How Michael Ferraro took a $2.5 million expired listing in his first year

Michael Ferraro00:00

Let’s say in this case of a seller of a high-end home, if you know the solution to their problem, it’s not necessarily about nervous, it’s about excitement when you get to show them and tell them and actually do this for them. When you can say, “I am qualified, I do understand, I do know how to solve somebody’s problem, and I do actually believe 100% that I not only can communicate, but I can actually be better for you than anybody else can and get you more money than you can get any other way at this price point, and I just can’t wait to explain this to you in a logical and emotional way that gets you on my team.”

00:36When you’re like that, why would you be nervous? Why would you be scared? You just need people to hear your message.

Loida Velasquez00:57

What’s going on everyone? Welcome back to a brand new episode of Vulcan7 Coaches and Mentors, a show where we bring you some of the best in the industry so that they can share with you their tips and strategies that have helped them in their business. Now, with that being said, today we have another awesome guest that has done a lot of stuff in the luxury space, and we’re gonna chat more about scaling your business and also the skills required, especially if you want to succeed in this upcoming year.

01:26So with that being said, I wanna welcome today’s guest, Michael Ferraro. Michael, welcome.

Michael Ferraro01:32

How you doing? Thank you so much for having me.

Loida Velasquez01:34

Yes. So for everyone that’s watching that might not be familiar with you, go ahead and share with us a little bit about yourself.

Michael Ferraro01:41

Yeah. I’m a real estate broker with Compass.

01:43Been in real estate for about 10 years now. Before that I was an elementary school teacher and a swim coach. My prior athletic background, I had always been in athletics and I was an All-American swimmer. And then, like I said, got into being an elementary school teacher and a swim coach, and got to a point in my life where I needed to make a change, and we can talk a little bit more about that if you’d like.

02:06But basically made the shift and the mindset change to get into real estate, and not just wanna jump into real estate. I wanted to jump into the highest price points I possibly could. I had no prior knowledge, no sales background, no anything. I didn’t even live in the areas of the high-end price points, but I jumped into it, and 10 years later, I’ve made a career in it and set records and price points in my area.

02:27Been on the Real Trends list multiple times and continue to do so, and yeah, that’s what I’ve been able to do.

Loida Velasquez02:35

That’s awesome, and I’m so glad that we’re gonna be talking about this today because I feel that a lot of agents that are watching, maybe they are at a stage right now where they are working maybe a lower price point.

02:45Yeah. They’re ready to take their business to the next level. There might be some mindset issues or maybe they don’t believe in themselves. So let’s talk a little bit about what that was like for you. So you said obviously you wanna go for those higher price points. Where did you start initially?

Michael Ferraro03:01

Yeah. So the whole idea now more than ever, I think, is if you’re not a broker looking at scaling your price point to a higher price point or working in luxury, and specifically if you’re an agent who has been selling real estate more on the volume side, now more than ever looking at scaling that price point is so important.

03:21If you’re a new agent looking to get in, just like I was, you shoot for the stars. For me, myself, I was young, I was hungry, I had a lot on the line because my family depended on me, and I looked at it and said, “I want to take my business to the highest level.” And I knew that the highest level was the most expensive, the biggest listings.

03:41And that might be a little nerve-wracking for a lot of people who hear that, ’cause they think of the three main things that stop most people, which is that mindset of, I don’t know anybody at that price point, I don’t know how to sell that price point, how do I even do this? And so right then and there they stop, not realizing that it’s only the knowledge that you don’t have, that when you gain it, you get the confidence to then go after it.

04:03I say it like this all the time: if you were a doctor and you knew you had a cure for this incredible disease, as soon as you knew it, you would run and tell everybody. And that’s kind of what it’s like when you know how to actually sell a high-end property. So that is what I had to learn on my own to have the confidence to then go out.

04:22Even before I even sold a high-end property, I was working on nothing but trying to scale up to that level, and I made a lot of mistakes along the way, which is why I’m putting a lot of it back into trying to help other agents grow their business and scaling it right now. But after all of this time, I realized there is no other place to be right now than to scale up that price point, because as the market starts to shift and we watch technology play a bigger and bigger role in our industry, the middle price points and sometimes the lower price points get shrunken.

04:53And what happens is really there’s such a need for the best consultants, the best advisors, and the high-end price points are always gonna wanna have the best around them. So those people are always gonna be the most insulated, the most protected from any sort of shifts that happen in our real estate market.

05:09And so I know there’s a lot of real estate agents out there that are being told by coaches and mentors, “Go back to basics. Make your calls.” That’s all great, and we’re gonna talk about that, and I think you should, but I think the first step has to be how do you prospect luxury? How do you move up your price points?

05:25What is it that I don’t know that these agents who are selling high-end price points know, so that I can work… I love what I do, so I wanna work just as hard, but I wanna be successful at making more money. I wanna be a better agent. I wanna work with the best properties, the best buyers, the best sellers.

05:41You can do all of that. It’s just the knowledge that you don’t have right now as to what to say, when to say it, how to find those clients, how to do listing presentations, and how to actually work and network within those groups. If you knew how to do all of that, there’s nobody who wouldn’t, and that’s really what it’s all about.

Loida Velasquez05:59

Absolutely.

06:00So what did the prospecting look like for you in the beginning?

Michael Ferraro06:04

Well, in the beginning I would coach the swim team in the morning from like 4:30 to like 5:30, 6:30 in the morning. Come home, my wife would go to work. I’d play with my son for a couple hours, and then he would take a nap.

06:20And I had literally, if I was lucky, you know when your kids are young and they’re not even one yet, if you get two hours, like right around that 9, 10, 11 o’clock, that’s great. Most of the time it’s 45 minutes to an hour. So that was my prospecting time. I would sit there, I pulled up my Vulcan7, and I would do my prospecting.

06:42And I would go after high-end clientele, and I just grinded at learning scripts, learning tonality, learning verbal hypnosis, grinding at working at the price point that I knew. I had already made up my mind that that’s where I was going to be at, because I didn’t wanna ever go and have to tell my son when he got older that Dad didn’t do what he needed for us to be able to do, or I didn’t become what I could become ’cause I was too afraid to pick up the phone

07:04or too afraid to put in the time and work. So within that hour to two hours that I would get, that’s where I started my entire career. Basically one whole year of doing nothing but prospecting for that time, because I had no other time to do anything else. Sometimes the open house was on the weekends, but it was basically prospecting day in and day out for that time that I had.

Loida Velasquez07:24

That’s awesome, and I’m glad that you’re mentioning that because I feel that a lot of agents, and I hear this all the time and you probably do too, they think that they need to start at the lower price point and work their way up because maybe I need to be more knowledgeable or I have to have more experience.

07:39And on the contrary, just like you mentioned, I wanna go shoot for the stars. Let’s just start with that high price point. We’re gonna learn along the way. We’re gonna get better every single time. So for you, what was that first listing or that first transaction that was luxury, what was that like?

Michael Ferraro07:56

Well, there’s two that happened at one time. It was that first year when I just picked up the phone. And again, I just wanna reiterate, I was studying every bit that I could as to every objection handler, verbal hypnosis, tonality, scripts I had to run through and understand. I mean, I was so dedicated into how to be really, really good.

08:17I didn’t have anybody who was teaching me how to do these things. I had to go through trial and error. And being really good on the phone on prospecting, especially high-end prospects, I knew a lot of the questions that could come up. So I remember one of the first ones, I had a client who, well, he wasn’t at the time, I just made a call, and he was an expired listing.

08:39And I remember doing the script that I do and talking to him, and he stopped me and he said, “Listen. What would you say if I just signed with you right now?” And the house was a couple million dollars. Now you gotta remember, at the time I was living paycheck to paycheck in a little condo with the bars on the back of the windows, with basically my wife going to work the other time when I was home, and vice versa.

09:05We didn’t have anything. So a couple million dollar property, I think it was like two and a half million dollars, was a big deal. And I said, “I think it would be a smart move.” And he literally said, “Okay, fax me over the listing agreement and I’ll sign it right now.” Or, “Scan me over the listing agreement.”

09:23And I’m thinking, “Ah, he thinks I’m in like an office.” I said, “Listen, my son is sleeping right now.” I was completely honest. “My son is sleeping right now. When I get a minute, what we can do is set up an appointment, I’ll bring it.” He was like, “Great, come over tonight and bring it over.”

09:40I brought it over that night. He signed it right there. We listed it. Within two weeks I double-ended that deal, and I ended up making more money than I’d ever made an entire year in one deal, because of the commissions and double-ending it. And it was from the initial conversation with that prospect on the phone, and being so good in that script and what I was saying, that he was like, “I’ve never heard anything like this.”

10:04He felt what it is like when you are really good on the phone

10:11and you’re asking the right questions, and going through the right dialogues, and doing verbal hypnosis. Like I talk about this all the time, there’s something that happens to that person, and if they’re the right people, you don’t have to go through this whole thing.

10:23They are going to absolutely want to work with you. So it was really special and I was like, “I’m onto something.” And then that shot off a whole career of a lot of different things. That coincided with a celebrity that I had listed and sold their house very quickly. Again, I double-ended that deal.

10:39So there was some stuff that was happening really quickly. But then I just continued on the phone.

Loida Velasquez10:44

That’s awesome. And I think a lot also has to do with your confidence and also being ready to hear those things over the phone, because sometimes we prepare so much to handle objections and hear nos that when we do get someone, sometimes agents, they don’t even know what to say.

11:00They don’t know how to prequalify. They totally miss out on that opportunity. And for you, you were just totally ready, and then that took you to another transaction, and I’m sure it gave you a lot of confidence and be like, “You know, I can do this. Like, let’s get some more deals like this.”

Michael Ferraro11:14

Yeah. I mean, I’m an athlete.

11:16I was an athlete my entire life, whether I wanted to be or not. My whole family is athletes. Like I said, I was a collegiate All-American, so dedication, hard work, and confidence. For me, when I was stepping up on the block to go swim in a national championship meet, or we’d be seeded first in the country and I gotta go and do this race, there’s of course the butterflies of you don’t know what could happen.

11:35Anything could happen, and you don’t know how your body’s necessarily 100% gonna be in that moment when you needed to be prepared for everything. But the confidence, and I tell everybody that nervousness and excitement are basically the same thing. The difference is one is you’re thinking of the negatives and one is you’re thinking of all the positives.

11:53And being prepared for something where you feel like you know the answers or the solutions to somebody else’s problems, let’s say in this case of a seller of a high-end home, if you know the solution to their problem, it’s not necessarily about nervous. It’s about excitement when you get to show them and tell them and actually do this for them.

12:13But that’s a whole different way of thinking than what a lot of people do when they don’t understand high-end or they’re prospecting working with possible clients. They think the question’s gonna come and it’s gonna be in the form of, “Well, if you never sold a house before, why would I list with you? You never sold a house at my price point, why would I work with you?”

12:29And when they get those questions, what happens is they realize that they go, “Oh, I have to call off on myself, or I think I’m really… You should just work with me because I’m really, really good.” All this weird stuff comes out of them and they don’t like it. Nobody likes to be qualified like that, especially when they feel like they’re not really qualified.

12:44So you have this contradiction in your head that goes on of, like, “I know I’m not really qualified for this, and I’m kind of lying to this person.” And all of that stuff is why people don’t wanna ever go in those price points. So when you can throw that to the side and say, “I am qualified, I do understand, I do know how to solve somebody’s problem, and I do actually believe 100% that I not only can communicate, but I can actually be better for you than anybody else can and get you more money than you can get any other way at this price point, and I just can’t wait to explain this to you in a logical and emotional way that gets you on my team.”

13:20When you’re like that, why would you be nervous? Why would you be scared? You just need people to hear your message. Which brings to another point: once you learn this and you’re at a point where you can explain it and you can do it, what I see a lot of issues right now currently in real estate is that whether you’re working at any price point, but definitely in the high-end price point, agents have a really, really hard time of communicating and articulating their expertise.

13:51It’s basically almost even creating a piece of content that would go ahead and explain what it is, an explanation of experiences, explanation of services video. If you ask an agent, you know, if you can explain that and articulate that, they would have a really hard time.

14:10Most agents would say, “I sell real estate. I’m just a real estate agent.” They have a really difficult time of explaining, especially to, like, a high-end seller, what exactly the explanation of experiences are and what it is that they do. And when you take all these things of lack of being able to explain what it is that you do, ’cause maybe you don’t even really know or never really thought about it, plus you’re doubting yourself and you don’t really know how to do these things, of course high-end real estate is gonna be a scary thing.

14:33When in all actuality, it’s gonna be the only safe haven left for the top brokers, because they figured this out. And you don’t just have to live in those areas to be a top broker of high-end luxury real estate. I do not live in the towns of these big properties that I sell, and it’s not a problem for the developers to hire me, or the builders that hire me, or the clients that hire me.

14:54It’s not a problem for them because they know that I can bring a solution to their problem. I can offer the experience and the service that it is that they’re looking for, ’cause I’m able to explain it, I’m able to do it, I’m able to communicate it, and I have proof and I have concepts and I have social proof.

15:08And every agent can do that. You don’t have to start at the bottom and work your way up. It is not necessary to do that. So I got off on a tangent, but-

Loida Velasquez15:17

No, that’s awesome.

Michael Ferraro15:19

Every time I see that light bulb go off in people’s brains, they’re like, “Yeah, I know. There’s no reason why I wouldn’t wanna move up in price point.”

15:25There’s nothing.

Loida Velasquez15:26

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Now, fast-forward to now. Do you have a team, or what does that look like?

Michael Ferraro15:34

Yeah. So we’ve gone through, in my journey obviously, when I was building what it is that I was building, there wasn’t a lot of people in my area, ’cause everybody did tell me, “Just start in the low price points.

15:45If you come onto our brokerage, jump onto somebody else’s team and do this, or follow these rules, or do something else.” So again, if I’m gonna do this and I was gonna leave a salaried position to go pursue my dream, I wanted to build something that was mine. So there was a lot of trial and error.

15:58I made a lot of mistakes. But you follow the leader of trying to build everybody else’s team, and then you grow until you have 20 agents, and I did all that. And then I realized that at the end of the day, what now worked for me was to build a media marketing tech group, so that for me it was more, and it is now more, about content creation, media and marketing brand-building.

16:22Mixed with the prospecting that we talk about, mixed with network event branding, mixed with CRM management, and isolating specific demographics as opposed to geographics. I’m more demographics, style, price points, possible purchasers, buyers, sellers, and so I’m very strategic in that. So now my group is more people who can do that.

16:42I run a very small Navy SEAL style team where we can go and work as the best mobile efficient group we can for our clients, and that’s the way that I like it today. So I have more content creators and editors and videographers I think than other people on the team.

Loida Velasquez17:02

That’s awesome. And I assume that obviously with social media now, you just mentioned you…

17:08Content creation, video, has that helped you in your business and being able to sell properties? I don’t know if it’s quicker or even attract more clients that way.

Michael Ferraro17:17

Yeah. I mean, as I have evolved in the business, remember how I talked about that story. My only tool was an hour, two hours. My son Anthony gave me two hours.

17:27It was like a blessing. That was my only tool. So for a really long time I picked up that shovel and I dug every day, dug every day, dug every day, and I just kept doing that, kept doing that, kept doing that. And then what happens is, and I still do to this day, I still prospect luxury, and you still should, and I love it, and I might never stop.

17:48But what happens is as you accumulate listings, you realize how important content creation around explanation of what it is that you do, and content creation around that property, is really important. And that was level two, where it went from that to a lot more content creation around my property as a way to show what it is that we can do to bring in buyers and highlight a property.

18:14And then the next level became, well, who is starting to become our clients that wanna work with us? We have developers, builders, architects, high-end clientele. So what we would start to do is highlight our clientele and our sphere around the people that we really wanted to work with, while we started to bring in technology and isolate and target market potential buyers.

18:35So it became a lot more technical. And now we’re at a point where we’re becoming more influential in our communities, so now we’re propping up all these people that have worked with us and now we’re running events, or we’re running panels with the luxury builder panels and awards and luxury interior designers and luxury developers.

18:53So now what we’re doing is taking these people who are one degree away from who my client is, whether it’s a high-end seller or even that buyer or developer themselves, and now we’re actually highlighting them. So we know that if we’re gonna sell a property that’s, let’s say 4, 5, 10, $15 million, we want that property to be a premier property.

19:13The way you take that is take the person who’s also building that property and make them the premier builder. Highlight their business. And so what happens is when you do this within your communities, now your network grows, your community grows, the price points grow, and that’s how you continue to get great business, is by just raising everybody up through the ability that we have through content creation, short-form, long-form video.

Loida Velasquez19:38

That’s awesome.

19:39Congratulations on all of that. Even listening to you just sharing kind of like how everything has progressed over time, it’s really admirable to see. And I wanna take it back to the beginning. Once you started to get those transactions, those luxury price points, how were you leveraging closing those deals to get more clients?

Michael Ferraro19:58

Well, in the beginning it just happened, and I remember doing all the jobs, right? I remember I went to my good friend and I just said, “Hey, do you wanna video this property? It’s a couple million dollars.” And he was like, “Sure. How much?” I was like, “Well, is like 100 bucks okay?”

20:15And he’s like, “Sure, that sounds great.” We’re talking videos, property tours. He shot everything, stills. He’s incredible. He’s still with me today. But I mean, $100, back then we had no idea. He didn’t even know what we were doing, as far as how big this was gonna get.

20:34So leveraging now when things sell or you have clients now is more systematized than I was back then. Now we have director of operations. Now we have CRM management. Now we have specific events for people within our sphere, past client events. And when you get in higher price points, one of the things that you do less of, this is my opinion, is it more comes to finding your target audience and who it is you wanna work with than it is about canvassing necessarily the neighborhood.

21:10So we specifically target the people that are within one degree of our potential client that we want, as opposed to saying, “Well, 123 Main Street is on this street, and then I’m gonna just canvas everything on this street.” Because a lot of times there can be secondary homes. People don’t actually live in these houses.

21:26They don’t collect their mail. So they might not be in the house for six months at a time. So what happens is you’re just sending flyers, or you’re doing it, and they’re just sitting in the mailbox. So it’s not saying it doesn’t work. Everything works. Do it all. There’s great coaches who’ve been on here to promote that.

21:40But making sure that your client is also part of what it is that you’re doing. So if you’re part of an explanation of experiences and they took the leap of faith to work with you, especially when you’re starting in luxury, make sure that that client is treated amazing throughout the entire process and then after, and then you help them in their life and in their business.

22:00There is a lot of people that I work with that have come into the town or are selling and leaving, and then when they go someplace, they might be in an industry where I can still help network and grow with them. Social contracts at high end are very important. There’s a lot of people who have gotten to a very high-end level in their career that are not in real estate, that are buyers and sellers, who understand social contracts.

22:22Meaning, “I’m going to help you out for a long time.” And that is the reciprocity. It’s less about asking for business and more about that understanding of social contracts, ’cause they’ve had to do that in their own business. “I’m helping this person out and I’m not asking for anything, and then it comes back to me.”

22:37So understanding how that stuff works is like the hidden skill in our business, and that’s one of the biggest ways that I continue to grow even after the sale.

Loida Velasquez22:46

Yeah, so maintaining those relationships. So it goes beyond just a transaction. I assume maybe a lot of them have become your friends, maybe they invite you to their family functions, and now it’s not just, “Michael’s my agent,” it’s “Michael’s my friend,” and then they refer you more business, and that’s how you grow as well, right?

Michael Ferraro23:04

It depends. You would think so. So when you’re talking higher and higher price points, they have a lot of friends, and sometimes they want to be friends, and sometimes they just want you to be a professional, like the top doctor that they have, or the top lawyer that they have, or the top financial consultant that they have, or the top person that they bring in for this.

23:27Sometimes they don’t wanna always be having you over for a barbecue, and sometimes when you push that too much on them, that doesn’t always come off what they want you to be. So also something that I learned early on that I do teach people about is how to sell and stay in contact with different types of personalities.

23:47Sometimes people try so hard with certain types of personalities and certain types of people to be their buddy, ’cause they think that’s what’s gonna be the relationship forever, and that’s not what they want. That’s not what they want you to be. And if you’re just what it is that they want you to be and you exceed their expectations, they will want other people to have that same experience with you.

24:08And don’t get me wrong, of course I have clients that we go over, we’ll sit by the pool at their house, or I go over to dinner, or we still talk to this day, we’ll go out for lunch or whatever. But that’s always kind of with a social contract of, like, we’re gonna continue to always help each other out, as long as you’re always bringing value to somebody.

24:28But somebody at the high end could have a lot of friends, and they have a lot of people who want a lot of things from them. So you just have to be careful knowing who it is that you’re working with, because you could be trying so hard to be their friend, you do a transaction with them, you keep pushing and pushing and pushing, and you might not hear from them for a while because they have just put you into the “you’ve become annoying for me,” and now you don’t get another transaction from them.

24:53So knowing who you are dealing with is really important, and these are the little nuances as you scale your price point up and know your clientele.

Loida Velasquez25:02

Awesome. And I know you mentioned that these are just some things that you also teach, so go ahead and tell us, for anyone that’s listening that maybe wants to break into luxury or learn more about you, what programs, courses, where they can find you, and all that good stuff.

Michael Ferraro25:15

Yeah. We’re in the process of putting a lot of things together. They can just continue to look at my YouTube. We’ll be also creating another YouTube channel, and keep a look at my socials. We are preparing to do a master class that we’re really excited about, and that’s gonna be in 2024, probably within the first half of 2024.

25:34Really excited about it, because the podcast that I do host is on my YouTube channel. I’ve had about 40 to 50 guests on there that are really high-end luxury real estate brokers. So you can go onto that podcast and watch and listen to a lot of the stories of billion-dollar brokers talk about their past experiences and how they do business.

25:52And I think what we’re gonna do is start bringing some of these brokers on to be in proximity with some of the people who want to learn a little bit more, not just from me, but also from them, as to how do we get business, and how do we maintain those relationships, and how do we grow or use social media to do it, or how do we use networking events to do it?

26:12Also for me, myself, I still prospect luxury. So there’s a lot of different parts of the business that I wanna start to break down and help and teach others. I was a national team coach for many, many years. My degree is in exercise science, teacher prep, learning curriculum and development.

26:29So teaching, coaching, and training is part of my entire life. So I got to a point now where I am still in this business. I will still be in this business. I love what it is I do, but I wanna give back and help others. So they can fill out a jot form that we can give to you guys to post on there.

26:46They can also follow me on social at @michaelferraroct. Feel free to DM me. We can have a chat anytime. And just stay on the lookout for different stuff that we have in 2024. I’m so excited about this next journey of what we’re gonna put out for people.

Loida Velasquez27:00

Awesome. Well, Michael, thank you so much for today’s interview.

27:04You have given so much great information for everyone that’s watching. We’ll make sure to post all of your links in the description box below. And one last question that I wanna ask you, because this is probably in a lot of agents’ minds. You know, with interest rates, the market, what would be a tip that you would give agents as they’re wrapping up this year to start 2024 on the right foot?

Michael Ferraro27:25

As far as what they should tell clients?

Loida Velasquez27:28

As far as, let’s say, prospecting and mindset.

Michael Ferraro27:33

With rates going up?

Loida Velasquez27:35

Yeah.

Michael Ferraro27:37

Look, working on the pillars of your business, for me, my pillars are prospecting, CRM, the networking, branding events, and then content creation, right? And then I take those pillars, and then I hone in on my target audience of people that I would like to work with, that I’m gonna be known for.

27:55The interest rates going up or going down don’t change my basic approach to what it is that I’m gonna do to be the very best. What it might change is the guidance or consultation that I’ll give to a high-end buyer or a high-end seller. So the rates going up or down just means that one way or the other, it’s gonna be a solution or a problem that somebody out there is gonna have that I need to bring to them.

28:22So that’s why it’s now more than ever, and this is what I would think people should be doing, is making sure they’re talking to clients about things that are non-Google-able information. If everybody sees it on the news and everybody can Google it, it’s not really anything super valuable for them.

28:45So what is it that you do, and what is it that you’re bringing to them that actually is valuable? And think about what those things are, because that is your value. We go back to explanation of experiences, explanation of services, explanation of your value. And be able to deliver that to who it is that you want your target audience to be, and you’ll be just fine.

Loida Velasquez29:03

Perfect. Awesome. That was great. Well, once again, Michael, thank you so much for today’s interview. Everyone, make sure to follow him on Instagram. All the links will be in the description box below, and we’ll see you on the next one. Bye.

Michael Ferraro29:15

Thank you.