How Kevin Ward opens expired listing conversations with a one-line text

Kevin Ward00:00

You make prospecting a daily habit. You have to do it every day. You have to go through that process of being willing to suck first so that you can succeed later. Most agents are too afraid. They don’t know what to do, don’t know what to say, and they’re not willing to face the resistance. But when you learn to crack the code, it’s an amazing, amazing opportunity.

Loida Velasquez00:24

What’s going on everyone? Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Vulcan7 Podcast, where we bring you some of the best in the industry to share with you their tips and strategies on how to succeed in this business. If you haven’t caught up on the previous episodes, make sure to do so. You can watch them on YouTube or listen to them on your favorite streaming platforms.

00:44Now, with that being said, we have an amazing special guest today. It’s probably someone that you’ve watched on YouTube and learned from, and if you haven’t, look, you’re in for a treat. You might wanna get a pen and paper ready, because this is someone that I have personally learned a lot from, and we’re gonna talk a little bit more about that.

01:01So with that being said, I wanna bring on Kevin Ray Ward. Welcome, Kevin.

Kevin Ward01:06

Thank you, Loida. Super excited to be here. It’s great to have this conversation with you especially.

Loida Velasquez01:11

Yes, yes, I know. I’m so excited. When I saw the calendar come in and Kevin was gonna be on it, I was like, “You know what?” It’s like I’m fangirling.

01:21So I’m sure that there’s agents that see me, they see you, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I learn so much.” So with that being said, for someone that’s watching that maybe is not too familiar with you, go ahead and share with them a little bit about your background.

Kevin Ward01:34

Oh my goodness. Well, so I started real estate back in the 1900s.

01:39And I’d just moved to Dallas-Fort Worth from a little bitty town in north Texas, so I didn’t know anybody. And so when I started real estate, I joined a Century 21 office there, and the trainer, Dan Galt, just said… I said, “I need to make money fast.” I knew the listings was where I wanted to go.

01:56And he said, “Call For Sale By Owners and expireds.” So he used to copy out the classified ads of For Sale By Owners every day and put them in the box there for agents to grab. And then he would print out the expired listings, and we would use an old reverse lookup directory, literally a printed-out phone directory, to find their phone numbers, and that’s how I started real estate.

02:20And I just started out calling For Sale By Owners and expireds, and yeah, that was what I did. I couldn’t afford marketing. I didn’t have any money, and I didn’t know anybody, right? So it’s like I had no choice, and that was kinda what launched me into the game as a For Sale By Owners and expireds real estate agent.

02:39Of course, I went on and started a coaching company a little over a decade ago, Yes Masters Real Estate Success Training. And yeah, that was a challenging and fun game, For Sale By Owners and expireds. And today it’s still the lowest hanging fruit, but most agents are too afraid.

02:56They don’t know what to do, don’t know what to say, and they’re not willing to face the resistance. But when you learn to crack the code, it’s an amazing, amazing opportunity.

Loida Velasquez03:04

Exactly. I love that. And another question I love to ask all my guests is what did you do before real estate? Because I have noticed that everyone has crazy different careers.

03:13I have interviewed singers and band members. And I’m like, if I wouldn’t have asked, I would have never known that you have a skill in Italian and playing the trumpet.

Kevin Ward03:21

Yeah, so I was in Christian ministry, full-time Christian ministry. I was a preacher for, like, 15 years right out of college, and that’s what I did.

03:28Decided I needed to do something that made money, and I got tired of church politics being there. So I’m like, “I wanna do something where I can help people and do something that’s valuable, but also start making some real money.” And so that’s what got me into real estate. And yeah, I’ve loved this game of real estate unlike anything I’ve ever done in my life.

Loida Velasquez03:50

Yeah. And obviously, I personally have watched your videos when I got into the business. And I talk a lot about expireds and For Sale By Owners, and I think if you were to listen to me, it’s like I sound just like you. I’ve watched your videos, read your scripts, I listen to you.

04:11Even the pauses, the chuckles. I mean, everything, Kevin. You’re probably gonna laugh, but for anyone that’s watching, right? And we talk about For Sale By Owners, expireds. You mentioned it, right now it’s still the lowest hanging fruit. Why do you think a lot of agents are just so afraid of going after this?

04:28Especially now in an era where there’s social media and all of these different shiny objects out there.

Kevin Ward04:33

Well, I mean, anything will work if you master the game. But I think one of the reasons people are afraid… Here’s what I was afraid of, and I was afraid of them. I was terrified.

04:41In fact, so I started out on the phones, but Dan Galt always told me, he said, “If you wanna get the best results, go knock on their doors.” And so the very first day, I went and knocked on the very first For Sale By Owner. I went to knock on his door, or their door, whatever, and I’m walking up.

04:58It’s in Hurst, Texas, and I’m walking up to the front porch, and this is in Texas, so they had a front door and then a screen door. And so the front door was open. I could see through the screen door, the storm door, that the front door was open, so I’m like, “Oh, somebody’s home. This is gonna be great.”

05:13So I’m walking up, and as soon as I step up onto the porch, it was a wooden porch, so with my dress shoes on, I could just remember hearing myself go clunk, clunk. And all of a sudden, I heard somebody yell from inside the house. They go, “Are you a realtor?” And I didn’t have a script for that one, so I’m sure I said something like, “Yes, uh, yes, sir.”

05:33And he goes, “Then get the fudge off my porch.” And I did. It’s like I literally don’t remember what happened next, but I just kind of think when I came to, I was sitting in my car going like, “I am never gonna do that again.” I was so freaked out. And I’d been a preacher, and so I’d been very sheltered, and we didn’t…

05:57And so I wasn’t used to hearing people swear at all, much less swear at me. So I was scared to death, and after that it was kind of like, “Yeah, I’m gonna master the phone thing.” So that’s kind of what I did. Of course, things have changed today. We do more than just phone. We use text and all that kind of stuff.

06:11But I think people are afraid of it because of that sense of, I’m going up to talk to somebody who doesn’t really wanna talk to me. They don’t know me, they don’t like me, they don’t trust me. Our whole life we’re taught, “Don’t talk to strangers.” And then you get into real estate and they’re like, “Oh, you wanna make a lot of money?

06:26You either talk to the people that you know and ask them for business, or you talk to strangers.” And so there’s that sense of like, “These are strangers. I don’t have a connection with them, and they probably don’t want to talk to me.” And they don’t. I mean, For Sale By Owners and expireds, expireds are not happy, typically, with real estate agents in general, especially with their agent.

06:46So they’re like, “Why do I wanna talk to you? I tried it with that agent and it didn’t work. Why would I try with a different agent?” And then For Sale By Owners, they think they can do it on their own, and you’re to them just a potential expense. So it’s like they don’t wanna talk to me, but it’s kind of like I don’t wanna go see the dentist either.

07:03But I know that a dentist has value when I need to make my smile prettier or my mouth stop hurting. And once they understand that there is huge value when you hire a professional agent to help you get a better result, if an agent knows what they’re doing, you can always help a seller get a better result, then there’s huge value and obviously profit for you.

07:25You just have to get through the resistance. The resistance is where the money is. If you can break through resistance,

07:30sky’s the limit.

Loida Velasquez07:31

Exactly. So the resistance. And then another question is, “Well, Kevin, you know what? There’s a lot of scripts out there. How can I sound natural? ‘Cause I don’t wanna sound scripted.

07:42And how can I sound confident?” So give us some tips about that.

Kevin Ward07:47

Yeah. So first I’ll just make a shameless plug. Book of Yes. Best scripts ever created for real estate agents, especially when it comes to lead generation and getting listings. But the key is not the script. The key is mastering the script.

08:03It’s kinda like, I don’t care how good the piano is, if you don’t know how to play, you’re not gonna sound good, right? So my very first strategy, or first key to succeeding with any type of seller, is you gotta go pro. You gotta treat this like a professional, not like an amateur.

08:23And like, what does a pro do? A pro practices and trains every day. They practice, they train. So you practice the scripts, you role play, get role play partners. You practice, you role play, and then you gotta get in the game. You actually have to make the calls. You actually have to have the conversations, ’cause you’re gonna hit the wall.

08:37You’re gonna get hung up on. You’re gonna get stumped by an objection. It’s just part of the game. You have to go through that process of being willing to suck first so that you can succeed later. I call sucking the seed of succeeding, right? If you wanna succeed, you have to be willing to suck.

08:56You’re gonna suck at it at first. And so the faster you get out there… And I role played every day. This was one of the things that made the difference for me and everybody else, was I was willing to actually show up and role play every day. And I was literally in the number one Century 21 office in the world at the time, in Dallas-Fort Worth, Century 21 Mike Bowman.

09:15And out of a mega office, there was literally two agents that would typically show up every day, me and a lady named Elvira, and we would show up and role play and just practice scripts for 30 minutes. We’d role play back and forth, and then I would just get on the phone and call. And so you just gotta be willing to practice, and approach it like a professional, and know that on the other side of the sucking comes the succeeding.

Loida Velasquez09:41

Mm-hmm.

09:42Something that I learned from you was not just memorizing my script, but even doing it blindfolded and also chanting. So I want you to talk about that, because I think that is so important, and a lot of agents probably have no idea what I’m talking about, but it helped me tremendously, so go ahead and share what that’s all about.

Kevin Ward10:01

Yeah, so I do a thing called the 100 Day Challenge, which I haven’t done in years. I’m thinking about bringing it back this year, ’cause so many agents, even if they’re getting leads from social media or whatever, they still have to talk to people, and this is one of the things.

10:14They’re like, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to talk to people. What do I do? What do I do?” So reading the scripts out loud and chanting them over and over is how you start internalizing them. So I say memorize them and then internalize them. Memorizing it is getting it in your head.

10:29Internalizing it is getting it inside of your molecules, inside of you, so that it now comes out naturally, just like a great actor does with a movie script, right? And then the blindfold thing, when we did the 100 Day Challenge, that was just for the listing presentation. You’d have to memorize the listing presentation in one week, which was insane, which took anywhere from 10 to 30 hours for some agents.

10:53You memorize the entire listing presentation, and then the next week you would have to record yourself doing the listing presentation blindfolded, just to prove to yourself that you had it down and learned it. And of course, that’s still just a step of mastery. But you’ve gotta make that training, daily repetition, role play, chanting, script practice, over and over.

11:15It’s the path to mastery. If you wanna get good at tennis or golf or piano or anything, you’re not gonna get good unless you’re willing to practice at it every day, and it’s the same thing with these, what I call, choreographed conversations. Like, when you see a professional play a piano, or you see a figure skater go out and do their routine, it looks effortless, right?

11:35It looks almost magical. Like they’re just going out, and they’re just doing all this stuff, and it sounds great. So that’s the way it is when you have scripts mastered: they’re internalized, so it sounds totally conversational. It does not sound like a script. If you sound scripted, you’re an amateur, or you just haven’t mastered the script yet.

Loida Velasquez11:55

Exactly. Yeah. So for anyone that’s listening or you’re watching this, you might need to rewind a couple of minutes and write down and do exactly what Kevin just said if you wanna master and be comfortable and confident when you’re having these conversations. Because I think, at the end of the day, that’s also one thing that stops a lot of agents from maybe even continuing phone calls.

12:13They stumble, and then they get called out by the homeowner that says, “Oh, you just sound like everybody else.” And they’re like, “Oh, no, I don’t know what to say,” hang up, and then give up. So watch this again, two, three times, and also go watch Kevin’s YouTube videos on his channel to learn more as well.

12:31Now, when it comes to expireds, because that’s another lead source that a lot of agents are afraid of going after, what are you seeing now that maybe you’re coaching agents on? Because perhaps homes are not selling as quickly as they have in the past, or maybe agents have to have conversations regarding pricing.

12:50What are you going over right now with your coaching clients on how to handle these expireds, to get them to a reality on pricing?

Kevin Ward12:56

Yeah. So obviously, the first thing, you gotta get them in a conversation. That’s the number one thing. The script that I used originally was a phone script, and you called and they had to answer, right?

13:10So they’d answer. When I started doing this back in the 1900s, I started real estate in 1998, we didn’t use text messaging. I mean, it cost money to send a text. Most of us paid for a text every time you sent one. So we didn’t really use text messaging for years and years. But today, everybody texts, and nobody wants to answer the phone.

13:29So typically, the start is you call them knowing they’re probably not gonna answer. If they don’t answer, then you immediately send them a text message that just says, “Hey, this is Kevin Ward. Are you still accepting offers on your property?” And that’s the script. That’s the starting point of every… Are you still accepting offers on the property?

13:46Are you still accepting offers on the property? And you will get a huge amount of people that respond to that text. So that’s kinda how it starts. The conversation is, “Hey, are you still accepting offers on the property?” Now, my updated Book of Yes scripts book, which they can go to yesmasters.com to get, has the text message scripts now, because things have changed, and I’ve got, here’s the original script, and here’s what we do today.

14:12And even if you call them and they answer, it used to be like, “Hey, I’m sure you’re aware your house showed up on the computer, that the listing expired.” And now we start with, “Hey, this is Kevin Ward. I’m a local real estate agent. Are you still accepting offers on the property?”

14:26And the psychology of that is a complete shift, ’cause it’s not about listing, which is what they don’t want. It’s now about, are you still wanting to sell your property? And when you say, “Hey, are you still accepting offers on your property?” they’re going like, “Why? Do you have an offer for me?”

14:41And the elite level of this is you should have an answer to be able to say, “Well, I’m not calling for a specific buyer. But yes, I do have buyers, and I can have an offer on your property within the next couple of days if you want one.” So that’s how you start the conversation.

14:58And again, going back to my whole premise of becoming a Yes Master is get yes without the BS. So you’re not BS-ing them. If you don’t have that, don’t say it. But that’s how you start it. And then when you get into the conversation, you have to have the leadership and communication skill and expertise to be able to get them to price it right and do the things that will get it to sell.

15:23And that’s not just telling them that they’re overpriced. You have to help them see, oh, the way you get more money for your house is you price it way more aggressively today than ever before. And we don’t really have time to talk about all the reasons for that, but I’ve used this now for, I don’t know, seven or eight years, since I started teaching the 10-day selling system.

15:45And my coaching members sell almost every listing in 10 days or less, for full price or above market value most of the time, ’cause they get into bidding wars, and it’s crazy how it works. But you have to have the confidence and certainty to do that, and of course, it’s one of the reasons that we’re coaches.

16:01You need a mentor, you need a coach to teach you mastery if you’re gonna be a pro. Amateurs don’t have coaches. Pros always have coaches, because we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in potential income if you master this process.

Loida Velasquez16:18

So you’re incorporating the text messages?

16:20The text messages, calling, knocking. Anything else that you think agents need to be doing right now if they’re going after expireds?

Kevin Ward16:29

Yeah. So, I mean, I call it MMA, mixed method approach, of lead generation now. So with expireds, it’s like call them, text them, email them if you got it, knock on their door, send them direct mail.

16:42I mean, the more different methods that you can use to get in front of them, the more likely you’re gonna actually be able to get into a conversation with them, and that’s the key, is getting them into a conversation. So having a process that’s like, “How am I gonna do this?”

16:57Now, I would call people that live 45 minutes away, but I wouldn’t go knock on their door. So I had a core market area. Expired and canceled listings that were in my immediate market area, go knock on their door today. Now, as a disclaimer, just honestly, I really never did that.

17:19But there’s no telling how much business opportunity I lost because I was not willing to do that. Today, I’d be doing that. I’d be knocking on their door. I’d be calling, knocking, texting, sending them some direct mail immediately. Like every day, I’d have my team sending out direct mail pieces, or I’d do it myself if I don’t have a team.

17:38And just using every method I can, so that when I call them or text them, and I call them the second day, I call them the third day, by the third day they probably got my postcard or my mailer in the mail with an audacious promise. So this is like, what are you gonna do different than other agents would do?

17:55“Well, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna sell it for more money in 10 days or less than most agents.” “Then obviously your previous agent didn’t sell it at all. So what are you gonna do different?” “I’m gonna sell your property, ’cause that’s what you want, right? That’s what I’m gonna do.” I also recommend highly having what I call an online seller vortex, which is a webpage specifically designed for sellers, not your traditional Zillow knockoff website that says, “Hey, start your home search here,” or your dream of home ownership or whatever other crap websites the average agent has.

18:26But one that actually says, “Hey, wanna sell your house for more money in less time?” Check here to find out about our 10-day selling system, right? And there’s a lot of different approaches, but that way, if they won’t talk to me, I want them to check me out online. Just like I don’t sit down and call agents and invite them to coaching.

18:44I put content online. They watch it, and they get to know you, and then they’ll go like, “Oh, that’s who I need to talk to.” And you can do the same thing as an agent with what we call an online seller vortex, that will double or triple your conversion when you have this, again, multi-method approach of lead generation.

19:05So there’s multiple ways of getting in front of them. I’m getting my message to them, and my value proposition, what I call the audacious promise, that will make them say, “I need to talk to that agent.”

Loida Velasquez19:17

Now, is the approach when going after For Sale By Owners the same, or does it change a little bit?

Kevin Ward19:22

Well, it’s pretty much the same.

19:23I mean, obviously they’re accepting offers on the property, so it’s a little different conversation. So, have you got any offers on the property and so forth? But For Sale By Owners will typically talk to you. They’ll typically respond. And a lot of them will pay you. You know, “If you bring a buyer, I’ve got a commission for you,” whatever.

19:42But the key with the For Sale By Owner is what I call the hook question, and it’s this: “So let me ask you this. If I could help you get your property sold and still net you as much or more money in your pocket than you could by doing it yourself, would you at least be willing to have a five-minute conversation with me?”

20:01It’s just a fair trade. Like, “Hey, if I could help you get the house sold faster and for more money, would you talk to me?” And many, many, many of them will say yes. And that’s day one. You don’t need to wait till they’ve been trying it for 30 days. Like, “Hey, I noticed you had your house for sale by owner.”

20:15Now, some of them may not wanna do it immediately, but one of my principles is first responders always get the listings, which means I wanna be the first agent to call every For Sale By Owner, not wait till they’re tired of trying on their own. And the reason is, do you remember your first kiss, Loida?

Loida Velasquez20:35

Yeah.

Kevin Ward20:36

Yeah. So do I. I remember my first kiss, and it was a few years ago. I remember it. It’s been a minute. But do you remember your fifth kiss?

Loida Velasquez20:45

No.

Kevin Ward20:45

Your fifth kiss, you’re like, “No, I have no idea who that was,” right? It’s like, if you’re the first agent that calls them, they will not forget you. By the time you’re the fifth agent or the 10th agent that’s called them, they have no idea who you are.

20:56You’re now just another doormat in the warehouse full of doormats. You’re just another realtor. So being the first person to call them, same with expireds. I wanna be the first one on the phone calling them the day they first go active, and this is the reason I love Vulcan7. You need to be in Vulcan7 every day.

21:14You need to have it. Obviously, if you’re not gonna call and you’re not gonna use it, don’t pay for it, ’cause it’s expensive. But if you’re using it, it’s not expensive. It’s an investment, right? And it’s like I want the new For Sale By Owners, the new expired and cancelled listings every single day, and I wanna be the first one to the front door or the first one on the phone talking to them, because one, they’re more likely to have a conversation with you.

21:39Two, they haven’t prepared their objection handler scripts, their objections, right? They don’t have their script down as well. And they’ll remember you. And so it’s like, get there first.

Loida Velasquez21:51

Yes. I love it. Everything that you’re saying, I think this is exactly what agents need to hear. And I want you to talk about your coaching and Yes Masters, because there’s probably a lot of them that are listening, they’re like, “You know what?

22:02I need to check out Kevin and learn more from him.” So tell us more about that and how agents can connect with you as well.

Kevin Ward22:09

Yeah. So just go to yesmasters.com. It’s the easiest thing to do. Yesmasters.com. There you can get a pre-order copy of my new book. I’ve had to rewrite my book. I’ve had a new book coming out for a couple years now called More Yes, More Success, following up on The Book of Yes, but things have been changing so rapidly, it’s like, holy crap, I need to add a chapter on that.

22:29I’ve got to rewrite this chapter. So it’s coming out this spring. More Yes, More Success. They can pre-order the book, and when they pre-order the book, they get a ton of free training and free stuff, like insane value, just for their patience. You’ll get an autographed copy of the book when it’s done.

22:46But also some of the scripts, you can get a free download if you just wanna see, “Hey, what is this?” So you can get a free download of some of my scripts and stuff. And you can find out about my coaching. I’ve got a thing called Yes University Coaching that is the best value of anything I’ve ever done.

23:06And I’m like, so many agents need help these days, so they can go there and get Yes University Coaching, which includes all access to my entire online platform. I used to sell them in parts for over $4,000 just for the online courses. They can get access to all of that now for $99 a month, and a weekly live coaching call with me, a group coaching call on Zoom every week, for $99 a month, and it’s an insane value.

23:33I have other coaching programs that they can find out about. And I’ll also say this, because I wanna help agents so much right now with the way the market is, and it’s been a tough, tough three years: they can actually schedule a one-on-one coaching session with me for free. Just go to yesmasters.com/callwithkevin.

23:52So yesmasters.com/callwithkevin, and they can book a one-on-one strategy session with me. And just let me know you found out about it from Vulcan7 when you get on the call with me. And yeah, I’m so committed to helping agents win, ’cause if I hadn’t had great mentorship at the beginning, I don’t think I could have survived.

24:13And I just think agents are needing it today so badly. They need the support. The brokerages unfortunately don’t typically give it to them.

24:23They’ll go, “Here, figure it out.”

Loida Velasquez24:24

Yeah, exactly. They’ll go watch you on YouTube. Go learn on YouTube, you’ll figure it out there.

24:30Awesome. Well, we’re gonna make sure to include all of your links in the description box below. And as we wrap up, what would you say are three things that agents need to be doing right now if they want to make sure that they crush it in 2026?

Kevin Ward24:42

So number one, go pro. You gotta train, you gotta treat this like a professional, not like an amateur.

24:46Talking to people beats not talking to them 10X. Don’t try to not talk to people. It’s like everybody’s trying to do it over social media, and “I don’t wanna call people” and all that. You gotta talk to them at some point, so call people. Make the phone calls. Number two, make prospecting a daily habit.

25:05You have to do it every day. It’s gotta be in your schedule. If it’s not in your schedule, you’re not gonna do it, and it needs to be in the morning, for a whole lot of reasons, but just trust me, do it in the morning. You’ve gotta do it in the morning, and you’ve gotta do it every single day. And then number three, if you’re gonna be serious about it, get a coach and get the resources that you need, including Vulcan7.

25:25I think Vulcan7, of all the services out there my coaching members use, and there’s a lot of great services, they didn’t have that when I started, but Vulcan7 is the best. And they should get Vulcan7 if you’re gonna master For Sale By Owners and expireds. You need the resources. It’ll save you a ton of time and get you the best access to the best contact information for those guys.

25:45And don’t quit. Never give up.

Loida Velasquez25:47

Yes. And don’t quit. Well, Kevin, it has been such an amazing time having you on the show, catching up, talking. I know that the agents are gonna take a lot of great tips from this episode, probably watch it a couple times. Obviously, I’m so grateful for everything that I have personally learned from you.

26:05And again, really grateful for you to be here on the Vulcan7 Podcast, and with that being said, for everyone watching, we’ll see you on the next one. Bye.