How Phillip DeMuth listed 250 FSBOs by talking to 50 people a day

Phillip DeMuth00:00

So in 2017, got Vulcan7, got a triple line dialer, and I just started hitting dial, and I would not come out until I talked to about 50 people a day, and it’s been that way since 2017. Lead gen comes before I answer any phone calls. Lead gen has to get done before I have the luxury of doing anything else.

Loida Velasquez00:25

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 so that you can implement them in your business immediately. Now, with that being said, today’s guest is someone that does prospecting.

00:43They’ve done expireds, for sale by owners. They’re reaching out to their database. So I’m just gonna go ahead and bring him on so that he can share with you exactly what he’s doing that’s working, and hopefully you can start implementing some of that in your business. So Phillip DeMuth, welcome.

Phillip DeMuth01:00

Hey, how are you?

Loida Velasquez01:01

Doing great. We’re really excited to have you on today’s show, and for everyone that’s watching, can you just share a little bit about your background and just kind of how you got started in real estate?

Phillip DeMuth01:13

Yeah. So I got my real estate license in 2008 originally. And then I went into the commercial side for a big pharmaceutical company and did my focus on commercial real estate.

01:26I did that in 2017, and then in 2017 I got back into residential real estate by pure luck. I was kind of dabbling in both, and I started getting so busy in residential I had to pick one avenue of which way I was gonna go. So I stuck with residential.

Loida Velasquez01:46

Awesome. A question that I love to ask all my guests is what did your career look like before real estate?

01:53Were you doing something unrelated to sales, or what was that like?

Phillip DeMuth01:57

No, I’ve been in sales ever since I graduated college. So I was director of sales for a pharmaceutical company for about five years. Before that I was a recruiter, where we had to be in the office every morning at like 7:30 in the morning to about 7:00 PM, five days a week.

02:15We had to talk to 100 people a day or we couldn’t go home. So that’s kind of how I got used to making phone calls and got used to rejection and nos and things like that. So when I got into residential real estate, I already kind of had the skillsets in place. I just needed to learn about houses, figure out who I was gonna call, how I was gonna call them, and then I started watching tons of YouTube videos when I first got into real estate on people just making phone calls.

Loida Velasquez02:44

So then when you started making those phone calls, did you know what type of lead sources to go after, or what made you pick and choose?

Phillip DeMuth02:53

Yeah. So when I first got in real estate, I needed some low-hanging fruit and I could not afford internet leads at that point. So the lowest hanging fruit out there for me was for sale by owners and expireds and circle prospecting.

03:11So in 2017 I got Vulcan7 and I got a triple line dialer and I just started hitting dial, and I would dial from about 7:45 in the morning to about 2 or 3:00 six days a week. And I would literally lock my door to my office at Keller Williams and I would not come out until I talked to about 50 people a day.

Loida Velasquez03:39

That’s awesome. 50 people a day. Every single day. 6 days a week. Were you also doing the weekends as well?

Phillip DeMuth03:45

Saturdays, yeah. Saturdays as well I would go in around 9:00 AM to about 1:00 o’clock and make calls, and then after 1:00 o’clock on Saturday I would do showings and stuff, and Sunday was

04:01showings all day, and then showings in the afternoons and listings in the afternoon.

Loida Velasquez04:05

Wow. That’s awesome, and I’m glad that you’re bringing that up, your 50 conversations every single day, because we hear it all the time, and I’m gonna ask you, agents say how do you stay motivated making that many calls, dealing with rejection, dealing with people that just don’t even pick up.

04:23For you, what was that motivation that kept you going every single day just to continue to do it?

Phillip DeMuth04:28

So it’s changed over the years. When I first got in real estate, remember I came from a pharmaceutical background where I was making six figures in my 20s. So when I got into real estate, I had to make the same kind of money or I couldn’t do real estate.

04:45So for me, it was simply a financial thing. And so every day I would just look at my bank account, and if it didn’t look the way I wanted it to look, I made phone calls, you know. And then as I got better at it, it became more of a game, like how many nos did I need to get to get to a yes, how quick could I set an appointment.

05:12And then real estate’s a very great industry because you can make a lot of money. Like I told somebody, when I made $100,000 in one month, that was kind of like my aha moment. I was like, “Oh, okay, you can really make a good living doing this.” And then as I’ve got older, I’ve progressed, I’ve changed.

05:37It’s not as much about money to me now because you make more money, you spend it, right? So as I’ve got older, it’s about how many people can I truly help

05:48and how can I make a difference in their life, and what does it mean to make a difference in their life? So there’s a lot of fulfillment to me about real estate.

05:59Like, I really love helping people and love what I do. So for me it’s not hard because there’s such a passion for it. When I was younger, I had to really delegate and block my calendar out, which I still do very heavily. I’m very much blocked out calendars for prospecting, blocked out times for showings, blocked out…

06:22I mean, I have blocked out times for workouts. I block out times for dinner. I mean, my whole calendar is blocked from the time I wake up till I go to bed. And it’s been that way since 2017. So it’s easy for me to stay on task because

06:38I know what I need to be doing at every moment of the day.

06:41And then for me, I track it all. So I have a little kitchen timer, and I do 45 minutes on, 10 minutes off.

06:50And I do four sessions of that every day. That’s my lead gen time. And lead gen comes before I answer any phone calls. Lead gen comes before I talk to my assistant. Lead gen has to get done before I have the luxury of doing anything else.

Loida Velasquez07:10

Absolutely.

Phillip DeMuth07:13

It’s just a little different. And I had a company of like 27 agents. I had my own firm at one time. I’ve coached and mentored at one point over 35 agents. And I’ve told them how to be successful doing it. It’s easy to tell somebody how to do it, and a lot of people, you’ll tell them what to do, and they’ll do it for about three or four days, and then it gets hard.

07:37Real estate from a lead generation standpoint is very boring. It’s very tedious. It’s the same conversation 100 times. The reward is getting out of your office and getting on the road to go meet people face to face, not the phone calls itself, for me.

Loida Velasquez07:59

Yeah. So was there a specific lead source that you prefer to go after?

08:06Was it the expireds, for sale by owners?

Phillip DeMuth08:09

I’ve done both. I’m better with for sale by owners. I don’t focus on it as heavy as I used to because my database is so massive now.

08:22But I’m probably about to start getting back into it again, just ’cause I have a little bit more free time and I don’t like free time.

08:31I spend money if I have free time, so it’s better for me to work. So I’ve really always enjoyed FSBOs. I think in my career I’ve listed over 200, 250 FSBOs. Expireds, I’m good at it. But expireds is more about timing than anything, ’cause when they expire you wanna be the first person to get them on the phone once they’ve expired.

08:57Because after they’ve had a certain amount of phone calls, they just turn back off. With FSBOs, man, you could talk to them on day one or you could talk to them on day 30 and you can still have a good conversation.

Loida Velasquez09:11

Yeah. So for someone that’s watching that maybe has started to go after for sale by owners or wants to be more consistent,

09:20can you share a little bit of just kind of what your strategy looks like when going after FSBOs? Are you trying to get the appointment on the first call? Are you previewing? Or what would that look like?

Phillip DeMuth09:31

It’s changed a lot over the years. During COVID it was always set the appointment and get it immediately, first day,

09:40because FSBOs were so saturated at that time with so many people making FSBO calls. Obviously, the goal is always to get in front of them as soon as possible, because if I can get in front of you, I can get your business. So whether it takes me one phone call or five phone calls, it’s to get in front of you as soon as I can.

10:00That never changes. But it’s about doing it in a way that isn’t salesy, because you gotta understand these people are getting a hundred realtors calling them asking for their business. What I used to tell my agents, when you’re first getting into for sale by owners, you need to know your script.

10:23You need to know your script in and out. You need to know what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. And you don’t need to learn how to do that by making that phone call, because what happens, for sale by owners will give you hints on what they’re trying to tell you. But if you’re so focused on your script, you’re not listening to what they’re saying, so you cannot connect the pieces to get to that next level.

10:50I remember one guy I was helping with FSBOs, and he was on his dialer and he was about thirty-five minutes in and just can’t get nobody on the phone. Finally, about thirty-seven minutes in, he got someone on the phone and he went, “Uh, mm, mm, uh, uh,” and they just hung right up on him. And I was like, “Man, if you don’t know what you’re gonna say, you’re literally wasting your own time.”

11:15So you really need to know your scripts in and out. I’ve been doing it so long now, I don’t even use scripts anymore because I’m more into always discovery phase.

11:26Like how quick can I figure out how long you’ve been on the market, what your pain is? Because sellers always think their house is worth more.

11:36So FSBOs especially think they can do it better. It’s all about psychology for them. It’s like, “I’m great at what I do. I don’t need a realtor’s help.” And there’s only certain reasons they don’t need your help. Either they’ve been burned in the past by a realtor, they’ve sold a home before, or they’re just hard-headed.

11:54So you have to kind of know who you’re talking to so you know what to say. And so that helped me a lot in the beginning. But it still was a lot of trial and error and learning and a lot of nos. And a lot of business you didn’t convert, right? I mean, you had to figure out what your conversion rate was. How many phone calls do I gotta make to get an appointment?

12:18How many appointments do I have to go to to get a listing? Now in the current market we’re in, listings are up 30% year over year across the country.

12:32We have more listings sitting on the market 30, 40, 50 days before they even go under contract.

12:37You may have a listing now sitting on the market for three weeks before you get a showing. So people are like, “Why would I go after listings? I need buyers.” Well, you got to list to last. I mean, my whole thing, I told people like, “Okay, if I needed five listings in the past to make the same paycheck, now I need 15.”

12:57Then it’s one always closing at all times, right? Sales is a numbers game, and a lot of realtors drive me crazy when they first get in real estate. “Well, I’m not a salesperson.” Yes, you are. You’re selling yourself every day to somebody. And as soon as you understand what you are, you’re gonna be better at your job, you know?

Phillip DeMuth13:23

So that kinda helped. And expireds, like I said, they were very simple. You just wanna get them on the phone quick and try to get in front of them quick, ’cause typical expireds are gonna go back on the market within 30 days once they’ve gone off market. So you just wanna be the one that goes on market with them.

13:43A lot of realtors lose all their money in the follow-up. I used to call it the three Fs, right? Follow up, follow back, and follow again, right? A lot of people are gonna say, “Call me back in a day.” You won’t ever call them back ’cause you’re too transactional-based almost.

14:02So you gotta have a really good CRM to remind you to call people. Like, my day, I start every morning. I used to do my FSBOs first, first hour of the day, or my expireds. I do them first thing at 8:30 in the morning to 9:30. 10:30 to 11:30, I’d do FSBOs. 11:30 to 12:30, I would do follow-up calls, like my tasks, whatever task I had to call,

14:27people I had to call back. And then after lunch, which I eat at my desk because that’s the biggest time kill, going to lunch, so I’d eat at my desk, and then around 1:00, I would sofa prospect. And then 2:00, I would call five past clients, five sphere. And that was my day every day. And then 2:00 to 5:00, I went on appointments.

14:53It was very simple, very systematic, very, very easy. I had a little Excel spreadsheet, which I still use to track my calls. Then I have my CRM system on my right side. I have this massive 45-inch monitor just split into three screens. And I have all that up there so I can just keep going. And that’s just what I did every day.

15:17People used to tell me I looked like I had an airport screen, like I was

15:22traveling.

Loida Velasquez15:23

Exactly.

Phillip DeMuth15:23

So.

Loida Velasquez15:24

No, and I bet it’s really convenient, ’cause I love having a big screen and seeing everything all at once. Something you mentioned earlier was 50 conversations every day.

15:33How did you come up with that number? And also based off of that, obviously every agent has different skill sets, but how many appointments were you setting every week?

Phillip DeMuth15:45

So, great question. So I track everything down to the phone call. So I use a software called CSuite. And with CSuite I track my dials, I track my lead sources, so I can tell you where my dollars are being spent and what I’m getting the best ROI on and my best conversion on.

16:07And that took about six months to figure out those conversions, of consistently putting in data, and then checking that data every 30 days to see what was working and what wasn’t working. ‘Cause when you first get in real estate, you don’t have any skill set. So it’s trial and error. And you can’t do it for a week and be like, “Oh, well, I’m not good at that.”

16:35I used to tell my agents, a skill set a quarter is what you’re focusing on, so you can learn if you’re good at it. Some people are better face to face. They like to door knock. I hate door knocking. I don’t wanna go outside and get sweaty and hot and get barked at by dogs and get bit by mosquitoes, and it’s just not my thing.

16:55I really sit in my nice AC house with my phone, my little stress ball, something to drink, living the high life and just making my phone calls. So it’s just whatever fits your thing. Some people are really, really good at open houses. I’ve been in real estate now almost 10 years.

17:15I’ve sold about 1,000 homes or close to it. I still do open houses. Every listing I do, I do an open house for it, because I’ve sold so many of my own houses at open houses, because I know that product. I can tell you everything about that product. So I do one open house every Saturday still to this day.

17:39It’s not that long. It’s three hours of my life. I can function for three hours and do something. It’s a good way to get more buyers too, especially in this market, especially if you know your stuff. We have sign calls now. Our sign calls have tracking numbers on them.

18:00We get a ton of business from that. And then social media. I don’t know how much business I’ve ever really got from social media, but I post every single day so I’m always top of mind. We send out a biweekly email newsletter. You just always wanna be top of mind to people.

18:24So all those things are very systematic. That’s a key word I always say, systematic. How can I systemize something to make my life easier?

Loida Velasquez18:34

Exactly.

Phillip DeMuth18:36

You know?

Loida Velasquez18:37

Yeah. And something else that you mentioned, and how you get a lot of your business now, is your database. So can you kind of share the importance of that?

18:45Because I feel a lot of agents, they just kinda leave their database. They’re so focused on trying to get to the next listing that they forgot

Phillip DeMuth18:52

Transaction. They’re transaction-based. Real estate is a relationship-based business. When you first get in real estate, if you don’t have a database or you don’t have friends that are buying because maybe you’re young, maybe you’re older, maybe both, you have to be a little transactional.

19:09But as you build that business, how are you turning that transaction into relationships? So for me, like I said, it’s very simple. I talk to 5 to 10 people in my database a day. I talk to five sphere a day, five past clients a day, five people in a database that I’m just trying to figure out who they are.

19:30I’m qualifying them because I have over 3,000 people in my database. I don’t know all those people, so either I need to get to know them or I need to take them out of my database. Because to me, I really have a functioning database, not fluff. A database where everyone I call, they know me. They may not know me face-to-face, but as I’ve got bigger in my career, I don’t work with strangers unless they’re referred to me.

19:53So I get a lot of business from agents across the country. I get a lot of referrals from past clients. So a lot of my day now is calling my database and just checking on them. “Hey, how are you? How’s the household holding up? Do you need any vendors? How’s the roof? How’s the windows? You’ve held that home 10 years.

20:13How’s that HVAC holding up? Do you need me to bring somebody to you?” It’s all about providing value to people. If you’re calling people and saying, “Hey, do you wanna buy and sell a home?” What are you doing? If they need to buy or sell a home, they’re probably gonna call you. How are you providing value to people?

20:36This is a value-based business, especially now that there’s less business to be done. You have to be providing value. This community, like now I try to take two people to three people out to coffee every week. One, because I like coffee and I can write it off, and my wife told me I had to quit buying so much coffee, so now I just write it off.

21:00I try to take two people to lunch every week, and I try to take two people out for drinks every week. So I’m always with somebody.

21:11As my career has got bigger, I spend a lot more time with investors, developers, things like that, but I’ve never forgot my database, and I’m still trying to spend as much time with them as possible, you know?

21:24But it’s not complicated. It’s systematic.

21:28If you talk to five people every day. And look, sometimes you get upset, man. You’ll call somebody that you’re super tight with, you’ll call them for two weeks straight before they return your phone call. And you’re like, “Man, they must not like me anymore.”

21:40No, they’re just busy. And you gotta think, during the day when we’re calling people, they’re at work, so they may not be able to pick up the phone. So if you’re not getting lucky calling somebody at 10:00 AM or 2:00 PM, maybe go in for a late night one day and call people from 5:00 to 7:00 if you don’t have any appointments.

21:59We’re too sensitive sometimes to those kind of things.

22:04You know? Like, I can guarantee they’re not mad at you. They just have a life.

Loida Velasquez22:11

Exactly, yeah. And they’re probably not even thinking about us either.

Phillip DeMuth22:15

100%. Yeah, because they don’t have a reason to think about us, ’cause they don’t need anything with their house.

22:20They just bought. So it’s about providing. Do events. Try to do an event a quarter. Like, I have a top VIP list of 50 people. Those 50 people every year get a gift on their birthday. They get invited to two to three quarterly events. And I don’t bring all 50. I do like 15 at a time or 10 at a time.

22:49And I do that every year, and these little gifts just go to their house. I use something called thanks.com and it sends them gifts from me, and I just put a budget in there. You don’t need to spend a lot of money. They have gifts down to 5.99 all the way up to $300. You don’t need to spend a lot of money.

23:09I don’t believe in closing gifts. I think that’s very silly. I think you should take them to dinner and build relationships with

23:16them.

23:17Or send them gifts throughout the year that would equal up to that $200 closing gift you would do, ’cause now you’re staying top of mind.

Loida Velasquez23:25

Exactly. Yeah.

Phillip DeMuth23:26

You know?

Loida Velasquez23:28

Yeah, no, this is awesome. So for an agent that’s watching right now, what would you say are the three things they need to be doing if they want to make sure that they end this year on a successful note?

Phillip DeMuth23:42

Yeah. Number one, give yourself some grace. Real estate’s the hardest it’s been. Real estate’s, from a mental standpoint, in a recession.

23:50It’s been in one for two and a half years. Give yourself some grace. Work through the pain, okay? That’s rule number one. Rule number two, block your calendar. Protect your time. We all have the same amount of time in the day. How you choose to use it is up to you. And also rule number two, kind of take care of yourself.

24:12Work out, eat right, drink plenty of water. If you don’t feel good, you can’t do your job at a good amount of ability because you just feel terrible, right? Don’t work yourself to death. Mental health is important. Physical health’s important. And then rule three, focus on low-hanging fruit if you don’t have a database.

24:33Look, call all those FSBOs. Maybe don’t try to set an appointment. Maybe just have a good conversation with them. Don’t put so much stress, “I have to set this appointment.” Maybe just first start off having five to 10 good conversations a day and then build your way up to 20, to 30, to 40, to 50.

24:56I don’t recommend people doing what I did, where I was sitting in a room with the door locked, talking to 50 people a day. That’s very unhealthy. It will burn you out. It’s not sustainable. You have to find balance in real estate. The issue with most people is they’re more balanced on the fun than the work, where I was more balanced on the work and not the fun.

25:18So you kind of got to find that healthy medium. Like my mornings now are to myself. Every morning I take to myself, and that’s when I go work out. That’s when I have coffee with a friend. That’s when I read a book. That’s when I journal. My mornings are for me. And every day I’m gonna do something I enjoy before I start my day.

25:40And then once I start my day, my day goes until I have those 20 conversations. But like I said, start with five, start with 10. If you can’t do it on the phone because you hate phones, go door knock. I’m sure you could do an open house every day if you wanted to, you know?

Loida Velasquez26:02

Yes. Awesome. Well, as we wrap up, if someone is interested in reaching out, maybe an agent has a referral for you, can you just kinda share where you’re located and how they can get ahold of you?

Phillip DeMuth26:14

Yeah. I’m located in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I sell real estate basically from the mountains to the beach in this area. My website is below here at aspirerealestate.homes. You can also go to my Instagram @phillipdemuthrealtor. That’s a simple one. You can also go to my Facebook, Phillip DeMuth.

26:35Can also give me a call if you want. My number is 252-916-2811. If you ever just wanna talk about real estate or you’re struggling and need someone to talk to, feel free to call me. I try to give a lot back to the realtors in the community. That’s really important to me, because I think a lot of them don’t make it ’cause, that great situation, they’re just so hard on themselves.

Loida Velasquez26:57

Awesome. Well, Phillip, thank you so much for hopping on the show today. And really appreciate everything that you shared. We’re gonna make sure to put all of your links in the description box below. And for everyone that’s watching, we’ll see you on the next one. Bye.