How Hoss Pratt took 30 listings in 30 days as a 22-year-old in a brand-new market

Hoss Pratt00:04

That’s why I am such a big fan of the for sale by owner niche, and the expired niche, and the 30, 60, 90 day late mortgage lead niche, and the absentee owner niche, and the downsizing niche, because the riches are in the niches. And so the real estate market may change, but in every market there’s always people that need your help and there’s always people that wanna sell.

00:28And so if we can focus your efforts on going and marketing to people who need your help and people who need to sell, that’s the key. And you don’t have to wait six months, six years. Most agents don’t have time. They need to figure it out now. So you need to understand that the results are found in the niches, and how you dominate those niches is if you have systems.

Loida Velasquez01:07

Welcome to a brand new episode of Vulcan7 Coaches and Mentors, a show where we bring you the best in the industry to share with you their tips and strategies so that you can implement in your business immediately. Now, with that being said, today we’re gonna be talking about five essential actions that you need to take to become a listing boss and thrive in this new era of real estate.

01:30So I’m just going to go ahead and bring on today’s guest, Hoss Pratt. Hoss, welcome.

Hoss Pratt01:35

Hi. Thanks, Loida, for having me.

Loida Velasquez01:37

Absolutely. So for everyone that’s watching that maybe is not familiar with you, go ahead and share with us a little bit about yourself.

Hoss Pratt01:43

Yeah. My name’s Hoss Pratt. I’m author of the book Listing Boss, and also creator of Listing Boss Academy, and I’ve been in real estate for 20 years.

01:51I’ve helped thousands of real estate agents be able to dominate their market, specifically gaining more freedom in their real estate business by dominating the listing market, by putting signs in the ground and being able to do it very quickly. So that’s what my passion is, and that’s what I hope to do today, is to help everybody, leave y’all better than I found you, with some strategies to be able to take a lot more listings much faster.

Loida Velasquez02:16

Awesome. And that’s absolutely exactly what whoever’s tuning in and listening and watching probably wants to know. So let’s dive right in. What would be the first action that any agent needs to take in order to start becoming that listing boss?

Hoss Pratt02:29

Well, you gotta understand first off why it’s important to take listings, because if you want freedom in real estate, listings are the key.

02:37I mean, most of you got into the business for freedom, to be an entrepreneur, to run your own business. But I wanna remind you that this is a commission sales business. And in order to achieve freedom in real estate, the key is not only to control your inventory, but be able to stack your listings, to have as many listings as you possibly can, to be able to not only generate more leads, but also to be able to have other agents working for you.

03:08And what a lot of people don’t know, Loida, is when you have a listing-based business, you actually work less. You don’t have to work weekends. Your phone doesn’t ring all throughout the night. And today, I’m gonna help you not only if you’re brand new, if you’re seasoned, it doesn’t matter.

03:27I mean, I took 30 listings in 30 days when I was 22 years old in a market that I didn’t know a single person. So there is a way, and your business can be turned around today. You don’t have to wait six months. It can all happen very quickly, but you gotta have a vision, and the vision starts with what it is that you want.

03:47And so the first thing I would tell you is, how many listings do you wanna take in the next four weeks? Like, what is your standard? For me, it was a listing a day. For 15 years I’ve been coaching and training agents, but that’s my claim to fame, is I would take a listing a day, and the reason is because I set that intention every day.

04:06I believe in real estate, real estate agents are appointment setters. Our job is, yes, it’s to sell houses, but without appointments you don’t sell houses. So your job is to set appointments. And the next job is to convert those appointments. So the more you can fall in love with the activity of setting listing appointments, the more successful you’re gonna be.

04:30That’s why Vulcan7 is so great, because it provides the fuel and the data for the agent to be able to have the conversations they need to have to set those appointments. But for your notes, know what it is and how many listings you wanna take. That would be the first thing, is setting that intention.

04:48So if it’s one a week, two a week, one a day, it starts there. Planting of the seed so we can go to work to make that happen.

Loida Velasquez04:58

Awesome. So let’s say an agent is listening right now, and they’re saying, “You know what? I wanna do what he did. I wanna take a listing every day, but currently maybe I’m only at three listings a month.”

05:08What needs to change in an agent’s mindset in order to see themselves as that agent that is taking more listings and just producing more?

Hoss Pratt05:16

Well, you gotta start listening to the people that have done it, first of all. I think that’s an important thing. And you must change, because that’s where all the magic happens, is outside your comfort zone.

05:29Be willing to change, because today is a direct result of your actions over the last six months. So if you’re not happy with the business today, you’re not happy with the amount of listings you have, you’re not happy with the results you’re getting, then what I would encourage you to do is to change.

05:45To change what? Well, oftentimes it’s changing a lot of things. It’s changing your mindset. It’s changing your marketing, changing your systems, changing your conversion, changing your approach. But be willing to make those changes, because everything changes in real estate. Markets change, the economy changes, but those things do not affect our business.

06:05They shouldn’t. Interest rates do not determine if we’re successful or not. The real estate market should not determine if we are successful. What determines if we are successful is how we react to those things. And so getting comfortable with that change is important, and it’s easier to change and to feel comfortable changing when you have systems that you have confidence in.

06:32That’s why I am such a big fan of the for sale by owner niche, and the expired niche, and the 30, 60, 90-day late mortgage lead niche, and the absentee owner niche, and the downsizing niche, because the riches are in the niches. And so the real estate market may change, but in every market there’s always people that need your help, and there’s always people that wanna sell.

06:56And so if we can focus your efforts on going and marketing to people who need your help and people who need to sell, that’s the key. Those niches will change in different seasons, but you must be willing to change yourself.

Loida Velasquez07:09

So let’s say we have identified those niches, expireds, for sale by owners, absentee owners.

07:14How can an agent maximize their time and their effort to make sure that they’re converting at a high level with whoever they’re coming across?

Hoss Pratt07:23

You understand this, that the riches are in the niches. So there’s two different types of markets. You have the met database and you have the haven’t met database.

07:32I’ll give you a quick story. When I first got into real estate, I was 22 years old in a market I moved… I was a country boy from Missouri. I moved to Dallas. I didn’t know a single soul here. I just wanted to build a life. I wanted to be successful in something. And so my mentor had me get into real estate.

07:49I get into real estate. And I had no database. My first six months I was just going around meeting five people a day, writing handwritten notes, putting them in my database, marketing them every day, five people a day. I spent $50,000 that first six months, and I didn’t list a single house, I didn’t take a single buyer, not a single piece of business.

08:14It wasn’t that I wasn’t working. I was. But it wasn’t until I discovered that I could get data on for sale by owners, where every day I’d get a list of the FSBOs, of people that wanted to sell their house. Six months in and I took my first listing.

08:35My second day, my second listing. In 30 days I had 30 listings, all of them were for sale by owners. I finished my first year in real estate Rookie of the Year. I did 9 million in sales. All of it came from the second part of my first year, and they say it was an overnight success. Here’s the thing.

08:56I tell that story because I need people to know that they too can change fast. And you don’t have to wait six months, six years. Like, you don’t have time. Most agents don’t have time. They don’t have the 50 grand to waste. They need to figure it out now. So you need to understand that the results are found in the niches, and how you dominate those niches is you have systems, and so you need to manage your time.

09:249:00 to noon is the most sacred time in real estate, because you’re a maker in the morning and a manager in the afternoon. In 9:00 to noon every day, we are prospecting, we’re calling, we’re doing the door knocking, we’re having conversations. Now let me just pause real quick, because I know there’s a lot of buzzwords I just threw out there, like cold calling, prospecting, door knocking.

Hoss Pratt09:47

Really what all that means is having conversations, because we are in a 100% commission sales business. We have to have conversations with prospective sellers and buyers every day. It’s just the nature of the beast. It’s the nature of real estate. And so for the listeners, no matter if you wanted to do it, like doing it, it doesn’t matter.

10:08In real estate, we have to have conversations every day. Those conversations should happen between 9:00 and noon, because that’s when you are able to be most consistent. If we wait till the afternoon to do it, or we do it every other day, you will not get results. So it is paramount to your success that you time block that 9:00 to noon hour for conversations.

10:32You don’t ever miss a day. Monday through Friday those conversations happen. You never miss a day, and the reason is because, think about it, to be the best at what you do, to be great at anything, you don’t become great at anything doing it once a week, three times a week, every other day. It’s every day.

10:53And so the most successful agents that I’ve ever helped, the most successful agents that I’ve ever worked with, have gotten to a point where that 9:00 to noon is the most sacred time, and they never miss a day. They get so good so fast that they make it virtually impossible for people to tell them no.

11:12And that’s where you will get. Listeners, you will get there. You will get to a place where that 9 to noon hour, you become so good that you’re able to set appointments every day. And that’s what I help people do. I help people set appointments every day.

11:30But it starts off with that 9 to noon hour and doing the right things. ‘Cause here’s how most people wake up, Loida. They wake up and they let their cellphone and their email control their day. They don’t know what to do, and so they’re like, “Well, who do I call today?” And they get a list from Vulcan and they go, “Oh man, where do I even start?”

11:53And they don’t know where to start. So here’s my advice. You need a system. Those leads every day need to go into your CRM. They need to be put on a campaign, an action plan. And that action plan is what tells you what to do. So think about the leads as the fuel. It’s the data. It’s the fuel to your vehicle.

Hoss Pratt12:12

The vehicle is the CRM, is the system. But you’re the driver. You drive the vehicle, the fuel comes in. That’s how it works. Just like if I’m going on a road trip, I’m gonna go to the gas station, put fuel in my vehicle, I’m gonna drive the vehicle.

12:31In real estate, we fuel up with the leads. The data comes into our vehicle, which is the CRM, and we drive it. We do what the CRM tells us to do. That’s how you stay consistent. You’ll never be consistent if you don’t operate that way. If you just get the leads haphazardly, and you’re like, “Oh, today’s Thursday, I think I’m gonna make calls today,” you will never be consistent enough at the level that you need to be to get results.

12:59And so I can’t reinforce that enough, that it’s important that you follow it as a system.

Loida Velasquez13:05

You said so many things that I’m writing down notes even though I’m looking straight at the camera, but I wanted to make sure to pass on this. So for example, the first thing that you mentioned that I know there’s a lot of people can relate to, is you moved to a completely new city, didn’t know anyone, and something that I hear all the time is agents say, “Oh, you know, I just relocated to another state.

13:27I don’t know anyone. How am I gonna build business?” And for you, it was okay, for sale by owners, and after six months you are killing it. People think you’re an overnight success, but it was just putting in the work, going after the correct type of people and building a business. The next thing you mentioned, being consistent.

13:46Again, “Oh, you know, I’ve been doing this for two weeks, I haven’t gotten anything.” Well, you have to do it all the time, consistently, for months. And I love that you mention, over time it gets to the point that you wanna make those calls from 9:00 to 12:00 because you know what to say, you know the objection handlers, and it’s exciting to set those appointments and take those listings.

14:06So for anyone that’s listening that maybe perhaps they’re loving everything that you’re saying, but there’s still some type of call reluctance for them to pick up the phone and they’re like, “I really wanna do this,” what advice would you give them?

Hoss Pratt14:20

Call reluctance comes from not having the confidence.

14:24And so you work through that. Like, I work with people and I tell them, in two weeks I can get them to a point that they’re good enough, their confidence is 100% better than what it was before. But the call reluctance comes from this. It comes from lack of systems, so they don’t even know where to start.

14:41You will have call reluctance if you get a list and they’re not on a system in your business. Because you don’t have confidence in this list, right? But if you fuel the beast and you put these people in your CRM and you just do what the CRM tells you, now you know that things are happening with these contacts.

15:02So then it’s just a choice. I just gotta make these contacts when it tells me to make them. And so when you begin doing that, here’s what happens. You’re gonna get good much faster, and you’re gonna become more confident. And here’s why confidence is so important, because you become convicted.

Hoss Pratt15:19

Conviction is really important to the equation, because when you’re convicted and you have conviction, which is believing what you’re saying, believing in the value that you offer, you have authenticity. And authenticity is the most powerful force to leave the human body. Being authentic is the magic, is the secret sauce that makes the greats great, is they believe what they’re saying.

15:43That’s how you make it virtually impossible for people to tell you no, because you come to the conversation with true authenticity. And so over a period of time you will get to a point where you’re able to have authentic conversations, you’re confident, and you’re convicted, and that is what sellers are looking for.

16:02They don’t even know that they’re looking for that. It’s the vibe, it’s the feeling that they get in believing what you’re telling them. And so that happens over time. It happens, you know, for different people. Sometimes it takes people a few days to get to that point. Sometimes it takes people a week.

16:19Like, sometimes people have to change the way they talk. They have to change the way they sound. Like, I know for me, when I first got into real estate, I sounded like a country redneck boy. You listen to me, I talk fast, and so I would skip… It was hard to understand. And I had to train myself how to talk. Some people, maybe English is not their primary language.

16:44They need to learn how to talk in a way and prospect in a way that can maybe sound completely different than the way that they sound now. But what I’ve learned is everybody can do that. You can train yourself to sound different, but it takes learning and studying yourself. One of the fastest ways to get good at what I’m talking about is to listen to yourself.

Hoss Pratt17:08

Like, one of the ways I help people is I give them live prospecting calls. I give them calls of me calling FSBOs and expireds, and I say, “I want you to listen to these. I want you to study these, and I want you to dissect them. And I also want you to do the same to your calls. I want you to record your calls, I want you to listen to those calls, and I want you to study yourself.”

17:31Because you’re gonna hear everything that you need to hear in order to make the corrections that you need to correct. It’s no different than an NFL team. What do they do during the week when they’re not playing football? They practice. And what is the majority of that practice? They’re studying game film.

17:47They’re watching themselves. They’re watching their competition. They’re watching film. And so watching your own game film is crucial to becoming the best at what we’re talking about. And it is the surefire fastest way to get good at communication. And really, that’s what we’re doing.

18:06We’re communicating. We’re having conversations to communicate, and in that, we’re looking for the pain of our prospects, and we’re offering solutions to that pain. But I can’t reinforce that enough. To get better, we gotta get serious. We gotta study ourself. We gotta apply the changes. I mean, Loida, do you remember the first time you heard yourself?

Loida Velasquez18:28

Yes. It was horrible.

Hoss Pratt18:30

Horrible. I think we can all relate to the first time we heard our voice. You’re like, “What? I sound like that?”

18:38Yeah. So it’s always a painful process when you study yourself at the beginning. But I’ll tell you this. Even to this day, I study everything that I do. People think I’m crazy, but I will go back and listen to this interview that I’m doing now.

18:53Why? Because that’s how I study my own game film, and I wanna be the best at what I do. And I’m passionate about it. And so for me, that is a big part of growth, of personal development and growth, is studying myself so I can bring the most value to my community.

Loida Velasquez19:10

It’s funny that you’re mentioning that, because the…

19:12I remember making my first calls, and I recorded them. I recorded and posted on YouTube my first for sale by owner live call, and it was horrible. I sounded scripted. But now looking back, I’m like, “You know what? I have grown so much.” And I think that’s the thing that agents need to see, that yes, it might feel cringey looking at yourself and listening to yourself, but that’s how you’re going to be able to see what you need to work on and what needs to improve.

19:37So it gets to the point that when you were talking to for sale by owners, expireds, or whoever it is, it sounds like a natural conversation instead of you asking questions and trying to go somewhere. So I’m glad that you mentioned that. I still laugh at how I sound, but that’s awesome that you brought that up.

19:55And I want you to tell everyone a little bit more about your coaching program. I think this is great that you have your coaching members listen to themselves, but what else do you teach them?

Hoss Pratt20:06

Listen, one of the things that I do is this. For me to help people, I need to understand where they are and where they wanna be.

20:13And so it’s easy for me to say go to hosspratt.com, download the business plan, get your free stuff. Like, you can do that, but what I would encourage you to do is book a call. It can be life-changing for the right person. If you go to bookhoss.com, that’s B-O-O-K-H-O-S-S.com, you book a call, I will help you.

20:33Myself, one of my coaches, we will help you figure out where you are, where you wanna be. I still do a lot of these calls, so there’s a good chance you will talk to me, because I’m still passionate about helping agents. This is what I do. But it’s really important that you learn from people that have done it.

20:51And so I know if I can help people based on a quick 20-minute phone call, and what solution is best for them. So I would encourage any listener that is listening and they want more freedom in their business, and they’re looking for a coach, or they’re looking for the systems, they’re looking for the scripts, they’re looking

21:09for the tools, it’ll be well worth your time to book a call so I can guide you in the best direction. So I would encourage you to do that. Go to bookhoss.com and pick a time that works for you.

Loida Velasquez21:20

And I know that in the past couple minutes we talked about these essential actions that agents need to take, but obviously there’s a lot more that you talk about in your book.

21:28So I don’t know if you wanna share that with the audience as well.

Hoss Pratt21:31

Yeah. I wrote this book, Listing Boss. It’s the definitive blueprint for real estate success. This book is a number one international bestselling book. You can get it on Amazon, you can go to listingbossbook.com and get it.

21:44I’ll mail you a copy of it. You just pay shipping and handling. But this book here is chock-full of strategies to be able to help you get more listings. But in addition to getting the book, book a call as well, because it’s free. Doesn’t cost you anything anyway, and I’ll be able to best guide you.

Loida Velasquez22:01

Awesome. Well, Hoss, it has been great chatting and talking the past couple minutes. For those of you that are listening, all of his links are gonna be in the description box below. So with that being said, thank you once again, and we’ll see you on the next one.

Hoss Pratt22:16

Thank you.

Loida Velasquez22:17

Bye. Bye.