How Lee Romano turned expired and FSBO calls into 85% of his sphere business

Lee Romano00:00

A lot of the business that I’m doing now, my sphere of influence, 85 or so percent of that came from calls I made 11 years ago and the relationships that I’ve built. It’s not just the expireds and for sale, but I got other things going on. But I would say that Vulcan7 is the nucleus of my business.

00:15It’s what got me started, and it’s what I still go back to every single day.

Aaron Wittenstein00:27

Hey, what’s going on everybody? It’s me, it’s Aaron Wittenstein, and I would like to welcome you all to Vulcan7 Roadmap. This is where we interview agents across the country on how to take an additional just a bunch of listings a week, all right? So I got a neighbor here, by the way. We’re about two and a half hours away.

00:45Lee Romano from Keller Williams Space Coast, which is like Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, areas like that, right?

Lee Romano00:52

Yep.

Aaron Wittenstein00:53

And not only is he an amazing agent, he has an amazing haircut and he has amazing glasses, and I feel kind of like I’m looking in the mirror right now with this stuff. But yeah, wonderful looking human being, by the way.

Lee Romano01:10

Well, I’m not quite as handsome as you, but yeah, we’ll go with that.

Aaron Wittenstein01:13

I fake it well. I fake it well. All right. So within the last year, Lee has done somewhere between $7 and $10 million in business that is either attributed to expireds and for sale by owners, or come from previous clients that are expired and for sale by owners.

01:29Am I correct on that, Lee?

Lee Romano01:30

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, when I started out in the business 11 years ago, I was just expired and for sale by owners, like right away, right out the bat. And in fact, I got into my first office, set up my script board in front of me, and I was the only one in the office doing stuff.

01:46I thought, “Well, where is everybody else doing all this prospecting?” And it turns out nobody else was doing it. So I just started rocking and rolling right from the beginning, and it’s really interesting that if I were to move to Bradenton, for instance,

01:59or to New York or wherever it is, because of the expireds and for sale by owners, and because of the way we use Vulcan7 to get those, I could get a paycheck in 45 days no matter what, because of the consistency, because of the experience getting through the conversations and those kind of things.

02:19So those calls that I made 10 and 11 years ago, a lot of those people became clients, repeat clients over and over and over again. So a lot of the business that I’m doing now, my sphere of influence, 85 or so percent of that came from calls I made 11 years ago and the relationships that I’ve built.

02:38And obviously, it’s not just a one and done, a transaction, it’s over. You gotta have a lot of follow through, a lot of follow-up, making sure that you’re in contact with the clients all the time, touching base with them at least 12 times a year. I do about 36 touches to all my clients in my database every year.

02:58So whether it’s a newsletter, it’s a phone call, it’s a happy birthday, it’s “Hey, did you get your homestead exemption this year?” Whatever it happens to be. Because of the foundation with the expireds and for sale by owners, I was able to create that kind of a business. And even today, I’m still calling for sale by owners and expired listings.

Aaron Wittenstein03:17

Sorry. So what you’re trying to say is, like anybody that’s new or new to expireds, you’re setting the table, right? To be able to generate business, correct? And then from there you start feeding it, you start putting on the ribs and the chicken and the french fries and all the bad stuff that I’m not eating right now ’cause I started working out again.

03:37And then that cultivates into something where you’re building your business within your business, but also bringing in new business, correct?

Lee Romano03:48

Yeah. Absolutely. And again, I look at new agents and even some experienced agents that don’t have any business and don’t know where to get the business.

03:57And it’s such a simple thing, right? You sit down in the morning, you get your time block in the morning, five days a week, couple of hours every day. Set that as your goal. Make sure that it’s a non-negotiable, that that’s the time that you’re gonna be doing these things, and you make those calls.

04:14I don’t know why more people don’t do it. I have no idea. And it’s okay. I’ll take the business. That’s fine.

Aaron Wittenstein04:22

All right. So let me ask you this then, because I mean, in essence, a lot of people don’t make the phone calls, right? But being in Florida, we have the highest amount of agents per capita, you know, in like all of the world, okay?

04:34So what are you doing to make yourself stand out when you’re on the phone with expireds or for sale by owners, from other agents? ‘Cause it’s not good competition, it’s just competition, is the best way to put it.

Lee Romano04:48

Yeah. I think the best way I could say this is, again, getting back to when I started out in the business, I’d be the crazy guy at the gym on the treadmill with a script in front of me, just reading the script and reading it over and over and over, line by line by line, so that I started to memorize it and then it became conversational.

05:09So a lot of people are afraid of scripts. They’re afraid of those kind of conversations and don’t wanna get into it. Really, we use scripts all the time. Here we go, Aaron. Knock, knock.

Aaron Wittenstein05:21

Hello? Who’s there?

Lee Romano05:23

It’s a script, right? It’s a script. We’ve been using it forever. Forever. And a very quick funny story.

05:30I have a colleague here in my office who never used scripts. She gets her business elsewhere, and that’s great. She’s a very successful realtor. And we went to a convention with our company, a family reunion, and we sat at the end of a bar one time and had this conversation where I would just be talking and talking to her, just having a conversation.

05:52And she turned to me about five minutes into the conversation and said, “You’re using scripts on me, aren’t you?”

05:58I said, “Yeah.” They just become conversations. And when you have these scripts in front of you, which I always keep in front of me, just in case my mind goes somewhere and I want to come back to something, it becomes a conversation, and you don’t have to go from A to B to C to D like that in these conversations.

06:16You might go to A, see where the conversation goes, make sure you get down to C or D, wherever it is that you need to interject those questions to be prepared for an appointment and to set the appointment. Just have that conversation and make it normal, right? And that only comes from practice.

06:34That only comes from doing it over and over and over again. It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just something that people don’t wanna get into for one reason or another.

Aaron Wittenstein06:43

‘Cause I always say 80% of what we do is scripted. You know what I mean? 80%. The 20% is where the skill comes into play.

06:53Am I wrong?

Lee Romano06:55

No, you’re exactly right, because these conversations, we’re building relationships with people. People wanna do business with people that they know and trust, and in building those relationships, using the scripts as a guideline

07:09to make sure that we get all the questions answered that we need answered in order to have a successful appointment, and in order to earn the listing.

07:16I never say take the listing. Every listing is earned. Layups, people talk about layups. Every appointment that you go on, every appointment that’s set, it’s an important appointment. Could be a friend down the street, you still have to earn that business.

07:31You still have to earn their trust and the faith that you’ll be able to help them.

Aaron Wittenstein07:36

No, 100%. Okay. So here’s the thing you gotta understand with me. When you start talking about scripts and script practice and all that type of stuff, what that means is it’s role play time, okay?

07:46Everybody knows it’s coming. You know it’s coming, because the reality of it is we gotta hear what we got, okay? So what do you wanna do? Dealer’s choice. Expired, for sale by owner. What should we do?

Lee Romano07:57

Let’s do for sale by owner.

Aaron Wittenstein07:59

Ooh, for sale by owner. Yeah. All right. What’s the premise here? A brand new one, an aged one? What are we talking?

Lee Romano08:05

This is a brand new… By the way, I wanna talk about aged expireds when we’re done with this, ’cause you’ll find these…

Aaron Wittenstein08:09

Okay. Fair. All right. It’s foreshadowing, everybody.

08:13We’re gonna foreshadow.

Lee Romano08:13

That’s right. That’s right. All right. So you’re a for sale by owner. You just put it on the market, and you have to be in Dallas in two months to start your new job.

Aaron Wittenstein08:26

Fair enough. Let’s rock and roll.

Lee Romano08:28

All right. Ring, ring.

Aaron Wittenstein08:29

Hello?

Lee Romano08:30

Hi, this is Lee with Keller Williams.

Aaron Wittenstein08:32

Oh, my God, another agent calling.

08:34You’re like the billionth agent to call me.

Lee Romano08:37

Billionth? Now, come on, not a billion. There aren’t a billion realtors out there. Am I number five? Six, seven?

Aaron Wittenstein08:43

Well, probably like 42.

Lee Romano08:44

42. Well, I should’ve gotten up earlier today. Listen, the reason I was calling, you’re selling this property at XYZ Street.

08:53Am I right about that?

Aaron Wittenstein08:54

Yeah. No, we have it up for sale by owner. That’s right.

Lee Romano08:56

Right. So you’re representing yourself, right?

Aaron Wittenstein08:58

Mm-hmm.

Lee Romano08:59

All right. Well, I decided to give you a call today because I do help people like you actually get their properties sold, and I’m calling to see how it’s all working out for you.

Aaron Wittenstein09:06

I mean, we’ve only had it on the market for a day, not even. It just went on the websites yesterday. So, you know, we’re gonna give this a month or so to see how it goes.

Lee Romano09:16

Okay. Do you wanna have it sold in a month, or do you want to have it under contract in a month?

09:20What are your thoughts here?

Aaron Wittenstein09:21

Well, we’ve got 60 days, so I would assume, and you know here it takes like 30 days to close, from my previous transactions that we did. We have sold properties on our own before. But we would like to be in our new place in 60 days.

Lee Romano09:36

Great. Okay. So may I ask, are you living in that property now?

Aaron Wittenstein09:39

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Lee Romano09:41

Right. And you wanna be in Dallas? Is that what you said?

Aaron Wittenstein09:44

Sure. Yes, Dallas in 60 days.

Lee Romano09:46

Okay. And may I ask, is the commission the main reason that you’re trying to sell this on your own rather than working with a realtor?

Aaron Wittenstein09:52

Well, we’ve got to net $150,000.

Lee Romano09:56

$150,000. Okay.

Aaron Wittenstein09:59

$150,000.

Lee Romano09:59

$150,000. Well, let me just ask you this question. If I can show you how I can sell the property for you and actually net you more money than if you sell it yourself, even after a commission is paid, is that something you wanna spend maybe 15 minutes talking about?

Aaron Wittenstein10:14

How would you possibly do that?

Lee Romano10:16

Well, that’s exactly why we need to meet. Are you available today at 3:00, or would 6:00 be better for you?

Aaron Wittenstein10:21

I mean, I gotta tell you, we don’t wanna pay, you know, anything. If you wanna come by and look at the home, you know, we’re not signing anything. I mean, do you have a buyer for the house?

Lee Romano10:31

You know, I work with several buyers, and I appreciate that too. Look, I promise I’m not gonna ask you to sign anything. Is that fair enough?

Aaron Wittenstein10:37

Sure.

Lee Romano10:38

Okay. What I would like to do, though, is to kind of look at the home, see if it fits any of the buyers that I’m currently working with. Would that be okay with you?

Aaron Wittenstein10:46

Sure.

Lee Romano10:47

All right. Excellent. So listen, you said that you might try this for about a month or so, right?

Aaron Wittenstein10:52

Mm-hmm.

Lee Romano10:53

So might I share a few of the things that we might be able to do a month from now, if you do decide to go that route? You’ll probably have the thing sold by this weekend, I imagine, because things are moving pretty quickly.

11:05But in the instance that it doesn’t sell in 30 days, you might be working with a realtor at that point, correct?

Aaron Wittenstein11:11

I haven’t even thought that far ahead yet.

Lee Romano11:12

All right. Well, good. Would it be okay with you then if I shared what things could look like if you did go in that direction?

Aaron Wittenstein11:17

Yeah, but I’m not in the mood to be pitched or anything like that, so…

Lee Romano11:21

Not gonna pitch you anything. I’m gonna give you all the facts and figures so you’ll have all the information that you’ll need to make the best decision for you and your family. Is that fair enough?

Aaron Wittenstein11:28

Yeah, it sounds grand.

Lee Romano11:30

Great. So 3:00 today good, or is 6:00 better?

Aaron Wittenstein11:33

Tomorrow. I’m out all day today.

Lee Romano11:36

Okay. How’s 4:00 tomorrow? I have a 4:00 available.

Aaron Wittenstein11:38

Can we do 4:15?

Lee Romano11:41

4:15. 4:15. I love it. Yeah. And so while I have you on the phone, I just have a couple more questions. So obviously you’re not gonna sign anything. I totally respect that. Are you planning to interview any other agents for the job of selling your property?

Aaron Wittenstein11:54

I mean, we’ve got a couple other people that came through that said they had investors for the property, so we’re gonna let them on through.

Lee Romano12:00

Okay. Investors. And did they give you a timeline as to when they wanna come through?

Aaron Wittenstein12:04

Within the next 48 hours.

Lee Romano12:06

48? Okay. So just some advice to you on that.

12:10A lot of times people come to for sale by owners like you and they say they wanna buy a property, and they’ll come within 48 hours, and then there’ll be another 48 hours that pass for them to get pre-qualified for a loan. Before you know it, you’re becoming a prisoner of hope, and I’d hate for that to happen to you.

12:26So I’ll share some more information about that when I see you tomorrow at 4:15. Is that fair enough?

Aaron Wittenstein12:32

Prisoner of hope. I like that. Yeah, that’s fine.

Lee Romano12:36

All right, cool.

Aaron Wittenstein12:38

Oh, so you’ve done this before, by the way, I can just tell. The cool part about what you did is there was like no lag in anything that you said.

12:49It was just like, I’ve heard it, I’m going over it, I said it, I’m done. And I think everybody else that’s gonna be watching this will agree with me that that just sounded phenomenal. Good job, man.

Lee Romano13:00

Well, thanks. And I think, again, it gets back to having a conversation. You know, I have a script over here, but we weren’t using the script, but I got back to that script

13:10to make sure that all the questions were answered that I needed to have answered.

Aaron Wittenstein13:14

And this just goes, he uses a script, but it did not sound like he uses a script. So keep that in mind, everybody.

Aaron Wittenstein13:21

Yeah. Exactly. Keep that in mind. All right. So as we foreshadowed, by the way, old expireds.

13:25We can’t leave… Let’s forget, let’s not talk about it. Let’s see if everybody’s hanging. No, I’m kidding. Let’s talk about old expireds.

Lee Romano13:34

All right. So I’ve been having a lot of success with aged expireds, old expireds. So what I’ve been doing is this, with R&D, rip off and duplicate.

13:44So this is not my idea to begin with. I send a letter, I go back about six months, because if you think about an expired listing from six months ago, it probably was listed six months before that. So it’s really the same time as right now, a year ago. Right. Does that make sense?

Aaron Wittenstein14:02

Yeah. Yeah, I do.

Lee Romano14:02

Right. So I’ll send a letter, “Hey, I see your property was on the market. You took it off the market, reaching out to see if you have decided to keep it off the market or if you’re gonna be looking at this new market to see if we can get the property sold.” Very brief. Here’s a couple of testimonials, and then the whole bottom half of the letter is blank. And I’ll go on the MLS and I’ll take a look at some of the old photos, and I’ll find something really interesting about the property, and I’ll just write a little note.

14:30“Dear Aaron, hey, I love the piano in your living room. I play myself. Listen, give me a call, give me a call, so we can explore your options.” Boom. And a couple of things happen. I’ll follow up a week later with a phone call and a video text. But a lot of times people are just calling me from the letter.

Aaron Wittenstein14:52

That’s interesting.

Lee Romano14:52

Right? So I just started doing this a couple of months ago, and I’ve had three people just call me out of 100 letters that I sent, right? Three people call me out of 100. I’ll do that all day long.

Aaron Wittenstein15:04

10, 15 grand a pop, you know what I mean?

Lee Romano15:06

30, $40,000. I’ll do that all day long.

15:08And it doesn’t take that long. And I’ll do that even, you know, I’ve got my morning prospect time that I always do, but I’ll do that in the afternoon, right? There’s no rush, there’s no competition

15:18with expired listings from six months ago. So they’re not getting bombarded from all those things.

15:24I did just earn a million-dollar listing down in Melbourne Beach just by doing that.

Aaron Wittenstein15:30

Hmm. That’s an interesting concept. So what you do is you just write something specific about the house that only you would know by looking at the property specifically.

Lee Romano15:41

That’s right.

Aaron Wittenstein15:42

And then you build commonality based upon whatever that picture… That’s an interesting concept. I don’t hate that at all. That’s not bad at all.

Lee Romano15:49

Yeah. It’s been working, so I’ll keep doing it.

Aaron Wittenstein15:52

There we go, there we go. So as you said, a lot of your business is coming from past clients right now that you got from expireds, which is the best way to put it.

16:00What’s the one thing that you do towards your past clients that you feel gravitates them more towards using you again?

Lee Romano16:10

I think just following up on a personal level, in addition to the newsletters that go out and the emails that go out and the texts that go out, just market updates and things like that.

16:21It’s the consistency of doing that and then interjecting. You know, I know when their birthday is. It just pops up on my CRM and I just send them a birthday card or send them a happy anniversary card. Happy home anniversary. “Hey, it’s been seven years this Thursday since we helped you move into your new home.

16:39Hope you’re building some great memories. Let us know if there’s anybody in your life that we can help.” Those kind of things. So more of a personal kind of touch rather than transactional. Relational, is that a word? Relational rather than transactional. Relational ship.

Aaron Wittenstein16:54

Relational ship.

Lee Romano16:55

Relational ship. Yeah. We just made up a word.

16:58We’ll create new words. That’ll be fine.

Aaron Wittenstein17:00

I love creating new words. It’s so much fun. We have a whole Wittenstein, the, not the, encyclope… I don’t even know the word I’m looking for here, by the way. Okay. So let me ask you this. We’ve got transactional agents.

17:11A lot of us are. I used to be one, okay? If you had one tip to convert from a transactional agent into a relational agent, what would that be?

Lee Romano17:22

Just what I just said. Just keep in contact with them, make care calls. Social media is great, following these people on social media, on Facebook, seeing what’s going on in their life.

17:34A kid just won a softball game. “Hey, congratulations on winning the softball game.” Send them a little note, right? Not just a text or anything like that. I do send texts, obviously, a lot, but those little personal notes, I think, are really helpful.

17:49It’s just the little things.

17:51Well, I’m also looking to be their trusted resource when it comes to all things real estate. So there are people that are in my database that I’m in contact with all the time, they’re not necessarily looking to sell their property or to buy a property, but, “Hey, Lee, who’s a good landscaper that you know?”

18:07“Hey, Lee, I need my bathroom replaced. Who’s somebody that can do those kind of things?” So I become that resource for them. They wanna put in new blinds. “I want a new generator. Who should I call?” So these people are calling me as the expert in this field, in real estate, all the things related to their home.

18:25So at some point, they’re gonna wanna sell their property, and I’m probably gonna be the one that they call.

Aaron Wittenstein18:31

Perfect. All right, my friend. So let’s say you’re sitting in the office, there’s a knock at your door, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. A brand new agent comes along and says, “Lee, I hear you’re amazing.

18:42You got a great haircut and great glasses. And what is one piece of advice that you have for me to be a successful agent?” What would that piece of advice be?

Lee Romano18:53

The first piece of advice was pick up your cell phone and go through your contacts. Find out how many contacts there are there, and just go to the first contact and say, it’s a new to real estate script.

19:06“Hey, it’s…” You know, let’s say I used to be a teacher. Which I was, but that’s another story. “Hey, this is Lee from Edgewood High School. Just wanted to let you know that I made an exciting career change. I’ve joined a great team of realtors with Keller Williams Space Coast, and I’m now a realtor, and I’m just calling to see, do you currently refer to any realtors?”

19:31Say yes or no. If they say yes, “Well, great. Would you mind if I be a second resource for you? Put you in my database and be in touch with you from time to time.” So you’re building that relationship. You’re starting to put those folks into your database. And then three months from now, you’re gonna call them again and either give them some helpful information about the market, or just have a forward conversation.

19:55How’s the family? What’s going on with your job? How are the kids doing? By the way, do you know of anybody that I can help with real estate? Right? So four times a year, make that phone call and start to build that database, so that you have people that you can come in contact with and start to become that trusted resource that those people I was just talking about would be for them.

20:20Throw in a newsletter once a month. Do those kind of things. If they really wanna be bold, and they really wanna find out what I’m doing, say, “Come here to the office at 8:30 tomorrow morning and watch me make these phone calls. And if that’s something that you think you wanna do, I’ll teach you how to do it.”

Aaron Wittenstein20:38

Good man. You’re a good human being, Lee. You’re a good human being.

Lee Romano20:41

Well… Hey, you know what? I think when we can help realtors become better at what they do, it’s better for all of us.

Aaron Wittenstein20:53

Ups the game.

Lee Romano20:55

Yeah, absolutely, 100%.

Aaron Wittenstein20:57

All right, my friend, let’s wrap this up in a nice little bow here, okay?

21:00What are your last and final words that you have for Vulcan7 Nation?

Lee Romano21:06

Vulcan7, you know, there are other things that people can use, but Vulcan7 gives me all the information that I need to have a successful business, from for sale by owners to expired listings to neighborhood searches, which are great.

21:20You make just listed, just sold phone calls. Just put the little map in there on Vulcan7, and it pulls up, you know, 30 phone numbers in the neighborhood. “Hey, just listed a home for sale at 123 Main Street. It’s a great chance to choose your new neighbors. Who do you know that wants to move into the neighborhood?”

21:38Starting to build those kind of things. So Vulcan7 has been the nucleus of my business, and it’s helped me to span out so that I do have now a bigger sphere of influence, all the past clients that I’ve been working with, in addition to other people. You know, it’s not just the expireds and for sale by owners.

21:57We got other things going on, but I would say that Vulcan7 is the nucleus of my business. It’s what got me started, and it’s what I still go back to every single day that I’m in the office.

Aaron Wittenstein22:10

Perfect. All right, my friend, someone is moving from Dallas, Texas, ironically enough, to the Space Coast of Florida.

22:18How does one get in touch with you for that referral?

Lee Romano22:21

One gets in touch with me by going to lee@hometeamspacecoast.com, or my phone number is 321-427-3479.

Aaron Wittenstein22:34

Perfect. My friend, I wanna say thank you so much for being here. This is great.

Lee Romano22:38

Thank you, Aaron. I appreciate it. And, well, by the hairstyle, it’s just beautiful.

Aaron Wittenstein22:41

Oh, yeah. There we go, baby. I should remind everybody a couple of things here. Do me a favor, go make some money, and don’t forget to boom right there, trust the process. Everyone take care, be well.