How Christa Estes converts 85 to 90% of listing appointments on 50 contacts a day

Aaron Wittenstein00:00

Can you walk me through what a conversation looks like with a seller that, let’s say they’re listed at 400,000, not getting the activity? You know the price is 350, let’s just say. What does that conversation look like?

Christa Estes00:14

So if we have no showings and no offers, that automatically tells us we’re 10 to 20 percent overpriced.

00:19If we’re getting showings and no offers, you’re at least 5 to 10 percent. These are proven studies. So we need to price your home at a price that will allow it to sell instead of just sitting on the market. Do you still need to move to Chicago by March? To really expand your business, you’ve got to call expireds and for-sale-by-owners.

00:38There’s no way. You will be stagnant if you don’t ever increase new contacts. So you have to go into the expireds and the FSBOs.

Aaron Wittenstein01:05

Hey, what’s going on, everybody? It’s me, Aaron Wittenstein, and we are here with Vulcan 7 Roadmap. This is where we interview agents from across the country to teach you basically how to take a bunch of additional listings a week, okay? And I’ve never interviewed anybody from Mississippi, by the way, side note.

01:22This is my first Mississippi interview. We have Christa Estes. Is it Estes or Estes?

Christa Estes01:30

Estes.

Aaron Wittenstein01:30

Estes. I was right the first time. Okay. One S. Estes, okay. And from Northeast Mississippi. Christa, you wanna say hello to everybody?

Christa Estes01:40

Hello, everybody.

Aaron Wittenstein01:40

So we were chatting a little bit before, like I do with everybody, to find out what makes them special, and with no breath whatsoever, what makes you special?

01:50“Consistency.” It was like the first thing out of Christa’s mouth. So Christa, when you say consistency, tell me a little bit about what that means to you.

Christa Estes02:03

So the first thing is I call expireds in the morning, and I get them from Vulcan. The first call every day is my expireds. Then second calls is for sale by owners, and then I’m calling my past clients, center of influence, and then I’m calling the probates.

02:19I’m on the phone with the probates and calling the probates also. So it’s every day I’m making 50 contacts per day of looking for a listing. That’s my whole job. And customer service, that’s part of it too. That’s the center of influence. I had a call today, which makes you feel really good. I had sold this one client’s home when he was married to his first wife, and then his second wife and him bought a property that I had listed, but through another realtor.

02:48Well, she called and said, “We will never, ever buy a house through anybody but you and your husband, because Ben told me that your service was phenomenal.” And she says, “I have not heard from my realtor and you’ve been consistent in staying in touch. You’ve called and told us about filing for homestead.

03:06We’ve not heard one word from our other realtor. Now we’re looking,” and they’ve only been there one year. “We wanna move out on a farm, and we wanna find another property, but we want you to list the property and help us find another property.” The best call you can receive.

Aaron Wittenstein03:18

Oh my gosh, yeah. So I wanna ask one question and then I wanna ask-

03:22another question, if that’s cool with you.

03:25When you say 50 contacts a day, what’s your definition of a contact?

Christa Estes03:30

It’s talking to someone that I can talk to, not leaving a message. So I physically speak to 50 people per day.

Aaron Wittenstein03:37

Okay, got it.

Christa Estes03:38

And being honest with you, if I run out of…

03:42Which I never… I’ve been in the business for 30 years, and I’ve sold over 100 homes since I’ve been in the business. So I’ve got a lot. I adopt the other side of the transaction too. So by the time I get through doing FSBOs, expireds, past clients, adopted, center of influence, probates, I don’t have it done by the end of the day.

03:59Like when I come in, the lowest amount of contacts I have in my database to call is probably about 70. But when I come in, typically it’s about 200. So I never am catching up because I have so many people in the database. My coach and I go through and we really try to… If I have not spoken to that person in the past six months, they will actually go on another plan that’s kind of like a slow drip.

04:25I need to speak to people.

Aaron Wittenstein04:28

Oh, well, two more questions before I ask my next question then. I know what adopt a client means, but for those that don’t know what adopt a client means, can you please share what that is?

Christa Estes04:37

So adopt a client basically means when I go to a transaction and I have the listing, then I’m gonna service that buyer that bought through another realtor, ’cause they’re never gonna call them.

04:46They’re never gonna give them the service. And I do the traditional, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, Mike Ferry, where I do the first call thanking them for purchasing the property. The second call is calling to make sure, is there anything as you’re settling in, you’re getting into the house, is there any questions that you would like me to reach out to the seller and ask that might have come up during this move-in time.

05:09And then the third call is just to, again, with the first week, seven days, three weeks. And the three-week call, I’m calling just to check in, make sure they’re good, let them know that I will be in touch with them about filing for homestead. And if there’s anything of any contractors or anything associated with the house that they need, feel free to reach out to me.

05:31I’m here available, and to give them any of my knowledge that I can help them with.

Aaron Wittenstein05:35

Okay. So there’s like nine out of 10 agents right there are thinking, “Is there pushback when you do something like that?”

Christa Estes05:42

No. None. Not if you say it nicely and you’re offering. If you’re coming with gratitude and offering help, they are not gonna reject help.

05:51If you come and they feel like you’re coming for a commission, absolutely. But when you’re offering help, they’ve already got their house and all you’re coming with is offering help.

Aaron Wittenstein06:02

Okay. So back, like I said, I wanted to take that back ’cause I think that’s a great idea, and not many agents at all really do that.

06:09And it’s ’cause what you’re doing is you’re building your database, right?

Christa Estes06:13

That’s correct.

Aaron Wittenstein06:13

And then when you say 50 contacts a day, how long does it take you to typically get that 50 contacts?

Christa Estes06:21

So it takes a while. I literally will say I start about 8:15, 8:30.

06:27Some days I have role play, so it’s 8:30, and I’m on the phone till at least sometimes 12:00, 12:30. I’m very dedicated to get my contacts in before I stop to eat lunch.

Aaron Wittenstein06:37

All right. So when you hit 50 contacts… I know the one thing you mentioned to me as well when we first started is that Monday is-

06:46your, what, customer service day that you-

Christa Estes06:48

No, that’s Friday is my customer service day.

Aaron Wittenstein06:50

Friday’s your customer… Okay.

Christa Estes06:51

Friday. That’s correct.

Aaron Wittenstein06:53

Can you walk us through a little bit about what that looks like, ’cause I know that to me, that sounded very important to you.

Christa Estes06:59

Absolutely. So every Friday I take all the listings and I call half, and one of my other licensed assistants calls half.

07:05So we rotate so they don’t have to hear from me every Friday. It’s rotated, but they’re gonna hear from me every other Friday, and they’re gonna hear from Diana every other Friday. So I call, and I pretty much go over… They’re gonna get, within 24 hours, Monday through Thursday, when I sit down and go through what I do and what I offer, they’re gonna get feedback.

07:24Even if we don’t get the response from the seller, we will text and say, “Hey, your house was shown. We know at this time we have reached out, we’ve requested, we’ve texted, we’ve called. They have not responded. If we receive their feedback, we will let you know.” There are some agents that never send the feedback, and we all know that.

07:41So I keep the sellers up to date with that. But Friday is not a feedback call. Friday is getting price reductions, making sure the customer service is in place, just talking to the seller and letting them know we are here, we’re working. And typically, I don’t have to ask for a price reduction because I’m calling every week.

08:03They say, “Hey, reduce the house.” I just got a text this morning, “Can you reduce the home to 350? Me and my wife have been talking.” But every Friday, either me or Dana are in contact with them regardless of what’s happening.

Aaron Wittenstein08:16

Well, ’cause I mean, it’s the beginning battle, you know what I mean? There’s a progression here.

08:20First thing you gotta do is you gotta pick up the phone, then you gotta get the appointment. Then you gotta go on the appointment, then you gotta take the listing. Then after you take the listing, you gotta service the listing.

Christa Estes08:29

That’s correct.

Aaron Wittenstein08:29

So what I like is that… like I do Wednesdays.

08:34It’s my Wednesdays, what I do on Wednesday afternoons, okay? Can you walk me through what a conversation looks like with a seller that, let’s say they’re listed at 400,000, not getting the activity. You know the price is 350, okay, let’s just say.

Christa Estes08:49

Right.

Aaron Wittenstein08:49

What does that conversation look like?

Christa Estes08:51

You know, Aaron, I would say, “You know, Aaron, we have had this many buyers that have come in and looked at your home, or have not had these showings occur on your home. As a buyer, the bait on the end of the fishing pole is your price. And if we’re not getting any buyers to bite at your price and come look at your home, it’s gotta be the bait.

09:11Are you ready to change the bait on the end of the fishing pole?”

Aaron Wittenstein09:15

Well, I mean, but the thing is, we gotta get this certain amount of money out of the house.

Christa Estes09:22

I agree. I completely understand. But your home is only worth what a buyer’s willing to pay. We haven’t even had a buyer come in and offer us anything.

Aaron Wittenstein09:31

Interesting. Okay. So what do you suggest we should be listing the home for right now?

Christa Estes09:36

So if we have no showings and no offers, that automatically tells us we’re 10 to 20% overpriced. If we’re getting showings and no offers, you’re at least 5 to 10%. These are proven studies. So we need to price your home at a price that will allow it to sell instead of just sitting on the market.

09:53Do you still need to move to Chicago by March?

Aaron Wittenstein09:57

Yes.

Christa Estes09:59

Okay. So let’s get this price right.

Aaron Wittenstein10:01

Okay. So what price do you suggest then?

Christa Estes10:04

I would say anywhere between 20 to 10%. Which price would you like to go? You wanna go 20? You wanna go 10?

Aaron Wittenstein10:10

Can we meet in the middle at 15?

Christa Estes10:14

That would be perfect. Let’s do 15.

Aaron Wittenstein10:17

See, and you know what I love about what you did right there? There wasn’t really an option. It’s like, this is the market. This is what the market states. This is what we need. And do you get a lot of pushback, or is that pretty-

Christa Estes10:34

I will say the one person that texted this morning that said, “Hey, please reduce my house,” I had a little pushback with them probably early on.

10:44But once we get into it and they see I’m doing my job, it’s the market. I cannot control the market.

10:54And I tell them right up front, “I cannot control the market. When you go into Walmart and you buy something and it’s listed for $1.99, and there’s the same product beside it for $5.99, which one are you gonna buy?”

Aaron Wittenstein11:06

It’s like I always say, we don’t control the market. We just do the best we can to interpret it.

11:13You know, and that’s what it comes down to. Okay. So you’re calling a lot. I mean, you’re calling expireds, for sale by owners, probate, SOI. Which one’s your favorite?

Christa Estes11:24

I like past clients and center of influence. I don’t know, I just like people that I’ve done business with. Those are the fun calls. The harder calls are the FSBOs and expireds. But now, if I had to choose between an expired or a FSBO, I like the expireds because they’ve already listed, they’ve already been kind of greased up and wheeled up.

11:43They’re easier to take than a FSBO. FSBOs, they haven’t had enough time to figure out that they need us. So I would say I love calling past clients or adopted past clients or center of influence, but I’m on expireds every day.

Aaron Wittenstein11:57

So you just like calling everybody. You’re like, “I don’t care who.”

Christa Estes12:00

You’re like, “Who’s your favorite?”

Aaron Wittenstein12:01

I don’t care.

Christa Estes12:02

You’re like, “I don’t care.” I will call till I beat a dead horse. I mean, till I get them to do business or send me business. One or the other.

Aaron Wittenstein12:09

How long have you been calling for?

Christa Estes12:10

I’ve been calling for 30 years.

Aaron Wittenstein12:11

No, I meant like…

12:13How long have you been prospecting for, I guess, is the best way to put it?

Christa Estes12:16

Since about 1996.

Aaron Wittenstein12:20

So that’s like 28 years.

Christa Estes12:21

Yeah. I started real estate in ’94. I met Mike Ferry in 1996 in New Orleans at a summit when it was Prudential, which is no longer a real estate company. So I’m showing my age now.

Aaron Wittenstein12:32

It’s not even… You’re like me. I mean, I’ve only been prospecting, doing this for what, 11, 12 years now.

12:41But it’s almost like when you don’t do it-

Christa Estes12:44

I don’t feel complete.

Aaron Wittenstein12:46

It feels like you didn’t shower for the day, right?

Christa Estes12:50

Yeah, that’s right. It doesn’t feel good. I have to make my contacts.

Aaron Wittenstein12:54

So, all right. So then, the way that I look at it here is, people like us have it ingrained, okay?

Christa Estes13:01

Correct.

Aaron Wittenstein13:01

No matter which way that it is, okay? Now someone that’s starting, what area would you suggest to start in? Where would you point someone in the right direction?

Christa Estes13:13

The friendly, fun calls to do is your past clients that you just closed on, be it a seller, be it a buyer.

13:19Adopt the other side because they’re happy. They just sold their house or just bought a home. That’s where you need to start, and that is the best person. I call it free advertisement. When you make those relationships and bonds with those people, they tell everybody to use you if they feel that you did a good job and that you’re gonna give the customer service.

13:41Those are great calls. But to really expand your business, you’ve got to call expireds and for sale by owners. There’s no way. You will be stagnant if you don’t ever increase new contacts. So you have to go into the expireds and the

Aaron Wittenstein13:55

FSBOs. Exactly. And it’s diversification, you know,

13:57is what it

13:58comes

13:59down to.

Christa Estes13:59

Correct.

Aaron Wittenstein13:59

Because this one may be good at one point, that one may be good at one point, so on and so forth. Right? So, at least it seems to me, your schedule is down pat. Like, you know exactly what you’re doing, when you’re doing it, how you’re doing it, within-

14:12what concept to do it in. Am I right?

Christa Estes14:14

Yes. Correct.

Aaron Wittenstein14:15

So, do you have a morning ritual as well?

Christa Estes14:20

I do. I mean, I come in, I first talk to my staff for a few minutes. I role play till 8:30, and by 8:30, like I said, I’m on the phone and I’m calling. Actually, about 5:30 or 5:00 in the morning, I’m texting.

14:36We have a group text. I have a team. So on the group text, I’m sending all the expireds that I see. I go onto the MLS first thing when I wake up in the morning, and I’m sending the expireds to the group. So when I walk in in the morning, they come in probably a little earlier than me, and they have it in my chair, all the expireds to make calls on.

Aaron Wittenstein14:54

Okay. So you really live and breathe-

14:58the expireds. So let me get this straight. You wake up 5:00 in the morning, you brush your teeth, okay? And then it’s like, boom, MLS. Let’s see what’s going down.

Christa Estes15:06

Yes. Absolutely. First thing.

15:09Even on vacation.

Aaron Wittenstein15:10

That’s actually funny. I do something very similar myself. And then, so after… I mean, it sounds like you really don’t need to do anything to get yourself pumped up to call, right?

Christa Estes15:22

No, I just get on the phone. I mean, I don’t have to pump myself up or motivate myself.

15:28I mean, it’s ingrained. I’m gonna get on the phone, I’m gonna call.

Aaron Wittenstein15:32

So all right. So you’ve been doing this a long time, okay? You started when you were like negative three years old, okay?

Christa Estes15:39

Correct.

15:40I mean, honestly, I only have done real estate. I graduated from college, had a marketing degree.

15:45I got licensed and went straight to real estate. That’s it. That’s all I’ve ever done.

Aaron Wittenstein15:50

So let me ask you this. With your production and whatever you and your team are doing, what part of your production are you most proud of?

Christa Estes16:00

I’m very proud that I have a team that we can work together, and that it’s not… like I tell them, it’s not just me, it’s every part of us. Like my husband, Andy, he goes and does most of the buyer showings, and then I only do listings. My job, I have one job. That’s it. One job is to get listings.

16:19So I’m on the phone prospecting for listings. That’s it. I don’t go on buyer showing appointments. I just go to listing appointments. And now, have I gone on some buyer showings? Yes. Has my husband went on some listings? Yes. But I’m rusty at that. I’m a well-oiled wheel when I go to a listing appointment.

16:38When my husband comes to a listing appointment and I’m not there, he’s rusty. My assistant, I take an assistant with me at every listing appointment, and she’ll say, “Oh my goodness, Andy, he’s not good as you.” I said, “Well, I’m not as good as him on the buyer side.” I mean, we have our certain

16:54defined jobs. Then I have one licensed assistant. All she does is negotiate contracts and she does home inspection negotiations. That’s all she does. That’s her job and we don’t touch that. I do listings.

Aaron Wittenstein17:03

All right, I gotta ask this then, because you seem like… you’re awesome, by the way.

17:08You seem super nice. But I’m gonna venture to guess when you sit down at my table, you’re a bulldog.

Christa Estes17:14

I am a bulldog.

Aaron Wittenstein17:15

You’re a bulldog.

Christa Estes17:16

I actually graduated from Mississippi State University, which is Bulldogs.

Aaron Wittenstein17:19

So you’re definitely, for all intents and-

Christa Estes17:21

But I’m a good bulldog.

17:24Yeah. As I say, I’m a bulldog, but I’m nice about it and I’m friendly.

17:28But I’m gonna get the job done.

Aaron Wittenstein17:31

Because, I mean, here’s the epiphany that I had, and you’ll agree with me on this, especially when it comes to an expired. No one wants to sell their house for fun.

17:41It just doesn’t work that way.

Christa Estes17:42

No, it doesn’t work that way.

Aaron Wittenstein17:43

They all have a reason.

17:44Usually a life-changing reason that they wanna sell their home.

Christa Estes17:46

That’s right. Who wants to keep their house clean? Here’s how I describe it. When I go in and list a house, I say, “Look,” to the women. Most men don’t understand this.

17:55I said, “Selling a house is like being pregnant. There’s no fun. You’re fat, you’re ugly, you can’t touch your toes. But once you move into that new house and you get settled and moved in, it’s like holding that baby, then you forget all the pain you went through.” So it’s not fun.

Aaron Wittenstein18:11

Exactly. And an expired-

18:12something

Christa Estes18:13

went wrong. They have been through that misery.

Aaron Wittenstein18:17

Someone put them through that, and it’s our job to come in and fix the problem so they’re not stuck with another weak agent, right?

Christa Estes18:25

And that’s the other thing. I have data on homes that I have listed that have been expired, and I can say, “Look, I have…

18:31my job, I specialize in coming in and taking an expired,” just like you go to a specialist or a physician. “I specialize in taking expireds and getting you sold, if you’ll listen to me.”

Aaron Wittenstein18:42

Exactly. So let me ask you this, because I don’t normally… What’s your conversion rate when you’re at the table with somebody?

18:48I’m assuming it’s gotta be-

Christa Estes18:49

I would say it’s pretty tight. My conversion, I have to pull my numbers up to look at it, but I’m gonna say I’m probably at least 90, 85. 85, 90, somewhere in there. Like most of the properties… I mean, like the other day I was going out of town and the lady called and wanted to list the house.

19:08I did my negotiation of a price. I did my CMA. I went and said, “Let me call you back.” I pulled the CMA, I did everything, told her the price, negotiated where we need to be, and just sent my assistant to go take the listing. I mean, she’s licensed, but I just sent her. She had to do no negotiation, no presentation. I did everything before she got there.

Aaron Wittenstein19:27

It’s because you exude confidence.

19:29You know what I mean?

19:31Like, your confidence level is second to none.

Christa Estes19:36

Thanks. I didn’t know that.

Aaron Wittenstein19:36

No, you’re very, very welcome. It’s true. You just… I know you know what you’re talking about.

19:43And that’s the way that I look at it here. And when you can exude that, it radiates

19:48through people.

19:49And no, it’s… like I said, I talk to a lot of people, and I mean, your confidence level… and it’s when you don’t know it, that’s when you’re even better.

Christa Estes19:57

Right. Right.

Aaron Wittenstein19:58

All right. So let me ask you this. So a brand new agent-

20:02is walking past your door-

20:04and says, “Christa, Christa, I heard you’re amazing. What is one piece of advice that you could give me to bring my business to the next level, or to start my business?”

Christa Estes20:14

Well, you’ve got to prospect. You’re not gonna get any business sitting and waiting. You’ve got to prospect. You’ve gotta get on the phone.

20:22I will say, even my husband, when he’s a buyer’s agent, he’s looking for listings also. He gets on Vulcan and he pulls the neighborhood, and he calls the neighborhood. I require him. I said, “You cannot sit and wait for a buyer. Call and get the listing and then the buyers will come.”

Aaron Wittenstein20:42

It doesn’t get much more simple than that, now does it? It’s super simple. All right. So as we kinda tidy this thing up in a nice little bow and present and package and all that stuff, what are your final last words to Vulcan 7 Nation?

Christa Estes20:57

Yeah. I would say everybody needs to have… I’ve done it the old way, where you have to go and pull everything and pull the data, and then make the dials.

21:07‘Cause when I’m calling a neighborhood, I use Vulcan. I do say my husband does that, but there’s times that I just take and I wanna do the old, what I call, call the neighborhood, just listed, just sold. I love making those calls. It’s just getting on the phone. I feel like people need to have that neighborhood search where they can pull and they can narrow into the neighborhood they wanna call in, and then just make the phone calls.

21:32‘Cause if you don’t call, someone else is gonna get them. You’ve gotta be the first one.

Aaron Wittenstein21:37

If you’re not first, you’re last, right?

Christa Estes21:39

Yep, that’s right.

Aaron Wittenstein21:40

All right.

Christa Estes21:41

Gotta be the first.

Aaron Wittenstein21:42

All right. So let’s say someone is moving from, as you said earlier, Chicago, my old stomping ground, Illinois-

21:49to Northeast Mississippi. How does one get in touch with you for all of their referrals?

Christa Estes21:55

Well, my number is 662-690-9112, and just ask for Christa Estes. That transfers to my cellphone. It goes to our office. You’re gonna get us anytime.

Aaron Wittenstein22:03

Excellent. Christa, this was absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for popping on here.

22:07Guys, once again, I just wanna say thanks for coming by, watching us on Vulcan 7 Roadmap and all these amazing agents. Remember to trust the process. Have a good one, guys. Take care.