What 11 top listing agents do differently to win more listings

Ren Jones 00:00

Welcome to Roadmap, how to take three listings a week until you’re ready for more. Each week we interview a great agent who is consistently taking two, three or four listings each week. Today it’s the Highlights Show. We’re going to review the last 11 interviews and show you highlights from those shows. We encourage you to take notes, apply as much of their knowledge as quickly as you can and then apply the copycat principle.

00:45 Let’s talk first about the Vulcan7 Challenge. Once a month, shadow a great agent in another market who is taking two, three, four listings or more. Drive two or three hours away or get on a plane. Get there that evening, have dinner with them if they’re available, and the next morning get to the office early. Record them, write notes, follow them around, go to lunch with them and then go home. Do that once a month and at the end of 12 months you’ll have a dozen great friends who are very successful.

Ren Jones 01:52

My guest today is Sarah Close. Sarah has been in the business for a good while, has been very successful and takes two, three or four listings a week. You own a few real estate offices and market centers throughout the Cincinnati area. How many agents?

Sarah Close 02:18

Right around 550.

Ren Jones 02:24

About 550 agents in Dayton, West Chester and Cincinnati, working in the Kentucky area as well. You’ve bought investment property and done a lot of wonderful things. You have a great life because you went to the listing side of the business. You’ve also been coached by some of the best.

Sarah Close 02:59

Absolutely.

Ren Jones 03:19

Our first guest on the pilot show was Sean McCarthy from New Orleans. When he went into that market, the average price was around $180,000 to $200,000. He decided he was going to work the $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 and $700,000 range. You can make a purposeful decision about where you want to take your average sale price.

Sarah Close 04:07

Absolutely. The process is really the same regardless of the price range. As long as you’re working in an area with enough velocity and turnover, the higher price point pays better.

Sean McCarthy 04:38

I’m not sure how many people in the New Orleans market do this, but we make a lot of just-listed calls. When we list a piece of property, we’re usually loading up 50 at a time and making those calls. For each listing, we try to hit about 250 to 300 people. It’s a great source of new business. Neighbors say they saw the house around the corner and may be interested in selling, or they have friends who want to move to the area.

05:13 It’s also a great way to build up your database. We’re asking if they know anybody interested in moving to the neighborhood, how long they’ve lived there and, if they were going to move, where they would go. Finally, we say we’d love to keep them updated on what’s going on in the market and ask for their best email address.

06:05 We hit those people once a month with an email and try to touch them personally two or three times a year. I’m guessing we probably have 35,000 people in the database, put into different folders.

Ren Jones 06:46

Look at the leverage in just-listed calls. First, he’s delivering a huge service to his client by proactively selling the property. Second, he’s building his community. If you’re brand new and only have one listing, you can call around company listings and have the same result.

07:52 Here’s a man making about $1.5 million a year in New Orleans doing this, working Monday through Friday, enjoying his weekends and taking six to eight weeks of vacation while putting in four or five hours every day.

Ren Jones 08:21

Next is Tim Davis in Central Oregon. The guy is taking 18 to 20 listings a month. We’re going to show you a roleplay. The secret is in the hours. He’s doing it five hours a day, Monday through Friday. The rest is not as amazing as you might think, but it’s powerful because he’s doing it consistently.

Tim Davis 09:04

This is Tim Davis with Central Oregon Realty. I just realized your home came off the market. Are you interviewing the right agent for the job of selling it?

Ren Jones 09:18

Thank you, Tim, but we’re just going to give it a rest.

Tim Davis 09:22

You’re going to give it a rest. Okay, great. If you sold this home, where are you going next?

Ren Jones 09:24

We’re moving to Portland.

Tim Davis 09:27

Portland, that’s exciting. How soon do you have to be there?

Ren Jones 09:31

We’re kind of both places back and forth right now, but we’re going to give it a little rest and think about it.

Tim Davis 09:42

I can appreciate that. What do you think stopped your home from selling?

10:31 What do you feel the last agent should have done? What would you expect from the next agent you choose? Have you already chosen an agent to work with?

11:12 I’d like to apply for the job of actually getting your home sold this time.

Ren Jones 11:20

You’re listing four or five homes a week and you’re using this script pretty commonly?

Tim Davis 11:24

Yes.

Ren Jones 11:29

What if a for sale by owner says, “Thanks for calling, Tim, but we’re not going to list with an agent. We’re trying to save money.”

Tim Davis 11:48

You want to net as much money as possible. If I could net you the price you want and handle everything with you, would you be open to seeing what I can do to sell your home?

Ren Jones 12:01

That’s it? That simple?

Tim Davis 12:03

Keep it simple.

Sarah Close 13:02

I think it’s a matter of setting up the routine and sticking to the commitment you make with yourself, whether that’s time blocking or whatever word you want to call it. Tim is very clear: he’s on the phone four to five hours a day, five days a week. My suspicion is he doesn’t get up and ask himself whether he’s going to do it today. It’s a predetermined decision.

13:30 It’s that consistency, and I think the simplicity of his script is where the magic lives.

Aaron Wittenstein 15:30

Number one and two are time management and mindset. Those are the two things people really fail at because they don’t do what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it, and they have this mindset of lack or scarcity: “I’m not good enough. What if I suck?” It’s the judgmental talk you do to yourself.

16:16 I get into the office at 7:45. I’m home between 4:00 and 5:00 every day. I don’t work Sundays. I work Saturdays by appointment only.

16:56 I wake up at 5:00. I write out three things I’m grateful for and three things I’m going to be intentional about for the day. The intentionality is three things that, no matter what, if I do them I’ve had a successful day.

18:40 I’m in the office by 7:45 and I’m on the phone calling the brand-new expireds at 7:58. My goal is two hours of brand-new lead generation and one hour of follow-up. I can’t control the amount of people who answer the phone. I can only control the time I’m committing to the activity.

Sarah Close 19:19

He has a very simple but predictable morning routine, and that’s what enables him to get the important pieces out of the way. Having those three items he’s intentional about means he can have the satisfaction of winning the day regardless of whatever else gets thrown at him.

20:06 Think about your flow of energy. When do you start to droop? It’s that 2:00 to 3:00 time. If you have to do something that requires willpower or forced accountability, the likelihood of doing it successfully then is greatly reduced compared with doing the same thing in the morning.

Jennifer Murtland 21:37

I’m 37, and in five years I’m going to be retired. I started buying investment property in 2010 and now I own 31 units. They’re almost all paid for. That’s why I live in a crappy house, so I can buy investment properties.

Sarah Close 23:09

Successful listing agents have a great opportunity to buy property. They see the deals, know the values and know the stable neighborhoods and the neighborhoods that may be moving up or down. The number one thing an agent should be doing with the money they’re making in the business is reinvesting it back into the product we’re selling.

23:52 There’s also an authority Jennifer has when she’s speaking with investor clients because she’s doing what she’s asking them to do. That makes her effective when she’s consulting clients about making investments in real estate.

Jennifer Murtland 25:20

We have 40% repeat and referral business, so it is mostly people we know, but the other 60% is expireds and FSBOs. We actually have a pretty big FSBO business. Most for sale by owners want to try it on their own. I just say, “I’ve seen this movie before. I know how it ends. May I share with you how it ends?”

25:49 They’re follow-up. They want to try it, and that’s fine, but we know that within four weeks they’ll end up listing with an agent. I want it to be us.

Sarah Close 26:33

That’s part of the reason you’ve always encouraged people to do calls while standing up. Let your body get into that energy flow so you’ve got all the possible help you can have to convey that energy through the phone when they only have your voice.

Carrie Koehler 28:33

We have two Google Hangouts with people across the country making calls. They’re coached by different coaches, so they all have a little different perspective on how they answer objections and go through their scripts. I can hear their objection handlers, scribble them down, use them and modify them.

29:22 It’s also a way to keep the energy flowing because if you’re gone from the screen for more than five minutes, somebody is going to be calling your name. If we’re not on there, they’re calling or texting, asking where we are. It’s major accountability and a major learning experience.

30:15 I also have somebody I text for accountability. It’s just a few phrases. “Have you started?” “Yes.” “Did you get your calls?” It’s not, “How’s the family?” It’s just, “Get it done.”

Sarah Close 30:48

She’s able to get information so quickly. With the objection handlers, it’s like speed dating for learning scripts. You get all of that at once. You hear how people use the scripts, and sometimes someone puts a little more emphasis or inflection on one point and it comes across differently.

Breanna Eller 32:24

Yesterday I had a bad call. This guy was cussing me and calling me all kinds of names, combinations I probably haven’t been called before. I was polite. I said, “I understand. I’m sorry you’re having a bad day. Thanks for your time.” Then I just started laughing.

32:52 A lot of times I’ll just laugh. Sometimes when people are rude, they’re having a bad day. I’ve answered the phone before and not been nice, and it wasn’t anything the caller did. Sometimes I try to defuse the situation, apologize for catching them at a bad time and offer to call at a different time.

33:50 We all have mental roadblocks we have to overcome. I’m just like anybody else. I see what calling every day has done for my business, so I choose to focus on that.

34:13 When I started, I’d be next to my dad prospecting and he was setting one, two or three appointments every single day. I was on the phone saying the same things and not setting any appointments. At first it was frustrating. Then I learned it’s not just what you say but how you say it. It’s making it a conversation and expecting the best outcome. It doesn’t happen overnight. You have to be patient and get better.

Ren Jones 36:36

She’s 29. She doesn’t have a website and uses three-by-five cards to track leads. Very old-fashioned, but guess what? About 150 sales a year. Her senior year in high school she had 67 sales. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Sarah Close 37:27

She’s really getting granular in the pre-qualification process, which enables her to use her time effectively. She’s not driving to a house where somebody doesn’t have the right motivation. She’s walking into that listing appointment knowing what the landscape is.

Ren Jones 37:49

About 93% of the time she takes the listing. Heavy pre-qualification, a pre-listing package and pre-qualification questions. She’s in and out in 15 or 20 minutes and can take two or three listings in an afternoon.

Ron Wexler 38:31

The first magic script was, instead of saying, “When can we meet?” or, “When would you like to meet?” I would ask, “What daytime hours do you have available this week for us to sit down together?”

38:49 By asking “what daytime hours,” I eliminated weekends and nights in my question. If I just asked when they were available, they’d automatically say they get home at 6:00. When I asked the daytime-hours question, they’d say, “Actually, I can shoot home early on Thursday and my wife has that day off.”

Sarah Close 40:29

It’s the right words. If you’re going to say, “What’s a good time to get together?” they’re not going to pick one you like. The little tweak to “What daytime hours do you have available this week?” is thoughtful, specific and purposeful. It’s also a pattern interrupt for the person receiving the message.

James Matz 42:52

I’ve always bought into the idea that what I do every day creates my outcome, yet I don’t depend on the outcome to affect what I do. I understand the power of delayed gratification. When you plant a seed in the ground, you don’t know what’s coming up until a period of time passes. Because I’m doing this activity every day, it takes on a life of its own and creates momentum.

44:24 When people ask what kind of business I’m in, I always say I’m in the rejection business because the more I’m rejected, the more money I make.

45:21 At the end of the day, it’s all about the decisions you make. When you make good decisions, good things happen. In the sales business, lead generation is the most important activity you can do.

45:44 I don’t do lead generation to create the outcome. I do the lead generation so I can do the lead generation. If you make the calls, at some point you’re going to catch a fish. Just because you put your line in the water doesn’t mean you’re going to catch one immediately. Keep your line in the water and it’s an inevitable conclusion.

Sarah Close 47:01

When you make a call, one of three things can happen. You’re either going to get an appointment, figure out a reason to follow up and nurture that person, or determine it’s somebody you never need to talk to again. All three of those are okay.

Bernie Gallerani 48:44

You have to have a goal that’s strong enough to get you past your bad habits. We all have habits that aren’t getting us to the goals we’re setting for ourselves. You have to identify a bad habit and work on making it better. It’s not suddenly going to go away. It’s something you have to conquer over time.

49:17 Develop a goal that you want to achieve. It might be smaller or bigger, but the goal has to be deliberate and have an end date. It might be, “I want to list two properties this week,” “two properties this month,” or “30 properties this year.”

49:43 Number two: control the controllables. I used to say, “I’m going to get three listing appointments.” Then if I didn’t get three listing appointments, I’d think I didn’t do my job. My daughter said, “Why don’t you work on the controllables instead of focusing on the things you can’t control?”

50:29 You can control how long you’re going to prospect. If you want to talk to 30 people and it doesn’t happen in three hours, you might have to put four hours in. You can’t control how many people are going to list with you. You can control how many people you’re going to talk to.

50:51 My goal is no longer how many listings I can take. I’m going to back out how many contacts I have to make to take five listings a week and dedicate that time. If I get to the office at 7:00, I just won. If I get on the phones at 7:45, I just won. If I make 30 contacts, I just won. If I do the things I can control, the listings will show up.

51:38 Find things that excite you. Three or four years into the business, I was tired of prospecting. I wanted to make a lot of money but didn’t want to work that hard for it. Then I heard Mike Ferry talking about how your mind can prevent you from being successful and how you have to keep conditioning yourself and develop bigger, more desirable goals.

52:40 I cut out a picture of an Aston Martin and put it on my dream board. I looked at it for about four days and asked myself whether I wanted to work that hard to have it. I realized the only difference between me and me sitting in that car was the stuff that kept going on in my head. I made a decision that day that I was the problem.

54:09 I make a lot more money than I used to and don’t work any more time. I got my mind right, my balance right, my focus right, my energy level right and my attitude right.

55:24 I work at least 25% less now selling almost 400 houses than I did selling 50 because I was launching then. Rockets burn 70% of their fuel getting off the launch pad.

Patrick Southern 57:58

I prospect people around capital-gain landmarks. Anyone who’s bought a home and passes that two-year point, if they’re above a certain price point in my marketplace, I’ll reach out and say, “Congratulations, you’re past this point. When do you think you’re going to be moving?”

58:22 Bring something of value during a landmark. There are creative ways to work a marketplace depending on your market. Find where the service you can provide that prospect is, and the call becomes a lot easier. You’re providing service and becoming the authority they go to when they have a question.

59:01 I plan on doing 200 deals this year. October was abnormally big. I did about 32 new listings and $22 million in pending.

59:53 I do the listing side. My sister Shea does the buyer side, and Anthony does the buyer side as well. Then I have a listing coordinator, a transaction manager and a personal assistant.

1:00:20 The teams I’ve investigated are running 15% to 20% profit margins, which is crazy. We keep around 90%. We run very lean.

1:01:14 The reason I first got a buyer’s agent was because I didn’t have any time to deal with buyers anymore. The reason I got a second was because we were busting at the seams with one. It’s my obligation to feed those buyer agents with leads. We run lean because that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

Sarah Close 1:02:37

He’s bringing his clients an element of expertise and thoughtfulness that they aren’t getting from everybody else. When he’s making those calls about capital gains, my suspicion is there probably isn’t anyone else in his marketplace doing that. He’s the go-to person because he’s the authority.

Ren Jones 1:04:06

Sue Wall and Sue Miller, you’ve been doing this for 24 years. Do you still roleplay and practice scripts?

Sue Wall 1:04:14

Yes, we do. Every day.

1:04:31 We’ve had a lot of different roleplay partners throughout the years. Right now I have a roleplay partner in Florida who’s tough on me but brings up some great points and helps me think about things when I’m making calls. It’s very good for keeping your edge.

1:04:59 Sometimes it is about the words. He’s helping me bring closers into a script more often than I typically would. I’m more amiable, and he’s a little more of a driver, more direct and to the point.

Ren Jones 1:05:39

A typical expired listing might get 25, 30 or 35 calls, but they end up meeting with the same three or four people. That means you’re more persistent. The other agents hear, “We’re going to go back to the same agent,” and say, “Okay, thanks. Good luck.” You have to be ready for that response until your answer becomes a reflex.

Sue Wall 1:06:33

Of course you feel some tension, but you try one more time. You just keep asking more questions and keeping them engaged.

Sue Wall 1:06:51

Why don’t we try to meet? Wednesday at 5:00?

1:07:13 Do you know the things that I do to sell homes?

Ren Jones 1:07:15

No. What do you do?

Sue Wall 1:07:18

I’ll tell you what. I have time this afternoon at 4:00, or would tomorrow at 5:00 be better? I’d love to come over and show you what I do.

Ren Jones 1:07:38

They’re very kind, and they get the appointments and listings. They’ve taken 93 listings so far this year. You can’t practice every day for 24 years and not be effective. It’s time on task.

Sarah Close 1:08:00

The two Sues are very learning-based. I see them at seminars all the time. They’re always participating in education and working with roleplay partners. You can’t have that much of the right stuff going on and not get the results they’re getting.

Ren Jones 1:08:32

We really appreciate you joining us for the Highlights Show. We’ll do it again in about three months.

1:09:20 Most importantly, if you’ve done your job, got up, worked out, had a good breakfast, did some affirmations, roleplayed, got on the phones and prospected until about 11:30 or 12:00, returned some calls and went to lunch, then get some ice cream.

1:10:01 We’ll be back next week with someone else just like Sarah. Not only does she take two, three or four listings a week, she owns a bunch of market centers and rental property. Get on the listing side of the business and have a great life.