How Josh Pono went from 6 sales to about 20 a year calling expireds in San Diego

Josh Pono00:00

So, had this idea about building real estate businesses and my first opportunity to learn about real estate was 15 years ago in the tech space, selling websites to real estate agents. So, I worked at this company and just wanted to learn more and more and more, and learn how to teach agents how to use websites to generate leads.

00:19And after eight years of that and teaching people, I decided to say, “Well, if I know what I know and I’m skilled, then maybe I should stop teaching people and actually go do the job.” Prospecting requires consistency. Prospect requires an increased skill set. This is a phenomenal time to be doing cancelled and expireds.

Aaron Wittenstein00:55

What’s going on everybody? It’s me, it’s Aaron Wittenstein, and I wanna welcome you to Vulcan7 Roadmap. This is how we teach you how to take two, three, four, five, six listings a week. And we have a special guest here, Mr. Josh Pono from the beautiful area, I should say, of San Diego, California.

01:16How you doing, my friend?

Josh Pono01:17

Doing lovely. Having a great time. It’s beautiful out here.

Aaron Wittenstein01:22

There we go. So, you have an interesting story, if you will, and I don’t wanna say anything about it ’cause I don’t think it sound as good coming from my mouth as it does from yours. So kinda take me from the top, will you please?

Josh Pono01:35

Yeah, so, had this idea about building real estate businesses and my first opportunity to learn about real estate was 15 years ago in the tech space selling websites to real estate agents. So, I worked at this company selling a $50 a month product and just wanted to learn more and more and more, and learn how to teach agents how to use websites to generate leads, and use other CRMs, and just kept going to different tech companies and really learning about how to convert leads, how to generate leads, how to use these leads and leverage to grow their businesses.

02:08And after eight years of that and teaching people, I decided to say, “Well, if I know what I know and I’m skilled like I think I am, then maybe I should stop teaching people and actually go do the job.” And so, hopped into real estate after about eight years of being in the coaching, consulting, training of agents directly.

02:27Moved to San Diego, which is where I’m originally from, Southern California, and no sphere of influence, no database in place, just started prospecting like a maniac.

Aaron Wittenstein02:37

All right, so you started prospecting, and I assume I know what you’re prospecting for, but what did you start prospecting?

Josh Pono02:43

First thing I did was, because I had been around all the best teams in the country, I had had hundreds of conversations with teams that did 50, 100, 200, 500, 1,000 deals. And as I was preparing to go do this new adventure, I was also strategically gathering resources and information and what I found across the board was that the number one source for best data, most reliable to go out and get the cheapest, best quality leads was Vulcan7.

03:09And so one of the first purchases I made was Vulcan7. And by the way, I went through all the other sources and I just trusted all the coaching, all the guiding, all the resources that I’d gotten from all the teams nationwide, invest the right money in the right lead source because it’ll come back a million times over.

03:28And so right out the gate, just started prospecting for listings through Vulcan7 and did a lot of internet lead generation through different portals, Google, Facebook, all the big portals, et cetera.

Aaron Wittenstein03:38

So all right, so walk me through, ’cause I mean, getting into prospecting, you know what I mean? In the beginning, it’s not easy.

03:45It’s simple, but it’s not easy is the best way to put it. So just walk me through kinda that first year getting your feet wet and getting the objections coming to you and all that type of stuff. How did that work out for you?

Josh Pono03:58

Well, I was blessed with the lack of options, a lack of options.

04:02So, I first started prospecting in 2009 and ’10, like December, January 2010, cold calling real estate agents in the middle of 2010, trying to sell them marketing. Not a great time. Now luckily, I was pretty ignorant to what was going on in the economy. I wasn’t a big news watcher, so I had no idea that we were in the middle of this crazy epic crash and this horrible torrential market.

04:27And so I started prospecting and I needed a job. I needed a job. I needed to make money, and I was pretty bad at it in the sense that I thought it was just this, hop on, make some calls, people like you, they talk to you. And I realized there was systems and structure and format to it that would lead and guarantee your success.

04:46And so, when I first started real estate, I had already come into the place where I had built up a mindset of prospecting requires outbound calling, prospecting requires consistency, prospect requires an increased skill set. And even when I came into real estate, I had to learn all the conversations all over because I wasn’t selling websites anymore.

05:04I was working with homeowners that had just been through this really frustrating experience. And I knew the format and the sales technical jargon and the process and the fundamentals of selling because I’d been doing it for a long time, but I had to completely learn all the clients’ pains, all that stuff.

05:21So there was a process where my first year, it was challenging and I had to learn the systems, I had to learn the process, had to learn the CRM with Vulcan and all that good stuff to where I could get in a really, really strong rhythm. But I stayed committed. I knew that I could do it and just kept at it.

05:40And then it turned out to be really awesome.

Aaron Wittenstein05:44

So what did your… I mean, within that first year, two, three years of doing it, what did you… I mean, did we have solid numbers? ‘Cause I mean, I know when you’re in San Diego, you sell one house, you make $353,256. But how did that work out for you?

Josh Pono06:00

Well, there’s always the pros and the cons, and that’s one thing that I’ve noticed that, as we’ve grown the business and as I’ve continued to learn more skills and whatnot, I’m absolutely blessed to be in San Diego where the average price point is very high. Our average home sale for a single family detached home is close to a million bucks.

06:18It was only around 600 when I started. Of course, COVID was a big boom and all that good stuff for real estate. But it also is extremely competitive, right? Because you’ve got 20-something thousand real estate agents. Some of the biggest teams in the entire country are in this market, and they’ve got massive amounts of money.

06:33They’ve got ISA teams. So the barrier of entry is also really, really tough because you’re getting… You’ve got a lot of agents that are going after those listings even harder because the reward is so great. And so, the first year, I worked really, really hard, and I sold six homes directly from Vulcan, which was a phenomenal, phenomenal return on investment.

07:00Got six in my first year, and I was really… Looking back on it, if I knew what I know now in regards to the approach, I would’ve sold more. I was inconsistent. I was struggling with time management, so I’d get two listings. My first month prospecting, I got two listings in a town called Ramona, which is, most of the agents have their snottiness to it.

07:22“Oh, I don’t go to Ramona.” I was so excited, like, “Oh, you’re a seller? Let’s go. Where you at? Ramona? I love Ramona.” Have I been there? No, but I know I love it ’cause I got two opportunities and listings there. That’s my heart. That’s where I’m starting. And I took anything I could, but I learned, right? And year two, I did close to 12.

07:39I think I did 12 or 13 that were cancelled and expired. And then year three, it went up to about 20. Year four, COVID hit, and we had a big challenge with inventory. Obviously, that’s changing now, and we’re seeing more and more cancelled and expireds. It’s a phenomenal time to be doing cancelled and expireds.

07:58But there was a ramp-up period, but it was consistent the whole way. There was constant growth, constant, constant learning, ’cause it’s a process of understanding the client’s problems and learning how to solve them pretty quickly.

Aaron Wittenstein08:12

No, I mean, the nice part is, I mean, it doubled and doubled and doubled.

08:15Yeah. I mean, you can’t ask for more than that. You know what I mean? Your first year to take six of them, at $600,000. You know what I mean? The ROI is just there, it makes sense. And they hit 20 and, I mean, you do 30. You’re running, right now, that’s the $30 million business in San Diego. So I mean…

08:29Well, it’s all relative.

Josh Pono08:30

Yeah, and not only that. Here’s the thing that I talk to agents about all the time too, is it’s not just the cancelled and expireds, right? Because I’ve been doing Vulcan7 for seven years now. And so every time I have a buyer and they’re like, “I need more inventory,” I’m like, “I’ve got 7,000 properties in my database that no other realtor… said that they have off-market properties.”

08:51Great. I’ll show you how they get other off-market properties. They go to their Facebook group and they say, “Hey, I got a buyer.” Notice how there’s zero comments in this group on all these comments. And I open up Vulcan and I’m like, “We’ve got the numbers. We’re having conversations. We make hundreds of calls a day.

09:06We make thousands of calls a month.” We will actually deliver it and they see the value. And so it wasn’t just about the six sales, it was also about the additional buyers that we brought in because we were doing lead generation elsewhere. And so there was so much synergy leveraging. So much synergy leveraging.

09:22And then on top of that, as we would talk to the sellers and they would say, “You know, everybody says they specialize in it,” we would say, “Great, well let us show you our processes that we have. I mean, we’ve been doing this for seven years. We’ve had thousands of conversations. Not many people can say that.”

Aaron Wittenstein09:39

So you almost put it in a way of I have a secret MLS, right? And I think that’s a phenomenal idea because what people don’t realize is, I mean, I’ve got 10,000 phone numbers and addresses and people’s information, and it’s all sitting right there that most people don’t have access to.

09:58So that idea of a secret… I’ve never thought about positioning. That’s a really good idea right there.

Josh Pono10:03

Well, if you think about it, right, what’s one of the biggest problems outside of price and interest rates? What’s one of the biggest problems with almost all buyers nationwide?

10:11Not enough options, not enough inventory. And as agents, we have a coming soon in the MLS. Everybody’s got access to that, nothing special. We got coming soons on Zillow or Redfin. Nothing special. Nothing special, right? And agents all the time say, “Well, I know the buzzword is off-market properties,” but there’s no substance behind it.

10:31There’s none. So when you can show people that, “Hey, I’ve been investing in this for years,” and I can show you at the buyer consultation, I can walk you through the scripts that we’re using and all that different kind of stuff, and I can show you that I’m physically having conversations and I’m the guy that outworks everybody, that brings more value to the table, and especially right now where there’s all these challenges going on with how are we going to showcase value as buyer’s agents with all the lawsuit talk going on, now’s the perfect time to leverage this type of value.

11:01And one of the things that I loved about Vulcan is there was a period of time for about a year and a half when I was doing some partnership with some teams and whatnot, where they were paying for Vulcan and I wasn’t. When I came back and I started my own business, Vulcan, unlike everybody else, will actually, I don’t know if I can get in trouble for saying this, but they’ll actually let you buy some of the old data.

11:21So you can come in as a new client or a returning client and invest a very, very small amount to get older leads which, by the way, unlike most traditional sales fashions where nobody wants an old lead, right? Ah, old lead, I don’t wanna call him. Old lead. Canceled and expireds are some of the best old leads because usually somebody wants to move or upsize or downsize for a specific reason.

11:45They’re downsizing because they’re getting older and they don’t wanna walk upstairs. Well, guess what? Their knees aren’t going to get better, so sooner or later that problem’s coming back. And people are upsizing because I don’t wanna see my kids fighting over the TV when their friends come over. I need more space.

11:58Well, guess what? Kids don’t just stop growing, right? So the problem that made people wanna move… They might put it on pause for a year or two due to market conditions, but the driving indicator of why they wanted to move in the first place, no matter what they say in that initial cold call on the first day that it expires, it hasn’t been solved 90% of the time. So the database is gold. Literal gold.

Aaron Wittenstein12:26

Right. It’s gold, they say gold in the gold or gold in the old or something, right? One of those. There’s gold somewhere, sitting somewhere over there. So all right, so…

Josh Pono12:34

There’s always some sort of sales adage that just makes sense, right?

Aaron Wittenstein12:40

Exactly.

Josh Pono12:40

The path is in the math, you know?

Aaron Wittenstein12:41

Yes. Yes, I agree. We could do this… We should just have a show where we just do that one for hours. But fast-forward me to right now, because I know, like I said, I know what you did, and you’re working on some really amazing stuff right now. So fast-forward us kind of what your world looks like.

Josh Pono12:58

So my world right now is, I spent seven years really pushing myself to get as dialed in as possible with understanding the consumer’s problems. And I have agents… I own an office out here in San Diego, and I believe that prospecting is the number one skill set that if anybody wants to grow their business faster than just waiting for referrals to come in, right?

13:24I’ll sit here all day long and talk about the best business is somebody that already knows you. They raise their hand, says, “You worked with Susie, Susie Six-Pack. You’re amazing. I wanna hire you.” And only 10% of everybody that we ever work with will refer us a deal each and every year. So if we’ve done 100 sales in our career, and we did an awesome job, and we stayed in touch with them, then

13:44we’ll get 10 referrals per year. Most agents wanna sell 20, 30, 40 homes a year on autopilot. The only way to do that, the only way to speed that up is to go out and get more business quicker so that you can build your sphere of influence. And prospecting has allowed me to make millions of dollars in commission because I can hop on the phone and create a relationship with somebody.

14:04What I work on now is teaching people about how they can identify the problems, right? Because with cancelled and expireds, there’s a big misconception that you’re trying to get their listing, and the different approach is call them to solve their problems. So for example, there was this call we were listening to the other day.

14:23I love how we can record the calls and we can listen to the calls, ’cause that’s where a lot of the value comes. “Oh, you missed the tonality there. Oh, you went left when you should have gone right. You talked about this when this was what they were really saying if you were listening.” And that comes with time, right?

14:37Because in the beginning, we’re just listening to what they’re saying so that we can say something that sounds cool, right? And once you stick to the program, you work the process, you understand the consumer, then we start to listen to what they’re really saying, and our brain naturally fires off what we really need to solve.

14:50And an example of that is where somebody had a property on the market, they wanted to sell it, it didn’t work out. They decided to go out and do some remodeling, and then they were gonna do a refinance to turn it into a cash flow property. And the agent says, “Hey, I’m calling about the listing.”

15:05And they say, “Well, I wanna talk about lending.” Well, the agent, being somebody that isn’t a lender goes, “Oh, well, I don’t do lending,” when really the question is, “Oh, you wanna talk about lending? Let’s talk about lending. What do you need right now?” Because then it goes, “Well, I need a lender to do this, this, and this, and this, and that way I can do this, this, this, and this.”

15:21And then the question becomes, “Hey, out of curiosity, why such the pivot? You wanted to sell, now you wanna do this. I can help you and connect you with this, but I’m just curious. Curious little cat. What was the initial goal?” And now, guess what? They’re talking about the sales process again, right? So when we reach out to people, it’s about helping them make a breakthrough of getting the consumer to go, “Ah, that was the original goal,” or, “Ah, that is the problem,” or, “Ah, I should make a switch.”

15:47I work on just helping people understand the problems that cancelled and expired people go through to create those moments of aha within the clients. And the agents in my office, they work in the system and they’re having phenomenal results with it, so it’s really… That’s really what I’m… I’m a teacher, I’m an educator, and that’s where my passion is.

Aaron Wittenstein16:07

No, ’cause it’s all about active listening, right? It’s hearing, it’s… How can I put this? It’s listening to what they say, yet hearing what they need, is what winds up coming. And that’s exactly what you just said right there. It’s taking situation one and listening to that until you’re like, “Wait a second, now we’re in a position of situation two,” right?

16:28And that’s where training and coaching and all that other stuff comes, so it’s so important. So, when you’re training your team in particular right now, okay, what do you feel is the most important thing, other than what you just said, what do you feel is the most important thing to…

16:48You know, ’cause people need training and helping, you know?

Josh Pono16:50

Yeah. So one of the blessings that I received by going through this really phenomenal sales training, fundamental sales training program at all these website companies, and they were known for one of the nation’s best technical sales training.

17:04I mean, we used to literally have to send cease and desist letters to other companies because they would have their employees come get hired at ours to go through our training program and then get kicked out, right? And then leave. And so we actually had to do that. And what I’ve always taught people and what I talk to the agents about, and anybody listening to this is like, “How do I get better with cancelled and expireds instantly?”

17:23It’s about the introduction line, okay? And we’ve all been there, right? If we get off to a rocky start in the beginning, it’s rocky all… It just seems to, yeah, you have a problem, something’s going wrong, it just seems like it’s just constantly breaking down, breaking down, breaking down. When we reach out to these people, our energy, our tone, our pace say more about us than anything else, right?

17:47So most people will call up and they’ll, you know, “Hey, uh, my name is Josh with 123 Realty, and, um, I was calling ’cause I noticed that, like, that y- your home, like, it, it didn’t sell, and, you know, I was just curious about, you know, what the plan is or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And so it comes out as this sales call immediately, right?

18:04And then the prospect comes out, “Are you an agent?” Right? And it’s almost like we’re cowering that we’re an agent. If you want, I can give you that opening line that I do every single time that completely and radically changes the percentage. So first and foremost, we start out with familiarity, right?

18:19If somebody calls me that’s cold calling me, and they say, “Hi, is this Josh?” I’m like, “No, this is the random man who answers Josh’s cell phone for him.” What are you… Is this Ron Burgundy, right? Like, “I’m Ron Bur-” Like, why is there a question mark? You assume you’re calling their cellphone because that’s the number one

18:41thing that we’re getting a hold of, right? Most of them are cellphones. How many people have a landline anymore? Very, very few. So when we reach out to them, and by the way, if you say, “Yeah, can I please speak to Josh?” My guard goes up like this. Sure. I know you don’t know me, I know you’re talking to me about something that you want, it’s all about you.

19:00So when we reach out, we say, “Hey, Aaron.”

Aaron Wittenstein19:02

“Hey, how’s it going?”

Josh Pono19:05

Like we… yeah. And so your guard… “Hey, Aaron.”

Aaron Wittenstein19:08

“Hey, how’s it going?”

Josh Pono19:09

Right? You’re still figuring out, “Who is this person?” And saying, “They’re talking to me like I know them.” So their guard, because they’re in a mental thought process trying to figure it out, and they don’t want to be rude to somebody they know, they don’t want to let you know that, “What if this is one of my friends and I forgot?

19:23What if I changed the phone number? What if I lost it?” So they’re, “Who is this?” And you pause, “Hey, Aaron.” Hey… they won’t even say that. They’ll wait for a second, they’re kind of waiting, and then you go, “It’s Josh Pono,” with authority. Hey, it’s Josh Pono. Everybody knows Josh Pono. Who doesn’t know Josh Pono?

19:38It’s kind of a big deal. I got many leather bound books. My apartment smells of rich mahogany, right?

Aaron Wittenstein19:42

Mahogany.

Josh Pono19:43

Yeah. So, “Hey, this is Josh Pono,” and the pause is there for a second. You say, “Good morning.” And you don’t say how are you, ’cause how are you is salesy, and not for nothing, if somebody said, “I’m horrible,” I still wanna sell their house.

19:56They could be getting divorced, they could be doing… So as real estate agents, we don’t get the luxury of only working with cheery people, and we’re okay with that. So how are you is an irrelevant question. It’s salesy, it drops up their guard, and they know you ultimately don’t care because you’re calling them with an agenda on your own.

20:09So we say, “Hey Aaron, Josh Pono.” Hey. “Good morning.” Now, what happens when they say good morning, right? They got their scripts, we got ours. So we’re gonna out-script them. Why? Because we’re professionals and they’re amateurs. They don’t cold call for a living, they don’t prospect for a living, but they do have their not interested script.

20:28So the longer we keep them off of that, the better off we are to position the conversation where we can control and always get to the meat of the conversation. ‘Cause that’s where most people get jacked up is the cold call conversion. How do you convert it from a cold call to a warm call? You keep their guard down with familiarity, and as soon as you say, “Hey, good morning,” and it’s a good morning, like you just, you’re loving life, you’re living the dream.

20:53‘Cause who doesn’t love cold calling strangers? I mean, this is the thing that just gets you excited, like you are awkwardly in love with this process, right? And by the way, this is challenging because some days we don’t feel like doing the job, and this is where the professionalism comes in. This is where the I wanna win, the Mamba Mentality comes in every day.

21:12We get ready to go out and take that business to create relationships. And so, once we say good morning though, here’s the thing, we engage some of their psychological behavior and programming because when we’re children and somebody says good morning, good evening, good afternoon, many of our parents, even the not so nice ones, taught us don’t be rude.

21:34If somebody says good morning, you’re supposed to do what, Aaron? Good morning. So then when they say good morning, oftentimes they accidentally slip and they go, “Oh, uh, uh,” ’cause they’re caught off guard. Who is this? What’s going on? “Uh, uh, how are you?” So now their scripting is working to be polite to me, which it’s really hard to be mean to somebody you’re supposed to be polite to psychologically, right?

21:52And they go, “Well, how are you?” And then that’s where most agents mess up and they go, “I’m fine. Listen, I’m calling about 123 Main Street,” AKA you don’t care about them. So when they say good morning to us, we go, “Oh,” or they say, “How are you?” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’m somewhere between fantastic, maybe phenomenal.

22:09But it’s early, it’s probably gonna get better. How about you?” And I slow down in that moment to say how about you. I’m gonna pause everything that I want to do. You’ve now said how are you to me, I’m now gonna say how are you, and I’m gonna hit you with so much positivity that you can’t… Who wants to yell at the super nice guy?

22:26Now, people say, “Well, what if they say, ‘Do I know you?'” Which happens occasionally. “Do I know you?” Absolutely not. This is an introductory call. The reason why I’m calling, you don’t wait, you just go right into it. “Are you an agent? Absolutely, and the reason why I’m calling… Hey, how are you? Oh, I’m doing good.”

22:44And by the way, a lot of people go, “Wow, you’re in a great mood.” What’s not to love about life? “Hey, listen, I’m calling about 123 Main Street. I sell a lot of homes where other agents couldn’t or didn’t. I saw this one, looks fantastic. I can’t figure out what’s the story with this one.” “Wow, let me tell you, Josh.”

23:02Boom. Now, the hardest part about that is, one, understanding just the pauses, ’cause as agents, we get nervous. When we first start dialing, man, we talk a million miles a minute. So I always tell agents, “Hey, speak as if you were calling your grandmother who’s 90 years old on the phone.” Right? Because we have to recognize they do not understand our speech patterns yet, and if we come at them fast, they’re gonna run fast. Right?

23:30We go nice and slow. “Hey, Aaron. It’s Josh Pono. Good morning. Huh, what a day. Life is good.” Right? And it’s that whole approach. And what we find is all of a sudden we go from, yes, you’re gonna get some people that are just rude and hang up. But the amount of instant rejection before you even get going, before you…

23:50That’s the stuff that kills spirit. That’s the stuff that breaks will. ‘Cause once you can get into it where you’re constantly pitching them of when are you interviewing the best agents to get the property sold. Shout out to Kevin Ward. Stole a little sprinkle of him from there, right? When are you actually gonna get the property sold?

24:06And then you’re always in that, “Hey, we’re not interested, we’re not gonna…” And everything they say, no matter what they say, “I hate real estate agents. We’re not interested. Agents are the sleaze of the earth.” You know what, Aaron? That’s exactly why I’m calling. “Hey, we’re not selling for six months, 12 months.

24:24We’re never… We’re taking it off the market. We’re renting it out. We actually hired our cousin who’s never sold a home ever, and now he’s gonna sell it.” Hey, that’s exactly why I’m calling. Blows it. What, what? Exactly why I’m calling. That’s exactly why I’m calling. Whatever they say. That is exactly why I’m calling.

24:40Hey, real quick, why’d the agent say the property didn’t sell? I’m just curious.

Aaron Wittenstein24:46

That’s exactly why I’m calling.

Josh Pono24:46

Whatever they say. “Josh, are you an agent? ‘Cause I freaking hate agents.” You know what? That’s exactly why I’m calling.

Aaron Wittenstein24:58

Okay. So I scripted a lot of people on a regular basis, okay?

25:02And it’s crazy. It’s insane. And that was a very… I like that approach a lot. So I would suggest, this is just coming from Aaron’s suggestion, listen to that a couple of times with what Josh just said because that’s a really good suggestion as to what to do when it comes to scripting.

25:23It’s just a lot different than what I’ve heard before. And I really, really like it. So, I thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate that. Thank you.

Josh Pono25:31

You’re welcome, man. And you know what? The cool thing is that one of the challenges with scripts is like, well, there’s a script for this, there’s a script for that, there’s a script for this.

25:41Whether I’m calling an internet lead, I’m calling a referral, I’m calling a buyer, a seller, a cancelled, an expired, a FSBO, a probate, it’s the same psychology because it’s the same human just with a different problem. And so I still, even on internet leads, on whatever it is, it’s, “Hey, Aaron. It’s Josh Pono.

26:00Good morning.” So once you practice that, you’re gonna notice overnight. And the problem is the pause, and people skip it a little bit and they wanna say it their own way. Be exact. “Hey,” client name with familiarity. Say your name with authority, like you are, everybody should know you. Okay?

26:23And then in a very positive way, little pause in between each, little pause in between. Let that marinate, right? ‘Cause if you don’t allow them to go, “Who is this? Man, Josh Pono. Does that sound… Josh Pono, Josh Pono.” If you don’t let that marinate, then they just feel rushed and then they just go back to, “I’m uncomfortable.

26:42I can’t think. I can’t think.” You’re rushing them through the process. A part of it is letting them know, let them know, not in a hurry.

Aaron Wittenstein26:48

It’s the power in the pause, baby. It’s the power in the pause.

Josh Pono26:51

Let the silence do some heavy lifting.

Aaron Wittenstein26:54

All right, so let me ask you this. You get a brand new agent, just came into your office, knocks on your door, and him or her are looking for one piece of advice.

27:04What’s that piece of advice that you’re gonna give this brand new agent?

Josh Pono27:07

Don’t take yourself so seriously.

27:11We all want to be awesome rock stars from the instant get-go. We all want to look good. None of us like rejection. People look at me and they go, “You know, you don’t even care about rejection.” Actually, I hate rejection just like everybody else.

27:24I don’t like putting my heart and soul into something and then being like, “I hate your art.”

27:29There was a song by a hip hop artist that said, “You know, I’m an artist and I’m sensitive about my stuff,” and I edited it for the radio version. But the point is that we come in, and I think one of the blessings that I had, man, is that I had failed so much because I did eight years of cold calling.

27:45And that was the other thing too, people are like, “Well, how do you call cancelled expireds?” I’m like, “You should try to sell websites to agents. It’s way harder.” Right? I had already been screamed at by thousands of agents. So when I would get a homeowner that was mad or said, “Oh, I got five calls this morning,” I used…

27:59There was a website that was built about me, Aaron. There was a website when I was a trainer that said, “There’s a guy at this company training people to cold call us two, three times a day. Stop calling.” And so when I came in, I didn’t take myself seriously. I knew I was going to make mistakes. I knew I was going to look dumb, but I didn’t care because I also knew that if I kept going on that track and I kept learning, there’s only so many things they can say.

28:25There’s only so many challenges they have. There’s a list of problems that they all have, and some only have one or two, some of them three or four, some of them only have one, some of them have all seven, some of them… But there’s a finite amount of objections they can give.

28:38And there’s only two or three different things you can say to each one that work every single time depending on where it is, and so you just learn. Then you’re never unprepared, then you’re the master, and then you’re confident all the time because it’s like throw your best shot at me.

28:51Anything you got, I’m ready. There’s nothing you can say. So enjoy being the rookie because you won’t be the rookie until you level up again. And that’s the other thing too is that I bet on myself so many times at so many different companies and so many different opportunities that you start to realize you’re always going to be the rookie every time you level up.

29:10So we’re going to level up, because once you learn this skill they can never take it from you.

Aaron Wittenstein29:15

It’s true.

Josh Pono29:16

Once you learn how to do this, the whole economy could go down. This could be a problem, that could be a problem, but you can always just say, “You know what? For a very small amount of money I can buy cancelled and expireds.

29:24I can hop in. I can go get business,” and it’ll apply everywhere. The skill you’re working on will give you absolute security and protection. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Show up six days a week. Call at least 30 minutes a day. Just go for it. Have some fun.

Aaron Wittenstein29:42

All right, my friend. So someone moves to wonderful San Diego, okay?

29:46And they’re looking for a referral agent. What is the best way to get in touch with you and your team?

Josh Pono29:51

Well, I’m a real estate agent, so you can just Google my name and it’ll have my cellphone. And the best way to get in contact with me is just text me. Just text me.

30:01That’ll be the hottest way to do it. And you can email me. I mean, all of our stuff’s online, so, Josh Pono, San Diego realtor.

Aaron Wittenstein30:10

Right over there.

30:11Beautiful. All right, my friend, final words. What do you got for me?

Josh Pono30:15

Appreciate you guys and the team. Appreciate the dedication and commitment to just…

30:21You know, people always ask me all the time about Vulcan because you guys know, other agents know, people shopping know, you’re not the cheapest discount. You’re not the Redfin on the block, let’s just put it that way, right? Where, hey, for those of you who are Redfin agents, I love you. I’m just having some fun.

30:37You guys are not the cheapest on the block, but I have such confidence in your data and such confidence in my people being able to work the leads and have accurate phone numbers, and they show up every day. They’re on autopilot. I never have to spend a single ounce of energy wondering if you guys are gonna do your job.

30:57You guys are extremely consistent. It’s a great peace of mind for me. You guys are absolutely the highest quality, cheapest lead source. I mean, you guys are less than a dollar a lead every single month, sometimes less. In the month of January, you guys are closer to 50 cents a lead. Name, phone number, email, high intent.

31:15They just came off the market. And so I appreciate you guys. Final words.

Aaron Wittenstein31:20

And we appreciate you. All right, my friend. Thank you so much for being here. This was great information today. And if you need anything from our wonderful new friend Josh, just Google him, all right? All right, man. You take care of yourself, all right?

Josh Pono31:41

Google me.