collier03:30

Okay. Ring, ring, ring.

Aaron Wittenstein03:32

Hello.

Charlene Collier03:33

Hi, Aaron. This is Charlene from Keller Williams West Atlanta. I was calling about your home at 123 Main Street. I believe my colleague Maria spoke to you about it.

Aaron Wittenstein03:43

Can I ask you a question?

Charlene Collier03:45

Yes.

Aaron Wittenstein03:46

So do they usually remember having the conversation or not?

Charlene Collier03:50

Most times they do, actually.

Aaron Wittenstein03:51

Okay. All right, fair enough.

Charlene Collier03:52

And a little pause. You notice I went straight into it. I didn’t say, “How are you?”

03:59No one likes that. So I just go straight. The politeness in me feels weird not asking how they are, but when you start saying that, it sounds salesy, and I don’t wanna sound salesy.

04:10So I’m like, “Let me just cut to the chase. Let me tell you what I’m calling about.” Right. So…

Aaron Wittenstein04:14

Yeah. No, I do remember. Yes, I do remember that she called me.

Charlene Collier04:17

Awesome. Yes. And I know when you all spoke, she said that your house is still vacant. I know it had expired. So kind of tell me about what happened previously.

04:26Why do you think the house didn’t sell?

Aaron Wittenstein04:28

I have absolutely no idea. It doesn’t make any sense to me.

Charlene Collier04:31

Well, did you get any good traffic? Did you get any offers?

Aaron Wittenstein04:35

We had 17 showings on the property.

04:39We had one offer that was $73,000 under asking price. Yeah, it was brutal.

04:46Yeah. We definitely said no. We definitely said no.

04:48But other than that, no, I mean, nothing.

Charlene Collier04:50

Gotcha. Gotcha. And are you looking to put it back on the market now, or do you kind of wanna take some time off to think about if you wanna stay or rent? What are you thinking about next moves?

Aaron Wittenstein05:00

I don’t know.

Charlene Collier05:01

You don’t know? Okay. So here’s what I can do for you. What I would love to do is, I actually have some comps up. I’m seeing that your home was listed for 450. The comps in the area are kind of looking like around 420-ish. So I don’t know, maybe that was part of the reason why your house may have sat a little longer, because of price.

05:22Are you tied to a certain price, or is it more a net amount that you are trying to get?

Aaron Wittenstein05:29

I mean, we need to get as much as we can.

Charlene Collier05:31

Of course. Of course. And so what I would love to do is send you comps of the area and also come and see the property once I send you the comps, because of course I can give you an estimate of what the house can sell for, but unless I actually see your house, I can’t really tell you what it will go for based on the condition.

05:48I like to send Cloud CMAs. With a Cloud CMA, you can actually see the interior of the home, so you can see how your home compares to the other homes in the neighborhood. And then based on the recommended sales price, we can decide whether or not it makes sense to move forward, or if you wanna stay in the home a little bit and decide to go another way.

06:09No harm, no foul, no cost to you whatsoever. Of course, you don’t pay anything unless we actually sell your home. So how does that sound?

Aaron Wittenstein06:18

So, side note, by the way. When you’re doing these with the warm appointments, what percentage of the time do you actually set an appointment out of those, would you say?

06:30If you get 100 of them, how many are you gonna set?

Charlene Collier06:32

I’ll say about 70% of the time.

Aaron Wittenstein06:36

All right. So you will set a high… This is just very interesting to me right here. Okay. All right, yeah, so sure, come on by, because I wanna real play. I don’t wanna role-play. You come on by.

06:45All right. And then you go in and you do your thing. Okay.

Charlene Collier06:47

Correct. Now, most of the time, though, most of my appointments are with for rent by owners, hence why I never get to see them, because the house is vacant.

06:56And so they’ll have me go in, and I’ll take a look at the house, and I send them the comps.

07:00And I will also ask them, “Can you give me a rough estimate of what you owe on the home?” So I’ll give them an estimated net seller sheet and say, “Based on this amount that I think we should sell it for, this is what you can walk away with,” right? And when they see that amount, they’re like, “All right, run with it.”

07:15Right? And I also tell them that with real estate now, you can’t just plop a house on MLS and get it sold. You have to. I told them I actively go and search for buyers. I do reverse prospecting. I do social media. I send mailers. I talk to lenders. I talk to people who have bought in the area. Especially if it’s an investment property, I’ll go and see an investor in the area and see if they wanna add to their portfolio.

07:43I actively go and get buyers. And that’s why my last two listings that I had, I was the third realtor that they had. One was on the market for like nine months, the other one’s on and off for 18 months. The one that’s on and off for 18 months, I’m the third realtor.

07:59We’re closing next Friday. And I got an offer in three weeks.

Aaron Wittenstein08:05

That’s pretty good. And what I find to be fascinating here is that you have a background in HR, so you’re utilizing that to be able to find the right people to help support the business the way that you feel comfortable running it.

08:19You know what I mean? And…

Charlene Collier08:20

And it helps the clients too. It helps deal with sellers. I tell everyone, real estate is 100% relationships and 80% psychology. And that’s exactly what I did. All I did in HR all day was talk people off the ledge every day, right? And all you do in real estate is talk people off the ledge.

08:37Talk them off the ledge about these rates. Talk them off the ledge about their price being too high. Talk them off the ledge about the condition of their home, right? Talk them off the ledge about this negotiation. So it’s been an amazing transferable skill coming from the industry that I came from.

Aaron Wittenstein08:54

Oh, yeah. I would have no clue, and I’m not saying this to be nice, you don’t come off like a year-old agent whatsoever.

Charlene Collier09:01

No one knows. And I’m actually…

Aaron Wittenstein09:02

No, you don’t.

Charlene Collier09:03

I kind of hate that I said that. I mean, not hate, but no one knows that I’ve only been doing this for a year, because everyone’s like, there’s no way.

Aaron Wittenstein09:12

Well, but you’ve been doing other things that brought you to this space, though, you know what I mean? Right. So, like you said, it’s psychological. A lot of this is psychological. And you’re dealing with one of the biggest things they deal with in their lives, and you figure out a way to make them feel comfortable.

09:28You know what I mean? And I’m assuming you’re just a master of making people feel comfortable.

Charlene Collier09:34

Absolutely. Because you’re gonna hear all of the gory details of their personal life, right? People who are going through divorce. You’re gonna find out that, oh, their credit isn’t as good as they thought.

09:44They have this old tax lien, and now the house won’t close. And they’re embarrassed. And so you gotta talk them through that. There’s no shame. So many times I have to talk people through it. There’s no shame in that. Most of America’s in debt. You are not alone, but that’s why we’re gonna sell this house.

10:00Get this money so you can handle that, right? So you’re constantly being a counselor for them.

Aaron Wittenstein10:06

You can sell my house.

Charlene Collier10:08

Promise?

Aaron Wittenstein10:09

Yes. You get a license in Florida, you can sell my house.

Charlene Collier10:12

All right. I can be in Maryland too, though. So you got one up there.

Aaron Wittenstein10:16

Come on, come on through. Come on through.

10:18All right. All right. So a brand new agent comes knocking on your door and says, “Hey, Charlene, what is one piece of advice that you could give me?” What would that one piece of advice be for that brand new agent?

Charlene Collier10:31

Hmm. That’s a good question. Thank you. The one piece of advice I would give the brand new agent is to pack your patience.

10:39They say all the time, “Whatever you do now materializes three months from now.” The closings that I’ve had last month in November, and even October, these are people I started talking to in July, right? The stuff I’m working on now is for next year, right? And you have to work on it.

10:57It’s really like plowing the ground, right? Actually, you’re like a farmer, right? You’re really planting seeds. And sometimes it feels like, oh my God, it’s not working. No one’s listening, blah, blah, blah. And then out of the blue, someone’s gonna call you and be like, “Hey, I have this out.”

11:16Can I give you a quick story? Quick example? You don’t mind? Okay. So I send a newsletter out, right? And I pay to send the newsletter out every month. I saw someone at a new construction property in July, met her and her mom. We exchanged numbers. She was just looking at the time. I put her on my newsletter and just kept it going.

11:36Two months ago, she called me the same day she got my newsletter. I guess it reminded her I existed. And she’s like, “Hey, we met at this model home. You met my mom. I was debating whether or not to rent or buy. I think I wanna buy. Can you help me?”

11:55Whatever. That was a Friday. I sent her to go look at some homes on Saturday. I had an open house, so I couldn’t go with her. But that Sunday, I went back out with her. We were under contract on Sunday after she contacted me on Friday. We closed on the house this past Monday, half a million dollars. From just me sending out my newsletter. I’m like, no one’s looking at these newsletters, but they are.

12:16And she told me. She had another agent, but the person wasn’t really that responsive. They weren’t giving her information. She’s like, “I kept getting your newsletter that had information, that had things I could use.” And I was like, “That’s somebody I want to work with.” So I say all that to say, we do things and think that it’s not resonating, but it is.

12:33But we got to pack our patience. And that’s really hard, because when God was giving out patience, I was in the back taking a nap. I am not a patient person at all, but this industry has taught me to pack your patience and it will come. You just got to keep going. And people are watching even when you don’t know they are.

Aaron Wittenstein12:52

I’m writing that on a sticky note.

Charlene Collier12:54

I’m telling you.

Aaron Wittenstein12:56

Computer. I love that.

Charlene Collier12:57

Yeah, I like that.

Aaron Wittenstein12:58

So much. Pack your patience.

Charlene Collier13:00

Yep.

Aaron Wittenstein13:01

I love that. I liked it a lot. Okay.

13:05All right. So let’s do this. I could talk to you all day long. You’re awesome. Yeah, I like you. Thank you. Not that I don’t like anybody else that’s on Vulcan7 Roadmap.

13:14But yeah, I shouldn’t. I like everybody. Everybody, listen. All right.

Charlene Collier13:19

You like me a little bit more, though. I get it.

Aaron Wittenstein13:20

It’s the pack your patience comment. That’s what it comes from. Yeah. So let’s tie this up in a bow, okay? What are your final last words for the wonderful Vulcan7 Nation?

Charlene Collier13:32

Vulcan7 Nation, let me tell you. The system works if you work it, right? I will tell you, again, I don’t know if you were recording when I said this before. I don’t know about Vulcan7, because I’m not in it every day. I know enough that when someone calls me back, I can pull up their number and see who it was, and I can have the conversation. That’s all I know, right?

13:51But the level of customer support and things are amazing, right? And every day I get emails about trainings y’all have. If y’all are not utilizing these trainings, you’re doing yourself a disservice. And you see these videos, you see these interviews, and you think that, okay, I’m a good Vulcan7 and I’m gonna have 10 listings a month out the gate.

14:13Pack your patience. It doesn’t happen that way, but it will come. If you continue at it, it will come, because the process worked, but you gotta work it, right?

Aaron Wittenstein14:23

I wanna leave it at that. I’m gonna leave it at that. We’re good. All right, Charlene, so someone’s moving to West Atlanta, and they need an amazing realtor that is willing to pack their patience.

14:33How do they get in touch?

Charlene Collier14:35

Atlanta, you move into Atlanta Metro, right? Okay. So tell me where you’re at. The whole Atlanta metro area I service. So Atlanta and the suburbs of Atlanta as well. And again, I’m originally from DC, and so I’m also licensed back home in the DMV area.

14:54I’m licensed in Maryland. So if anyone is looking to buy or sell in the DC Metro area, I can help with that too.

Aaron Wittenstein15:01

Beautiful. How do they get in touch with you if they have a referral?

Charlene Collier15:04

So charlene.collier@kw.com is my email. On the socials, I’m just Charlene Collier. I’m basic. I told you I’m not fancy.

15:14I’m Charlene_Collier on Instagram, Charlene Collier on Facebook. You’ll find me there. I’m heavy on social media, so if you look me up, you’ll see me in my videos. I like to do the real side of real estate and show you all the things that don’t work. I do Money Making Mondays and try to let people know the little things that we don’t know about the real estate industry, and just a day in the life of what it means to be a realtor in this crazy-ass real estate game.

15:42It’s not what you see on Selling Sunset. It’s not what you see on Million Dollar Listing. It is not. It is not. It is hard work.

Aaron Wittenstein15:48

Yeah, I had a lot of hair before I started. Let’s just leave it at that, okay? One hair for every transaction. Seriously, Charlene, thank you so much for being here, okay? This is actually amazing.

Charlene Collier15:56

I appreciate your time.

Aaron Wittenstein15:57

You’re very welcome. Remind everybody, don’t forget to, and the little thing right there, trust the process. Y’all take care. Go make some money. Be well.

Charlene Collier16:05

Bye.