Dale Archdekin’s four core call skills to double or triple weekly appointments

Dale Archdekin00:00

What I’ve figured out as a salesperson is that if I make my contacts, if I screw everything else up, but I make my contacts, I will still make money and I will still do business. And the only way that I am guaranteed to fail out of this business is if I don’t make my contacts. So I organize my schedule around that.

00:18The one thing that has to get done is the contacts have to be made.

Loida Velasquez00:26

What’s going on, everyone? Welcome back to a brand new episode of Vulcan7 Coaches and Mentors, where we bring you some of the best in the industry to share with you their tips and strategies so that you can implement them in your business immediately. Now, on today’s episode, you’re gonna wanna make sure to have a pen and paper ready, because we’re gonna be talking about mistakes that agents are making when it comes to scripts and dialogues.

00:50So if you have been struggling to convert some of your leads, or maybe you don’t even know what leads to follow up with, perhaps you have a system, but it’s not really a system because you’re only calling or reaching out when you remember, then this is the episode for you. So with that being said, I’m gonna go ahead and bring on today’s guest, Dale Archdekin.

01:09Welcome, Dale.

Dale Archdekin01:11

Hey, thank you, Loida. Thanks so much for having me. I’m honored, the great Vulcan7.

Loida Velasquez01:17

Yes. So for everyone that’s watching that maybe is not too familiar, just go ahead and share with us a little bit about your background, experience, and everything that you have going on.

Dale Archdekin01:26

Sure. So my company is Smart Sales Coaching.

01:28I’ve been in the real estate industry for about 20 years now, and we coach and train. We specialize in scripting and dialogue training for agents and ISAs and sales management. And we work with teams, mega teams in the top 5% of the RealTrends 1000, and we work with lots of lead and website providers just like Vulcan7.

Loida Velasquez01:51

Awesome. So right before we pressed record, we were talking about a few different things that we are seeing agents doing or maybe not doing right. So let’s first begin with scripts and mistakes. What are some of the things that you’re seeing from the agents, maybe that you’re coaching or just in general?

Dale Archdekin02:09

Yeah. So right now, I don’t know if this needs to be evergreen, but in 2025, you gotta get back to basics right now. And what we’ve identified are the core four skillsets for a salesperson. Those four skills are your introductions, your objection handling process, your value proposition, and your closing ability.

02:28So within those, what we find is that we can make a massive impact in the results of a salesperson if we can improve their skillset in those four areas. So I can go through and unpack each of the four and tell you what the big common mistakes are, if that’s what you’d like to do.

Loida Velasquez02:45

Yes.

02:45Let’s do it.

Dale Archdekin02:46

Okay. So with intros, basically any consumer, whenever you call them, no matter what lead type they are, where they came from, they wanna know three basic things. Who are you? Why are you calling me? What do you want to know? So one of the big problems that agents have is they go in and they aren’t prepared, or they’re a little shaky, or they’re a little confused, or they’re not confident.

03:07And in fact, there’s actually a trainer right now running lots of Facebook ads, who’s never sold a piece of real estate in his lifetime, that’s literally telling salespeople to act like they’re confused when you call people. That is the worst thing you could possibly do, because, Loida, I don’t know about you.

03:23I don’t like getting calls from salespeople, and I definitely don’t like getting calls from salespeople who are confused and didn’t at least take a minute to prepare, right?

03:33So that’s a big one: be prepared with your intro. They answer the question, “Who are you? Why are you calling me? What do you want to know?”

03:39And nine times out of 10, the consumer of these leads that we’re calling, they don’t want something from us. They’re not looking for information or guidance right now. And so when you have that kind of person, you need a very pointed, directed question, like, “Are you planning on buying in the next few months?

03:56Would you accept a cash offer on your home?” That’s a very pointed question that directs the conversation. If it’s somebody that’s looking for something from you, like a Zillow Flex lead, they’re like, “Oh, hey, can I go see this house?” Then you can ask things like, “How can I help you? How’s your search going?”

04:12But if you’re talking to somebody who isn’t looking to talk to you, direct the conversation with a good direct question to them.

Loida Velasquez04:21

Absolutely. I feel that asking the questions and just being confident when you speak already separates you from other agents that are just kind of winging it, hoping that someone’s gonna say yes, right?

04:34So we’re talking about the scripting. We were also talking earlier about following up and what systems agents have or maybe don’t have. So let’s talk a little bit about that.

Dale Archdekin04:48

Sure. Yeah. It’s funny, what I was saying backstage is that when we take new clients onto my company, we ask them three questions.

04:57One, show me, demonstrate for me how you get into a conversation, how you overcome objections and how you tell people why they should work with you. That’s one. Two, share your screen, show me your CRM, and show me your lead follow-up process. And three, show me your schedule, right? And so with number two, when it’s like, “Hey, show me your lead gen follow-up process,” a lot of agents are pretty much a deer in headlights, when they’re like, “Well, here’s where my new leads are.

05:26And then I should do this, I should do that.” And they’re like, “No, no, no. Show me what you do.” And usually they’re like, “Oh, well, I go in here and I hunt and I peck, and then I don’t call this one because of that, and I don’t call this one.” So they don’t have their lists clean. They spend 30 minutes just trying to figure out who to talk to.

05:44They make a couple of dials. A couple people don’t wanna talk to them or say no, and they’re like, “Okay, that’s it. I’m gonna go work on my Instagram page now.” And so they don’t have a good process that they can follow, and they give up really easily on it because they don’t get immediate success.

Loida Velasquez05:59

Now, why do you think it is that a lot of agents just don’t even have systems in place like this?

Dale Archdekin06:05

So I know Vulcan7 is awesome, awesome. And when I ran inside sales departments and teams, I literally used Vulcan7 as a tool, because I came from being a hardcore FSBO and expired prospector myself.

06:21So companies like this have a really good process, but a lot of lead providers or CRMs, frankly, they weren’t started by or run by people who are hardcore salespeople. And so they have great staff, they have great support, but they typically don’t have somebody who’s like, “Okay, agent, this is what you do first.

06:43This is what you do next. This is what you do third, and these are the basic things you need, right? Forget all the other buttons and everything.” So in a lot of cases, the agents don’t have that. Or somebody told it to them and they just haven’t done it yet, is my guess.

Loida Velasquez06:57

Yeah. And I think it’s so important to have everything organized and have an actual system, because a big mistake that I see agents doing is that they get into the business, they wanna make a certain amount of money or do an X amount of transactions, but they don’t run what they’re doing like a business, having everything systemized.

07:18So for you, when it comes to your coaching clients right now, is there anything specifically that you guys are focusing on?

Dale Archdekin07:25

Yeah. Making sure that they have a very clear process in their CRM, whichever one it is, or their lead provider, the dashboard, so that they can basically identify: who are my new leads, who has to be contacted right now, who are the people that came in in the last seven days that have to be contacted, and then who are the people that have come back to my website or consumed my content, so that I can flow through them with the remaining time that I have to follow up with people.

07:54And so that’s the very first thing we do. Just set that up. And it doesn’t matter what system it is, or even if you’re like Barney Rubble and it’s just an Excel spreadsheet, you can still do it that way. That’s the first thing that we do. Second thing that we do is help them clear away this concept of a perfect schedule, because it never works that way.

08:14And what I figured out as a salesperson is that if I make my contacts, if I screw everything else up, but I make my contacts, I will still make money and I will still do business. And the only way that I am guaranteed to fail out of this business is if I don’t make my contacts. So I organize my schedule around that.

08:36The one thing that has to get done is the contacts have to be made, right? And then from there would be following up with people, going on appointments, and then, if I get around to it, doing paperwork.

Loida Velasquez08:47

I love what you say about doing what you’re supposed to be doing, because something that I say is, you can have the best skills, but if you’re not putting in the work, someone with half the skills that you have, if they’re being consistent, they’re gonna be making more money.

09:02So I know when I’ve told agents that, that kinda gets them fired up, because I know it’s happened to me, where sometimes I’ve seen another agent and I’m like, “I know that my skills are a little better. Maybe I just need to put in more work, because I’ve been slacking.” So…

Dale Archdekin09:17

That is absolutely true.

09:18And even to the detriment of my own company, we specialize in scripting and dialogue, and I’m like, “Listen, you could do nothing we teach you, but if you just go have more terrible conversations, you’re gonna sell more real estate than somebody who has no conversations”

09:33but knows how to do it well.

Loida Velasquez09:35

Yes, yes. And you brought up something earlier. You mentioned that you’ve gone after for sale by owners and expireds, you personally, that you prospected. So I wanna go back, I wanna know more about Dale and his prospecting, when real estate was something that you focused on.

09:52What was that like? And actually, before you answer that, what made you get into real estate?

Dale Archdekin09:59

So I was working as a designer, an exhibit designer, and I was like, “They keep giving me work, but no more money, and I want more money.” And then I saw all these agents, this was before the 2008 collapse, back when anybody would give you money because you wrote a note that said you promised you would give it back, right?

10:18And so all these agents are like driving these fancy cars, and it looks like a lavish lifestyle, looks easy, and I’ve always been interested in real estate. And I’m like, “Screw this 40 hour a week thing for no money. I’m gonna go sell real estate. It’ll be easy. I’ll do it part-time. I’ll make tons of money.

10:32I can invest.” And then I get my license and 2008 happens and the market completely collapsed. And I was like, first of all, I figured out that that was a total fantasy even before ’08, right, for a new agent getting in. And then especially now, it’s like, well, I was outside of sales. I didn’t have a sphere of influence, didn’t have past clients, didn’t have any money to buy leads, but I did know how to cold call, because I had cold called previously in my life.

10:59And so I went to a bootcamp with my broker. They said, “Here’s a stack of scripts we downloaded off the internet. Go call some for sale by owners and some expireds.” And I did that, and I got business. And then I got to the point where I was taking five, seven, eight listings a month.

Loida Velasquez11:17

That’s awesome. And now you focus with your coaching on dialogue and scripting. Is there something that you saw that you were like, “You know what? I really wanna focus on this aspect when it comes to coaching agents”?

Dale Archdekin11:30

Yeah. So I partnered up with a guy in my market. So I was grinding it out, hardcore listing agent, and then I was starting to get burned out.

11:37And another agent in my market came to me and he’s like, “Hey, I got this small team. We’re doing about 100 transactions a year, and I just bought this amazing website, but it’s dumping leads on the floor and my agents are kinda lazy. Will you help me work this?” And I said, “Great idea. I wanna teach other people how to do this so I can get out of doing it myself.”

11:54“And I heard this crazy idea that Tim Heil down in Texas is doing, called an inside sales department. Let’s make that happen.” He was like, “Great.” So then we started doing it, and we screwed it up and we lost money, until I finally got it figured out after about a couple years, to the point where I could take a stranger off the street, give them our average lead mix, and this is before anything crazy in our market was available, give them our average lead mix and our training, and that person in their first 12 months could produce 60 transactions for the team individually.

12:25And so we made that ISA department profitable. And then I was like, “I bet other companies would wanna know how to do this.” So I started teaching other teams and brokers how to implement inside sales in their businesses, and very quickly figured out they didn’t have good training for their agents. So now we’ve added on the training too.

Loida Velasquez12:42

Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, because sometimes agents, they’re ready to get everything going and they’re not well-equipped with the right tools and dialogue and things to say. So it’s almost like they’re being set up for failure, and then they think nothing works.

Dale Archdekin12:57

Right. And the team leader is like, “I don’t understand, guys.

13:01I told you once how to do this. I told you once or twice what to say. How come you’re not catching fire here?” And they need repetition. They need practice. I was literally just before this, I was on with a top mega team where I’m training their agents, and we’re literally doing pushups, we’re doing practice, we’re role playing, we’re practicing, because they have to be able to do it smooth as butter in practice to have any shot of halfway doing it in the real world with somebody who can potentially pay them a commission or not.

Loida Velasquez13:36

So with these teams and agents that you’re training, when it comes to the dialogue and the communication, is there any specific technique that you guys focus on, whether it’s like, as soon as someone answers the phone, you need to say this, or start a conversation this way?

Dale Archdekin13:53

Yeah. So with the intro specifically, you gotta answer the first three questions.

13:58Who are you? Why are you calling me? What do you want? And then we employ some specific techniques, like matching the first word from the word that the person answering says. Knowing who it is, meaning I don’t ask if it’s you with my words, or I don’t ask if it’s you with my tone, because nobody calls your cell phone in 2025 who doesn’t know it’s you and isn’t a salesperson, right?

14:22Anybody who calls your phone is either sales or knows you. So you know who they are from the beginning, you deliver who you are, why you’re calling, which is like, you took this action, you did this thing, you asked for this thing. And then what do I want to know? Are you buying in the next few months?

14:36Are you accepting offers on your property? Blah, blah, blah. And then a pro tip is I can give you whatever your likely objection is. Hey, are you buying in the next few months, or are you just window shopping? Are you still accepting offers on your property, or have you sold it already, right? Or have you decided to keep it off the market?

14:53You just give them the objection that they would give you anyway, because then it makes them feel more comfortable. So that’s intros in a nutshell. And it works on all different types of lead sources. And then we move on to objections specifically, and I was just practicing this. So with objections, you have five things that you can do when you’re handling objections.

15:13Discovery, disputing, educating, persuading and closing. And they’re all distinct techniques or strategies. Most coaching companies teach the bottom four. They pat each other on the back for arguing the best and educating people the best, or having the snappiest closes. We start by teaching salespeople to ask great, pure discovery questions into the face of an objection.

15:40Somebody says, “I’m not gonna buy until next year.” We teach them to automatically ask things like, “Oh, got it, what’s important about buying next year?” Or, “Is there an advantage to buying next year?” To understand the prospect before you try to argue with them or change their mind or anything like that. And then once you get a student there, then you can teach them the, “Hey, here’s how you argue and sound great and win awards on stage as a salesperson.”

Loida Velasquez16:05

So because I know that probably a lot of the audience that is watching this are probably going after expireds and for sale by owners, I wanna do a very quick role play, an expired role play. I’ll be the expired, you can be the agent. That way the agents watching this can see you in action, implementing everything that you just mentioned.

Dale Archdekin16:23

Okay. How far do you wanna go in the role play?

Loida Velasquez16:26

I’ll just say the first objection, which you’ll know what it is. I’ll try not to be too hard. But you’ll get it. I just kinda wanna do the intro so that they can see how to break through it and start asking questions and figuring things out.

Dale Archdekin16:41

Okay, sure. All right. Ring, ring.

Loida Velasquez16:43

Hello.

Dale Archdekin16:45

Hello, Loida. This is Dale Archdekin with Amazing Realty. I’m giving you a call about your property on address. I just wanted to reach out and see if you’re still accepting offers on that property, or if you’ve totally taken it off the market.

Loida Velasquez16:56

Yeah, we took it off the market.

16:59At this point, we’re not really even sure what we wanna do. We might just hold off until interest rates go down, because we do need to purchase another home.

Dale Archdekin17:07

Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So how are the interest rates affecting your ability to purchase?

Loida Velasquez17:15

They’re just too high right now, and we need to be able to have our mortgage at a certain amount.

17:21And plus we weren’t getting a lot of activity when we did have our home for sale, so that’s why I think we’re just gonna take a break.

Dale Archdekin17:27

Oh, got it. Okay. Well, the home selling aside, because it’s beautiful and I know that it would sell if we were helping you, but back to the interest rate part, how did you figure out that today’s interest rates were going to prevent you from being able to purchase?

Loida Velasquez17:44

Well, we kinda saw a breakdown. Our agent connected us with a lender. The lender gave us some brief information. It was not too detailed. But obviously, since we have to sell this home as well, we figured, you know what? Let’s focus first on selling the home and then see if we can get into something else.

Dale Archdekin18:02

Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense. Now it sounds like things have flipped around a little bit. It sounds like you being able to purchase and being able to afford it is really making the decision on when you decide to sell your property to another buyer. Is that correct?

Loida Velasquez18:17

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. But like I said, we had it for three months, didn’t get any offers.

18:24So at this time, we had quite a few people come in and out of the house, so that’s why we’re thinking we’re just gonna hold off for now.

Dale Archdekin18:31

Oh, okay. Got it. I’m gonna keep going down the mortgage path with you, and probably assure you that it will sell if we work with you, and that I have no idea what your agent did or didn’t do.

18:41So I can’t speak to why it didn’t sell. I’m gonna keep focusing on your buy, because right now, that is a massive controller of whether you do something or you don’t do something. You would first have to believe that you could make the move and find something to move into. Convincing you that your home will sell is a no-brainer, that’s easy.

19:02Most people believe at their heart that their home is awesome and that it’s worth more than anybody else thinks it is. So anyway, to break down what I was doing, I went in confidently. I know who you are. I know it’s you, I know it’s your property, because if it’s not, you’re gonna tell me, so it doesn’t really matter.

19:19And then I just asked you the direct question: are you still accepting offers on the home, or have you taken it off completely? You gave me the information around interest rates, right? So I went down the path of interest rates. I’m just understanding you. I haven’t disagreed. I haven’t tried to change your mind.

19:34I haven’t tried to pitch you in any way. And so this is what we teach people on how to get into these conversations and unpack people.

Loida Velasquez19:41

Yeah, no, I love that. That’s why I wanted to do this little dialogue, so that people can actually see you and hear you, because this is a big thing. Sometimes we get agents all the time, I’m sure you hear it, where they’re like, “You know what?

19:53As soon as I say hello, they’re hanging up on me. I can’t even get through my full first sentence.” And it goes back to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it as well.

Dale Archdekin20:02

Yeah. If you’re getting hung up on, it’s because you sound like a salesperson. It’s because you present like a salesperson.

20:08It’s because you’re either not confident when you go in, or you’re a little too practiced and it sounds like a pitch from minute one, right? That’s a lot of times when people will hang up on you. But if you go in confidently, if you go in conversationally, and if you ask a very clear question, usually they will give you the answer and they will hang out and have a conversation with you.

20:34One thing to understand, Loida, for everybody listening: it’s uncomfortable, typically, for most of us to hang up on anybody. We don’t like doing it, right? And most of us will only do it if that person just shows up very poorly.

Loida Velasquez20:50

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So I know that you have something really exciting that you’re working on that I definitely want the audience to know.

20:58So tell us about that.

Dale Archdekin20:59

Sure. So it’s called the Appointment Accelerator Training. It’s a free training. It lasts about 25 minutes. It’s on demand, so you don’t have to wait around for a webinar. And basically what we do is we break down those core four scripting areas that most salespeople are having issues with, as well as identifying the proper sort of CRM flow, lead flow, and the scheduling and timing, everything around getting yourself more appointments right now with the lead sources that you already have, the leads, the database that you already have.

21:32With most students that come on, we can double or triple the number of weekly appointments that they set, just by giving them an adjustment around their skillset, around their schedule, their mindset, and around their CRM. And so you can go to smartsalescoaching.com/appointment, and you can check out that free training.

Loida Velasquez21:53

Awesome. And if someone wants to get ahold of you and learn more about your coaching, to get involved with that?

Dale Archdekin21:58

Sure. Just email us, sales@smartsalescoaching.com, or you can get me directly, dale@smartsalescoaching.com. And I also do a weekly podcast called Cash Call. It’s available on YouTube, and our YouTube is Smart Sales Coaching.

22:14And literally, you just listen to me play live recordings of salespeople and break down the calls with my cohost, Brian Curtis.

Loida Velasquez22:21

Oh, I love that. I think it’s so important to listen to calls. I mean, I know for me, recording my calls and then listening to myself helped me become better. I remember the very first For Sale by Owner phone call that I ever did in my life.

22:35I recorded it and I posted it on YouTube. So everybody saw how horrible I was, but I learned from it. And it helped other agents too, to know that you start at the bottom, but then you just keep on getting better.

Dale Archdekin22:47

Yeah. When I first started, when I was being coached, I had to record my calls and I had to send them to my coach, and it was painful.

22:54It was definitely a learning experience, but there’s no better teaching tool than to listen to what you actually said. And then if you have a coach or a mentor helping you with how to do it better, you improve much faster.

Loida Velasquez23:10

Exactly. So as we wrap up, what are three things that you would say agents need to be doing right now, as soon as they’re done watching this episode?

Dale Archdekin23:19

They need to go and watch the Appointment Accelerator training. I think the very first thing is, are you spending the time doing the one most important job you have to do, which is making contacts? And if you aren’t, scrap your calendar and rewrite it where that’s the first thing that gets done every day.

23:42And then two, if you had to sit in front of me and show me how you work your leads in your system, would you be proud of what you showed me?

Loida Velasquez23:51

Yes. I love it. Awesome. Well, Dale, thank you so much for being on today’s episode. I’m sure that everyone’s gonna get a lot of value. They’re gonna have to re-watch this maybe two or three times so that they can write down more notes.

24:03And we’re gonna make sure to put all of your links in the description box below. And with that being said, everyone, we’ll see you on the next one.

Dale Archdekin24:10

Thank you so much for having me.