How Colt Callison took 8 expired listings in one week and 33 at his peak

Colt Callison00:01

Hit the phones hard and just prospect, right? And as long as you do it consistently and it’s a daily habit, that got me a lot of business. And then I knew I had to focus on listings, right? I started with Keller Williams Realty, and they taught leads, listings, and leverage.

00:19So I knew I had to be listings-focused, and I kinda went all in on listings. I never focused on any buyers. I wouldn’t work with a buyer. And yeah, man, I made it a point. Gary Keller back then, with Keller Williams, he told me, “Hey, you gotta get your routine, you gotta be prospecting.”

00:40So that’s what I did. I was really a machine, and I just prospected from 8:00 to 11:00 every morning, Monday through Friday. And I wouldn’t quit until I hit my at least 20 contacts for the day, and that’s just what they told me to do, and that’s what I did, and it worked.

Aaron Wittenstein01:15

What’s going on everybody? It’s me, it’s Aaron Wittenstein, and we are here with Vulcan7 Roadmap. This is where we teach you how to take an additional two, three, four, 356 additional listings a week. And I actually have somebody here. I don’t know, it feels like I got my twin brother here for some odd reason.

01:32Don’t ask me why. I don’t have the facial hair, but I got the bald thing and the black shirt. We did not plan this, just so everybody knows that. We did not plan this.

Colt Callison01:42

You look great.

Aaron Wittenstein01:42

You look phenomenal, by the way. It’s like I’m looking in a mirror right now.

Colt Callison01:45

All you need is some facial hair. That’s about it.

Aaron Wittenstein01:48

My wife doesn’t like it. But we’ve got Colt Callison here from Wichita, Kansas. How are you doing, my friend? You doing well?

Colt Callison01:54

Doing great, man. I appreciate the opportunity to be on here. Thanks.

Aaron Wittenstein01:57

Oh, you’re very, very welcome.

01:58Very welcome. So you started real estate, you said it was ’13? Did I remember that correctly?

Colt Callison02:06

It was August of 2013, so I’m going on 11 years now.

Aaron Wittenstein02:10

11 years. And from what you’re telling me, tell me, back in like ’13, ’14, ’15, ’16, how many listings were you taking at any given point with expireds?

Colt Callison02:22

Oh, man. I remember a week, and this was just expireds, and back then it was withdrawns. Now it’s canceled in our MLS. But just expireds and canceled, I took eight listings in one week when I was going hot and heavy with prospecting with Vulcan, yeah.

Aaron Wittenstein02:43

So you took eight listings

Colt Callison02:45

One week.

Aaron Wittenstein02:46

And that’s why you have no hair, right? Am I right?

Colt Callison02:50

Yeah, that pretty much done it. I mean, basically people say I look like The Rock. And so I’m just a smaller version. But other than that, yeah, I just go with the bald look.

Aaron Wittenstein03:02

There we go, there we go.

03:04All right. So I know you from our previous conversation here, you were calling expireds. You kinda got away from doing that a bit, okay? You went a different route when it comes to that, and over the last few months, you’ve really kinda taken it back into making those regular expired phone calls.

03:24Is that correct?

Colt Callison03:26

Absolutely. You know, Aaron, when I first started in real estate, I worked for a team. I was a buyer’s agent, and I ended up being the number one buyer agent for that team. I was selling about eight, nine homes a month on that team prospecting. That’s what really taught me how to just hit the phones hard and just prospect, right?

03:44And as long as you do it consistently and it’s a daily habit, that got me a lot of business. So I took that experience and I utilized it in my own business when I broke away from that team, and then I knew I had to focus on listings, right? I started with Keller Williams Realty, and they taught leads, listings, and leverage.

04:06So I knew I had to be listings focused, and I kinda went all in on listings. I never focused on any buyers. I wouldn’t work with a buyer. And yeah, man, I made it a point. Gary Keller back then, with Keller Williams, he told me, “Hey, you’ve gotta get your routine. Nothing happens in real estate before 11:00.

04:26So from 8:00 to 11:00, you gotta be prospecting.” So that’s what I did. I was really a machine and I just prospected from 8:00 to 11:00 every morning, Monday through Friday. And I wouldn’t quit until I hit my at least 20 contacts for the day, and that’s just what they told me to do and that’s what I did, and it worked.

Aaron Wittenstein04:47

Yeah.

04:47I mean, ’cause we all know, it’s knowing your numbers, you know? I think it’s really knowing the numbers that you have, because when you make it a math equation, if you will, you don’t have to think anymore. You know that X plus Y equals Z times three. You don’t have to sit there and even worry.

05:06Am I right?

Colt Callison05:08

Absolutely. I mean, I’ve tracked everything. I’ve tracked how many dials I’ve made. I’ve tracked how many contacts I made, how many contacts it takes to get a listing appointment set. So it’s really easy for me from a business owner and business standpoint now to make a business plan.

05:24You know, at the end of the year, what’s my goal? Find that goal and then just work backwards, right? I know how many listing appointments I have to go on, how many contacts I have to make on a daily basis. And what I find is, and especially with the newer agents that I train, is people get so focused, Aaron, on this big, I wanna make 100,000 or I wanna make 200,000, and they get so focused on that, but they don’t break it down into daily activities, right?

05:49They don’t even know how many contacts that is a day in order to hit that goal. And if you really do the math and just break it down, I mean, it’s so simple, right? And all I gotta do is just trust the process.

Aaron Wittenstein06:01

Exactly. You just took one of my favorite lines, and I trust the process. Trust the process.

06:06Can I ask you a question? Because I know that means something different to everybody. When you hear the term trust the process, what does that mean to you particularly?

Colt Callison06:14

Man, to me, and I tell you why I struggle with this too. I’m a 40,000-foot view kinda guy, but I really am horrible at digging down in the daily activity.

06:27So it’s knowing that I have to trust that if I come in and I make my contacts that I know I have to make, that at the end of the year the math is gonna work out. And I have to trust, I have to see long term for these today activities. And that’s hard to do in that we all want things now, and in real estate, unfortunately, we’re working 60 to 90 days out, right?

06:52If we’re prospecting today, we’re not closing for two, three months, maybe four months. And that’s a hard thing to do as an independent contractor. We don’t get paid every two weeks. So just trusting that in the end, if you just do the daily activities and you’re consistent with it, it’ll work out.

Aaron Wittenstein07:08

Exactly. It’s trusting the process. I have a T-shirt that says “Trust the process” on it, if you can believe it. I don’t remember where I found it. I’m gonna get your address. I’m gonna send you a “Trust the process” T-shirt.

07:25We’ll wear it together on our next one, right?

Colt Callison07:28

Okay. We’ll get back on here and twins it up again.

Aaron Wittenstein07:32

There we go. All right. So I wanna fast-forward, okay? So you were doing this for a long period of time. You backed away from it, kinda wanted a little bit of a different route, if you will.

07:43And right now you’re back heavy hitting it, right?

Colt Callison07:48

Yeah. So 2014, I really hit it hard, and I got up to… I was an individual agent, no help, no administrative help, no buyer’s agents, nothing like that. Got up to 25 active listings. And I had another eight of them pending.

08:07So what is that? 33 listings at my peak. I was probably getting four or five buyer sign calls a day, and I would basically just give them the information about the house. And when they wanted to see the house, I’d say, “Hey, sorry, I don’t have time to go show you. Call somebody else.” So my mistake back then is I didn’t leverage help to work those buyer leads.

08:30And there was a ton of them. What I ran into though is that was the only type of business that I was utilizing, right? So when I was with the team, I was taught to be transactional. It wasn’t my problem to deal with the long-term value of a client and keep them as a long-term customer or long-term client.

08:51It was just go to the next one. Here’s the next lead, work the next lead. And so that’s how I kinda worked my business until 2017. And then, honestly, I just wore into burnout, ’cause I got to a point where I knew, hey, if I didn’t go in the office and prospect, my business was dead, and when I was doing my yearly goals for 2017, I honestly just went into burnout.

09:16I didn’t have any referral business, anything like that. I was strictly prospecting-based. And that’s when I found a method with a great system. And it’s honestly right out of the “Millionaire Real Estate Agent” book that I’ve read multiple times. It’s a database, it’s 33 touch, and that’s what we utilize.

09:40And last year we sold 58 units, a little over 324,000 in GCI, and those were mostly referral-based. So I’ve been in the leadership aspect of the brokerage for a while, and we just decided that we wanna pivot, right? It’s not as profitable as we thought being a traditional brokerage. So we’ve kinda let most of the agents go.

10:06I’ve kept the good ones that I can really trust and know how to work the buyers on leads. So now I’ve gone back into sales. Just recently started prospecting on a daily basis with Vulcan. Love it, by the way. It’s the best data that I’ve seen out there with the other products that I’ve used in the past.

10:26And I focus 100% on listings just like I did back then, but now I have help on the buy side. So when we generate buyer leads, I just hand those off, and it allows me to stay focused on what I know is gonna continue to grow the business. So the way we’re going about it now is we have a really great dialed-in system for referrals and repeat business.

10:49We wanna continue doing that, but I also wanna grow, so we’re prospecting for brand-new business with expireds, cancelleds, stuff like that, for sale by owners. And then once we pick them up as clients, they go in our database and hopefully keep them for the long term, because we understand the long-term value of a client now.

11:08So that’s really our business strategy, and it’s working.

Aaron Wittenstein11:11

So you went from transactional, right-

Colt Callison11:14

Absolutely.

Aaron Wittenstein11:15

to relational, right? Then you found a way to make the transactional turn into relational.

Colt Callison11:19

That’s the best book.

Aaron Wittenstein11:19

Which in my opinion is right there. It’s just a triangle going back and forth.

11:25Heck, it’s more of a circle than anything, ’cause it’s just running around. You know what I mean? You’re getting done what you need to get done with it. And I think that so many agents that at least I speak with, it’s get it in, get it in. It’s a number. Which we just spoke about, did we not?

11:48Where they’re not just a number, they’re a human being. And when you can have that… Let’s say every month you get four expireds, a for sale by owner, and three referrals, that’s a well-balanced business. Wouldn’t you agree?

Colt Callison12:01

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, if you truly understand, Aaron, the value, the lifetime value of a client, I’ll pay a referral fee to pick up a client anytime.

12:13I mean, if anybody wants to send a referral to Wichita, Kansas, I’ll take it. I’ll pay whatever you want, because I understand that if we just keep in touch with them, which is the big mistake for most agents, but if we just keep in touch with them and we just make it relational, every conversation doesn’t have to be about real estate, and that’s the secret, right?

12:36It’s getting to know them. It’s getting to know what little Johnny did for soccer. How did it go? It’s just simple conversations to build friendships. And that’s what I learned five, six years ago, seven years ago now. Man, time flies. But I don’t have to be salesy. It’s just coming from contribution.

12:58Obviously, I wanna help out with their home, but I’m also being curious about them as a person, and that’s got us a lot of business.

Aaron Wittenstein13:08

So let me ask you this. How has the relational, what’s the word I’m looking for here, the relational conversations impacted your transactional conversations?

13:19Do you feel now when you’re speaking with an expired or for sale by owner, it’s a bit different than it was back in the day?

Colt Callison13:25

Oh man. I remember when I first was learning expired prospecting. I remember getting into arguments. I mean, it was like, “No, your house did come off the market,” you know? And I had to prove them wrong like I was the great salesperson.

13:41And I don’t know what I was thinking. Now, every phone call that I get on, I’m just trying to look at how I can help them, right? Come from contribution first. That’s the most important thing. And just be relational. People are already upset that their home didn’t sell. They’re upset.

13:59So if you come in acting like you’re the end-all be-all, you’re the greatest thing in the world, roadblock right away. So I just come in and I try to be a person. Just like if you were to call me, how would I want you to call me, right? Just come from that. And typically they’ll let their guard down.

14:22You can actually see, hey, why didn’t the home sell? What makes you think it didn’t sell?

Aaron Wittenstein14:26

Can I ask you a question? I don’t wanna cut you off-

Colt Callison14:29

No, go ahead.

Aaron Wittenstein14:30

But would you be amenable to doing a role play with me?

Colt Callison14:33

Oh, man. I figured you’d put me on the spot.

14:35Now I gotta act like I know what I’m doing.

Aaron Wittenstein14:37

No pressure, lots of pressure. Because honestly, you hear so many different… I wanna hear what you do. I won’t be difficult.

14:49I’ll be moderately difficult, but, um, give me a call.

Colt Callison14:54

Ring, ring.

Aaron Wittenstein14:55

Hello.

Colt Callison14:55

Hey, Aaron.

Aaron Wittenstein14:56

Yes.

Colt Callison14:57

Aaron, it’s Colt Callison, managing broker over here at Provident Realty. How are you doing, man?

Aaron Wittenstein15:01

I’m good. You’re like the 45th agent to call me today.

Colt Callison15:04

I’m sure. Hey, I won’t take up much of your time. I just noticed that your house came off the market.

15:09Did you ever get that sold, or is it still available by chance?

Aaron Wittenstein15:13

No, it didn’t sell, and I think we’re gonna wind up just relisting with our same agent, Sally Mae.

Colt Callison15:20

I understand. Let me ask you this. I’m looking at the pictures right now, and I’m just curious, what do you think kept it from selling?

15:30‘Cause it looks like a wonderful house. Did you guys get much feedback at all?

Aaron Wittenstein15:35

Yeah, I mean, the reality of it is, is our agent never showed the house. And we only had one open house. So I don’t know. Like I said, I like her. I think she’s a great lady.

15:48I definitely do, you know? But maybe it was the marketing.

Colt Callison15:52

You think maybe the marketing?

15:54Yeah. How many showings did you have? I’m just curious.

Aaron Wittenstein16:01

We had like 13.

Colt Callison16:01

13. Man, you’ve been on the market for over four months. That’s it? Okay. So did you get any helpful feedback, Aaron, on maybe the layout or maybe the price or anything like that?

16:16Did anybody help you kind of get a good understanding of why they weren’t making offers?

Aaron Wittenstein16:20

One person didn’t like the tile in my bathroom. And the other one said that the pool was ugly.

Colt Callison16:29

Pool was ugly. Okay. Sounds good. How long has it been since you had your last showing?

Aaron Wittenstein16:33

It’s been a bit.

16:35I have no idea. I don’t know offhand. I’m not sure.

Colt Callison16:39

Gotcha. Hey, and I completely understand you wanting to go back with your old agent. Let me ask you this. And I don’t mind doing this at all. Would you be opposed, Aaron, if I ran a full market report on your property, just for me to take a look at it and see if I can maybe pinpoint what would help you get it sold?

17:00Would that be worth 15 minutes of your time for us to go over that?

Aaron Wittenstein17:04

I mean, what would you do differently than Sally Mae?

Colt Callison17:11

You know, I’m really glad that you mentioned that. Here’s the thing. Typically, it’s hard for me to put together a game plan without seeing the home, right? And seeing what’s really important for you guys, what you’re looking at doing.

17:26I don’t know where you’re looking at going, I don’t know what your timeframe is that you need to sell, I don’t know your motivation or anything like that. So it’d be a good thing for us to get together. I’ll have all the data. It’s not just my opinion, Aaron. It’s black and white.

17:41I’m just gonna show you how many showings have been going on, and you can compare how your house has performed compared to everybody else’s that sold. And we can just go over that data, and we can talk about what I would do from a marketing standpoint. And if you like what I have to say, hey, great, we can do business.

17:57And if you don’t, we can still part ways as friends. Would that be worth your time?

Aaron Wittenstein18:02

Hmm. Yeah, I mean, if you wanna stop by, you know what I mean? I’m not signing anything.

Colt Callison18:10

No, I’m not expecting you to sign anything. This is for us to get to know each other and even see if it’s a good fit, right?

18:17If we can’t be on the same page on anything, I don’t even know if I’d be able to help you and list your home. So it’s worth 15 minutes of my time for us to get together. I got time later this evening, or we could do tomorrow afternoon. What’s good for you? Tomorrow afternoon sounds dandy.

18:34Tomorrow afternoon. And then I would just set the appointment. So I don’t really care to go into a lot of detail as much as I need. I know other agents say, “Hey, you gotta prequalify,” and everything. When I do my business plan, Aaron, I count on only listing 40% of the ones I go on. That’s my business plan.

18:53Because I would rather go out and get in front of people that I think might be a long shot, and eventually get it later down the road. So that’s just kinda how I do things. I’d rather just get in front of people.

Aaron Wittenstein19:04

So two things. I don’t even know if you noticed you did this, but you have this sigh that you do when you’re talking.

19:11I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but it comes off as very genuine. You know what I mean? Like, I’m not trying to put… Yeah, it just comes off as, you’re like, and it was just like, I don’t understand.

19:30And I like the way that sounded. And there was no… You were very just even. There was no, like you said before, you’d yell at people. There was no unnecessary emotion in that conversation. It was paced very nicely. It was very pleasant to speak with you.

Colt Callison19:50

So I try to make a point that if my heart rate ever rises, I’m wrong. So absolutely I get excited, and I’ll celebrate if I set an appointment after I get off the phone and make my notes and everything, but I want it to sound like a normal conversation. Of course, I try to mirror and match as much as I can.

20:09I used to be really intentional about doing that earlier on, and I kinda… If they’re excited, I’ll act a little bit more excited. Honestly, if they’re cussing up a storm on the phone, I’ll do it as well. So I came from the military and law enforcement, and I can do it just as good as anybody else.

20:31But if it’s just a calm, collected conversation… Because what I’ve found is every other agent, from the feedback that I’ve gotten, is they are in their face over the phone and it’s all about, “Hey, when are you gonna hire the best agent or the right agent?” And I’m just… That’s not for me.

20:49So I just wanna see what their problem was with the house, what kind of feedback they had, and see if I can help. That’s it.

Aaron Wittenstein20:57

So let me ask you this then. All right. So you go on that appointment right there, they don’t sign with you. What’s your next step in the process?

Colt Callison21:03

Obviously you’re gonna follow up, right?

21:05I will tell you, with the listing presentation that I’ve put together, I took a playbook out of Ben Kenney from Keller Williams, up in Washington. He comes up with five actives, five pendings, and five sold comparables. And I have everything printed out with me. It’s only about 10 pages of data, and that includes net estimate and everything.

21:29I have it all. And when I walk people through the data on my listing presentation, really we just talk pricing strategy, what’s going on with the actives, what’s going on with the pendings, and what’s going on with the solds. And then at the end, right before I flip the page over and show them the net estimate, I just ask a simple question: “Hey, Aaron, based off the information that we covered today, if you were me telling me where to price my home, where would you tell me to price it in order for it to sell?”

22:00And then I shut up and I make them answer that. And ever since I started doing that, Aaron, I’ve never had one person guess outside the range that I have on my net estimate. And I don’t do a huge range. It’s only about a $10,000 range.

Aaron Wittenstein22:13

Got it.

Colt Callison22:13

You know, might be three seventy-five to three eighty-five, I don’t know.

22:18But they’ve always come within that, because I just walk them through how to read what the market’s doing. That’s my only job. I’m not a salesperson. I’m just a consultant, and I just show them how we read the market data and guide them to the right price. And if they come to an agreement on price with you, all I gotta do is flip it over and say, “Hey, I completely agree.

22:39When would you like it to hit the market?”

Aaron Wittenstein22:42

It’s an easy-

Colt Callison22:42

And it’s an easy, easy close.

Aaron Wittenstein22:44

I love that line right there. That is great. That is right there in the brain. I like that. Boom, right there. All right, my friends, let me ask you this. You got a new agent knocks on your door, okay? And he wants to get started.

22:54He’s like, “Colt, I need one piece of advice.” What’s that piece of advice you’re gonna give a brand new agent?

Colt Callison23:01

I tell you, you’ve just gotta put the work in. There’s no way around it. I think too many agents today, Aaron, are looking for the easy bullet. They’re looking for the quick fix. They’re out doing everything that they feel is important except for the true stuff that’s important, which is prospecting.

23:21There’s no way around it. If you wanna be successful, and every successful agent will probably agree, what got them there is they were prospecting based. Guarantee it. And then you’ve just gotta have a good system in place to keep that client around for life. So if you do those two things well, then you will have a nice business.

23:47And it’s really changed our life, I’ll tell you that. But yeah, there’s just no way around it, man. You’ve just gotta do the work. That’s it.

Aaron Wittenstein23:59

Pick up the phone, call somebody, right? So what final words do you have here today?

Colt Callison24:06

What final words? Wow, that’s a loaded question, Aaron.

24:10You know, all I can say is, for anybody brand new, right, you’re not gonna be perfect. You’re gonna make a lot of mistakes. So the thing I like to say is you gotta fail forward, right? And as long as you’re persistent and everything, you’ll be very successful. But don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

24:29I remember my very first listing appointment, I got laughed out of the dining room table. I thought I had pretty good comps, and the guy just started grilling me on, “Well, that house is not like this, and here’s why.” And I didn’t have any answers. So I went back to the office and I learned so much from that.

24:46I didn’t get the listing, so I failed. And I could’ve easily quit right there, but you’ve just gotta stick with it, right? So that’s what I keep telling people. And one thing I did learn, and it’s rang true in my business, if you can last four to five years, Aaron, and you are very relational, you will have a huge repeat and referral business.

Aaron Wittenstein25:07

I get you.

Colt Callison25:08

But it takes you a little while to build that up.

Aaron Wittenstein25:14

All right, my friend, someone has somebody moving to wonderful Wichita, Kansas. How does one get in touch with you for that referral?

Colt Callison25:21

You can easily give me a call on my cellphone. I’ll just give that out.

25:24It’s 316-796-3709. That’s the best way to contact me. colt@providentrealtyict.com is my email. But yeah, I’d be happy to… Never too busy for your referrals, right?

Aaron Wittenstein25:40

There you go, baby. All right, man, well, thank you very much. Like I said, I’ve been doing the roadmap for a little bit now. You have the best haircut of anybody that I’ve seen on here.

Colt Callison25:48

Right back at you, brother.

Aaron Wittenstein25:49

That’s what I’m talking about. So guys, tune in. Tune in next week for us. We’re here all the time, interviewing amazing agents across the country. And everyone, take care of yourselves.

Colt Callison26:00

See you guys.