S1 E3February 9, 2018·57 min·Aaron Wittenstein,

How Aaron Wittenstein got nothing for 3 months then took 8 listings in one

Aaron Wittenstein moved to a new market knowing nobody, called from 8 to 8 for three months and got nothing, then took 8 listings in February. He now runs 2 hours of new lead generation and 1 hour of follow-up daily, and says 85% of his business comes from old expireds.

How Aaron Wittenstein got nothing for 3 months then took 8 listings in one
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Key takeaways

  1. Measures the commitment in hours rather than contacts, 2 hours of new lead generation and 1 hour of follow-up, because he cannot control who answers
  2. Is on the phone to brand new expireds at 7:58, and says most of his appointments get set between 8:00 and 8:15
  3. Takes 85% of his expired business from old expireds, 30 days or more after the listing came off
  4. If he cannot reach a new expired within the first two hours, he leaves it 30 days rather than joining the queue of callers
  5. Opens by asking how in the world did that place not sell, and calls himself the local realtor rather than a local realtor
  6. Closes with three options, late morning, early afternoon or Saturday, on the basis that people pick one of three
  7. Sends a Red Letter mailer costing about 500 dollars a year, which he reckons brings in one deal a quarter

Transcript

00:00 — Welcome and the Vulcan7 Challenge

Ren Jones00:02

Welcome everybody. Welcome to Roadmap. We’re live from Chicago. Live from Chicago, at the Chicago CEO Mastermind. We’ve got about 40 or 50 people at that event and every last one of them, and that was Floyd you heard barking. Every last one of them takes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 listings a week. I’m going to learn a lot because I’ll be wandering around talking to them and asking questions as we all need to improve and get stronger in what we do. Every week, every Tuesday at one o’clock Eastern or whatever time it’s where you are, we bring a guest who is doing that, taking 2, 3, 4, 5 listings.

00:46You can practice the copy tab principle and do what they do. Take a lot of notes today, ask questions while they’re on this call and learn a lot. Build a great listing business. My co-host, Carley Hathaway, from San Diego sells lot of estate. And our guest today, we’ll be introducing in about six, seven minutes. Welcome everybody. Carley, by the way, my co-host, if you have referrals for San Diego, what’s your website Carley?

Carley Hathaway01:25

carleyhathaway.com. Please feel free to refer any San Diego people to meet. Love to help them out.

Ren Jones01:31

Great, that sounds fantastic. One of the things I’d like to get, I’d like to talk about the Vulcan7 challenge again. We haven’t talked about that in a while. This is season one, episode three, and the Vulcan7 challenge. If you take the Vulcan7 challenge, your income will go up exponentially. If you’re $100,000 a year now, four or five or six or $800,000, now. If you are at… You’re going to have to hit mute Aaron for the moment. Okay, if you’ll hit your mute button that’ll help because you keep popping in and out. But we want to see you in a few minutes. The Vulcan7 challenges, what you do is, every four weeks, some people do it in a six-week period, but every four weeks, now you’re going to have to forgo going to Starbucks, you’re going to do your coffee at home, you’re going to do a few things because it’s going to cost you six to $800 a month to do this.

02:29But what you do is you get on an airplane once a month, or drive four, five hours to a nearby market, and you shadow someone who is doing what you want to do. Maybe they’re taking two listings a week, maybe they’ve built a fabulous business, they’re doing what you want to do. 98% of the time, if you call them, they will say, “Yes, come shadow me. You’re not in my market. I would love to show you what I do.” Go do that once a month. And then what happens folks, you’re gone for just over 24 hours. You fly there that afternoon, you have dinner with them. The next morning you meet them at their office early, follow them through the day, take a lot of notes, go to lunch with them and then fly or drive back home and do that. If you did it every month, that’s 12 people that become your friend that are making 600, 800, 1.2 million, $2 million, $3 million.

03:25Look at the power of that Carley. If they took the Vulcan7 challenge, how can’t you win? Remember that show Carley, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Carley Hathaway03:35

Yes.

Ren Jones03:35

Remember that?

Carley Hathaway03:36

Yes.

Ren Jones03:37

Well, that was like a one time thing.

Carley Hathaway03:39

Right.

Ren Jones03:39

This is who wants to be a millionaire every year? Make a million every year, make a million every year. Because that’s what would happen here. If they take the Vulcan7 challenge and maybe you want to take Vulcan7 challenge light. Do it every six weeks, eight times a year, you’re going to have eight powerful friends. You can’t help it. If you go and you shadow and you watch somebody do that, you will do it and you’ll do it so much faster than you would. If you didn’t do that, take the challenge folks, take the challenge. This is episode three.

04:11We’re learning a lot and what we know is we have to have people on this show that are doing that level of business. They’re working five days a week. They take six to eight weeks vacation a year. They work a nice, easy but very structured, very organized day. And they’re doing a 100, 150 transactions a year, and up. So, that’s what we’re going for and that’s what this show is about. And your questions are very important so think for what you want to ask our guest or any of us in this process, because that’s what this is about. Any thoughts, Carley?

Carley Hathaway04:51

Not so far. I’m just excited to get started. I think the challenge is such a great idea, building new friends and just copying what they do. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. I think it’s a great idea and I think everyone should give it a shot.

Ren Jones05:05

A friend of mine, he had built this great business in Virginia for many years and then his son was getting to the age where he said, “Dad, I think I want to sell real estate.” And so what he did is, he said, “Okay, great. I want you to be successful and successful quickly.” He flew to Pennsylvania and worked out of a real estate office, a real top agent for a month, doing what that agent did. But he was making phone calls and doing lead generation from that market back to his market. And then he had to go down to Florida for the next month and shadow another top agent. Now, he’s on the West Coast shadowing another one. He’s going to be doing that for the next 12 months. What’s it going to be like at the end of 12 months?

05:50What’s 12 months in your life? Just 12 months that you do that. In his case, he’s doing it full time. But if you did it just for one day a month, the impact would be so huge. Our belief system, when we see somebody do it, is so much higher than hearing it on stage, or even watching this broadcast, although it helps, when you see somebody doing it right in front of you. And one of the things we’re going to do, is we’re going to have people that are in their twenties, thirties, forties, eighties, 120-year-olds. I don’t know about that.

Carley Hathaway06:21

I don’t know about that.

Ren Jones06:24

Black, white, male, female, everything. My plan is, I’ve got a 28-year-old that does about 150 transactions that I’d like to have back again. We’ve interviewed her before. In her senior year in high school, she sold 63 homes, but she just did what dad did. She had the model, she knew exactly what to do. It’ll be fun to have her on. She does 150 transactions a year, working five days a week. It’ll be fun to have her on. And that would get people irritated to the point they’re like, “If she can do it, I can do it.”

Carley Hathaway06:55

Yeah.

Ren Jones06:56

If you have a good mix of people, especially if they’re newer on the planet and they’re already doing it and you’re like, “Golly, I got a little catching up to do.” See what happens? I wanted to introduce our guests. We’ve had him before on some of our other shows.

07:12One of the things he does is, he does this part time. He has this fabulous business, he makes all this money and then doing all these other things. He’s out having a lot of fun. He also coaches agents and helps them do what he does. He’s a big give back guy. He’s in a market like yours, Carley, where one sale is the equivalent of three sales in the rest of the country. He’s doing, takes a couple listings a week, and he’s up in Westchester, White Plains, all up that way. Please give a warm welcome to Aaron Wittenstein.

Carley Hathaway07:45

Aaron.

07:47 — Meeting Aaron Wittenstein

Aaron Wittenstein07:47

Feel like I need to clap for myself or something. What’s up? Carley, I don’t think we’ve ever met. Nice to informally meet you, how are you?

Carley Hathaway07:53

Nice to meet you.

Aaron Wittenstein07:54

Big hugs. We hug, we hug, we hug. There we go, oh yeah. Ren, what’s up man? How are you?

Ren Jones08:00

Good to see you. Aaron came and spoke to several real estate agents here in Cincinnati. We invited him down and a lot of people were excited to see him. We filled the room and he just basically outlined his business. And a lot of people, because of that Aaron, there are a lot of people that really are on a big trajectory. This will be a lot of fun today.

Aaron Wittenstein08:20

Thank you.

Ren Jones08:21

I’m excited to have you here and pick your brain and who knows where this will go because we learn a lot each time.

Aaron Wittenstein08:27

My brain is a weird place today so just be prepared.

Ren Jones08:31

There we go. We’ll have a lot of fun. Let’s jump in. When you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, you take a couple listings with these, but your commission checks are what, 12, 15, 18,000-

Aaron Wittenstein08:46

Yeah, give or take. Keep in mind that I’m in a very… I do less transactions. I was an agent in Illinois for 12 years to run a decent business. And I moved to New York four years ago, rebuilt my entire business. Everybody looks at me and say your price range may be five, $700,000. But the difference is that my deals are the equivalent of doing two to three deals. I may do about 25 million, average, a half a million, whatever that comes out to be. But the workload that I put in is equivalent to double because attorneys suck, okay.

09:21I’ll sell every deal. Not all of them, just like 80% of them. I’ll do it, but the majority of homes that I sell, I need to sell twice. It’s all relative, because keep in mind it’s not where you work, and what you make, is all relative across the country. For some people, I was in Illinois, I did a $200,000 deal. I could do three to four of them. That would take me the same amount of time to sell one 800. It’s all relative wherever you go.

Carley Hathaway09:51

Got it.

Ren Jones09:52

Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Well, you do all this give back. And I was just thinking, I wrote down something, Iwas sitting there thinking, what do we talk about today? If you see agents going down the wrong road, that’s not so good. You see agents going down the wrong road all the time. What are the mistakes that they make that, if you had to make a list of five things they do that they shouldn’t do?

10:19 — Time management and mindset

Aaron Wittenstein10:19

There’s two things that pop into my mind. It’s time management and mindset. Those are the two things that people really fail at, is 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 that you do to yourself where it comes. For example, what today looked like for me. It was take my son to school day. I wouldn’t have missed that for the world. I don’t miss that stuff. I refuse to miss it. But I got in and my day is totally off because I’m not sticking to my exact schedule, all right.

11:03But what you’re saying about working is, I get in the office at 7:45. I’m home between four and five every day. I don’t work Sundays. I work Saturdays by appointment only. It’s me right now on the team and this beautiful person behind me, Priscilla, you want to say hi? She’s the better looking version of the team. And we have a VA. It’s the three of us. And we’re doing this year, we’ll do 20, 25 million, but it’s all up here. And-

Carley Hathaway11:30

When you say you get off in the mornings, like today, you’re a little bit off so you have a very regimented morning-

Aaron Wittenstein11:36

Extremely, extremely.

Carley Hathaway11:38

Can you go through that with us?

Aaron Wittenstein11:39

What’s that?

Carley Hathaway11:39

Can you go through your morning routine with us?

Aaron Wittenstein11:43

Of course, yeah. How crazy do you want it to be?

Carley Hathaway11:44

Crazy.

11:46 — A five o’clock start and a 7:58 dial

Aaron Wittenstein11:46

I wake up at five, my alarm goes off at five, my wife yells at me at five, for the alarm going off. I’m working on getting it towards this, okay? I’ll tell you what it is and I’m working on getting it towards it. I wake up at five, I go in, I’ll leave that 15 minutes to your imagination of what happens. I will go upstairs. What I’m working on is a little bit of meditation, haven’t gotten towards it yet, but I’m trying for. I write out three things that I’m grateful for. Three things that I’m going to be intentional for the day. When I write intentionality, and I’m sorry if I’m talking so fast, let me slow it down. The intentionality is to be able to just, three things that no matter what, if I do these things for the day, I’ve had a successful day. Then typically I’m there at about 5:30.

12:33The coffee, have a cup of coffee. I steam my milk up because I like it steamed. I like steamed milk. I sit down, I check, I clear my email box out. As one of the first things I do is I clear out my email box. I get it down to the important stuff. I get anything out of the way that I want to get done. For example, my Expired mastery course today, I was working on that first thing just to make sure I had my eyes dotted Ts crossed. 6:30, I have my gym in my garage. I work out for 30 minutes, give or take. Then I go take a shower. I let the dogs out, I feed the dogs, I kiss… I got three small children, I’ve got a five, almost six-year-old and two and a half year old twins.

Carley Hathaway13:19

Oh my God.

Aaron Wittenstein13:19

Yeah, I know. That’s crazy. I haven’t slept in three years. I had hair at some point.

Carley Hathaway13:27

All right.

Aaron Wittenstein13:28

I kissed them. I’m out the door. I’m in the office by 7:45. I’m on the phone calling those brand new expireds at 7:58. And that’s what my day typically looks like. And-

Carley Hathaway13:38

Can I interrupt?

Aaron Wittenstein13:39

Of course.

Carley Hathaway13:39

Do you have a goal of how many people you want to reach on the phone in your morning calls?

13:45 — Two hours of lead gen, not five contacts

Aaron Wittenstein13:45

Nope. My goal is to do two hours of brand-new lead generation, a one-hour lead follow up. Because I can’t control the amount of people that answer the phone. I can only control the time that I’m committing to actually do the activity.

Carley Hathaway13:57

That’s smart, okay.

Aaron Wittenstein13:58

Because when you do that it’s like, you want to set yourself up for success and the thing is that if I say I want to talk to five people, otherwise it’s not a successful day. What if only one person answers the phone?

Carley Hathaway14:13

Right.

Aaron Wittenstein14:13

Then you failed. But if I say I’m going to call for two hours and expect it within two hours, I should get four legit contacts. That’s good. But if I don’t, I at least made the effort. No matter what, it’s two hours worth of lead gen first thing in the morning. I used to do three, but I’ve got so much other stuff going on, I just can’t do three right now because I’ve got enough business coming from elsewhere.

Carley Hathaway14:36

Okay. And what time do you think is the best time to start calling and why?

Aaron Wittenstein14:38

The first thing in the morning, like eight o’clock. Because right now, especially with Expireds, you got to be the first one. If you’re not the first one. I wait till 30 days from now.

Carley Hathaway14:48

Okay.

Aaron Wittenstein14:50

I call them right off the bat. My typical phone calls look like brand new Expireds, brand new FSBOs. I’ve been having a lot more excess with FSBOs lately so I do FSBOs then I do 30 to 60 day Expireds.

Carley Hathaway15:07

Okay, good.

Aaron Wittenstein15:10

That’s my day, that’s my morning.

Carley Hathaway15:14

Awesome.

Ren Jones15:14

And are you off the cuff or is it scripted?

Aaron Wittenstein15:17

All my stuff is scripted. I’ve got a script that I utilize. I know I’ve told you before, I teach this stuff. I teach my scripts because I use scripts that nobody else uses other than the people that I’ve taught them to that are totally different in what people are utilizing. And they work out really, really well. And I’ve had a lot of success. I’ve written them on my own.

Ren Jones15:40

Fantastic. And what’s so important about scripts and dialogues? Because we, and here’s where I’m going with this, you’ve got a lot of people listening right now that go, “Oh, I would never use a script. I would never use a script.” And I’d like your story on that.

15:58 — Why winging it does not work

Aaron Wittenstein15:58

Yeah, I mean people don’t want to use a script because they sound scripted. The thing is about scripting is that you’re going to suck in the beginning. You’re not going to be very good at all. And you got to start somewhere. And why wing it? Winging it doesn’t work. Winging it does not work. You need a plan. There’s nothing wrong with… What’s going to happen is you’re going to start utilizing these scripts and you’re going to say, this one sucks. This one doesn’t feel like me. This one doesn’t, this one feels like me. Oh wait a second, this one makes sense if I combine it with this one. You wind up making your own scripts by using others because you need a roadmap on what to do.

16:41I mean you just really need that roadmap, otherwise you’re setting yourself up. I remember my first Expired call I ever made, “Hi, this is Aaron. Do you want to list your house with me?” That was my… And now I’m like, “Hi, this is Aaron. I’m the local realtors. You’re probably fully aware your property’s on the market, just came off. It looks like a nice three bedroom, four bath, two and a half bathroom, 2,500 square feet. I’m just trying to figure out how in the world did that place not sell?” I could say my script up and down, left, right, top to bottom in my sleep.

Ren Jones17:09

Would it be fair to say that a script, once you’ve got it to where you’ve internalized it, it’s going to get a better result than we-

Aaron Wittenstein17:16

Yes.

Ren Jones17:19

Because there are people that believe that winging it is a better result.

Aaron Wittenstein17:20

No, no, no, no, no. You’re-

Ren Jones17:24

It’s a thought. I don’t think it’s a good thought.

Aaron Wittenstein17:25

How can I be nice-

Ren Jones17:27

We know it’s been proven not that scripts carry the day.

Aaron Wittenstein17:31

All I want to say is put two people up, one with scripts and the one that doesn’t, and tell me how successful they.

Ren Jones17:37

There you go. I agree.

Carley Hathaway17:40

I agree too.

17:42After you do your morning calls, you’re Expireds and your FSBOs, you said you do about an hour of follow-up calls, can you talk something about that?

Aaron Wittenstein17:49

Yeah, that’s done at some point during the day when I’m able to allot an hour. What I try and do is I look at my calendar that evening before I go to bed and I try and figure out when can I fit in an hour of lead follow up.

Carley Hathaway18:03

Okay. All right, go ahead.

18:06Let’s see what else. Let me ask you this, do you do a lot of, like, do you track your numbers? Do you… No, okay.

Aaron Wittenstein18:15

For all you guys, I know that this person, my profile is at C is like a negative 37. My coach Andy, he yells at me because I don’t track my numbers, I track my hours.

Ren Jones18:25

But you know, you should, is that what you’re saying? Because Andy said you should and you push back, saying, “I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to.”

Aaron Wittenstein18:32

Oh everybody, I know I should. I just don’t do it because I’m a bad person.

Ren Jones18:36

You’ll eat brussels sprout, one day.

Carley Hathaway18:36

You’re bad person.

Aaron Wittenstein18:38

I’m a bad person so I didn’t know, I-

Ren Jones18:41

Where performances measured, performances gain.

Aaron Wittenstein18:44

It on my list.

Ren Jones18:45

T trackhose numbers.

Aaron Wittenstein18:48

It’s on my list. As long as I can tell my wife to make me do it, I’m sure it’ll get done.

Carley Hathaway18:54

There you go.

Ren Jones18:55

Well, while we’re on the topic, the mindset-

Carley Hathaway18:59

Yeah.

Ren Jones18:59

Some people come in, they get excited, they’re going to watch this. They’re going to be excited, they’re going to come in tomorrow and they’re going to do it, and the next day they’re going to do it. And then the day after that, they’re going to be like, this little voice sitting on their shoulder, “I don’t want, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to.” How do you do that? How do you work with that so that you have that consistency?

Aaron Wittenstein19:22

Well, you got to know your big why, on why you do what you do. I’m not in the mood to start crying right now. But it has to do with my children, okay. Ren knows it when I start explaining that, because I’ve had a lot of trouble with that lately. Well, I know Ren, sorry, I can explain this. I know we talked about this a little bit yesterday.

Ren Jones19:42

Yes, please.

Aaron Wittenstein19:45

Language I should probably not use four-letter words, right?

Ren Jones19:49

That’s helpful.

19:50 — The big why behind the phone calls

Aaron Wittenstein19:50

I’m going to stay away from four-letter words. We’re we’re all messed up. It’s a question on what level of messed up we are, okay. For me, I’m messed up. You wouldn’t really notice it. But two years ago I got diagnosed with bipolar too. What that is, when you’re bipolar, you’re very up and down, and up and down, and you go from these things where you’ll go out and spend thousands upon thousands of dollars, then you’ll just crash. I don’t have that. What happens to me is I’ll get in these manic states where I will come up with the coolest ideas in the entire world, but I also feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin, which is where I’m at right now, if you can’t tell. Then what’ll happen is you’ll crash, and you’ll crash very hard, and you’ll wind up getting in a depressed state.

20:43And that’s something that I suffer with on a daily basis. Where it’s very difficult for me to be able to come in and do what I need to do. Yet I do it because I have a reason to do it. If I show you guys, fuck, sorry, part of my… Sorry, if I’m with my kids, if I showed you my kids, the reason I wake up, I look at them, I see them , and it’s so hard for me to not do it because I’m doing it for a better, a greater good if you will. That I struggle with this every day, and I find it to be unacceptable for people not to be able to do it because if I can do it, when this was about a month ago, I couldn’t get out of bed for three weeks. But I still managed to be able to come in and this happened last year too.

21:41I still managed to come in and get done, my lead generation, because I knew that I’ve got people that are depending on me. I’ve got a Priscilla over here, she knows I love her to death. If I don’t come in and do my job, she can’t feed her child. And that’s important to me. I can’t feed my children. That’s important to me. I can’t take care of my family. And that’s something that I suffer with. Like I said, we’re all messed up. I just know what I’m messed up with. And the nice part about it is that the schedule that I have, really helps me regulate it. But it’s those days where that talk up here that you were talking about before, really you just got to tell it to shut up and you got to figure out a way to silence it and just activity, because activity begets activity.

22:27And like they say, idle hands or what do they say? Idle hands are the devil’s play place or something like that. That the more you sit and you don’t do anything and you let the inactivity take over is when it just continues on. The way that I look at it is, if I can do it right now, yesterday, I was jumping out of my skin. I couldn’t sit down, but I still managed to get in two hours of lead gen because it’s that important. I still managed to get a day, I had to take a break in between but I managed to get it done. Today, I had my Expired mastery course.

22:59I did not want to teach people anything today, but they paid me good money to be there. And it’s my job and my duty and my obligation to stick with what I committed to. I’m trying to figure out everything I can. I see shrink, I see a therapist, I do everything that I can to better myself. I exercise to better myself so I can be more there, and more present, and be better to myself. I hope that kind of answers the question. I don’t know how in depth you’re expecting me to get there.

Ren Jones23:27

If I’m clear, one of your strongest anchor against all the other talk is your kids.

Aaron Wittenstein23:36

Yup.

Ren Jones23:37

Okay, and Priscilla, and all the people you’ve committed to because you do a lot of give back with agents. To help them get this thing figured out. All of those people are counting on you, the kids especially. And everybody’s counting on you. So you have to show up even on the days… When we look at that, that’s accountability. And any way you can surround yourself with accountability, accountability partners, your kids, your spouse. I know people have put, that says now, have a little chart on at home and the kids follow along, if dad takes eight listings this month, we’re going to Disneyland next-

Aaron Wittenstein24:21

Yeah.

Ren Jones24:21

Things like… We have to create that because there going to be too many days where we don’t feel like it and there’s no accountability around to make that happen.

Aaron Wittenstein24:31

But see, I’ve done it so much or number one, I don’t have the luxury of not doing it. But number two, it’s ingrained in my body right now. Where if I don’t do it, it doesn’t feel… I could go yesterday, last month we took… For me in my market, taking eight listings is really good. Nobody does that in my market to take eight listings in a month. It’s not done. I took eight listings in a month. Yes, I sold seven of them this month. I’ve only taken two listings this month, but it still doesn’t feel like enough, which is the hard part on me because I’m very hard on myself. It’s like it’s never good enough because it’s ingrained in me to get up, do what I need to do. Otherwise, I feel, and the part about, I hate about the big why is that it comes from a place of pain and it comes from a place of anger, where it’s like my purpose here is to come in and help the ones that I love.

Ren Jones25:24

Perfect.

Aaron Wittenstein25:25

That’s my purpose. My purpose is to help the ones that I love and there’s no way that I’m letting them down.

Ren Jones25:31

That’s a win-win. We have to figure out, everybody has to get some a big why. They have to get their accountability in place. They have to have their reasons for doing this. It’s like being, you go to the gym, if you go by yourself, you might miss a few days unless somebody is there that you agreed to meet at the gym. Somebody’s standing there at 6:00 AM meeting for you. You’ll be there on those days and somebody else. Everybody on this call that wants to get this thing figured out, set up that accountability. You have no kids, you have no spouse, you’re going to have to set up some type of accountability to make this happen. Or there’ll be too many days where you tell yourself a story and then it doesn’t happen.

Aaron Wittenstein26:13

Here’s the thing though, is that the people, if you got someone on here who’s young, I mean Carley, you, I don’t know, you look like you’re a younger than I am, but you know what I mean. I don’t know. Do you have any kids?

Carley Hathaway26:25

No kids. I’m 34.

Aaron Wittenstein26:27

Okay, but the thing is that you’re working for something greater down the road. Is that if I would’ve looked back when I was 21 years old and first licensed is that I cheated myself.

26:40I cheated myself because I’m in a position right now where I need to sit on the phone for two hours a day until I find those right people, because I didn’t do the work I needed. I should be a multimillionaire right now. I should be but I’m not because I didn’t do the work that I needed to do, because I didn’t think that I had that accountability. The accountability comes from here. It has to start here. The drive has to start here. The passion has to start right here. Otherwise, the other ones is that just, even if I did, that’s just helped me realize it, but it starts here, I don’t know.

Ren Jones27:19

It does. Yeah, that are questions people want to hear Expired scripts. But really if you, and we’ll do, we’ll go into a couple full scripts here shortly. The mind, that piece that he’s talking about right here, folks, this is the bigger piece. This is the bigger piece. Because what happens is somebody will take eight things and then the next month they’re so busy servicing them in all the pendings, they stop taking more listings. The mindset will keep you going, because the more listings you take, the more business you do, the harder it is to keep going and getting more. Because you’ve got this huge number of active and pending listings and closings coming up and you’ve got all these things coming at you.

28:07The mindset piece is the driving force you’ve got to have in there. Otherwise, you’re going to tell yourself that story. You’re going to say, well, I’ve got 32 active impending listings. I’ve never had that before. I can take a week off and just work. No, you can’t. You can’t. You’ve got to have that accountability. You’ve got to have the mindset. We can ask all the scripts all day long, but the mindset is also the passion. Notice his passion. Notice Aaron’s, when he’s talking to an Expired, it’s not the words of the script, it’s the passion they feel when he says them, they’re like, “I think we should meet, come over.”

28:48They don’t know what it is, but they know this person. They feel his intensity, they feel, you can feel it on this call. We’re not watching paint dry here folks.

29:02 — Scripts do not matter if you will not dial

Aaron Wittenstein29:02

Everybody to hear the sexy stuff. The sexy stuff is scripting. Scripting, it doesn’t. Scripts don’t matter if you’re not going to actually pick up the phone and do it. And if you don’t have the reason to do it and why you’re doing it, what’s the reason of doing it in the first place? Because you’re going to do a half-ass job.

Carley Hathaway29:19

Yeah.

Aaron Wittenstein29:21

This is New York attitude. That’s why I’m swearing. Swearing, is our second nature. It’s like, we speak three languages. We speak English, we speak swearing, and we speak sarcasm here.

29:32And we will definitely talk about scripts. I just think that is the least important. You can sit there, I can give you my script, you can read it and you will get good at it. It’s just everything else that comes between the ears, is the stuff that people don’t take enough effort and focus in on. That’s why I focus, when we’re talking about the Expired mastery course, with that, I focus so much on mindset, because it’s so important. Mindset is so, I can’t begin to tell you how important mindset and time management is. It means everything.

Ren Jones30:02

It does, it carries the day. That’s the big piece. Good, good, good, good. What else should we be covering here? There are people here they want to get to where you are.

Aaron Wittenstein30:14

It’s an easy flight to New York, then you can be exactly where I’m at.

Ren Jones30:17

All right, so everybody go shadow Aaron, fly to Westchester.

Aaron Wittenstein30:22

We have a direct airport. You can fly into Westchester County Airport. That is 15 minutes from where I live. There’s a Crown Plaza right down the street from my office. There’s a Morton’s, if we want to eat there, we get some killer sushi. Whatever you want. We’ll hang out and have a drink some sake and have a good time.

Ren Jones30:35

Do you have a headset they can wear too? Or do they need to bring their own? They should probably bring their own.

Aaron Wittenstein30:40

Well, I don’t use the headset. I can hop on speakerphone. I just use this for interviews and stuff.

Ren Jones30:45

Gotcha, gotcha. I mean, when they’re making their calls too.

Aaron Wittenstein30:48

Oh yeah. No, I got a whole station over here they could use, whole station.

Ren Jones30:51

Okay, good.

Carley Hathaway30:52

Let me ask you this. You only have three people total on your team.

Ren Jones30:57

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway30:58

How do you handle buyers?

Aaron Wittenstein31:00

I don’t work with buyers.

Carley Hathaway31:02

Okay, what about, obviously, you’re selling someone’s home, they don’t have anywhere to go. What do you do?

Aaron Wittenstein31:07

I refer them out to agents here because the biggest problem I’m having in my growth trajectory right now is that I can’t find additional talent because it’s very hard to find people in general. And I could have people that are average. I don’t want average, I’m building a hundred million dollar producing team. It’s going to be 14 people deep. And the person that I’m hiring right now is the person that I’m grooming to become my sales manager. That’s the person I’m looking for.

31:34And I’m not settling because what winds up happening is that, I remember, Ren you know what Tim Hale is. I went to his training and he said, “A plus people don’t need to be trained. I’m not looking for B talent, I’m looking for a talent. That’s it. And I’ve yet to have that right person.” And I don’t remember the exact saying off the top of my head, but the crux of it was is, do your thing, be yourself, the right person will find you. And that’s what I am banking on actually happening here soon. Fingers from your mouth to God’s ears. Unless Carley, you want to come to New York? We can work together.

Carley Hathaway32:15

Oh, maybe could work.

Aaron Wittenstein32:16

I could do some looks in my business.

Carley Hathaway32:23

I don’t think I could handle the cold, to be honest with you.

Aaron Wittenstein32:25

We’re going to have a tropical storm or something. I don’t even know. Jose’s coming to visit us from what I understand. The tropical storm, Jose. So-

Ren Jones32:35

Oh, the San Diegoians are wearing scarves and sweaters when it’s 65 degrees.

Aaron Wittenstein32:39

Oh, you guys are crazy. You guys are crazy.

Carley Hathaway32:41

Yeah.

Ren Jones32:41

Why don’t we do a couple scripts?

Carley Hathaway32:46

Yeah.

Ren Jones32:47

What do you want to do? FSBOs, Expireds. What do you want to do? Call around a recent sale. What-

Carley Hathaway32:52

They’re asking for expired on here.

Aaron Wittenstein32:53

Yeah, we could definitely do an Expired script. Ring, ring.

Ren Jones33:00

Why don’t you be the seller, Carley?

Carley Hathaway33:02

All right. Hello.

33:03 — A live expired role play

Aaron Wittenstein33:03

Oh, hi. I’m looking for the owner of 123 Smith Street.

Carley Hathaway33:07

Yeah, that’s me.

Aaron Wittenstein33:08

Oh, hi, my name is Aaron. I’m the local realtor. You’re probably fully aware, it looks like your property came off the market. I’m just trying to figure out how in the world did that place not sell?

Carley Hathaway33:16

I have no idea. My home is amazing.

Aaron Wittenstein33:22

Sure, sure, sure. Well, let me ask you this, if you had to pinpoint one thing, what do you think happened?

Carley Hathaway33:25

I really truly have no idea.

Aaron Wittenstein33:27

Okay, so you have absolutely no clue why your home didn’t sell?

Carley Hathaway33:32

I mean, I don’t know, maybe it’s overpriced. I don’t think it’s perfectly priced and it’s a beautiful home and I don’t know.

Aaron Wittenstein33:38

Sure, sure. Now, are you vacant or is the house vacant, or are you currently living in it?

Carley Hathaway33:41

I live in it.

Aaron Wittenstein33:42

You live in it right now, okay, gotcha. Let me ask you, in a perfect world, if the home had sold, when did you want to be in the new home by?

Carley Hathaway33:50

Right away.

Aaron Wittenstein33:51

Right away. Got it, got it. Okay, so what my team does, we actually specialize in selling homes around the market for extended periods of dime without selling. I’ve taken listings around the market as long as 1,039 days and flipped around in 29. How can I help you?

Carley Hathaway34:04

Well, how come you can do that, and my other agent couldn’t?

Aaron Wittenstein34:07

Oh, because I’m really good at my job.

Carley Hathaway34:10

Yeah, but so is my agent or so I thought, I don’t know.

Aaron Wittenstein34:13

Sure, sure, sure. Well, here’s the thing, selling an expired listing is a really different animal. It looks like you had the property on the market for what, 331 days?

Carley Hathaway34:23

Yeah, about that.

Aaron Wittenstein34:25

Okay, sure. Yeah, just off the top of my head right now, I’m looking at two things that really stick out at me on the property. I’d love to stop by and share the rest with you.

Carley Hathaway34:31

Okay, so-

Aaron Wittenstein34:34

What works better for you? Late morning, early afternoon, Saturday?

Carley Hathaway34:37

Early afternoon, let’s do it.

Aaron Wittenstein34:40

You’re too easy.

Carley Hathaway34:41

I was easy. No, I don’t want you to come to my house. It couldn’t get sold in 300 days. What can you do differently? I don’t-

Aaron Wittenstein34:47

I can sell your house.

Carley Hathaway34:50

Huh?

Aaron Wittenstein34:50

No, here’s the thing, when you look at an expired listing like yours, for example, okay, there’s many different reasons that the home didn’t sell. Right off the bat from what I’m looking at right here is, did you have a professional photographer come take the photos?

Carley Hathaway35:06

I don’t really know. I wasn’t there for that part. But when they sent me the link, they didn’t look very good.

Aaron Wittenstein35:11

Yeah, that’s the one thing. And also I’m looking at pricing. I’m not looking at reducing the price or modifying the price. I’m looking at strategic pricing, okay. Talking about strategic pricing, remarks, other items like that. Like I said, what my team does is we specialize in homes around the market. For example, how many that didn’t sell. I’d love to stop by and have a conversation. What works better, late morning, early afternoon, or Saturday?

Carley Hathaway35:33

Late morning.

Aaron Wittenstein35:33

Yeah, the reason that I say late morning, early afternoon, or Saturday, is because those are the times that I work.

Carley Hathaway35:40

Okay.

Aaron Wittenstein35:43

When you give somebody three options, what winds up happening is they take one. And I know everybody’s asking, can we get more into the scripts? Can you get copies of the scripts? All this stuff. Go to my website, expiredmasteryelite.com, expiredmasteryelite.com. We’re currently taking enrollees for October, okay. Expired Master Elite. We get so in depth on this stuff. You would’ve No idea. Because it’s what, gosh, we’re at almost six-hour class right now with everything. And we just broke it down into five payments of 99 bucks a month, or some cheap crap like that. It’s expired mastery elite, e-l-i-t-e.com. Someone was just asking me that. But you were way too easy, too nice.

Carley Hathaway36:33

Well, I was trying to give you things to overcome and you were just on it. You did good.

Aaron Wittenstein36:37

See, this is a New York style. Ren knows what the New York style is.

Ren Jones36:43

Well, but it’s the intensity. It’s not the words of the script. They can take these all they want. What they really need to do is… And they can watch this video… Post tomorrow. They could go to this part of the video, listen to you do that, drag it back. Listen to you do it again, drag it back, listen to you do it again. Play it over, and over, and over, and over, and over. A 120 times and then-

Aaron Wittenstein37:12

But keep in mind, I’ve done this for, God, I’ve been using this script for years. It’s ingrained in me, but what people don’t realize is they think like, okay, the phone call is never going to go that way. I don’t remember the last time I’ve had a phone call like that, all right. We’re going to call back, and you’re going to get callbacks, and you’re going to, what you call it, you’re going to get a lot of people that don’t want to sell. You just got to get a vibe on what they’re doing it but within the script that I’ve broken down. I have it all down to why we do everything that we do. Why do I ask for the homeowner of 123 Smith Street? Can you guess?

Carley Hathaway37:57

Well, yeah. You don’t want to waste your time with someone that doesn’t own it.

Aaron Wittenstein38:00

Have you ever asked for a dead person? I say, my name is Aaron. I’m the local realtor. The reason I say the is it brings you a power play, all right. The reason I talk fast is because I’m in New York, but they can’t hang up the phone on you if you talk fast.

Carley Hathaway38:26

Yeah, or in your-

Aaron Wittenstein38:27

There’s a lot of different things. And then I know what people are asking me about FSBOs. I call FSBOs too. I call old Expireds. My old Expired script is very simple. Should we do my old Expired script?

Ren Jones38:39

Sure.

Aaron Wittenstein38:40

Hi, I’m sorry. Ring, ring.

Ren Jones38:44

Hello.

38:45 — Changing the opener for a hot expired

Aaron Wittenstein38:45

Hi, I’m looking for the owner of 123 Smith Street.

Ren Jones38:49

Speaking.

Carley Hathaway38:54

He’s already reluctant.

Aaron Wittenstein38:57

All right, well, my name is Aaron. I’m the local realtor. As you’re probably aware, by the onslaught of phone calls that you received over the last month that your home is off the market. Did the calls die down at all?

Ren Jones39:10

Thank God. What are you doing here?

Aaron Wittenstein39:13

What am I…? But you see the difference. It’s a very subtle difference. And I’m going to use the same script.

Ren Jones39:19

Yeah, good. Okay, so that’s… You just changed the opener.

Aaron Wittenstein39:23

Yeah.

Ren Jones39:23

Okay. All right, that’s fair. That works. That works. And whether they have this script or a different script with the intensity and the passion. Can you comment on listening? Because you’re doing this script, can you comment on listening?

Aaron Wittenstein39:39

He didn’t get the joke.

Ren Jones39:46

Because when you internalize the script, it allows you to listen.

Aaron Wittenstein39:49

Yes, because what I’ll do with this… Once you get it, you… There’s a difference between listening and hearing. When you listen, you’re listening to what they’re saying. When you’re hearing, you’re actually knowing what they need, okay. Because when I’m on the phone, I’m looking, by the way that they answer, I can tell what their personality profile is.

40:12Right? Because right off the bat you’re going to know if they’re either a DC, dominant, or numbers, or dominant, or what’s the C stand for? I call it a numbers person. I call it a numbers person.

Ren Jones40:23

Very direct.

Aaron Wittenstein40:23

Compliant, compliant. Which I don’t agree with it. But they’re direct or you’re going to know they’re an IS, which is interpersonal or stable. Based on the way they answer, then I can tailor make the phone call. This is something else that we go over an expired mastery and trajectory, we can tailor, make that phone call towards that particular person as well based on how they speak.

Ren Jones40:45

Got it, got it, got it, wonderful. Let’s open it up for some questions in the chat there. And I don’t see any good ones yet, but they’re coming up. How do you handle a seller that is already listed with another agent when calling old Expireds?

Aaron Wittenstein41:00

Ah, you move on because that’s illegal.

Ren Jones41:05

Yeah.

Aaron Wittenstein41:05

Oh yeah, it’s right. So, you used the four-letter word next?

41:07Yep, oh, I’m so sorry, you got a great agent. All the best.

Ren Jones41:11

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, more questions. Questions.

Aaron Wittenstein41:18

Oh, I lost Ren.

Carley Hathaway41:19

Ren, your sound is paused. Ren. Oh, there you go. Oh, it paused again.

Ren Jones41:27

There we go. There we go. I think I’m… Now, I lost my video. It’s here. Just cut… Oh, there we go. Okay, good. And I know you said brand new FSBOs first and then 30 to 60 day Expireds. Is there any reason why you don’t do new Expireds first? He does new Expireds first. “You have to be the first,” he said. You have to be the first one calling 8:00 AM. Be the first one calling. It’s like a Mexican piñata. Notice the kids that don’t get in there early, they don’t get any good candy. Fires go fast.

Aaron Wittenstein42:02

It’s true. No, you’ve got to be the first one to call. I’ve been calling Expireds now for four years, and it’s just getting more challenging, and more challenging, and more challenging. After I started the Facebook group, and started going Facebook live into the stuff, everybody, and their mother starts calling. I don’t know, I think it’s all my fault.

Ren Jones42:21

It is your fault. How do you handle it if you’re not the first one calling? Okay, let’s say, because you call at eight and at 8:05, 8:10, you’re rolling, and then you get somebody that’s already talked to six people. What you-

Aaron Wittenstein42:35

All you do is modify the first part again. Hi, I’m looking for the owner of 123 Smith Street. Yes, my name’s Aaron. I’m sure I’m the 17th agent to call you to let you know your property came off the market and then just go right into the script. It’s just a slight modification of the same script over and over and over again.

Ren Jones42:53

Yeah, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Now, we’re getting some good questions here. Do you ever use text messaging?

Aaron Wittenstein42:59

Yes, the only one that I’ve found that works, like I said, we get into this a lot more. We get in pretty in depth. Hang on one second, hold on, can you guys hear me okay?

Ren Jones43:11

I can still hear you.

Aaron Wittenstein43:15

My speaker just went out. Hang on. Hang on, hang on, hang on.

Carley Hathaway43:21

Technical difficulties.

Aaron Wittenstein43:26

There we go, there we go. No, it’s very simple. Are you still accepting offers on 123 Smith Street?

Ren Jones43:31

Okay, good. Fair enough. Now, I’d really like this next one because people say this and it takes them a year or two to figure it out and they need to get this. It says, “My fault, must have misheard. Lol. Is eight not too early?” What do we know about eight o’clock calling Expireds? What do we know about that?

43:55 — Why 8:00 to 8:15 sets the most appointments

Aaron Wittenstein43:55

The most appointments I set is between 8:00 and 8:15 in the morning.

Ren Jones44:01

And that’s true with everybody that calls Expireds. If you’re calling at nine o’clock, you won’t be doing it long.

Aaron Wittenstein44:08

Yeah, that’s my opinion is-

Ren Jones44:10

Eight o’clock, yes. And the law says 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM, you can call at 08:00. How’s somebody going to act if you reach them on their phone at nine o’clock, let’s put it that way. If you reach them on the phone at nine o’clock, Aaron, what would that be like compared to reaching at eight o’clock?

Aaron Wittenstein44:26

Well, here’s the thing. This is what I want to say is people say when’s the best time to call? The reason is, the day hasn’t beat their ass yet. By nine, people are like, “Why don’t you call at five?” Number one, it’s not the best time for me. And number two, do you want to bother somebody while they’re on their way to work? Or do you want to bother somebody while they’re eating dinner with their family? And by nine o’clock, they’re already in their office. They don’t want to be bothered because their day has begun. Typically, people start work at nine o’clock in the morning. Between eight and nine, they’re either at home, they’re brushing their teeth, they’re getting their kids ready for school, they’re having a cup of coffee, they’re driving to work. That is a much better time to reach somebody. Not calling at eight o’clock, that’s what I consider a limiting belief because what I will tell you is the best time to actually call is probably about 7:45. I just can’t get to the house quick enough, out of the house quick enough in the morning.

Ren Jones45:15

Gotcha. Somebody to say, because they’re going to have to find this out the hard way. They’ll probably end up getting business in some other way. Expireds and FSBOs is never going to be a… Somebody’s like, “Well, I live in a retirement community in a resort area, and people get mad if I call early. They’re a little annoyed because it’s eight, but they’re really annoyed if you’re number 12, that’s calling. They’ve got to work through that, in a resort area, heck, half of those are absentee. You’re calling them in some other state.

Aaron Wittenstein45:51

Yeah, and keep in mind, nowadays, like I said, I realize if I don’t get them within the first hour, I’m not calling them for 30 days.

Ren Jones45:54

And I’m with you. I didn’t call them for three weeks. If you didn’t get them in that 8:00 to 8:15 time, and sure a couple people would be a little irritated. Isn’t it a little early? That’s so much easier to handle.

Aaron Wittenstein46:07

Yeah.

Ren Jones46:07

That’s so much easier to handle.

Aaron Wittenstein46:09

But if you get someone that’s cranky in their early, say, “I’m so sorry for calling you so early in the morning. What my team does is we specialize in property…” And you just keep going on with the script.

Carley Hathaway46:17

Yeah.

Ren Jones46:17

There you go, you just, yeah.

Aaron Wittenstein46:19

You know what I mean? And like I said, someone put in here that if you prospect, you’re not always going to be the first person, that’s true. That’s why you utilize after… It depends on which market, my market is uncompetitive. I know areas like Phoenix, Arizona, stuff like that. People are calling it like six or seven o’clock in the morning. That’s just rude. Don’t do that. But-

Ren Jones46:42

Well, and this is the disclaimer here. The law says 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM. That’s the law.

Aaron Wittenstein46:50

Exactly, and people… But then it’s like, if you’re not, let me paraphrase this. If you’re not going to call within the first two hours, wait 30 days, that’s it. If you’re not going to call within the first two hours, wait 30 days because then the market’s going to die down a bit. Ren, wouldn’t you agree with me on that a little bit?

Ren Jones47:09

Yeah, was mine was three weeks. Yours was 30 days. But I got a couple listings because you waited that extra week. I like to pull his chain. Do you ever mail letters to Expireds?

Aaron Wittenstein47:26

I do the Red Letter mailer.

Ren Jones47:30

Gotcha, what’s a Red Letter mailer?

47:34 — The Red Letter mailer

Aaron Wittenstein47:34

You probably can’t read my handwriting. This is-

Ren Jones47:37

That’s just a few reasons your home didn’t sell. Call me to go over the rest, Aaron. Oh, gotcha.

Carley Hathaway47:43

Oh, that’s smart.

Ren Jones47:43

Oh, there we go. Good.

Aaron Wittenstein47:43

That’s it.

Ren Jones47:51

Folks, that’s the gravy, not the Turkey. Don’t think you can mail and build a business. It’s just mail and build a business.

Aaron Wittenstein47:58

No, that one, it takes us-

Ren Jones48:00

That’s the gravy. That’s just-

Aaron Wittenstein48:01

Yeah, that takes us 10 minutes to do a day. Maybe we’ll get one deal a quarter from doing it so it doesn’t hurt to try because it costs, how many, what do we send out? Maybe three, four a day? Three, four a day at 40 cents a piece. It’s a buck 60, you multiply that by 30, you know that’s 45 bucks a month times, it’s what, 500 bucks a year to make 40 to 50 grand. I’ll do that all day long.

Ren Jones48:28

Yeah, there you go. Really starting to get some great questions in here. They should add that to their repertoire. But don’t make that the core.

Aaron Wittenstein48:35

No, no, no, no.

Ren Jones48:36

I don’t want to call them, I’m just going to mail red letters.

Carley Hathaway48:38

Can you hold it up again?

Ren Jones48:40

And then you’re living up 40 to 50,000 a year. I don’t care where you live. That’s not a lot of money, okay. It’s as an extra, it’s fine. It’s upside down, Aaron. Okay, so here we’ve got two or three really good ones here. If you prospect two or three hours, you can’t always be first. That’s true. But new Expireds and new FSBOs only take a few minutes. Then you’re calling older Expireds, then you’re calling your past client sphere, calling around a listing in a sale. We know that one. Here’s one. Try this. How do you handle, “I’ve got to talk to my wife first”?

Aaron Wittenstein49:14

Let them talk to their wife.

Ren Jones49:16

No, I’m going to say that, I’ve got to talk to my wife –

49:17 — I need to talk to my wife

Aaron Wittenstein49:17

Let them talk to their wife first. Here’s my thing, all right, and this is what I will tell you, I like to sell the way I like to be sold. And the thing is, you have a husband and wife. They are both decision makers in this process. And if my wife set up an appointment with an insurance agent without telling me, I’m going to be a little off, okay. My wife and I are a bit different. We got a relationship, if she thinks it’s best, if I think it’s best, but not everybody has that relationship. If someone’s really pushing, I need to ask my wife, guess what they need to ask their wife. What I would say, I’d be like, Oh, Carley, so just so I understand, you need to speak with your husband, correct?

Carley Hathaway50:00

Correct.

Aaron Wittenstein50:01

When do you think you’d have a chance to have a conversation with him?

Carley Hathaway50:05

Probably this evening.

Aaron Wittenstein50:06

This evening, okay. Well, we have one or two options here. Number one, would you like to set a tentative appointment for us to get together?

Carley Hathaway50:13

Well, I just feel like I need to talk to him first.

Aaron Wittenstein50:15

Got it to. And I don’t push, okay. I don’t push. Or what I’ll say is, Carley, let’s set a tentative appointment.

Carley Hathaway50:21

Okay.

Aaron Wittenstein50:24

Now see, did you notice what just changed with that?

Carley Hathaway50:27

Yeah, yeah.

Aaron Wittenstein50:28

Did you notice what just changed? I said, sorry. I said, let’s set a tentative appointment. If they say, no. All right, fair enough. When do you think you can speak with your husband?

Carley Hathaway50:39

This evening, after work.

Aaron Wittenstein50:39

Okay, then why don’t I do this? Why don’t I give you a call at some point tomorrow? What would be better? Late morning or early afternoon?

Carley Hathaway50:43

Late morning.

Aaron Wittenstein50:44

Okay, I’ll give you a call back late morning after you had an opportunity to speak with him and we can get something on the books. In the meantime, what’s the best email address for you? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I send you out my information.

Carley Hathaway50:52

Okay.

Aaron Wittenstein50:53

That’s it.

Ren Jones50:54

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. That’s great, great. Let’s see. What’s the 30 days… What percentage of your business comes from old, we’ll call, old expireds that you know you’ve aged and then you call.

Aaron Wittenstein51:09

Put it this way, out of the expireds that I get, I would say-

Ren Jones51:13

Old expireds.

51:16 — Why 85% comes from old expireds

Aaron Wittenstein51:16

… 85% come from old expireds. If I get take a hundred expired list, 85% come from old because they’re due to follow up.

Ren Jones51:26

And folks, old expireds, they’re little rejection. If you call them three or four weeks later, they’re not mad. It’s a nice call. Now, they’re a B level seller, because if they are still off the market a month later, they didn’t have to sell immediately. You’ve got that behind, that’s the only difference there. But in this market, they’re selling despite the fact they’re a B level seller. It’s a better call to make, if you’re newer at this, do a lot of old expireds until you get warmed up and then work your way to the front at 8:00 AM.

Aaron Wittenstein52:03

Exactly. They say the fortunes in the follow up. Put it this way, in a perfect world, what my goal would be for the day is to contact, to speak with four, to get four people that say, call me back within two… Two hours I call in four people to say, call me back, or I get one appointment. In my perfect world, that’s what I’d like to look like. But right now, slam dunks are not as much as you would think they would be. That’s what I call somebody that says, yes, come list me.

Ren Jones52:29

Super. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. The fortune’s in the follow up. And that’s a great, great point because that’s where so many people give up and they don’t organize their leads and in Vulcan7 we make it really easy as a CRM to organize your leads and call back and forward and stay in touch. And it makes it really easy. You can put everything in there. Follow up is a key, that’s what somebody said. Well, great-

Aaron Wittenstein52:57

Boom.

Ren Jones52:58

… statement, not a question, but we’ll take it as a statement. That’s a good point. Well, so you call the first day, the house expired, then you call 30 day, then how often?

Aaron Wittenstein53:07

Whatever it syncs up in my queue at that point. Whatever queue it goes into is what I utilize.

Ren Jones53:13

Okay, good, good. Well, there’ve been some good points here. Some solid information folks. This will post in about a day. Just play this in the background, over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over. Internalize it or go shadow him. Fly up to Westchester.

Carley Hathaway53:30

Yeah.

Aaron Wittenstein53:33

Yeah, come visit me. Actually-

Ren Jones53:36

The calls with real people. You can hear what a real person says to him, what he says back. Bring a little recorder, digital recorder, lay it there, record both sides of the calls, and then play. You’ll have hours of prospecting. Then listen to it over, and over, and over, and over. And pretty soon you become that and you get there so fast. Take their money really fast, folks. It’s not rocket science. It’s simple. It’s not easy. Simple, not easy.

Carley Hathaway54:02

Simple, not easy.

Aaron Wittenstein54:07

Agreed. Like I said, I would love to get more people involved. I know I talked to Ren about this. We’re doing two things, expired mastery. I know I’ve mentioned it before. The only reason I’m pushing because it’s amazing product I’ve put so far. We have 20 people that are in it. Everybody’s taken in… We’ve got 50% of the course is taken in expired listing and we’ve only been doing it for three weeks. It’s expiredmasteryelite.com, expiredmasteryelite.com. And then I missed my trajectory call today, where if you guys need accountability in scripting, practice, we have a group. It’s like a group, it’s like group coaching, accountability, scripting called trajectorynow.com. You can go there. Those are just two really good things. And if anybody needs me, hit me up on Facebook. I always call when I have free time. Ren, I just thank you for everything. You guys have given me such a good opportunity to help out so many people. Thank you so much for having me guys.

Ren Jones55:08

We love when there’s all that give back going on. Because if they get the recipe right, they can have an amazing life, an amazing life.

Aaron Wittenstein55:13

It’s just-

Ren Jones55:14

I got to tell you this last one, it’s hilarious. It said, would I get a little microphone chip of you installed in my inner ear like a monthly service? Just put it in here, little chip and injected in behind their ear and it’s you. And it’s monthly-

Aaron Wittenstein55:30

No, you don’t want that. You don’t want that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no.

Ren Jones55:36

They can channel Aaron Wittenstein.

Aaron Wittenstein55:41

But what I’ll say guys is that this business is not difficult, okay. It’s just doing a little bit every day. Because what’ll wind up happening is once you start doing this stuff over, and over, and over, and over again, you will see results. When I came here, I moved from a brand new area. I was here for eight months. I knew nothing, all right. I sat on the phone for three months, three months for upwards of 12 hours a day. I’m not kidding. I would sit from eight to eight and I got nothing. Absolutely nothing. And then February, this was 2013, I took eight listings. The new guy on the board taking eight listings in a month. If this idiot can do it, anybody can do it. It’s that simple, okay. That’s all I got.

Ren Jones56:36

Good, and we’ll just have a word from our sponsor and call it a day. Thank you so much. And at the end of his prospecting, what does he do? He should, if he doesn’t, hopefully at the end, if he’s done four or five hours of lead generation, he picks up a big spoon and has some delicious Graeter’s mint chocolate chip. And you can get it at the Whole Foods and La Jolla, north of you. Or you can get it at Rouses right around the corner.

Aaron Wittenstein57:01

Can you send me some?

Ren Jones57:03

You can buy it where you are. Just go to graeters.com and it will have a little map of Westchester and it’ll tell you where you can buy it. So enjoy.

Aaron Wittenstein57:13

I’m going on this right now. All right guys.

Ren Jones57:16

Think about that. You’ve done your work. You enjoy that ice cream. That’s the big why, we’ve found the big why for a lot of people. It’s the mint chocolate chip.

Aaron Wittenstein57:24

I’m on here right now. I want some ice cream. Oh, guys, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold on. Let’s see, let’s see.

Ren Jones57:31

At least we finally found the big why that will help. I feel like making calls. This chocolate chip, oh, I will do-

Aaron Wittenstein57:38

They have it at the Whole Foods right next to me. Score.

Ren Jones57:40

There we go. All right.

Aaron Wittenstein57:45

Awesome.

Ren Jones57:45

All right everybody, have a great… We’ll see you in seven days. Another exciting guest. Thank you, Aaron.

57:45 

Questions this episode answers

What time should you call expired listings?

Aaron Wittenstein is dialing at 7:58 and says most of his appointments are set between 8:00 and 8:15. His reasoning is that the day has not beaten them up yet, and by nine they are at work. The law permits calls from 8:00am, and he would start at 7:45 if he could get out of the house sooner.

Should you set a goal for contacts or for time?

Time, in Aaron Wittenstein’s view. He commits to two hours of new lead generation and one hour of follow-up, because he cannot control how many people answer. He argues a contact target sets you up to fail on a quiet day, while an hours target is always within your control.

Are old expired listings worth calling?

They are where most of his business comes from. Aaron Wittenstein says roughly 85% of his expired listings come from old expireds, because those are the ones due for follow-up. Ren Jones adds that they carry far less rejection, which makes them a good starting point for newer agents.

What do you say when a seller says they need to talk to their spouse?

Aaron Wittenstein does not push. He confirms they need to speak with their partner, asks when that conversation will happen, then suggests a tentative appointment. If they decline he books a callback for the next morning and takes their email address so he can send information in the meantime.

How long does it take to build an expired listing business?

Longer than most agents allow. Aaron Wittenstein moved to a market where he knew nobody and spent three months on the phone from eight in the morning until eight at night with nothing to show for it, before taking eight listings in a single month, more than anyone else on the board.

Guest

Aaron Wittenstein

· Westchester / White Plains, NY

Westchester County agent doing about 25 million a year on a team of three, and the coach behind Expired Mastery Elite.

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