How James Michener closed 26 deals in his first year with calls and follow-up

James Michener00:16

Then year two, I made 300,000, and then year four made six and so on and so forth. And really what it came down to, and I’m sure you know this ’cause you’re a heavy prospector as well, is just doing the consistency, right? It’s like working out. Everybody wants to work out and get in shape, but they try to work out for an hour and a half, two days a week, and it’s like, nah, it’s better to do 30 minutes a day for six, seven days, right?

00:42Just to get your body in shape. And so I noticed that if I stayed consistent with my calling, that I got new leads and I got more of my follow-up done, and then I figured out that my follow-up was huge, right? And then getting other lead sources involved. But you have to make those calls in order to get that conversion going.

Loida Velasquez01:00

What’s going on? Welcome back to a brand new episode of Vulcan 7 Coaches and Mentors, where we bring you some of the best in the business, sharing their tips and strategies so that you can take your business to the next level. Now, in today’s episode, we’re gonna talk all about how you can start increasing your transactions.

01:19So if you’re doing between 10 and 15 a year, but you wanna start doing 50 or more and have financial independence, then definitely get your pen and paper ready because we are going to be diving in and sharing with you all of that information with today’s guest, James Michener. So James, welcome.

James Michener01:35

Thank you, Loida. I appreciate it. I’m excited to be on here. I’ve been using Vulcan 7 for a while, and I know you have, too. So it’s definitely helped me in getting there. And it’s funny, I started using Vulcan 7 about a year after I started in real estate, and I noticed that other people were getting a hold of people other…

01:57And I was like, “How am I missing out on this? I called that person, like, 20 times.” And one of my mentors was like, “Which system do you use?” And I’m like, “Oh, well, I use XYZ.” They’re like, “You need to use Vulcan 7.” Switched over to Vulcan 7, and my conversion rate picked up so much. It was just amazing. I’m sure you noticed that, too, right?

Loida Velasquez02:16

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I remember when I started making calls, I was kind of having the same results where I’m like, “Why am I getting bad numbers and fax machines all the time?”

James Michener02:26

Oh my gosh. And when you’re doing that prospecting like that, it just hurts your motivation. Every single time that happens, you’re like, “Oh, man, I got the wrong data.”

02:35But once you start getting the good data and you’re having conversation after conversation, it’s like, yes. And a lot of people, they’re like, “Oh, how much is the dialer? How much is the data?” And I’m like, “Well, it doesn’t matter, ’cause you wanna get the best data, ’cause that’s the most important thing that you can do, right?”

02:52I noticed when I switched over, it was just night and day difference, to be completely honest. So, yeah.

Loida Velasquez02:57

Yes. I love it. Yes. So share with us your journey. How did that get started? How long have you been in the business, for someone that maybe is watching and hearing you for the first time?

James Michener03:07

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been in business for a little over a decade. I started by just trying to work my sphere of influence and whatnot. I had done cold calling for Grand Canyon University and I was like, “I’m not gonna do any more cold calling. I hate sitting in a cubicle and doing that.” And my coach at the time was like, “Well, you’re gonna have to sit your butt down and do those calls or you’re not gonna get any deals.”

03:28I’m like, “It’s okay. I’ll figure it out,” right? Well, three months, four months go by and he checks back in with me. He was a coach for the brokerage and he goes, “How many deals have you done?” I’m like, “Zero.” He’s like, “Are you calling?” I’m like, “No, not yet. But I’ll start next week and see how it goes.” Well, I started doing the calling, and for sale by owners is who I first started prospecting, and then reaching out to sphere of influence.

03:55And I started getting closing here, closing there. My first year I didn’t close a deal until July 1st, right? And then from July 1st on, I started prospecting way more and I ended up closing 26 deals that year. The next year was about 83, and the year after that I started doing more canceled and expired calls and I finally found Vulcan 7 and I’m like, “Okay, this is where it’s at.”

04:18‘Cause, like you had alluded to too, I had used other systems and I just wasn’t getting the reach out that I wanted or the conversion rate on the calls, and it was fax machines, office lines and whatnot. Finally, I started getting people on their cell phones and their home lines and setting more appointments that way, which was great. So, yeah.

04:39So from there, I started developing a little bit of a team, and it was in year two I made $300,000, and then year four made six and so on and so forth. And really what it came down to, and I’m sure you know this ’cause you’re a heavy prospector as well, is just doing the consistency, right?

04:59It’s like working out. Everybody wants to work out and get in shape, but they try to work out for an hour and a half, two days a week, and it’s like, nah, it’s better to do 30 minutes a day for six, seven days, right? Just to get your body in shape. And so I noticed that if I stayed consistent with my calling, and at that time I was doing two to three hours a day, that I got new leads and I got more of my follow-up done, and then I figured out that my follow-up was huge, right?

05:26And then getting other lead sources involved, but you have to make those calls in order to get that conversion going. So really it was setting a schedule for myself, doing more of the outbound calling, but then also doing the outbound calling to the people I’d already followed up with through my follow-up.

05:43So the fortune’s in the follow-up for me. If you call a cancelled or expired listing and you call them once, the likelihood of you listing that is so low. For me, I notice that you have to call somewhere between 10 and 15 times, and then on your fifth time they’re not saying, “Hey, 10 agents have called me,” right?

06:03They’re like, “Oh, you’re the only one that’s following up with me. I might be ready in a month.” And then you’re a shoo-in at that point in time ’cause you’re the persistent one. So from there I started moving into real estate investing. So I started using those leads to be able to buy the homes from these people and convert them into rentals.

06:23My sphere of influence saw that I was doing a lot of real estate, so a lot of times they would have houses that they didn’t wanna list or they didn’t wanna put the money into. They’re like, “James, will you just buy it from me? I see that you’re doing pretty well in real estate.” I’m like, “Heck yes.” So now I have 30 rental properties, half of those are paid off, and do some private money, fix and flip, and then a little bit of wholesale.

06:44But this all centers around getting the right data, which is through Vulcan 7 for me. So that’s kind of been my journey so far.

Loida Velasquez06:53

That’s awesome, and that’s so exciting to hear because I think a lot of agents that maybe are watching this, they are starting or they have been in the business for quite some time, but they wanna get to the point where you’re at, where now they’re owning property, they’re able to be in a position where they can purchase these homes when they’re calling and just put a deal together.

07:12So for you, obviously you mentioned in the beginning you’re like, “I’m not picking up the phone. I don’t wanna do that.” Once you started to do that and you started to increase your transactions year over year, what started to change? Was it your mindset? Was it the schedule? Or how did you go from, let’s say, 10 to 20 deals from one year to the next?

James Michener07:31

Yeah. What changed is just being more consistent, right? Like I had said before, just picking out the times of day that I wanted to prospect and sticking to those. I literally would get anxious if I didn’t make those calls through the day. I’d be like, “Oh, I need to prospect.” Because as a real estate agent, your number one job is to bring in business, and that’s the hardest thing to do.

07:50And what I noticed is those conversations got easier. I knew what to say. I kept an objections journal. So whatever somebody had objected on, I would write down and say, “This is how I handled it.” And then I would review that in the morning so I could read all those, so if something popped up, I already had it fresh on my mind.

08:09And then once you start doing this, like anything, you become consistent. You get into a better flow, and so you’re more natural. You don’t have to follow a script because you already know what to say. It’s already second nature to you. And then finding the right leads to call, right? I’m a big proponent of the turbo leads, which is the cancelled, expireds, and for sale by owners.

08:31They’ve already raised their hand and said, “Hey, I wanna sell. I’m okay with using a real estate agent,” for the cancelled and expireds. And the for sale by owners are really mean. I mean, I’m sure you’ve ran into that, right? They’re like, “You’re so rude.” But the best thing about rude people is that other agents don’t wanna follow up with them, right?

08:50So I kept following up with them, and then they become really cool. The people that are hard and rude in the beginning, they seem to be some of the best people once you get them, once you earn their business and you earn their trust. So that was a big conversion piece for me as well.

09:08Sticking to the schedule, doing the follow-up, and then just adding different lead sources from my website and putting that into the CRM and following up with those. And then really, honestly, moving away from buyers, and just solely focusing on listings at this point. And now I’m at a point where I’m able to work on passion projects, like how you are, Loida, with what you’re doing now.

09:30I get to coach agents and I get to coach teams and I really, really enjoy that. That’s what I’ve noticed is filling my bucket a little bit more, and moving agents from just commission to commission to commission to passive income, commission to passive income. Budgeting and putting their money away and investing that in the number one vehicle that makes millionaires, which is real estate in the United States.

09:53And we all have the best avenue of that ’cause we’re on the front line, as you know. And so a lot of people don’t wanna list their property. They’re like, “Hey, I know it’s worth like 250, but if you give me 190, that’s all I want to net, I’m willing to sell it to you.” So, and in some cases you’re willing to carry the note on that.

10:13So I’m trying to show agents that you can go from 15 to 20 deals, you can get to 50, and it’s basically the same amount of work, right? For me, a big changing point in that was hiring assistants and people to help me with stuff. And that goes with the coaching, right? I don’t wanna sit on all the Zooms, I don’t wanna send all the recordings, but what I wanna do is come up with the topics, talk about that, and then do little one-on-one calls with the people that are in my group coaching, which I do on the first or second time that they’ve been in.

10:43That way they really get solidified in it and I can help them kinda angle what they’re looking for and then come up with other topics. So all the prospecting led me to go, “Damn, this is really hard. I don’t think I wanna do this forever at this level, so how am I gonna get out of that?”

11:02That turned into the investments, which turned into I love helping people on my team, my team and other students around the country, which has turned into my passion project of coaching. So, and listen to this, Loida. I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve been running my team for eight years.

11:22I’ve had five rookie of the years that I’ve made on my team, and I freaking love that, right? It’s so cool to do something like that, to see the improvement, so.

Loida Velasquez11:32

That just gave me chills ’cause I know exactly how you feel because at the end of the day, we’ve been doing this.

11:39We’ve been the agent making the calls. So when you teach someone else and they’re able to take their business to the next level, you’re like, “I’m proud.” It’s like you’re a proud mama and proud papa, you know? I helped do that, right?

James Michener11:53

Yeah, absolutely. I just did a big Facebook post ’cause I was pushing really hard.

11:57There’s a gal that joined my team, and I try not to hire a ton of new agents, right? I like to just hire the ones that I think are gonna do really well, and I’ve been pretty good at picking that. So if I was a GM for a football team, I’d be able to pick really good football players, you know?

12:14Wink, wink. But those agents that have become the rookie of the year, they just took the real estate bull by the horns and really drove it. They asked me a ton of questions. They followed the processes that I put into place, and they just really had a love for it.

12:30But this one in particular, there’s two of them. One was admin with another team, and she was leaving that team to come to mine, and the guy goes, “James Michener will never hire you to be a real estate agent. You’re only gonna ever be his admin.” Well, she’s become a partner in my team.

12:47She got rookie of the year, and she’s my top agent year over year, right? And the most recent rookie of the year, she’s a mom of two. She’s very busy, and she got 29 closings. 23 of those were from the team, and she just rocked it. If you’re a mom with two kids and have a busy schedule, you can still make this happen, and she ended up doubling her income from being a dental hygienist to a real estate agent in the first year, which was just… I don’t know, that was just so fulfilling.

13:18So I like to see that with my coaching students as well.

Loida Velasquez13:23

Yeah. I think that’s the word, fulfillment. You feel fulfilled, and it’s almost like you have a purpose in helping others. Because now I’m sure that her life and every other agent that you have helped, their life has improved.

13:35They probably are living happier. They have things that they probably didn’t have before. And it all started with you and a little change of guidance and advice on how to even pursue and succeed in real estate.

James Michener13:48

Absolutely. Two, it was in 2020, I got six listings in one day, right? And that feels really good, but it gets to a point where it’s kind of the same thing over and over again, and you get so good at it, it’s like, I kind of want something new or challenging.

14:04And that evening, I had two of my team members reach out, and they were in tears, very emotional, and like, “I just wanna thank you so much. You’ve changed my life, my business. This is so incredible.” And I got home and I told my wife what had happened, and that’s when I realized, that’s the fulfilling part for me at this time.

14:22So I slowly started making the transition. And coaching at first, like anything, like prospecting, is very hard, you know? Just like talking on camera is hard. But the more you do it, the better you get, and the more you get to know people, you get to know their wants and needs. And generally, just like canceled, expireds, for sale by owners, they all have a similar story and stuff that you’re gonna have to overcome and help that they need.

14:45So you just figure that out, and as the years go on, the conversations go on, one by one it just leads to knowing exactly what they’re gonna say or what they’re gonna want, right?

Loida Velasquez14:56

Exactly. So I know we’re talking a lot about your coaching. Go ahead and share how people can reach out to you or get involved or find out more.

James Michener15:07

Absolutely. So Instagram’s a good place. Just go to James R. Michener on Instagram. Financial Free Realtor on YouTube, where I’m trying to teach agents how to take that active income and change it into passive income. And then Facebook is really good as well. Message me on there. James Michener is my name on Facebook, and I’d love to have a conversation.

15:28And honestly, if they’re interested, I let people jump in for a free class on the first one, just to see if it’s a good feel, right? Does my teaching technique work for them? Are they finding value in it? And then try to get them in. I don’t want somebody to sign up and be like, “Oh, this wasn’t the right thing.”

15:44‘Cause I’m sure, like you, we’ve been a part of other coaches that I know you’ve worked with and I’ve worked with where maybe it just wasn’t a good feel and you’re like, “Damn, I just spent money on this, and maybe I wish I would’ve used somebody else.” So I want people to be totally bought in for me and trust it.

16:01So I usually give them that first freebie on there for that. Or have a 15, 20 minute introductory call with them. So.

Loida Velasquez16:10

And we’ll make sure to put all of your links also in the description box below.

James Michener16:14

Absolutely. One of the things I wanted to touch base on, or do you have other questions?

Loida Velasquez16:19

Well, before we completely wrap this up, I wanna go back to follow-up because you mentioned it, we know it, the fortune is in the follow-up. I was recently talking with an agent, and he missed out on three listings because he didn’t follow up. He had called, like, three times, and then that one week where he just didn’t feel like it, somebody else took it.

16:40Then when he called again, “Hey, sorry, I just signed like two days ago.” What does follow-up look like for you, or how do you train your agents when it comes to follow-up?

James Michener16:49

That’s a great question, and a lot of my one-on-one students were coaching with somebody else, and they all came from the same person that said, “Hey, just call these people.

16:57If they don’t wanna hire you, move on to the next,” right? And I told these guys the opposite. I’m like, “Follow up with them. Everybody else is gonna drop off and nobody else is gonna follow up.” So what my follow-up looks like is if it’s a cancel or expired, if they’re a new one, I’m gonna call them the first three days, if they don’t pick up, twice a day, right?

17:16Once in the morning, once in the afternoon or evening for three days. Then after that, I’m gonna follow up with them once a week. If somebody tells me that they’re 30 days out, I’m following up with them every five to eight days, right? Because I know that if somebody tells me 30 days, they’re pretty much ready to go anytime.

17:36Maybe they just had a bad day or something else is going on that they can overcome. Or if somebody tells me six months, I’m following up with them every 21 to 30 days, and if they’re a year out, I’m following up with them every 30 days. If somebody says, “Yeah, I think I’m ready to go. I’m gonna do an interview, but we’re gonna hold off till later on in the week to get the interview process,” I’m calling them back right away, right, so that I can hopefully land that appointment.

18:03One of my favorites is when somebody tells me, I make a first call and they’re like, “Oh, all you real estate agents are the same. I’m not selling my house,” you know? “If I wanted to sell it, I’d reach out to you.” I call them the next day, because they might have just… I’m trying to empathize with them and look at it from my perspective, like if my phone was going off.

18:23How many of those agents, Loida, do you think are gonna call back to that person that was rude to them about that?

Loida Velasquez18:29

Not a lot. After a year. And they’re like, “Never mind, I don’t wanna talk to that person.”

James Michener18:33

Yeah. Yep. And I’ve gotten so many listings off of that. I remember I had a guy come through my website, and I called him and he goes, “Oh, I already have an appointment set up with this other guy,” which was one of my top competitors.

18:45I’m like, “Oh, well, do you want a second opinion?” He’s like, “No, I already got it set up.” And then he hung up on me, so I called him back and I go, “Hey, you owe it to yourself to get a second opinion. You don’t know what pricing is gonna do, what marketing is gonna do.” And he laughed and he goes, “You got some huevos, man.

19:00All right, I’ll have you come over,” right? I ended up listing that, then getting two other referrals from him, and he laughed after he signed. He’s like, “Man, I thought it was awesome how persistent you were and you weren’t gonna take no for an answer.”

19:12So just don’t be afraid of that, to reach out to people.

19:17If you do a vision board, look at your vision board. Think about what your goals are. Think about what that next commission or that listing could do for your family and your business, and just don’t hesitate to do that extra follow-up with them.

Loida Velasquez19:30

Exactly. Yeah. It’s funny that you mention that story because I know even in my experience

19:34sometimes the more upset the homeowner is, the more motivated they are to sell, and they needed to move and be somewhere, but the last agent didn’t do the job.

James Michener19:44

Yeah. And here’s a great point to that, right? They’re upset because the last agent didn’t do the job. But if you keep following up with them and you stay persistent and you stay aggressive in a nice way, they’re gonna be like… I’ve had this happen so many times, where people will be like, “Okay, you’re following up.

19:59You do this full time. You like your job. You’re obviously good at it. Let me give you… I’ll give you a shot at this, but you have 30 or 60 days.” I’m like, “Perfect. Awesome. Let’s meet up. I can meet you today or tomorrow,” right? I’m trying to set that appointment as quickly as possible with them because they are motivated.

20:16They’ve just been, what they feel is, burned by another agent. So you just have to separate yourself, even if it’s one degree from another agent, you separate yourself and it’ll make a huge impact on it. So, and you did a lot of for sale by owners, right?

Loida Velasquez20:31

Yeah.

James Michener20:32

You focused, yeah. And you’re welcome to give your advice as well, but one of the things I notice with for sale by owners is if I could get in front of them and meet them and preview the house, my likelihood of getting that listing jumped by like 60 to 70%.

20:47It was huge on that. So that’s kind of one of the little secrets I use for that. Yep.

Loida Velasquez20:52

Yeah, for sure. Definitely face-to-face interaction, whether it’s a for sale by owner or even an expired. Not a lot of agents are going in person. And then if I do go in person to see a home of a for sale by owner or meet with them, I wanted to make sure that we both knew that it was not a listing appointment unless it was specifically said, “Hey, are we open to working together?”

21:14But yeah, once they put a face to the name and then they see, okay, you’re not just like all of the agents that are calling me, now it’s just all about the follow-up. And if they see that

21:24you are reaching out, “Hey, how’s it going? You’re not ready yet? No worries.” When they are,

21:29they’re gonna be like, “You know what, James? I’m tired of all these agents. How can you help me? What can we do?”

James Michener21:35

Yep. And I think that’s great, ’cause a lot of coaches will teach to pre-qualify until you have a for sure in. For me, I felt like the pre-qualifying was almost like an interrogation and would almost push you away from a lot of people.

21:48I found that. And so if I just got in front of them, I could build rapport with them, for one. When I’m in their house, they’re not like a keyboard warrior, right? Or they don’t have the phone protecting them. So a lot of times they’ll open up to you more emotionally on really what their needs and wants are.

22:03And so that helped me with the conversion too, was just getting in front of somebody and touching base with them. And honestly, I bring the CMA, the listing docs, the marketing plan every single time I go. And 50% of the time when I’d ask them, “Hey, could we get to go to work for you?” They’d be like, “Yeah, we could do that.

22:19Why don’t you come over tomorrow and we’ll do the docs?” It’s like, “Actually, I have them here right now.” And they always go, “Man, you did come prepared, didn’t you?” And then they’ll end up signing. So getting that face-to-face is huge with a lot of people.

Loida Velasquez22:32

Yes. And always be ready. I like to have blank contracts, listing agreements,

22:36because you never know. Whether it’s a buyer or a seller, you always have to be ready. And going back to your point of separating yourself when you are making these calls with expireds or for sale by owners, I know a thing that helped me a lot too was working on my tonality and my mirroring and matching.

22:53Because if you’re a driver and I’m an expressive, you’re not gonna wanna deal with me over the phone.

James Michener22:58

Yeah. Yep. That’s huge, and I don’t think that there’s enough on that, the mirror and matching and the tonalities. Tonalities is huge. What’s it called? There’s a three-letter acronym for that, right?

23:12It’s…

Loida Velasquez23:12

NLP,

James Michener23:13

neurolinguistic programming. NLP.

23:14Yeah. Neurolinguistic, yep. And I know you’ve done a lot of that, which is huge. There’s good books and podcasts on that, so that’s a huge thing. I mean, it’s simple, but it’s also complicated at the same time. But the more you get into it, the more you’re gonna understand how to implement these certain tools like NLP, meeting people face-to-face, and I also think that meeting people face-to-face gives you more practice in how to have in-person conversations with sellers, right?

23:40It just, every little bit is good practice, just like doing your prospecting on a daily basis. So there’s a lot that goes into it, but it is a very simple process if broken down the right way, so.

Loida Velasquez23:51

Yes, exactly. And once you start to implement the tonality, I think another big one is body language, because depending

23:58on how the person is like this, you know something’s going on, and then you can call it out and be

24:04confidently calling something out to get to the bottom of why they’re not moving forward or what’s wrong.

James Michener24:11

Absolutely. Absolutely. And one of the other things, if I’m not correct, what do you feel about first impressions with people?

Loida Velasquez24:18

Oh, I think those are very important. Whether it’s on the phone or in person, especially over the phone, because I know when I’ve called expireds, I’ve gotten many times drivers. A lot of them are usually men, and obviously I’m a woman making a phone call, and if I don’t meet them at their energy, they’re not

24:37giving me the time. But if I meet them there, they’re kind of like, “Oh, dang, this girl knows what she’s doing.” They’re like, “You know, not every other agent that I’ve talked to has been the same conversation as you.” And then that ends up leading to an appointment. But yeah, first impressions are big.

James Michener24:52

Yeah. Mirroring and matching, right? Just exactly what you said. Just meeting their level. ‘Cause, again, if somebody’s really reserved and like, “Yeah, yeah.” And you’re like, “Well, do you wanna sign this contract right now?” Are you too aggressive? They’re gonna pull away, right?

25:06But if you get somebody that’s up… The East Coast is a big one for us, like New York, right?

25:11Where people come and they’re kind of rude at the beginning. If you match them there, they’re gonna be like, “Okay, okay. Maybe I’ll talk to this person,” right? “You’re not gonna be a rollover like some of the other people in our community.”

25:24So yeah, those are really great points. Yeah, I like that. So always come prepared and always make sure you’re dressed in your best and, yeah, bring your A game, especially that first impression.

Loida Velasquez25:36

Yes. So James, remind everyone one more time where they can get ahold of you should they wanna reach you.

25:42Because I know that we’ve dropped a lot of great information in the past 20 minutes. So go ahead and tell everyone all your links.

James Michener25:53

Absolutely. So jamesrmichener for Instagram. That’s James R-M-I-C-H-E-N-E-R, and then James Michener on Facebook, and then Financial Free Realtor on YouTube as well.

Loida Velasquez26:05

There you go. Yep. Well, James, this has been a great conversation. I love talking prospecting, lead generation, and just exchanging our experiences because we mentioned it, a lot of agents are usually scared of calling these type of leads because of rejection or how people respond.

26:24But just like you, once you get very good and you can teach and train others, there comes a fulfillment because we’re not reinventing the wheel. You’re just getting advice and coaching and mentorship from someone that has done it and has been successful with it, and is moving to another stage in their life, which for you has been buying properties, which I know a lot of agents wanna do now.

James Michener26:46

Yep. And one of my favorite quotes, and I’ll leave us with this, is, “Don’t take directions from somebody that’s never been to where you wanna go.” Right? So hiring a mentor or coach is one of the ways that you’re not gonna have to pay the dumb tax, and that you can move forward and not have to figure out all the stuff that you could’ve figured out in a one-hour phone call that’s gonna make you thousands of dollars.

27:06I mean, that was probably one of my biggest things, is getting around the right people in a mastermind, getting some one-on-one coaching so I got that attention, and just taking the direction of somebody that has been where I wanna go.

Loida Velasquez27:18

Awesome. It’s been huge. Well, thank you once again, James.

27:20And for those of you that are watching, I hope that you enjoyed this episode, and we’ll see you on the next one.

James Michener27:27

Bye. Thank you, Loida. Bye.