S1 E1: The Big Picture

Ren Jones (00:05):
All righty. Ready to roll. Welcome, everybody. You’re tuned into, what do we call it, Roadmap season one, episode one. So we don’t have it down completely, but this show is about how to take three listings per week until you’re ready for more. It’s all about running the business efficiently. We have a lot of Vulcan 7 clients who take on average three listings a week. They take 8, 10, 12, 14 listings a month using our system. And it creates a wonderful life. So counting on everybody to participate, ask a lot of questions. We’ll have some of you come on live in audio to talk to us. So it’ll be a lot of fun. So let’s jump in. My co-host, Carley Hathaway from San Diego.

Carley Hathaway (00:57):
Hi.

Ren Jones (00:59):
Hey, Carley. Tell them about your website, in case they have a referral for San Diego.

Carley Hathaway (01:04):
Yes. Carleyhathaway.com. So any referrals, San Diego, send them my way. Thank you.

Ren Jones (01:11):
Carley with a C. C-A-R-L-E-Y. Okay, good. Wonderful. So we’re going to jump in and talk about what are the realities of three listings a week. So not only do we have lots and lots of clients that do that, I spent 10 or 12 years doing that as well. Out of 16 years, at least 10 of them, taking anywhere from a low of 10 listings a month. My highest was 16 or 18 one time. But generally speaking, on a very consistent basis, taking that 12 listings a month, 140, 150 listings a year, which you can do. So getting there is, this is what they say, it’s simple. It’s not easy. Simple but not easy.

(01:57):
So what I wanted to do first is go over some of the math involved in that, because if we can get people to leave this show, season one, episode one, if we can get people to leave this show with 4 or 5 or 8 or 10 ideas that they can implement right away and move their business forward very quickly, then we’ve accomplished something. And then seven days from now, you can tune in again and fill notes. Oh my gosh, Carley, I’m looking out there at everybody. And a third of them are only watching. Either they don’t have their fingers ready to type notes or they don’t have a pen and paper. So let me take 12 seconds. You see them too, don’t you, Carley? You see all those people?

Carley Hathaway (02:41):
No, I can’t see anyone.

Ren Jones (02:42):
You’ve got your notes.

Carley Hathaway (02:43):
Yeah, we got to take notes. This is serious.

Ren Jones (02:45):
I know. So everybody’s got to get something to write with because there’s no sense in just watching, unless you have a memory that can remember every little detail. Okay, good. There we go. Thank you for that by the way, because now we can see what you see, and that’ll help. Because I’m going to write on the board here, and we’re going to start out with something really simple. Because there are people on this call that are already taking three listings a week average. And the good news is if you want to get to four or five… Actually, ideally what you want to do is get to about 25 listings a month, taken, to build a fabulous business. And that’s very doable too.

(03:26):
But let’s look at the basic math. So let’s say you got up and it’s Monday morning, you get to the office and everything’s been stripped away from your business. You’re only allowed to do one thing from Monday morning until Friday at 06:00 PM, and I said 06:00 PM for all you people that will work till 10:00 at night. So 06:00 PM, your job is to take two listings. I mean technically, if that’s all you focused on, you were not allowed to do most of the other pieces of the business. Could you take two? Could you? Carley, if your whole world depended on it, and it was Monday morning, could you get to Friday at 06:00 PM and take two listings?

Carley Hathaway (04:14):
Definitely.

Ren Jones (04:16):
Definitely. Real estate’s a contact support. We can do it. But here’s the thing. Too many other things get in the way. But let’s look at some simple math. Two listings a week. What’s an average commission, Carley? Not in your market. I know what your average commission is. But yours is 17,000, 18,000. But across the US, what’s an average commission, Carley?

Carley Hathaway (04:35):
I don’t know. It’s so much lower than here. I’m not sure. What is it, 10,000?

Ren Jones (04:39):
Seven or eight. So much lower. 10? Let’s use the number with eight. Nobody will argue with that. So if we’re taking two a week. We’re taking two listings a week. How many listings is that a month?

Carley Hathaway (04:55):
Eight.

Ren Jones (04:57):
Okay. And then eight a month. It equals how many a year? Because really, if you’re taking two a week, there’s more than four weeks in a month. There’s four weeks and two days or three days.

Carley Hathaway (05:08):
Oh, that’s true.

Ren Jones (05:10):
Just over two a week. It’s just over eight a month. How many a year?

Carley Hathaway (05:14):
A hundred, little over.

Ren Jones (05:17):
A hundred listings taken, times 8,000 is how much money?

Carley Hathaway (05:22):
A lot.

Ren Jones (05:24):
Yeah. So it’s about 800,000. But the problem is, not a hundred percent of your listings are going to sell. Now some of you are like, well, a hundred percent of mine do. That’s because you only take three. If you’re taking a lot of listings, there are going to be some that do not sell. So let’s pick a number. Out of those 100 listings taken, let’s say 80 sell. Let’s say 75 sell. Let’s say 75 sell. 75 listings sold. And you’re going to have some buyers, right?

Carley Hathaway (06:03):
Definitely.

Ren Jones (06:04):
All right, without giving this away, Carley, let’s play a little family feud here. And the only answer that we’re going to count is the number one position, right up here at the top of the board. It was Richard Dawson, who’s the guy that does Family Feud now?

Carley Hathaway (06:20):
I have no idea.

Ren Jones (06:23):
Pretty cool guy. He’s a lot of fun.

Carley Hathaway (06:24):
He’s a comedian or something.

Ren Jones (06:26):
But the number one answer, I know there’s all these other answers. Let’s look at the chat box and see what people are saying, and see some notes here. What are the best sort of buyers, if you had 100 listings taken, 75 listings sold. Where are your buyers coming from? What’s the best source? I don’t see any notes. Am I looking at the wrong place? Chat. Chat. Type message here. Expireds? No, not expireds. Listing referrals, no. FSBOs, no. Open houses, no.

Carley Hathaway (07:06):
No.

Ren Jones (07:06):
Listings sold, no. The number one answer is that one person right here. Well actually, I think two people got sphere. No. Circle prospecting, no. Phone calls, no. Ad, no. Two people said it. It was yours. Homeless people. Homeless is your best buyer. And who is homeless? These 75 people are homeless. How many of those are going to buy locally? You’re going to pick up some referral money. But how many are buying locally?

Carley Hathaway (07:39):
Most of them.

Ren Jones (07:40):
Yeah, but let’s say only one out of two. So that’d be 38. So 38 buyer sales. Let’s say some of them move to a retirement community, some move to Guam, some rent, some just whatever, some just killed over and died. All kinds of stuff. Now 75 plus 38 is 113. The general rule, because we’re in an overheated market, got to keep in mind. What’s a neutral market? Six month supply. And we’re at two and a half, three nationally. Is that right?

Carley Hathaway (08:24):
I think so. Yeah.

Ren Jones (08:25):
So you’ll look at 113 times $8,000. Anybody have a number for that? 113 times 8,000?

Carley Hathaway (08:38):
Let me see, let do some quick math.

Ren Jones (08:41):
Okay, all right, so it’s about 900K. Here’s the deal. You’re going to end up on these buyer sales. You’re not going to be the one showing these. So what’s going to happen is, the money that you would make, you’re going to make all of this. So you’re going to make the 600,000 on this. You’re going to make 600,000 on the 75. You’re going to make half of this, sometimes three quarters, depends on how you refer it out. Sometimes you’re making way more than the person just showing. But anyway you look at it, you’re going to need that money to put back into your administrative stuff. So we’re not even going to count all the money you’re going to make there. Because if you’re making $4,000 times 38, I mean that’s a hundred some thousand dollars that you would make on that. But put it back in your admin. Just count on making this 600. So is that a good reason to just take two listings a week?

Carley Hathaway (09:35):
Absolutely.

Ren Jones (09:36):
I think so. Two listings a week.

Carley Hathaway (09:36):
Yeah, I think so.

Ren Jones (09:38):
So why don’t agents do it? Why do some of our clients do this? And they’ve got it figured out. And why do so many more never get there, never get there? They don’t even get to one a week. I mean, one a week, you’re still making 300 some thousand or more. 300,000 or 400,000 more. That’s not so bad. One a week if that’s your job. But there’s the secret, it’s your only job. To make this work, it has to be your only job. So what gets in their way, Carley? You know what gets in their way.

Carley Hathaway (10:10):
Life.

Ren Jones (10:12):
Life gets in their way. That’s true. And what else?

Carley Hathaway (10:16):
I think getting stuck working with buyers.

Ren Jones (10:18):
Getting stuck working with buyers. And there’s nothing wrong with working with buyers. There are a lot of agents, most agents in the business, I love people and I love houses. And they want to show property. As we know, buyers take time, listings take skill. So sellers, listings, that takes skill. The buyers just take a lot of time. Weekends. Weekends.

Carley Hathaway (10:45):
Evenings.

Ren Jones (10:45):
Weekends. Long day. A lot of gasoline. Okay, we get that. So what you want to do is carefully select your dream team who’s going to show property for you. And then we run into that problem. They go, well, my seller sold their $800,000 house and they’re buying a $3 million house times, we’ll say 3%. So what kind of check is that? Is that 90K, something like that? Is that $90,000? They’re like, “I’m not going to just take a 25% referral fee.” Nobody said you had to. Nobody said you had to. This is where they get stuck. Well I took that buyer out. Well how many homes did you list during that time? Well, I didn’t list any. Okay, so then you stopped doing what you’re supposed to do. So it’s a $90,000 referral fee. Okay?

(11:39):
You work out a deal where some of those referral fees are 25% when it’s just a lead. Some of them are 50% because they’ve been cultivated. And some of them are 75% referral fee, 75%. And then they’ll say, well, I would never do that. Just say, well, let’s look at this. So you’re saying you will not go out and show the four 3 million homes, because there are only four of them, for 25 or 24. What is that? 20, 40, 60, 80 22,000, 23,000. You won’t take $22,000 and do an amazing job and let me have all the rest, 68,000. You won’t let me do that. Oh, well no, I guess I would do that.

Carley Hathaway (12:29):
Yeah. I don’t know who would say no to that.

Ren Jones (12:32):
So your referral fees are 25%, 50% and 75% so that you can keep taking those two listings a week or three listings a week. Or even one listing a week’s a great life if you’ll stick. If you’re catching fish at the shore and you go back and you’re fileting them and serving them. Catching fish, not a whole lot of fish get caught. So you have the dream team, a couple of buyer agents, you’re taking two listings a week and then three, then eventually four. What else gets in their way? What else gets in their way? Buyers definitely take a lot of time. What else gets in the way? You go away for a long weekend, four or five days, you come back, four of your listings have sold. Try that on the buy side. Can you go away for four or five days, come back and you had four buyer sales? Not so easily. You have to do it. All the labor’s on the buy side. Who has to write the contract? Who has to go show more homes if that one falls through? It’s a lot of labor.

(13:42):
And what’s worse is the disruptors. We saw what Airbnb did to the hotel industry. We saw what Uber did to the taxi business and also the food delivery business. And pretty soon, Uber realtors, have a little R on their hat. People will go to their tablet and go, I want to see this one, this one, this one, this one. They call up a little car, realtor drives around. They get in, realtor shows them four houses, they click and they pay them $36. That’s where this is headed, folks. And then they go, well, we want to think about it. But if we want to buy, we can pick and have a buyer agent here, $500, write it up and take it all the way to closing for $500. It’s headed there. You got to be on the listing side of the business.

Carley Hathaway (14:34):
Yes.

Ren Jones (14:35):
So how many days should they work? What does your schedule look like? You can’t do these numbers with buyers. What’s your schedule look like? How many days? There are 365 days a year. And Scott, here in the StoryTellr Studios, works with our video division, would tell you that, no, some years they were 366. And he’s right. But let’s go with 365. Six to eight weeks vacation. How many days work, Carley? How many days should they work?

Carley Hathaway (15:06):
I mean, five days a week.

Ren Jones (15:11):
Five days a week. All right, let’s start with that. Five days a week, six to eight weeks vacation. What’s the total number of days they work in a year?

Carley Hathaway (15:21):
Not sure.

Ren Jones (15:23):
225.

Carley Hathaway (15:23):
225.

Ren Jones (15:26):
225 to 235. People go, “That’s a lot. That means you’re getting 140 days off?” But guys and gals, 140? I mean, just Saturday and Sunday is 104. And it’s not like you’re taking 36 days off and going to Tahiti the whole time. I had the flu, I had to take the afternoon off for dental. You’re getting the normal three or four weeks vacation. You all have vacation time. So this number’s a very realistic number, 140 days off.

Carley Hathaway (15:56):
Definitely.

Ren Jones (15:57):
Can you live with it? And we get people who say, “I don’t really need all that money.” That’s fine. Some for you. Some for your kids’ braces. Some for emergency in the greater family that you have. Maybe you want to start a school for the underprivileged. You can create all kinds of wonderful things. Maybe you want to create a foundation to drill wells in impoverished parts of the world. You can do it. Poverty sucks, folks. This is a ticket. But you have to start at 07:30 on Monday morning, end up at 06:00 PM on Friday, and take your two listings. So how do we get more listings? How do we get them? Because we’ve got scripts, dialogues, there’s a lot of formulas that go into this. How do we do it? How do we do it? How do we do it? Your light is creating glare on the whiteboard and it’s difficult to read. Okay, gotcha. All right, how about that? And then it’s darker-

(17:02):
Without the glare. Okay. I look at it and the numbers are backwards, so I don’t know what they see. So how do we get there? Scripts and dialogues. Not only is it the words, the script, because people, I just need the scripts. We need the scripts, how to say them, when to say them, what not to say, tonality, pacing and leading. Future pacing, cause and effect language. There’s a lot of work here folks to get there. Questions. So what do you think, Carley? What comes to mind? And who should they call? Who should they call?

Carley Hathaway (17:36):
Everybody.

Ren Jones (17:39):
Everybody. You start off at seven, obviously with people that have a home for sale that do not have a real estate agent. And let’s look at that. Okay, expireds, for sale by owners. Who else? Old expireds, best client sphere of influence. Okay, so then you got to look at it as, you got to have a mix. And then just listed, corporate. Expireds, 90% now business, 10% future business. For sale by owners, again, about 90% now business, 10% future business. Old expireds, probably about 75 now, 25 future. Best clients’ sphere, 10% now business, 90% future. It flips. Just listed, just sold. It’s somewhere around 15% to 20%. This can roll faster, 20 to 80. And then corporate’s about 20 to 80. But go with the fish that are biting first. They got a home for sale, and they need a good agent.

Carley Hathaway (19:04):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (19:07):
Systematically. And somebody wrote, “Pick up the phone.”

Carley Hathaway (19:13):
I’m wondering what is corporate?

Ren Jones (19:14):
Exactly. Somebody says, “What’s corporate?”

Carley Hathaway (19:17):
What’s corporate? What are these corporate people we’re calling?

Ren Jones (19:20):
Okay, let’s talk to Eric. Can Jesse turn on Eric Wagner to see if he wants to chat with us? He said what’s corporate? If he can turn him onto our audio. You want to talk, Eric?

Carley Hathaway (19:33):
I think Eric’s shy.

Ren Jones (19:33):
Pardon?

Carley Hathaway (19:40):
I think Eric is shy.

Ren Jones (19:42):
Well not, necessarily. Jesse has set up the host code up so that Jesse can’t chat. Okay. All right. So see if he can turn on Eric Wagner live and chat with us about corporates. We’ll see what happens. We’ll give it a few seconds and then we’ll talk about corporate because we may not have this thing figured out on season one, episode one. Oh, there he is. There he is. Gotcha. I see I got you with your tuxedo on there. Okay, so Eric, and I can see the bottom half of your face. There we go. There we go. Okay. And everybody has their laptop and their name’s up at the ceiling. So you see a chin and a ceiling fan. It’s fun. Okay Eric, what do you think corporates are? Oh, no microphone. Click in the bottom left corner and turn your mic on.

Eric Wagner (20:42):
Okay. Yep. Maybe corporate relo type things. I’m not sure.

Ren Jones (20:49):
It can be. You can suit up. And of course, some of that, Sirva, Cartus. What kind of referral fees?

Eric Wagner (21:00):
Those you generally have to give like 30%.

Ren Jones (21:03):
Oh, that’s a loaner these days. It’s working closer to 40, 38. So what really works well as a solo agent or as a team is to work corporates in a range where you don’t have to shell out that. Because, why are they charging 38% to 40%? Because they did the lead generation. If you do the lead generation, all that 38%, 40% goes into your pocket. And is Cartus going to call you up all the time and say, “Hey, we’ve got somebody for you”? Maybe they will. But even better, you become the authority. Small businesses in your town, insurance companies, manufacturing, all different types of businesses. And a good source to find those is the business journal in most cities. In a lot of cities you can type in Biz Journal, B-I-Zjournal.com/ and the name of your city. Not all cities fall into that. You may have to go to Google and just put whatever your town is, Pleasantville business journal or whatever and see what comes up. But every town has some sort of a business journal and they tell you who’s moving in, who’s moving out, tell you who the contact is.

Eric Wagner (22:08):
I’ve never heard of this.

Ren Jones (22:10):
Well, and corporate comes in a lot of categories. You may choose to call probate attorneys. Their specialty is, somebody dies, they settle the estate. A lot of times there is real property that needs to be sold. No buyers, just sellers. So you can get in a routine of calling and working with probate attorneys. Just call two or three a week, and then keep calling them. And pretty soon, you’re going to get three or four or five or six or seven or eight, and you are their go-to person when they have to settle.

(22:46):
My uncle was a probate attorney. And a nice guy named Ken Jordan, down the street here, one day, 40 years ago, went over and chatted with my uncle, and for the next several decades listed everything and everything my uncle came up with when he was settling estates. So probate is a great, great, great source of corporate business. Divorce attorneys. Sometimes that can be two sales, three sales. And we’ll go into it later. There’s some specific recipes for divorce that work really well. And if you don’t follow them, you’re going to have a tough time. But there’s some good recipes.

(23:22):
There’re a lot of small businesses. Moving and storage companies. Sometimes you know when people are going to move before they do, sometimes they know before you do. And you get with those salespeople over in the moving and storage business to swap leads because you’ll have plenty for them and they’ll have some for you. It works. In my market for nine years, our second largest employer was DuPont. And I kept banging on their door. They had relocation internal, and they were huge. And there were three mega companies in my city, Richmond, Virginia, that handled that. And because one of them was doing such a crappy job, they dropped that one. So it was those two mega companies and me. I was the third. And so 15 to 18, 20 transactions a year just from that source for nine years.

(24:18):
So corporate is a wonderful world. There is no do not call registry business to business. You can call businesses, you probably should call businesses. Actually Vulcan 7 has, as an option that we sell only to our more experienced clients for 49 bucks, you can get work numbers, you can call regular people at work to list the property because nobody else is calling them there, and you talk to them, they don’t. So corporates is a great category.

(24:48):
What do you say to expireds? I want to cover some script ideas because some of you are like, “Well, I’ve got this expired for sale by owner service, and I also see that I can have neighborhood search. What do I say?” So we want to cover some of that. So why talk about corporates if it’s 20/80? 20% now. Great question. Great question, Bob. Well, thank you, Eric. I appreciate your time. And we’ll see you. If you have another question, type it in, we’ll pop you in. So great question. Why talk about corporates if it’s 20/80? Carley, why is this so important?

Carley Hathaway (25:29):
You’re breaking up. What is it?

Ren Jones (25:31):
Why is calling corporates so important if it’s 20% now business, and 80% future business?

Carley Hathaway (25:37):
Well, you still need future business. And those corporate kind of people are going to be business that’s going to last forever and ever.

Ren Jones (25:44):
Years later, like DuPont, nine years times about 20 homes.

Carley Hathaway (25:50):
Because they’re not just buying one home. It’s going to continue.

Ren Jones (25:53):
Yeah, it’s a pipeline.

Carley Hathaway (25:53):
Right.

Ren Jones (25:53):
It’s a pipeline. So there’s your answer, whichever one of you said that.

Carley Hathaway (26:01):
Bob.

Ren Jones (26:02):
Was that Bob or was that Marvin? I can’t tell if it’s above or below. So it’s whoever is underneath this. Okay, got it. So Bob, that’s your answer because it’s a pipeline. If you did nothing else and just opened your door for business and you’ve built this relationship with this company, and every month they send you one, two or three sales, go do that. Go back to the business journal. Go back to the business journal again and go get another one, and then another, and another and another. It’s interesting, real estate agents are not focused on corporate, which is bizarre. It stems back from the old traditions that the parent companies, the older traditional split companies had relocation departments, and it was their job to do the corporate calling. And it really never translated into real estate agents doing it. Nobody does it. But the ones that do, and I can name names of some people that make a lot of money corporate calling. So you got to look at that.

(27:00):
So what do you say to an expired listing? Let’s cover some basics, because there are people on this that go, “I just want to know what to say to expireds.” One, and I got this question in early this morning from, doesn’t say what their name is. They sent an e-mail from Freehold1911, wants to know, if you’re not the first one, expireds are going to get a lot of calls, starting at 08:00 AM. The law says you can start at 08:00 AM to 09:00 PM. You can communicate, call within other parameters, but not before that. So if people are calling at 08:00, make sure you’re calling at 08:00. Be the first person, if not the first, the second or the third, somewhere they tire of it, about the fifth or sixth or eighth. Don’t wait till nine o’clock.

(27:52):
It’s kind of interesting. Newer people come into the business, they start at nine o’clock and they wonder why nobody answers the phone. And then I go like, “Well, you need to start at 08:00.” “Oh, I would never bother them.” All right, well if they did answer at 09:00, are they going to feel more bothered or less bothered than if you called at 08:00 and you were the first one calling?

Carley Hathaway (28:10):
They’re going to be much more bothered, and they’re going to be annoyed with you.

Ren Jones (28:13):
Yeah, it’s not a friendly call. So always be early. Be the first. Just make your hangup being the first person to call expireds, for sale by owners. Be the first one. Some of you age for sale by owners. I don’t get that. I don’t get that. I can think of so many times that I was the first one calling, they remembered my name because I was the first one calling. They showed an interest. I asked some key questions. On the ones where I found out they had to move and the had to move right away, I met with them and took the listing. And by the time you guys called them, I already had the listing.

Carley Hathaway (28:47):
There you go.

Ren Jones (28:48):
There we go. So with expired, somebody sent an e-mail, was talking about follow up. Really, with expireds, you have one shot, you have one really good shot because we know a substantial number of them are back on the market within 48 hours. Those are the A clients, they have to sell them, they have to sell quickly. So you really have one shot on that call to make it unique. And they think we all do the same thing, so you’ve got to make the point my team or I do things very differently. I do things very differently. Very important point that you’ve got to make. You got to make that point. And then they’ll say, “Like what?”

(29:25):
When you say, “I do things very differently.” And they say, “Like what?” Pretend they said, “Can you come over and explain it?” Pretend that’s what they said. When you hear, like what? Pretend they said that. So you would say, “Oh great, how does your schedule look for tomorrow at 04:00, or would 06:00 be better?” And they’ll say, “Well no, I mean over the phone.” I’m like, “Well, I haven’t seen your home yet. And every home, every neighborhood, there’s a strategy for this. Listen, if I sold your home in less than 30 days, would that create any kind of a problem for you?” And they’ll say, “Well, no.” And you’ll say, “Great. So four o’clock or 06:00?” “Well, four o’clock would be great.” “All right, I’ll see you at four o’clock.” Set the appointment.

Carley Hathaway (30:08):
Awesome.

Ren Jones (30:10):
Great. A lot of people on here call expireds. What are you running into where you get stuck? I hear somebody who goes, “My calls are so much more productive since I start at 08:00 instead of 09:00. Many more appointments.”

Carley Hathaway (30:32):
Oh, good.

Ren Jones (30:32):
What do you say to for sale by owners? Great one. You need information. The problem, when I listen to people calling for sale by owners, it’s like they’re just doing all the talking and they have no information. They’re trying to close somebody who may not need to move or may not need to move right away. So what are the odds They need your services? If they don’t have to move now and they don’t have to move right away, you’ve got to ask. So first thing you say, real estate agent here in the area, “Is the home still available?” “Yes it is.” But just say, “Are you working with agents?” “Yeah we are.” “Great. May I ask you a couple questions about the home? Great. I’m curious, if you sell this home, where are you folks moving to next?” And they tell you. And then you have to repeat, plus massive approval. “Phoenix. That’s exciting. You’re going to Phoenix. Wonderful.” Pause. “How soon do you have to be in Phoenix?” “Well, I’m there right away. My husband’s back at the house taking care of the house while I’m there starting a new job.” Okay. Are they motivated?

Carley Hathaway (31:42):
Yes.

Ren Jones (31:43):
They are motivated.

Carley Hathaway (31:44):
Absolutely.

Ren Jones (31:45):
But that’s one out of six. You’re got to throw the other five in the trash. They have to move and they have to move right away. Just say, “Listen, your home is on Kensington. It’s right in the middle of where our team sells so many homes. It may be us bringing you to the offer. I need to see what you have. How does your schedule look for 04:00, or would 06:00 be better?” And I always would say, try to go for a bonafide appointment. Just say, “At least we can show you how you can net the same or more using a service and create a lot of safety.”

(32:19):
FSBOs is all about safety because they can sell themselves so there’s safety in protecting their equity and their safety, physical safety, and their safety in getting in a bad contract, which is the most common, as closed attorneys and title companies, they’ll tell you the fall through rate on a for sale by owner rides 30% to 40% versus a real estate agent, it’s about 3%. 2%, 3% fall through. So we’re not saying we could sell it because they know they can sell it in this market. But the question is, what level of safety and protecting your equity. Think about it. If for sale by owner was such a good deal, why is it such a small fraction of the business? Why is it such a small fraction? It’s a good question to ask them.

Carley Hathaway (33:16):
I found that with for sale by owners, a lot of times they’re always trying to cut your commissions because they think they can sell it themselves. So I feel like that’s an obstacle that I’ve dealt with.

Ren Jones (33:26):
Okay, great. And it’s true. So when they’re going there, the question I would ask them, “Are you looking for the lowest bidder?” Because usually that comes with someone who has a lot less experience and is not skilled enough or has enough exposure to protect your equity and net you the most. There’s a perceived savings of 1.5% on their fee, but it may cost you 4% or 5% to save that 1.5%.

Carley Hathaway (33:56):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (33:57):
How many years has that person been in the business? How many homes did they sell? How many homes failed to sell? Is this a primary area that they sell in? These are valid questions. If you’re face to face with them, you can ask those questions.

Carley Hathaway (34:12):
Right. Okay.

Ren Jones (34:17):
Because what always cracks me up is, here we come out, you’re a 5% market, Chicago’s a 5% market, a lot of the country is 6%. And agents, whether you’re a brand new agent or you’ve been doing it for 20 years, everybody’s charging the same amount of money. If you hire any other professional, as that professional gets seasoned and really good at what they do, they charge a lot more, except in real estate where the brand new person charges the same amount as the person who’s been doing it for 20 years.

Carley Hathaway (34:53):
True.

Ren Jones (34:54):
Makes no sense. How can we net them more money? NAR has long lists of that. Go to their site and read. You can net them more money in a lot of ways. You’re saving them a percentage or two in the marketing. Because if you’re for sale by owner, who’s attracted to a for sale by owner? Yeah, I know they’re listed in MLS, some of them, many of them. But you’re saving them more money on a lot of levels because if webclick.com has the listing. So really, they don’t have an advocate on the listing side. And you’re showing the property. So really, they’re trying to represent themselves. They have no professional representation, they don’t know what protocols are. So you net them a percentage or two by having some representation. You can save them a percentage or two on the inspections.

(35:51):
I remember one house, the homes were a hundred plus years old, and they had these unlined chimneys. And the for sale by owner didn’t know any better. The buyer wanted all those chimneys realigned, but they’d never been aligned for a hundred and something years. So they don’t know what the protocols are. So you save them a couple percent in the inspections, you save them a couple percent because it’s not going to fall through. You pay them a couple percent because of the exposure that you create and the strategies that you use, so now you’ve saved them 8%. You’ve charged them five or six. So it happens every day. That’s why for sale by owners are a small fraction. I get a lot of people hanging up. “What’s a quick jab you can give the seller that is a good pattern interrupt to keep them on the phone and lead to an appointment?” Is this an expired, Dennis? I’m going to pretend it’s an expired and answer it that way. He said, somebody said yes.

Carley Hathaway (36:41):
He said yes.

Ren Jones (36:42):
Dennis says yes. Okay, all right. So they hang up and I go, “Wait, wait, wait. One more question.” And they go, “Okay.” And you go, “Wait, wait. One more question.” They will stop. “Such a good looking home. What do you think stopped it from selling?” And I’ve got hours of recording of agents that use that. That is dramatic how it just turns around after that. “Wait, wait, wait. One more question. Such a good looking home. What do you think stopped it from selling?” Now the only time that didn’t work was on this ugly home.

(37:24):
Let’s see what else we have in questions. So let’s say they want to wait because they can’t find a replacement home. Are they not that motivated? Is there a way to handle that objection? Think about it. Why are they saying that to you? Why are they saying that to you? Is there some truth in it? But the bigger truth is the stronger agent’s going to come along and list the property because ultimately they want to move.

(37:49):
So you want to get to the motivation. “So if you find the perfect home, you sell that home, where are you going next? How soon do you have to be there? And then the key question, what’s important about this next home?” Now you’re putting them in the energy of what they want. And then say, “Well, I’m glad we’re talking. What I’d like to do is meet with you. I’d like to show you a couple of homes that are not on the market yet that are coming up.” So you have to do a little bit of homework through the brokerage, “and talk about the strategy so that doesn’t keep happening to you over and over again. Because here’s the thing, when you find that dream home, there are 17 other people that think it’s a dream home too. And then this keeps happening over and over again. I have some solutions to that. How does your schedule look for 04:00 tomorrow or 06:00?”

Carley Hathaway (38:43):
Makes sense.

Ren Jones (38:45):
What else? What else? Type. All righty. I think we covered some good bases so far. We could go on for a long time, but I think it’s good to end right here on season one, episode one. And if you have any, oh, do you e-mail expireds and for sale by owners? No.

Carley Hathaway (39:09):
No.

Ren Jones (39:12):
Does it work? Yes. I remember somebody said, “I doubled my business mainly through expireds. They had sold two the year before, and they sold two more. I think you could get one or two a year. But once we know, and I’ve watched agents experiment with that. They tried for a year or two and they look at the labor involved, the postage involved, the printing involved. Everything’s about ROI, folks. If you can show me a mailing system that’s going to get you a significant ROI. But what’s funny is, whenever I would go on an appointment, there’d just be this big pack of mail stacked up. And I go, “What is that?” And they go, “Well, all these real estate agents mailed that stuff to us.” And I’d say, “Are you going to respond to any of that?” And they’d go, “No.” And I’d say, “Can I have it?”

(40:05):
Read through it, read through it, read through it. It can be a lot of fun. Learn what everybody thinks and does, who your competitors are, and what they think their points are. But that stuff doesn’t work. They’re drowning in it. That’s the thing about expireds and for sale by owners. It’s a contact sport. You’ve got to find a way to talk to them. Call them at work. Sign up for our work number, call them at work. Nobody’s calling them there. There’s a strategy for calling at work. What’s funny is, in all other businesses, people call business to business, work to work. Real estate agents are afraid to call them at work. The rest of the world is afraid to call people at home. Isn’t that bizarre? It is just the world we’re in, which makes no sense.

(40:56):
You recommend phoning starting at 08:00 AM and any other time, I’m going to get a few answers and very few friendlies. Or I’m getting very few answers and very few friendlies. Okay. Right, exactly. 08:00 AM is a lot easier than 08:30, which is a lot easier than nine o’clock. That’s been best practices forever. That’s been best practices forever. And that’s just life. Now, here’s an interesting thing. I used to send a lot of people down to shadow a guy in Orange County, actually. And he would get on the phone early in the morning, and he probably wasn’t supposed to, but around 07:45 then to eight o’clock and roll on from there. And he would call till noon. And he was listing a lot of property. It was his first year and he had moved from Big Bear down to Orange County. It was his first year, and he was on track for 75 transactions.

(41:52):
And so a lot of people wanted to see what he’s doing because it’s a brand new market for him. And 75 transactions in Orange County is a wonderful thing. So he goes, “Meet me at the office at 06:30.” And so they drove down there to meet with him and they’re standing around. 06:30 went on, 06:40 went on, 06:45 went on, he drove up and he goes, “I am so sorry.” He goes, “I was out delivering packets to some of the expireds that had come up from about 04:30 to 06:00, and I ran into somebody in their driveway pulling the trash can out. And I had a conversation with him about meeting him and listing the property.” So he was out dropping packets to their door so that when they drove to work they would get his packet, because that does work. It does work.

(42:39):
And so the guy, all of a sudden his stock goes way up because he is like, “You’ve been out for two hours delivering packets. And now you’re here at the office at 06:30.” And then he made phone calls till noon, expireds, for sale by owners. But he was persistent and he was passionate. And that’s what carried the day, because he set three appointments. But he worked at very early day and then he had some appointments and then he went home at 05:00 or 06:00. Yes, they will meet you at 04:00, they will meet you at 05:00, they’ll meet you at 03:00. They will.

(43:09):
So what carried the day for him doing 75 transactions in Orange County his first year there was the passion. He was so passionate. He’d go, “Wait, wait, wait.” They could feel the passion coming through the phone. But the problem we have with a lot of us is we become nervous. We don’t know what to say. We’re a little stiff. We’re not role playing our scripts every morning with someone like we should be. So it’s real quick. What do you say in your e-mail? I don’t send e-mail. No, we don’t send e-mail. It’s just an extra because you can hit a button and send something. There’s no magic words. You just want to say something short. I’ll see if I can come up with something for you. But don’t count on that to get business. You got to find a way to talk and move your lips, make some money. Lot of money.

(44:05):
If you’re not at one listing a week, can you do that? Can you let go and have everybody else and all the other jobs of the team done by somebody else? And your job is to be role playing, on the phone, eight to 12 lead generation. You have a four o’clock, a little bit of admin work in the middle because you have to answer questions. You may have to negotiate a contract, a four o’clock listing appointment, a six o’clock listing appointment, go home. If you don’t have a 06:00, go to the 04:00, go home. Or make more calls and then go home.

(44:38):
But every day, for many years, and lots of people I know that make a million dollars or more a year in this business, they get to 11:30 and then they get to lunchtime and they treat themselves, they treat themselves. They have a nice something. They treat themselves. So do something nice for yourself. Go out and get a great lunch. If you live around here, get some Graeter’s Ice Cream, mint chocolate chip. If you’re in San Diego, you can’t get Graeter’s Ice Cream. So I’m sorry.

Carley Hathaway (45:07):
I never had it.

Ren Jones (45:09):
Oh. Well, you’re missing out.

Carley Hathaway (45:11):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (45:12):
So any last questions? Last question. How does the do not e-mail apply? I don’t know. If that exists, don’t e-mail them. Awesome. Thank you. What did you say? Okay, any last question? Carley, do you have a last question? Anybody?

Carley Hathaway (45:32):
No, I feel like we got bought out of this. I’m really excited.

Ren Jones (45:37):
Good. One of the things we’re going to do, this is season one, episode one. One of the things we’re going to do is have a couple top producers that make a million, million and half, two million a year in pre-tax net income doing this, working five days a week, 40 hours a week, taking six to eight weeks vacation. There are a lot of them. I know them. We’re going to have them drop in for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, ask a lot of questions. You guys will be able to split in, ask them questions.

(46:00):
Oh, I’ve got one last thing. This is the most important thing of this whole show. This is the most important thing of the whole show because everybody should be coached and have an accountability partner. You should have a coach. One of the things I would suggest is give up Starbucks, start making your coffee at home and take that money. Take 600 bucks a month. I’m sure you’re spending that at Starbucks or somewhere, or maybe be on cable TV. Take that 600 bucks a month, maybe it’ll cost you 800. And then go shadow, once a month, shadow somebody that is setting the world on fire, they do their business in this way. They don’t work nights and weekends. They’re making a tremendous amount of money. They’re in another market. They’re a hundred miles north or a hundred miles south or a hundred miles east, a hundred miles west. They’re somewhere nearby.

(46:53):
And if you call them, reach out to them, they will let you shadow them. They absolutely will. And I’ve had people say, “Well, I called them and they never called me back.” That’s because they’re busy. Call them, call them again. Call them again. Call them again. Call them again. e-mail them, text them, text them. Get them on the phone. If they say no, that’s rare because they like the show-off factor. They’re happy to have you come shadow them. And there are lots and lots of people. Then what you do is you go there that evening, have dinner with them. That morning, early in the morning, you shadow them until noon and you head back home. So it’s one day affair. And you have lots of notes and you use the copycat principle. They’re making a million dollars. They’re doing all their lead generation from 08:00 AM till lunchtime. They go to lunch, they have one or two listing appointments and they’re home. And shadow those people.

(47:43):
And if you do 12 of them a year, one a month, or even if you do one every six weeks, do eight a year. You’ve got eight new friends that make a million dollars the easy way, and they become really good friends. And then do it again the next year. Now you got 16 really good friends that make a lot of money and they’re going to go, “Hey, when are you going to join us? When are you going to copy what we do?” It’s out there. All right. We’ll see you next week at the same time. Tuesday’s, one o’clock Eastern or 10:00 AM Pacific. Hawaii, well, we’re a little earlier. Okay. Bye everybody.

Carley Hathaway (48:23):
Thank you so much. That was great.

Ren Jones (48:27):
Bye. See you soon. Bye everybody.