How Lee Romano gets 80% of his business from expireds and FSBOs with time blocking

Lee Romano00:00

There was one that I called, I wanna say it was about seven or eight years ago. I called the gentleman, he was trying to sell his mother’s house. I helped him sell that, and then he introduced me to his sister who wanted to buy a property, so I helped her buy that. Then her mother passed away. I had to help her sell her mother’s house.

00:17And then the original guy, the other house of the other parent. So it turned into five transactions just from one simple phone call.

Loida Velasquez00:29

What’s going on everyone? Welcome back to another 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 what’s working and what you need to be doing in your business right now to succeed. So with that being said, if you haven’t caught up on our previous episodes, make sure to do so.

00:48You can watch them on YouTube or listen to them on your favorite streaming platforms. Now on today’s episode, we’re gonna be talking about a topic that a lot of you know you want to go after. Maybe you’re doing it, maybe you’re not having a lot of success, but this next guest is gonna share with us exactly how he is crushing and taking over expireds and for sale by owners.

01:10So with that being said, I’m gonna go ahead and bring him on. Lee Romano, welcome.

Lee Romano01:15

Good morning.

Loida Velasquez01:16

Good morning. So for everyone that’s tuning in and watching, but maybe they’re not too familiar with you, just go ahead and give us a little bit about your background, and maybe even how you got started with expireds and FSBOs.

Lee Romano01:28

Sure. Yeah, I’ve actually been doing it from day one. It’ll be 12 years this March. I am here in sunny, beautiful Cocoa Beach, Florida. Florida’s Space Coast. Covers Melbourne, Merritt Island, Titusville, that area here. I actually watch rocket launches from my window right out here when I’m prospecting and doing things.

01:45It kind of takes my attention away a little bit. So my business was built on expireds and for sale by owners, and really used Vulcan7 from the very beginning, and it’s been a real help to boost me. So after 12 years, I do have a lot of other lead sources. I have agent referrals, I have past clients.

02:04What I found last year was that 80% of my business came from expireds and for sale by owners that may have occurred 12 years ago. So calling… It’s not just a one and done. If you’re nurturing these people and building relationships with these people that you meet and doing a great job servicing them the way that they need to be serviced, they will become clients for life and referral people for life.

02:29So it’s really interesting. There was one that I called, I wanna say it was about seven or eight years ago, and it was as an expired listing. I called the gentleman, he was trying to sell his mother’s house. I helped him sell that, and then he introduced me to his sister who wanted to buy a property, so I helped her buy that.

02:49Then her mother passed away. I had to help her sell her mother’s house, and then the original guy, the other house of the other parent. So it turned into five transactions just from one simple phone call.

Loida Velasquez03:03

Wow. So I know you mentioned 12 years that you’ve been doing this. I wanna take it back a little bit because I always love to ask, what did you do before you got into real estate?

03:13And how did you fall into this career?

Lee Romano03:16

Well, I love falling into it. I don’t know that anybody chooses it. It actually chooses you sometimes. So originally, I grew up as a professional trumpet player up in New York and New Jersey. Worked with the likes of Lionel Hampton, Natalie Cole, The Shirelles.

03:30Played in a Grammy-nominated album. Eventually became a high school band director, and after some other issues, I started writing music and producing children’s music that’s still out there. Touring around the country, presenting programs for kids on character education, and keynoting school council association conferences and some things like that.

03:51Now, for 10 years prior to me getting into the business, my wife Patty had this business, and she had been saying all along, “Lee, come join me in the business. Lee, come join me in the business.” And finally, an opportunity came up, and I took the test, and I just started doing what I needed to do.

04:09And as it turns out, I should have listened to my wife 10 years sooner, and we’d be in a whole different situation right now. So it was interesting that we had a Mike Ferry coach at first. Learning expireds and learning the scripts and the conversations and things like that. And I got into my first office and I looked around, and I’m the only one prospecting for business.

04:33It’s 8:30 in the morning, and I’m just calling the expireds, calling the for sale by owners, and I went, “Well, I thought everybody worked like this.” Well, it turns out that everybody does not work like this. And I loved your introduction because I think there are a lot of people who kind of tap into it and tap out of it.

04:52They’re afraid of it, and they shouldn’t be afraid. There are some things that you can do to overcome those things, and once you do, there’s very little competition really. I’m here in Brevard County. There might be 20 out of 4,000 realtors that are making these kind of phone calls, so there’s not that much competition.

05:10So it’s a place you can go that’s not really tapped into, and if you develop the skills necessary, you’re gonna convert a lot of leads into listings.

Loida Velasquez05:21

I love that you brought that up about there not being a lot of agents going after these lead sources, because I hear it all of the time where agents say, “Well, everyone’s calling for sale by owners,” or, “Everyone’s calling expireds.”

05:35So for you, you mentioned skills, and reaching out to these potential leads. How did you start those calls? I know you mentioned you had a Mike Ferry coach. Was it just like, “You know what? I’m gonna start calling them and I’m gonna learn as I go”? Did you have your scripts in front of you?

05:52Or what was that like?

Lee Romano05:54

Yeah, the scripts. It’s funny you mention that. So people need to gain the confidence in order to be able to do these things. And you gain the confidence by knowing what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. If you have a big why behind it all, that kind of keeps you on target to what your goals are.

06:12And really it’s just about starting a habit, showing up daily to make sure that things work. Now, I was the crazy guy in the gym when I first started, on the treadmill practicing my scripts, practicing my scripts and walking. If what I say makes sense, if what I say makes sense, if what I say makes sense, if what I say makes sense, if what I say makes sense, and you’re comfortable and confident, and you’re comfortable and confident, you’re comfortable and confident, and you’re comfortable and confident, and you’re comfortable and confident.

06:34If what I say makes sense, you’re comfortable and confident. If what I say make… Putting these little bits together and it turns into a conversation. If what I say makes sense and you’re comfortable and confident I can sell your house, do you plan to list it with me when I see you on Thursday?

06:48It becomes muscle memory. And if you’ve got the training, you’re doing some role playing, and you’ve got a good coach on your side, you’re gonna be able to develop those skills. So it’s the confidence to be able to know what to say, when to say it, how to say it, of course that big why, and then again, you just have to show up every day.

07:09It’s a morning thing. Now, one of the great things about my career is, and I know that there are a lot of realtors that are out there saying, “Well, what should I do this morning? Where am I gonna get my business?” I know that the first thing I’m doing every single morning is opening up Vulcan7 and I’m going to the expired list to see what’s popped up there, and I’m making those calls at 8:30 in the morning.

07:31I don’t have to think about it. I already know what the first part of my day is gonna be. The expired listings, for sale by owners, just listed, just sold calls. Vulcan7 again has the great neighborhood search, so when I earn a listing or I have a buyer that’s out there, I can actually make a circle on there and I wanna talk to these 20 people in this neighborhood.

07:52And I’ll load them into the dialer and I’ll call those 20 people in the neighborhood and say, “Hey, this property just came on the market. Who do you know that wants to move into your neighborhood? It’s a great chance to choose your new neighbors.” Right? So you get it, and that’s just another script. And if you think about it, think about Billy Joel, right?

08:11Maybe one of the greatest singers that we have in the world, right? Well, it turns out he doesn’t like his voice. He doesn’t like the way he sounds. So when he writes music, he’ll actually imagine other singers singing the songs that he writes. And if you listen to him really closely, you’ll hear that a lot of his songs have different tones, different phrasing, things like…

08:34of that sort. And so what I’m gonna encourage people to do if they’re afraid to get on the phone and do these things is, don’t think of yourself as yourself. Think of yourself as yourself playing the role of a realtor. Right? So you’re kind of stepping back from it. It takes that scaredy-fraidy kind of thing away, and nobody’s ever gotten hurt on the phones.

08:58You get rejected every day. It’s whatever. First of all, I’m from New Jersey, so it’s hard to reject me in the first place. So it’s just part of it, and it’s a numbers game. It’s a matter of get on the phones, call, call, call. And I talk with so many people that they’ll call for a couple of days and then they’ll just stop.

09:18“Oh, this isn’t working for me.” No. Make 100 contacts a week. Call, talk with 20 people a day, and you’re gonna get some business out of that. Build those relationships. Know what to say. Again, I keep coming back to that. Know what to say, when to say it, and how to say it.

Loida Velasquez09:36

So let’s say I’m an agent, maybe I’m a little newer, I have done some deals, and I come to you and I say, “Lee, you’re a coach. I need you to just tell me what my daily schedule needs to look like. I’m doing this full time. I need to make a paycheck.”

09:53What does that need to be?

Lee Romano09:55

The first thing that comes to my mind is time blocking, okay? So I mentioned that I know what I’m doing first thing in the morning. Now, anybody who’s been to high school knows how to time block. So if you’re in first period in high school and you have English class, are you doing Spanish? No, you’re doing English.

10:13If you’re in second period Spanish class, are you doing PE? No, you’re doing Spanish. So we already know how to time block our day, right? So it’s just a matter of getting into the habit of, okay, first period in the morning, I’m calling expireds. Second period in the morning, I’m calling for sale by owners.

10:31Third period in the morning, I’m calling just listed, just sold before I call my sphere of influence. And that starts your day. And if you get into that daily routine every single day and do it at a high level, be confident with it, there’s two hours right there. You can, if you’re new, go three or four hours.

10:48You don’t have business, just keep on calling. But there’s two hours a day that you know what you’re doing. The need to protect your time is really, really important. So build yourself a bunker. Build yourself someplace where you can be alone, where things are quiet for you.

11:08You can have your scripts up in different places. And teach people how to treat you. Okay, I’m in the office every day. I need to be in the office every day. That’s just me. But a lot of agents that I speak with say, “Well, I work from home. What should I do?” Well, you find yourself a little closet.

11:26You find yourself a little space somewhere, and you explain to your family, “This is the time that I’m looking for business to feed our family.” This is the time. I had my grandson one time, he asked me, “Grandpa, why do you work on Saturday mornings?” And I said, “Well, Caleb, do you remember the trip that we took to New York?”

11:46He was younger at the time. He said, “Yeah, Grandpa.” “Well, do you remember the trip that we took to Disney World?” “Yeah, Grandpa.” “Well, that’s why I do this on Saturday mornings.” “Okay, Grandpa.” So he understands that. If you got little kids running around the house and a little husband or a little wife, just explain to them that this time is really important to me.

12:06I can’t be disturbed. Don’t worry about the laundry. Don’t worry about the dishes. This is my time to do this. So if you build your bunker, teach people how to treat you, and sweep for mines. Don’t jump into the email first thing in the morning.

12:24I typically look at emails right after I do my morning prospecting. So if I get into the emails, well, I’m distracted already. Oh, this one has this issue going on. This one has this issue going on. Oh, there’s an offer that came in. I’ll check that out. No. The offers wait until 10:30 or 11:00 in the morning.

12:41So the time blocking is so important to make sure that you have a consistent day every single day.

Loida Velasquez12:49

And is there a minimum amount of contacts for an agent to be doing if they’re doing this full-time, no business?

Lee Romano12:57

I don’t think there is a minimum. The more people that you talk with, the more opportunity there is.

13:01Now, you can get into a situation where you’re not at 100% today, right? And maybe you make a few calls, and maybe your head is just not into it. Take a break. Go away. Go take a walk. Come back. Do it again. Now, here’s an interesting thing, too. I have my morning time block that I do.

13:23I’ll also make additional calls later in the day, and typically those calls will be people that I couldn’t get in the morning, or check this out. Go back six months and call aged expireds. People who expired six months ago or 12 months ago, because those are markers of time where they originally had an idea that they wanted to sell their property.

13:48So when you’re calling those aged expireds, first of all, the people are more accepting of your phone call, which is really great. How many agents are calling aged expireds? Practically nobody. I don’t know if anybody is, right? I’m sure there are some people out there that do.

14:07But that’s just another way later in the afternoon to take care of things. So if you time block your mornings, take care of your admin work or your emails after that, have your lunch, go on your appointments, and if you don’t have any business, get back on the phones refreshed later in the afternoon and make some of those phone calls.

14:26Call your sphere of influence later in the day, right? The important thing about doing the expireds and for sale by owners early in the day is that’s when we have the most amount of energy, right? That’s when, okay, we got up, we did our exercise, we had our breakfast. You’re in the morning.

14:41Okay, you open up Vulcan7 and you just rock and roll, right? So the energy is there. Throughout the day, that energy goes down. But if you can give yourself another, “Okay, I’m gonna make five phone calls this afternoon,” or, “I’m gonna make 15 minutes worth of phone calls,” you’d be surprised at how some of those can turn into business for you.

Loida Velasquez15:02

Are there any tips that you can give to maybe a part-time agent that’s currently still working a full-time job? Because we see a lot of those, where maybe they’re a nurse or they’re a truck driver or something like that. What tips would you give them in terms of time blocking or when can they be prospecting?

Lee Romano15:20

Okay. This gets back to what is your why? Why are you doing this? So I’ll give you one example of a teacher here in Brevard County. He taught and did his thing until 3:00 in the afternoon. And then for the next two hours every day, every day, he was in the office calling expireds and for sale by owners, right?

15:41So he built that business, and within a year and a half, he wasn’t a teacher anymore. He was in real estate, right? So you take that. You’ve got the stability of your day gig, as they call it, right? So that will keep you sustained. You don’t have those financial issues to worry about.

15:59And then, all right, take that $15,000 commission and put it in an account somewhere. Take the other 15 or 10 or 20, whatever it happens to be, put it in the account. Hold on to that. And before you know it, you’ve got some savings there. You can take six months and get into it full time.

Loida Velasquez16:16

Awesome. Yeah, I’m glad that you mentioned that because we see all type of agents, full-time agents, part-time agents, agents that are trying to make a change this year and actually take their business to the next level. So I’m glad that you touched on that. Getting back to the for sale by owners and expireds, which is what you’re great and amazing at, for anyone that’s watching that’s maybe thinking, “You know what, I’m kind of afraid of going after both, but I know I should do it,” is there one that they should start with?

16:48Should they incorporate both? Or what would you recommend?

Lee Romano16:51

Right. I did them both at the same time. I did expireds and for sale by owners. I guess I would start with expireds, right? Because first of all, you’ve got the scripts there. There are a hundred scripts out there.

17:04I choose the ones that I use and that’s great. And just practice the way I demonstrated before. Practice those so that they become conversational, right? Memorize them, internalize them, make them conversational, and before you know it, those people are just rolling into…

17:23It’s just a natural rhythm, and they can just keep on going and build their business that way.

Loida Velasquez17:28

When it comes to for sale by owners, in your experience, do you see that you’re setting appointments on that first call? Is it multiple calls, or what does that look like to get an appointment?

Lee Romano17:38

Well, that’s a great question.

17:39So I did a webinar in my coaching group. All right? My coach… I’ve had a coach since day one, by the way. If you can get a coach, get a coach to hold you accountable and teach you things. So he also works on for sale by owners, and I demonstrated to the group via webinar how the script goes.

18:02How to do it and all that. And my coach was surprised because my approach is I go for the appointment right away. I don’t necessarily go for, “Oh, I’d love to stop by and see your house and see if I can help you.” They’ll be, “Oh, yeah. Come by.” No. I typically fully pre-qualify an appointment before I go on it, right?

18:24That part of the script that I just mentioned before. The first question when I’m pre-qualifying the listing appointment is, “If what I say makes sense and you’re comfortable and confident that I can sell this house, do you plan to list it with me?” So I’m already closing before I even walk in the door, right?

18:40So there’s that expectation that I’m going there to earn their business, to earn their trust and their business. My coach, on the other hand, he takes that two-prong approach, and I think probably most people do. I think it’s a softer approach, an easier approach. My thinking, and I guess it’s been my training from day one, is no, you go for the close and you move on.

19:01And if you can help the people, great. If you can’t, great. It doesn’t matter. You just move on to the next person.

Loida Velasquez19:08

Yeah. That’s a great question. It’s funny that you’re mentioning that because I’m the same way, too. If I have someone on the phone, whether it’s an expired or for sale by owner, I’m having a conversation, and I’m going for the appointment.

19:18Yeah. Pre-qualifying and trying to get in person, so.

Lee Romano19:21

Yeah. I don’t have time for that. I’m glad that you mentioned that. Yeah. I don’t have time for playing around.

Loida Velasquez19:25

Exactly. Yes, yes. So I know you mentioned a webinar that you did, so share with us your coaching and anything that you do for any agents that wanna get connected with you as well.

Lee Romano19:36

Well, the first thing is, anybody that wants to have a conversation about this, I’m happy to talk with them in more detail. My phone number is 321-427-3479. I also present a workshop, a training workshop called Prospecting Expireds and For Sale by Owners. And if anybody’s interested in me coming to their brokerage or to their district, I’d be happy to talk about how we can make that happen.

20:02So it’s a three-hour-long seminar. It’s very interactive, very fun. I used to present programs for kids, so they’re always fun. Right? They’re always fun and upbeat. It’s not sitting there in the doldrums. And we cover mindset, right? The prospecting mindset. Why is it that we do this, and how do you…

20:22A lot of the things we just talked about on this webinar right now. We talk about that. We talk about some of the scripts that you can use. We actually do some role playing and some real playing back and forth. When we have extra time, we get people on the phones to actually call expireds and for sale by owners, right?

20:39So if anybody’s interested in that, 321-427-3479, happy to talk with you about that.

Loida Velasquez20:46

Awesome. And as we wrap this up, what would you say are three things that agents need to be doing right now, especially since we just started the year, to make sure that they have a successful 2026?

Lee Romano20:57

Yeah, I think it gets back to time blocking.

21:00Set the new habit of making sure that you’re prospecting every single morning. Be consistent. Show up on a daily basis. And here’s the other thing. We’ve been talking so much about what to do. Sometimes you need to give yourself some grace, okay? It’s not that difficult, and it actually can be fun if you learn what you’re doing and you’re confident with it.

21:24And I would also say that if you can do this at a 90% level, right? If you’re doing this 90% of the time, it’s golden, right? You’re still doing way more than most other people, I shouldn’t say anybody, than most other people are doing. So give yourself some grace, too.

Loida Velasquez21:44

Awesome. Well, Lee, thank you so much for hopping on here. You have given so much great information. I’m sure that agents are probably gonna rewatch this a couple of times. And once again, we’re gonna make sure to put all of your info in the description box below. That way, any agent watching, if you wanna get connected with Lee, if you want Lee to do any webinars or trainings for your brokerage, make sure to reach out.

22:07And Lee, thank you once again.

Lee Romano22:09

Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure.

Loida Velasquez22:11

All right. We’ll see you all on the next one. Bye.