Why taking just two listings a week is simple, but not easy

Ren Jones 00:05

All righty, ready to roll. Welcome, everybody. You’re tuned into Roadmap season one, episode one. 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. 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, 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, 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. 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. 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. 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 6:00 PM — and I said 6:00 PM for all you people that will work till 10:00 at night. So 6:00 PM, your job is to take two listings. 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? Carley, if your whole world depended on it, and it was Monday morning, could you get to Friday at 6:00 PM and take two listings?

Carley Hathaway 04:14

Definitely.

Ren Jones 04:16

Definitely. Real estate’s a contact sport, we can do it. But here’s the thing, too many other things get in the way. 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, 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. Let’s use the number eight, nobody will argue with that. So if 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 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. 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 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 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 — let’s look at the chat box and see what people are saying. 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? Expireds? No. 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. 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 — that’d be 38. So 38 buyer sales. Some of them move to a retirement community, some move to Guam, some rent, some just whatever. 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 me 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, but you’re not going to be the one showing these. So the money that you would make, you’re going to make half of this, sometimes three quarters, depending on how you refer it out. Sometimes you’re making way more than the person just showing. But you’re going to need that money to put back into your administrative stuff. If you’re making $4,000 times 38, that’s a hundred some thousand dollars you would make on that — put it back in your admin. Just count on making 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 — they don’t even get to one a week? One a week, you’re still making 300,000 or 400,000. That’s not so bad, 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 — a lot of agents love people and love houses, and they want to show property. As we know, buyers take time, listings take skill. The buyers just take a lot of time. Weekends.

Carley Hathaway 10:45

Evenings.

Ren Jones 10:45

Weekends, long days, 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 3%. What kind of check is that, $90,000? They’re like, “I’m not going to just take a 25% referral fee.” Nobody said you had to. This is where they get stuck: well, I took that buyer out. How many homes did you list during that time? 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 are 50% because they’ve been cultivated, and some are 75%. And then they’ll say, well, I would never do that. So you’re saying you will not go out and show four $3 million homes, because there are only four of them, for 25 — you won’t take $22,000 and do an amazing job and let me have 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, or even one listing a week’s a great life if you’ll stick with it. If you’re catching fish at the shore and you go back and you’re fileting them and serving them, 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? 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. 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 the food delivery business. And pretty soon, Uber realtors, with a little R on their hat — people will go to their tablet and say I want to see this one, this one, this one. They call up a little car, realtor drives around, shows them four houses, they click and 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 have a buyer agent write it up and take it all the way to closing for $500. It’s headed there. You’ve 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? You can’t do these numbers with buyers. What’s your schedule look like? There are 365 days a year — and Scott here in the StoryTellr Studios, who works with our video division, would tell you no, some years they were 366, and he’s right. But let’s go with 365. Six to eight weeks vacation. How many days should they work, Carley?

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 140? 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. 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 an emergency in the family. Maybe you want to start a school for the underprivileged. 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 7:30 on Monday morning, end at 6:00 PM on Friday, and take your two listings. So how do we get more listings? We’ve got scripts, dialogues, there’s a lot of formulas that go into this. How do we do it?

17:02 Scripts and dialogues — not only the words, but 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. So what do you think, Carley? Who should they call?

Carley Hathaway 17:36

Everybody.

Ren Jones 17:39

Everybody. You start off with people that have a home for sale that do not have a real estate agent — expireds, for sale by owners. Who else? Old expireds, best clients’ sphere of influence. You’ve got to have a mix — just listed, corporate. Expireds, 90% now business, 10% future business. For sale by owners, again about 90% now, 10% future. Old expireds, probably about 75 now, 25 future. Best clients’ sphere, 10% now business, 90% future — it flips. Just listed, just sold, somewhere around 15% to 20% now, this can roll faster, 20 to 80. And corporate’s about 20 to 80. But go with the fish that are biting first — they’ve 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? You want to talk, Eric?

19:42 Well, not necessarily. Jesse has the host code set up so Jesse can’t chat. Okay, so see if he can turn on Eric Wagner live and chat with us about corporates. We’ll give it a few seconds. Oh, there he is. Okay, Eric, what do you think corporates are? Oh, no microphone — click 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. 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%. 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. You become the authority. Small businesses in your town, insurance companies, manufacturing, all different types of businesses. A good source to find those is the business journal in most 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 just Google your town’s business journal. But every town has some sort of a business journal, and they tell you who’s moving in, who’s moving out, and who the contact is.

Eric Wagner 22:08

I’ve never heard of this.

Ren Jones 22:10

Well, corporate comes in a lot of categories. You may choose to call probate attorneys — their specialty is, somebody dies, they settle the estate, and 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 pretty soon you’re going to get three, four, five, six, seven, 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 my uncle came up with when he was settling estates. So probate is a great, great source of corporate business. Divorce attorneys — sometimes that can be two sales, three sales, and there are some specific recipes for divorce that work really well.

23:22 There’s 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 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. I kept banging on their door — they had relocation internal, and they were huge. 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 it. So it was those two mega companies and me — I was the third. 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. Vulcan 7 has, as an option we sell only to our more experienced clients for 49 bucks, work numbers — you can call regular people at work to list the property, because nobody else is calling them there. 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, “I’ve got this expired for sale by owner service, and neighborhood search, what do I say?” So why talk about corporates if it’s 20/80, 20% now? Great question, Bob. Well, thank you, Eric, I appreciate your time. 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.

Ren Jones 26:02

Was that Bob or was that Marvin? 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 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 again and get another one, and then another. It’s interesting, real estate agents are not focused on corporate, which is bizarre — it stems back from the old traditions where parent companies had relocation departments and it was their job to do the corporate calling, and it never translated into real estate agents doing it. Nobody does it. But the ones that do, I can name names of people that make a lot of money corporate calling.

27:00 So what do you say to an expired listing? Let’s cover some basics, because there are people on this that just want to know what to say to expireds. I got a question this morning from someone who sent an e-mail from Freehold1911, wanting to know — if you’re not the first one, expireds are going to get a lot of calls starting at 8:00 AM. The law says you can call 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM. So if people are calling at 8:00, make sure you’re calling at 8:00. Be the first person, if not the first, the second or the third — somewhere around the fifth or sixth or eighth, they tire of it. Don’t wait till nine o’clock.

27:52 It’s interesting — newer people come into the business, they start at nine o’clock and wonder why nobody answers the phone. And I go, well, you need to start at 8:00. “Oh, I would never bother them.” All right, well if they did answer at 9:00, are they going to feel more bothered or less bothered than if you called at 8:00 and 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 — make it your hangup to be the first person to call expireds, for sale by owners. Be the first one. I can think of so many times I was the first one calling, they remembered my name because I was first, they showed an interest, I asked some key questions. On the ones where I found out they 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 expireds, someone sent an e-mail asking about follow up. Really, with expireds, you have one shot — 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, and sell quickly. So you have one shot on that call to make it unique. They think we all do the same thing, so you’ve got to make the point: my team or I do things very differently. 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?” So you would say, “Oh great, how does your schedule look for tomorrow at 4:00, or would 6:00 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 6:00?” “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 8:00 instead of 9:00, many more appointments.”

Carley Hathaway 30:32

Oh, good.

Ren Jones 30:32

What do you say to for sale by owners? You need information. The problem, when I listen to people calling for sale by owners, is 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 you’ve got to ask. First thing you say: “Real estate agent here in the area — is the home still available?” “Yes it is.” “Are you working with agents?” “Yeah we are.” “Great, may I ask you a couple questions about the home? If you sell this home, where are you folks moving to next?” And they tell you, and then you repeat it back 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 it 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’ve 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 the offer. I need to see what you have — how does your schedule look for 4:00, or would 6:00 be better?” And I always would say, try to go for a bonafide appointment: “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 there’s safety in protecting their equity, physical safety, and safety in avoiding a bad contract. Closing attorneys and title companies will tell you the fall-through rate on a for sale by owner runs 30% to 40%, versus about 2%, 3% for a real estate agent. We’re not saying we could sell it — they know they can sell it in this market. The question is what level of safety and protection of their equity they’re getting. If for sale by owner was such a good deal, why is it such a small fraction of the business? 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 commission 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 the question I would ask them: “Are you looking for the lowest bidder?” Because that usually comes with someone who has a lot less experience and isn’t skilled enough or exposed enough to protect their equity and net them the most. There’s a perceived savings of 1.5% on their fee, but it may cost them 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.

Carley Hathaway 34:12

Right, okay.

Ren Jones 34:17

Because what always cracks me up is — you’re a 5% market, Chicago’s a 5% market, a lot of the country is 6%, and agents, whether brand new or 20 years in, everybody’s charging the same amount of money. If you hire any other professional, as they get 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’re saving them a percentage or two in the marketing — because who’s attracted to a for sale by owner? They don’t have an advocate on the listing side, and they’re showing the property themselves, so really they’re trying to represent themselves with no professional representation and no knowledge of the protocols. So you net them a percentage or two by having representation, and 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 with 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. They don’t know what the protocols are. So you save them a couple percent on inspections, a couple percent because it’s not going to fall through, and a couple percent because of the exposure you create — now you’ve saved them 8%, you’ve charged them five or six. It happens every day, that’s why for sale by owners are a small fraction. I get a lot of people asking, “What’s a quick jab you can give the seller that’s 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.

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.” “Such a good looking home — what do you think stopped it from selling?” I’ve got hours of recordings of agents using that. It’s dramatic how it just turns around after that. 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? 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: “If you find the perfect home and sell that home, where are you going next? How soon do you have to be there? And what’s important about this next home?” Now you’re putting them in the energy of what they want. And then say, “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,” and talk about the strategy so it doesn’t keep happening to them over and over, because when they find that dream home, there are 17 other people that think it’s a dream home too. “I have some solutions to that — how does your schedule look for 4:00 tomorrow, or 6:00?”

Carley Hathaway 38:43

Makes sense.

Ren Jones 38:45

What else? 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. Do you e-mail expireds and for sale by owners? No.

Carley Hathaway 39:09

No.

Ren Jones 39:12

Does mailing work? I remember somebody said, “I doubled my business mainly through expireds.” They had sold two the year before, and sold two more. You could get one or two a year from mailing. But I’ve watched agents experiment with that, try it for a year or two, and look at the labor, the postage, the printing involved. Everything’s about ROI, folks. Whenever I would go on an appointment, there’d just be this big pack of mail stacked up, and I’d go, “What is that?” And they’d say, “Well, all these real estate agents mailed that stuff to us.” “Are you going to respond to any of that?” “No.” “Can I have it?”

40:05 Read through it — it can be a lot of fun, learn what everybody thinks and does, who your competitors 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. 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?

40:56 8:00 AM is a lot easier than 8:30, which is a lot easier than nine o’clock. That’s been best practices forever. Now, here’s an interesting thing — I used to send a lot of people down to shadow a guy in Orange County. He would get on the phone early in the morning, around 7:45, eight o’clock, and roll on from there, calling till noon. He was listing a lot of property — it was his first year, he had moved from Big Bear down to Orange County, and he was on track for 75 transactions.

41:52 A lot of people wanted to see what he was doing, since it was 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 6:30.” They drove down to meet with him and stood around — 6:30 went on, 6:40, 6:45 — he drove up and said, “I am so sorry, I was out delivering packets to some of the expireds that had come up, from about 4:30 to 6:00, and I ran into somebody in their driveway pulling the trash can out and had a conversation with him about meeting him and listing the property.” He was out dropping packets to their door so that when they drove to work they’d get his packet, because that does work.

42:39 His stock went way up because he’d been out for two hours delivering packets and was still at the office at 6:30. Then he made phone calls till noon, expireds, for sale by owners — he was persistent and passionate, and that’s what carried the day, because he set three appointments. He worked a very early day, had some appointments, and went home at 5:00 or 6:00. Yes, they will meet you at 4:00, at 5:00, at 3:00 — they will.

43:09 So what carried the day for him doing 75 transactions in Orange County his first year there was the passion — they could feel it coming through the phone. The problem a lot of us have 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 like we should be. As for e-mail — I don’t send e-mail, no magic words there, just want to say something short. Don’t count on that to get business, you’ve got to find a way to talk and move your lips, make some money.

44:05 If you’re not at one listing a week, can you let go and have everybody else and all the other jobs of the team done by somebody else, so your job is to be role playing, on the phone, eight to 12 lead generation, a little bit of admin work in the middle, a four o’clock listing appointment, a six o’clock listing appointment, go home? If you don’t have a 6:00, go to the 4:00, go home, or make more calls and then go home.

44:38 Every day, for many years, and for lots of people I know who make a million dollars or more a year in this business, they get to 11:30, get to lunchtime, and 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? How does the do not e-mail apply? I don’t know — if that exists, don’t e-mail them. Any last question, Carley? 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 being season one episode one, is have a couple top producers who make a million, million and a 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, and we’re going to have them drop in for 10, 15 minutes so you guys can ask them questions.

46:00 I’ve got one last thing — this is the most important thing of the whole show. Everybody should be coached and have an accountability partner, you should have a coach. One thing I’d suggest: give up Starbucks, start making your coffee at home, take that 600 bucks a month you’re spending on Starbucks or cable, maybe it’ll cost you 800, and go shadow, once a month, somebody who’s setting the world on fire doing business this way — not working nights and weekends, making a tremendous amount of money, in another market a hundred miles away.

46:53 If you call them and reach out, they will let you shadow them — they absolutely will. If they don’t call you back, that’s because they’re busy; call again, e-mail them, text them, get them on the phone. If they say no, that’s rare, because they like the show-off factor. Then you go there that evening, have dinner with them, shadow them that morning until noon, and head back home — it’s a one day affair, and you use the copycat principle. They’re doing all their lead generation from 8:00 AM till lunchtime, then lunch, then one or two listing appointments, and they’re home.

47:43 If you do 12 of them a year, one a month, or even one every six weeks, do eight a year — you’ve got eight new friends who make a million dollars the easy way, and they become really good friends. Do it again the next year, now you’ve got 16 really good friends who make a lot of money, and they’re going to say, “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. Bye everybody.

Carley Hathaway 48:23

Thank you so much. That was great.

Ren Jones 48:27

Bye. See you soon. Bye everybody.