S1 E4: Stay ahead of your Competition

Ren Jones (00:00):
We’re ready. Welcome to Roadmap. Is this season one, episode four? Four? Episode four. I think it’s episode four, and we’re back at the studios at Vulcan7, thank goodness. And we’ve got an exciting … Oh, let me introduce my co-host again, Carley Hathaway. Carleyhathaway.com, San Diego. We’ve got an exciting lineup of people over the next few weeks. Next week, we have Kari Kohler from Chicago. You’re going to love that.

(00:38):
The week after we have Breann Llewelyn, Oklahoma City. We’ve got some great lineups, people taking 2, 3, 4 listings and even sometimes five listings a week, a week, a week, a week, a week. And that’s the way that plays. Okay, so Carley, before we introduce our guest today, and she’s here in our studio, so we’ll have some fun. Let’s talk about the Vulcan7 challenge. What do you remember about the Vulcan7 challenge?

Carley Hathaway (01:12):
Well, the Vulcan7 challenge I think is really exciting. What you can do, and I think everyone challenge is go see-

Ren Jones (01:19):
More audio a little closer to your audio. There we go.

Carley Hathaway (01:26):
Hear me better?

Ren Jones (01:26):
Yes, that helps.

Carley Hathaway (01:28):
So basically what you want to do is go shadow an agent that is using this system. Go see a different agent once a month in different areas. Go drive or fly, meet them in the evening, have dinner, shadow them in the morning, and then get back home after lunch. It’s a great way to kind of exactly see how people are making it work.

Ren Jones (01:49):
Perfect. Every seven days, every week. I mean, no, once a month, that’s what it is. It’s 12 times a year, not every seven days. That’s this show a lot. Once a month, fly out or drive four or five hours to another market, that evening, have dinner with who you’re going to go shadow. 98% of the times if you contact them, they will say, “Sure, come. I’ll show you what I do.” Then get to the office early morning, take lots of notes, record them, meet them for lunch, head back home. Use the copycat principle. They’re taking 2, 3, 4 listings a week. Pretty soon, very quickly, you will. At the end of a year we have 12 friends all making a million dollars. And we have Carley, we have people that say, if you know yet, some people on this call say, well, I don’t need to make or want to make a million dollars.

(02:43):
Folks, poverty is not that glamorous. The best thing you can do if you only want to make $400,000 a year is make a million and give the rest away. Give it to other people. You can put that to work in so many ways. If you only want to make $300,000 or $400,000, but you can get there so quickly. That’s the whole idea. You can get there quickly. And we’re going to go into real specifics. And our next guest is actually going to give several bullet points on what somebody’s starting up should really be paying attention to. So let me go ahead and welcome our next guest, our guest for this week. Jennifer Murtland, Cincinnati.

Jennifer Murtland (03:26):
Hi Carley.

Carley Hathaway (03:26):
Hi!

Ren Jones (03:27):
She’s so tall. There we go. So Jennifer Murtland is here in Cincinnati. Team Synergi. And we’re excited to have you here.

Jennifer Murtland (03:39):
Thanks.

Ren Jones (03:40):
How many listings did you take last month?

Jennifer Murtland (03:41):
16.

Ren Jones (03:42):
16, okay. And may I share a story?

Jennifer Murtland (03:46):
Yes.

Ren Jones (03:46):
May I share a story of how when you and I first met?

Jennifer Murtland (03:51):
Yes.

Ren Jones (03:51):
Okay. We were in a real estate office and it was six, seven years ago. And I would get to the office about 10 to eight. And she was always there. Always there. Every morning she was already there. And then of course nobody else comes in for hours, but that’s a normal real estate office. And I noticed she was calling people and she was listing property. And what time did you come in the morning about?

Jennifer Murtland (04:19):
I think it was about six-ish.

Ren Jones (04:22):
Six! Six! What do you do at six?

Jennifer Murtland (04:26):
Well, you get everything ready for the day. Role play.

Ren Jones (04:29):
You role play. What time do you role play?

Jennifer Murtland (04:31):
Seven.

Ren Jones (04:32):
Seven on the phone at 7:00 AM role playing with somebody?

Jennifer Murtland (04:36):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (04:36):
Okay.

Jennifer Murtland (04:37):
Because I didn’t know what to say. I have to practice.

Ren Jones (04:39):
Anyway, so I walked by and there’s this sign on her door. It says, “March listing’s taken”. It’s the beginning of March. It’s March one. She has 1, 2, 3, 4 on there. And I go, I said, “Jen, what are you going to do the rest of the month?” And she went, “Argh!” And so the next day I come in, the sign says, March listing’s taken. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. I go, “That’s a lot better.” Okay. Three weeks into the month, she goes, “I’ve already listed 12 homes.”

Jennifer Murtland (05:11):
And I was super proud of myself.

Ren Jones (05:12):
She was very proud. And I said, “They’re all little homes.” And she was like, “Argh!”. And so from then on, she started listing a lot of property and they were nice homes.

Jennifer Murtland (05:28):
My average price the first year was about $87,000, and now it’s $214,000.

Ren Jones (05:36):
Yeah. So you could touch this wall and touch this wall. And it was the whole house back then, some of those. So a lot’s changed. And you’ve been doing this how many years?

Jennifer Murtland (05:44):
Seven years.

Ren Jones (05:45):
Seven years.

Carley Hathaway (05:46):
What area are you in again?

Jennifer Murtland (05:49):
Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

Carley Hathaway (05:53):
Okay, got it.

Ren Jones (05:56):
Okay. So you shocked me the other day. Oh, and I want you to tell them a little bit about, so first, to put this in context. How old are you now?

Jennifer Murtland (06:08):
37.

Ren Jones (06:09):
37 years old. And I said, well, where do you want to be five years from now? And you said?

Jennifer Murtland (06:14):
I’m going to be retired.

Ren Jones (06:15):
I am going to be retired. And I’m like, how does that work? And you said?

Jennifer Murtland (06:21):
Well, with investment properties.

Ren Jones (06:25):
How many do you own?

Jennifer Murtland (06:26):
Well, I started buying in 2010. And so now I own 31 units.

Ren Jones (06:30):
31. And they’re almost all paid for.

Jennifer Murtland (06:34):
Almost all. Yeah.

Ren Jones (06:34):
They’re almost all paid for. And another five years of accumulating properties.

Jennifer Murtland (06:37):
Yeah. That’s why I live in a crappy house. So I can buy investment properties.

Ren Jones (06:42):
And that’s another story too. We’ve had fun with that. I teased her about the house she lived and she went out and bought a big one. But yeah, okay, so that means you’re going to retire.

Jennifer Murtland (06:52):
And then I turned that one into an investment property. So I’m back to a small one.

Ren Jones (06:56):
She keeps going back and forth. But I mean, look at it folks. If you are this focus at 42, you can have unlimited passive income and go have fun. Now, I don’t know what’ll happen at 42. I know what she’s like. I can’t imagine her sitting on the front porch. We’ll see what happens. She may get a little greedy, but we’ll find out. So

Jennifer Murtland (07:24):
Doubtful. Probably more properties.

Ren Jones (07:26):
More properties. Many, many, many more properties. So there are a lot of people I can see an agent on here in Dallas right now sitting there in Dallas, Texas watching us. I see another agent over in, looks like they’re in Minneapolis and I see one in Phoenix right now. And all three of the ones I’m looking at right now, they’re newer to the business. They didn’t even take three listings last month. If you wanted to give them a simple outline of 6, 8, 10 points, what would you tell in a simple fashion, what would you tell them they need to do? What are some of the key things they need to do in order to make that happen?

Jennifer Murtland (08:09):
To get started?

Ren Jones (08:10):
To get that ball rolling so that maybe next month they take one a week from now on until they’re ready for two and then until they’re ready for three. How did they get that going? What would you tell them?

Jennifer Murtland (08:22):
Well, a lot of things. But first I just listened to Ren and I made my board from four to 20. But I also, I got a coach. And I have a coach now. So I think that’s really important because for me, the coach and you all expand my mind. I remember I sat at a Mike Ferry event and I watched Denise Wick and this was when I first started, so about seven years ago. And at that time she said that her goal was 100 units. I was like, “100?! I can do 100.” But until that moment it hadn’t even crossed my mind that you could do 100 deals in one year. So just with people who do more, I think your Vulcan7 challenge is great. I used to visit Bernie Gallerani in Nashville all the time. And that really does expand your mind. So definitely a coach, follow the advice of people that have been there like Ren, like Carley.

Ren Jones (09:23):
I just teased. That’s the only benefit I-

Jennifer Murtland (09:24):
That works.

Ren Jones (09:24):
She gets mad and gets even. It works out.

Jennifer Murtland (09:24):
Exactly.

Carley Hathaway (09:32):
Can you expand a little bit on the four and 20?

Jennifer Murtland (09:36):
Oh yeah. Where I thought that four listings in a month was good and it’s fine, but it’s definitely not capacity for me and what I wanted to do and the goals that I wanted to achieve. And Ren knew that. And that’s why he made fun of me and was like, this is crazy. And then I thought to myself, this is crazy. I can do more than that. And it was amazing that when I had the visual representation of the 20, it happened. And so I think that’s important because every time I think of something bigger than what I’m currently doing, we make a visual presentation of it. So something simple as I really wanted a cleaning lady to come every week because I hate cleaning. So I made a board and I said, I want a Lexus ES 350 and I want a cleaning lady. So guess what I have now. I have a Lexus ES 350 2017 and I have a cleaning lady every week. It’s beautiful.

Ren Jones (10:40):
That’s a wonderful story. That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. What else should those guy in Phoenix, that gal over there in Dallas and the one in Minneapolis, what else should they do specifically?

(10:55):
They’re got a piece of paper or they’re on their keyboard typing notes of what you need them, what do you want them to do in the next seven days? They’re going to come back here next week and they’re going to hear Kari Kohler between now and then what action steps should they be taking?

Jennifer Murtland (11:10):
One, get a coach for sure. Secondly, I got an assistant right away. I knew my skillset was being on the phone and selling and I’m terrible at paperwork. So I did get an assistant right away and I had belief in myself that I would be able to pay her because I didn’t have any money and I never missed her paycheck. So I was able to do that. And then, I mean, those are the big two things. And then show up to work on time every day.

Ren Jones (11:41):
What does that mean?

Jennifer Murtland (11:42):
It’s the easiest-

Ren Jones (11:44):
What’s on time?

Jennifer Murtland (11:44):
Well, the time that you set. So it’s like you clock in. So right now I clock in at 7:30. I’m late these days compared to the six, sleeping in. But so every day I’m at work ready to work.

Ren Jones (11:59):
Why so early? Why so early?

Jennifer Murtland (12:00):
Early? That’s late.

Ren Jones (12:01):
I know, but what if they get to the office at 9:30 and go through some notes and start around 10 like most of us do. And then they’re up till midnight negotiating contracts.

Jennifer Murtland (12:12):
Yeah. No, stop that. Don’t do that.

Ren Jones (12:16):
What’s important about early?

Jennifer Murtland (12:18):
What’s that?

Ren Jones (12:18):
What’s important about early and shouldn’t you be calling, people shouldn’t call them at eight or nine. You should wait till about 9:30 or 10 when they wake up or I know those are realtors that wake up at 10. I forgot.

Jennifer Murtland (12:31):
Well, let me tell you a story. So I was trying to break into a higher end market and there’s not a ton of expireds that were in our market at the time that I was trying to do this. And so there was one that came up in a, it was over $300,000, which was big because my average price point was under $100,000. And I was so nervous about calling her. So I showed up in her driveway at 7:30 and she was leaving for work, but I blocked her in and she did sign.

Ren Jones (13:03):
You blocked the driveway?

Jennifer Murtland (13:03):
Yeah, she set an appointment with me and then she signed the contract. So a lot of people that have expired listings, they want an agent that has a little hustle and that’s going to work for them. And that apparently showed her that I would, and we did sell the house. So that was good.

Ren Jones (13:20):
Good, good, good, good. Fantastic.

Jennifer Murtland (13:20):
What’s that?

Carley Hathaway (13:24):
Can you go through your entire morning routine with us?

Jennifer Murtland (13:27):
Sure. So arrive at the office, ready to work. I role play, and then I get on the phone at eight ish.

Carley Hathaway (13:40):
And why do you get on at eight?

Jennifer Murtland (13:42):
Well, so people that I know that are awake, I talk to them beforehand and then I want to be the first person that talks to them. Yeah. Okay. So then that goes until 8:50. And then I take a break at 8:50. And in that time I can get in between 12 and 14 contacts and then the 10 minute break, and then I start again right at nine. So the other thing is I really start on time. It’s critical. If you’re on the phone at eight, it should be ringing, not you’re getting ready to dial. It should be ringing. And then I go from nine to 9:50. And then at 9:50 our team and I have, we call it a charter, but it’s like a mission statement and it has a little interpretive dance. It’s hilarious. So we do that all together and we do a quick sales huddle. What’s that?

Carley Hathaway (14:31):
Will you do the dance for us?

Jennifer Murtland (14:33):
No, it’s a group effort, Carley.

Ren Jones (14:38):
Yeah. You have to be initiated first and then you can.

Carley Hathaway (14:40):
Okay.

Jennifer Murtland (14:41):
It’s kind of like a sorority/frat house where we are. The beer fridge is stocked with Miller Light and vodka

Ren Jones (14:49):
And they make a lot of money and they have a lot of fun during the day. Early days.

Jennifer Murtland (14:54):
Yeah. We’re gone by four or five.

Ren Jones (14:57):
They’re out of there.

Jennifer Murtland (14:58):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (14:59):
Now you work long weekends, right?

Jennifer Murtland (15:01):
No.

Ren Jones (15:03):
Well, tell me about buyers.

Jennifer Murtland (15:04):
What?

Ren Jones (15:04):
Buyers?

Jennifer Murtland (15:05):
What?

Ren Jones (15:06):
Buyers. Nevermind. Nevermind, nevermind. We’ll skip that. I didn’t think you knew about them.

Carley Hathaway (15:14):
When you’re calling, who do you prioritize? How do you prioritize?

Jennifer Murtland (15:17):
I do new expireds, new FSBOs and then old expireds, old FSBOs, circle prospecting, well, sphere of influence and then circle prospecting.

Carley Hathaway (15:30):
Okay.

Ren Jones (15:30):
At this point you’ve got past clients, you’ve got sphere of influence.

Jennifer Murtland (15:33):
Yeah. So like, right now we’re going to throw a client party and so we’re calling them about that. It’s going to be really fun.

Ren Jones (15:40):
Good.

Jennifer Murtland (15:41):
I know.

Ren Jones (15:44):
What’s your outside of expireds and FSBOs, what’s your best lead? I mean, what’s your best source of business?

Jennifer Murtland (15:51):
Well, we have a 40% repeat and referral business. So it is mostly people that we know, but the other 60% is expireds and FSBOs. We actually do a pretty big FSBO business because most for sale by owners, they want to list and I understand they want to try it on their own. And I just say, I’ve seen this movie before, I know how it ends and may I share with you how it ends?

Ren Jones (16:17):
I like that. I like that.

Jennifer Murtland (16:17):
But they’re just follow up. They want to try it and that’s fine. But we know that within four weeks, they will end up listing an agent and I want it to be us. Yeah.

Carley Hathaway (16:26):
Good.

Ren Jones (16:29):
The folks in Dallas, Phoenix, and Minneapolis, what else on the list?

Jennifer Murtland (16:32):
On the list?

Ren Jones (16:33):
That you want them to complete between now and next week to be implementing? Between now and next week?

Jennifer Murtland (16:38):
Oh, a new thing that I came across were, I’m not tech savvy, so I apologize if this is old news, but podcasts, there’s like a lot of really great podcasts. I like the Mindset ones, there’s one, the One Thing I really enjoy that podcast and Tony Robbins has one that I really enjoy too. There’s a lot of other real estate ones, but I like those for mindset.

Ren Jones (17:03):
So you’re asking them to watch positive mindset material?

Jennifer Murtland (17:07):
Yes.

Ren Jones (17:08):
Every day, every week?

Jennifer Murtland (17:08):
Every day.

Ren Jones (17:08):
Every day. When?

Jennifer Murtland (17:10):
In the morning. When you first-

Ren Jones (17:13):
Nine?

Jennifer Murtland (17:13):
No, so when I get up-

Ren Jones (17:15):
5:00 AM.

Jennifer Murtland (17:16):
When I get up at 5:30, I actually have a role play partner in Miami, and we say our affirmations to each other out loud every day. So yeah, it’s really fun and it’s a great way to start the day because her affirmations are like, I mean, they’re awesome and they get me energized and then I say mine and we started adding movement to them. Like Tony Robbins suggested there’s a lot of dancing going on in our office and we’re terrible, PS. And so then when you listen to the podcast while you’re getting ready, it just whatever goes in your brain is, whatever you plant will grow. So you can either plant weeds or you can plant tulips or whatever.

Ren Jones (17:59):
Okay. So they’re starting early, early in the day with some positive little video clips. What else is on the list between now, next week that they need to do so they start-

Jennifer Murtland (18:09):
Role play partners.

Ren Jones (18:10):
Role play partners.

Jennifer Murtland (18:11):
And I would do a different one every day and have them be in different markets. Because I’ve had a role play partner in Italy before. That was really cool. Obviously Miami, I mean all over. So it’s fun.

Ren Jones (18:25):
I noticed a question. What do you mean by circle prospecting? What service do you use for circle prospecting?

Jennifer Murtland (18:31):
Oh, so circle prospecting is when we have a listing taken and when we sell a listing, we call the neighborhood around it too, I mean, we’re trying to get more listings around it. And so we use Cole Realty Resource. I think it’s attached to Vulcan.

Ren Jones (18:49):
Yeah. It’s part of Vulcan7. Yeah. Yep. So you go to Vulcan7, get neighborhood data.

Jennifer Murtland (18:52):
That’s where it is.

Ren Jones (18:53):
And there you go off to the races.

Jennifer Murtland (18:54):
And it gives you cell phone numbers and home numbers, which I like. It’s a new feature on there.

Ren Jones (18:58):
Okay. Where are they finding a role play partner? Where are they going to find one?

Jennifer Murtland (19:02):
Well, I found mine from different events. So when you get a coach, they’ll suggest different events for you. Either Mike Ferry or Tony Robbins or the Keller Williams stuff, or I’m sure all of those places.

Ren Jones (19:16):
Coldwell Banker, ReMax, a lot of different stuff.

Jennifer Murtland (19:18):
Sotheby’s. Yeah.

Ren Jones (19:19):
Yeah. Tom Ferry. Lot of different organizations promoting.

Jennifer Murtland (19:23):
Yeah. And my role play partners are from different. They’re not all the same brokerage that I am. They’re all different.

Carley Hathaway (19:32):
Someone’s asking, can you guys do a little role playing for us? Maybe like, pretend you’re calling an expired listing.

Jennifer Murtland (19:38):
Sure.

Ren Jones (19:38):
Carley, yeah, she could call you Carley.

Carley Hathaway (19:41):
I think she used should call you, Ren.

Jennifer Murtland (19:42):
All right.

Ren Jones (19:42):
All right. Go ahead

Jennifer Murtland (19:42):
Ringing.

Ren Jones (19:42):
Hello?

Jennifer Murtland (19:42):
Hi. Is this Ren?

Ren Jones (19:47):
Yes.

Jennifer Murtland (19:48):
Hey Ren, this is Jennifer Murtland. I’m a local real estate agent. I saw that your house on 123 Main Street had come off the computer as an expired listing this morning.

Ren Jones (19:55):
Yeah.

Jennifer Murtland (19:57):
Yeah. I was calling to see what are your plans for interviewing agents?

Ren Jones (20:00):
I just got a call like this a minute ago, it’s 8:03 AM.

Jennifer Murtland (20:05):
We got two agents working today out of 5,000. Wow. Well, let me ask you, Ren, if your house had sold, where were you planning on moving?

Ren Jones (20:14):
I was going to Butte, Montana.

Jennifer Murtland (20:17):
Butte, Montana, that sounds great. What takes you there?

Ren Jones (20:21):
Just quality of life.

Jennifer Murtland (20:24):
Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Get out of the city a little bit.

Ren Jones (20:27):
To be honest, I’ve started a job up there and I’m back and forth.

Jennifer Murtland (20:32):
Oh, okay. So it’s going to work better for you to be at Montana?

Ren Jones (20:34):
Yeah.

Jennifer Murtland (20:35):
What was your original timeframe for being there?

Ren Jones (20:37):
Now.

Jennifer Murtland (20:38):
Oh, that’s why you put your house on the market.

Ren Jones (20:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Murtland (20:40):
I understand.

Ren Jones (20:41):
So send me something. Just you want to mail me something?

Jennifer Murtland (20:44):
Sure. I definitely can.

Ren Jones (20:47):
We’re probably going to be going back on the market with Cindy Lou.

Jennifer Murtland (20:50):
Oh, okay. The same agent as last time?

Ren Jones (20:52):
Yeah.

Jennifer Murtland (20:52):
I gotcha. So I’m curious, a lot of people take this opportunity to talk with other agents to see if maybe there’s a different marketing plan that can get a different result. Is that something that you’d be open to?

Ren Jones (21:04):
Well, Cindy Lou’s tried so hard. She held it open nine times.

Jennifer Murtland (21:08):
Oh my gosh. I’m sure that she called everybody she knew. Yeah, she held it open nine times. Yeah. She called all the agents in her office. I, all of her buyers.

Ren Jones (21:15):
I couldn’t do that to her.

Jennifer Murtland (21:16):
Oh my gosh. She definitely did the best that she could, I’m sure.

Ren Jones (21:19):
Yeah.

Jennifer Murtland (21:19):
Well, Ren, actually, we’re going to be in your neighborhood later on this afternoon. Are you available to speak around four or is 4:30 better?

Ren Jones (21:25):
You’re over here?

Jennifer Murtland (21:26):
Yeah, we’re going to be over there talking to one of your neighbors.

Ren Jones (21:28):
I guess that won’t hurt, four o’clock.

Jennifer Murtland (21:30):
Because you really want to be in Montana, right?

Ren Jones (21:32):
Yeah.

Jennifer Murtland (21:32):
Yeah. I totally understand. Four o’clock works for you.

Ren Jones (21:34):
Yeah.

Jennifer Murtland (21:35):
Okay, great. Is your wife going to be home? I see there’s a Sally on the deed as well.

Ren Jones (21:39):
Yes.

Jennifer Murtland (21:39):
Perfect.

Ren Jones (21:40):
That’s right. That’s Sally Mae is what you’re seeing.

Jennifer Murtland (21:48):
On the student loan deed. All right, perfect. Well then we’ll see you both at four o’clock.

Ren Jones (21:49):
Good.

Jennifer Murtland (21:49):
Okay.

Ren Jones (21:50):
All right. Great. Great. So obviously you’ve done this a lot. And it just flows. Yeah. And people have fun with it because most people are frozen and frigid and it doesn’t sound too good. And they get mad.

Jennifer Murtland (22:04):
Who gets mad?

Ren Jones (22:05):
The seller. Not in your case, apparently. And it flows with you.

Jennifer Murtland (22:08):
Well, honestly, if the seller’s upset, that’s actually a really good thing because it’s easier to deal with an upset person because we know why they’re upset their house didn’t sell. I mean, how pissed off would you be? Whereas if somebody is calm, I question the motivation because I would be upset if I was going to pay somebody $10,000 or more to sell my house and then it didn’t work.

Ren Jones (22:34):
Yeah. That’s a lot of money.

Jennifer Murtland (22:36):
It’s a lot of money in Ohio.

Ren Jones (22:37):
That’s right. So they’re mad. So they’re all mad. Then what do you do?

Jennifer Murtland (22:41):
That’s great. I show up at their house.

Ren Jones (22:44):
How do you approach that conversation? They’re all mad.

Jennifer Murtland (22:48):
That’s good. Because I can get mad too.

Ren Jones (22:50):
Is that where you go with them?

Jennifer Murtland (22:52):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (22:52):
You get mad about the whole thing?

Jennifer Murtland (22:54):
Yeah. Okay. So for us, when I’m talking to somebody and they’re mad, I just take that on and I’m mad too because it is infuriating. I mean I would be just like them. So I get it. So then when you get mad with them, they actually calm down and then they listen because they feel like they’re being heard when they didn’t feel like they were being listened to before.

Ren Jones (23:17):
So you mirror and match their anger.

Jennifer Murtland (23:20):
Yes. If they cuss, I cuss. That works well for me actually.

Ren Jones (23:24):
Okay. That’s great.

Jennifer Murtland (23:28):
Yeah.

Carley Hathaway (23:28):
I like how you kind of said, “I’m going to be in the neighborhood so I’ll just stop by.” I feel like it makes it a little easier for them to say that.

Jennifer Murtland (23:35):
It does. Well and plus I’ve already said usually that I’m a local agent, so it’s like, well we’ll already be there and most of the time I, we have a fairly large territory, but we’re also close to everything. And so while I’m there I just door knock on either side of it, five on either side and 10 across.

Ren Jones (23:54):
Tell me that.

Jennifer Murtland (23:55):
Which is a trick that you taught me.

Ren Jones (23:56):
I did? I don’t know. Well, somebody else taught me that one too. So tell me this again. So you go over there before you get there, you’re knocking on five doors to the left of their house, five to the right and then 10 across. And what do you tell those people?

Jennifer Murtland (24:12):
Well, I’m looking for listings.

Ren Jones (24:14):
What do you say?

Jennifer Murtland (24:15):
Well, I say the market is really hot right now and have you thought about selling?

Ren Jones (24:20):
Okay.

Jennifer Murtland (24:21):
And they will say yes or no. It’s pretty simple.

Ren Jones (24:24):
Okay. And you get-

Jennifer Murtland (24:26):
Well if a house is actually sold in that neighborhood or if we have actually listed one, then I’ll say that, we’ve just listed a home or sold a home. And it doesn’t even have to be our team, if any house from anybody.

Ren Jones (24:38):
Any company.

Jennifer Murtland (24:40):
Any company. Yeah. It doesn’t matter.

Ren Jones (24:41):
Gotcha. Wow.

Jennifer Murtland (24:42):
But usually, I mean it depends on, you can say this neighborhood is really hot. Have you thought about moving? Where would you move if you did move?

Ren Jones (24:50):
So you have no fear of talking to people because for more recent generations are getting to where they don’t actually want to speak to them.

Jennifer Murtland (24:59):
Oh well good. More money from me.

Ren Jones (25:03):
But you’ll actually speak to them.

Jennifer Murtland (25:05):
Yes.

Ren Jones (25:05):
Strangers.

Jennifer Murtland (25:06):
Well everybody was a stranger.

Ren Jones (25:08):
You won’t text them first or wait till they come to your open house.

Jennifer Murtland (25:11):
No, but if they don’t answer, I do text and the expireds, I started texting a storyteller video.

Ren Jones (25:17):
Oh storyteller. Which is, if you’re a Vulcan7 customer, you can be involved with a storyteller video, which is right there at the top of your actually will be tomorrow. Today’s Tuesday. Yeah, tomorrow you’ll see storyteller and you can be involved in those videos.

Jennifer Murtland (25:31):
But if I do anything other than call or door knock it is in order to get the personal conversation. Because if people don’t answer when you text them, “Can I call you?” They usually say yes, which is so weird to me. It’s like then pick up a damn phone. But they don’t, so then I can call them.

Ren Jones (25:49):
Good, good, good.

Carley Hathaway (25:50):
Someone is asking, do you bring any information or do you bring anything when you go door knocking?

Jennifer Murtland (25:54):
I have a flyer. We have a certified listing program. So I just have a little door hanger, some just whatever.

Carley Hathaway (26:04):
Yeah. Okay.

Jennifer Murtland (26:05):
Just create something. Or I think I got some on maybe printing the first time and they were really cheap and then you just hang them, make them of obnoxious color. That’s my recommendation. Like bright green or something obnoxious that they see. Because hardly anybody uses their front door.

Ren Jones (26:21):
And it’s a way of counting. When I would do that, I would print go to go at 6:00 AM when nobody was at the office. And because you could use the copier all you want. I was printing up 300 at a time.

Jennifer Murtland (26:32):
There you go. Yeah.

Ren Jones (26:34):
And use it to count. I’d put them in stacks at 50. And I knew I’d knock on 50 doors to talk to them and I’d leave them.

Jennifer Murtland (26:41):
That’s a good idea.

Ren Jones (26:41):
It was a way of counting.

Jennifer Murtland (26:42):
Well, if you’re going to do flyers though, I recommend bringing some rubber band with you because sometimes the doors, you can’t stick the flyer in so you have to wrap.

Ren Jones (26:51):
Oh, that’s true.

Jennifer Murtland (26:56):
Do you know what I’m saying, with rubber bands?

Ren Jones (26:56):
I just lay them part of the way under the mat.

Jennifer Murtland (26:56):
It rains a lot here in Cincinnati.

Ren Jones (26:59):
That’s true. Good. Do you track your numbers?

Jennifer Murtland (27:02):
Of course.

Ren Jones (27:04):
Well, I don’t know. Last week’s guest was in a little battle with his coach about tracking numbers so I’m just asking.

Jennifer Murtland (27:10):
Well, okay, so if I know that when I make 30 contacts, I set two appointments and I’m at 28 contacts and I haven’t set an appointment, what am I going to do? Right. Well nobody’s answering, but I’m going to call two people. Because I know the next two calls are appointments. But if I don’t track it.

Ren Jones (27:32):
So you know your batting average.

Jennifer Murtland (27:32):
I wouldn’t know.

Ren Jones (27:32):
You know you’re batting average.

Jennifer Murtland (27:34):
Yeah because I’ve been tracking it for years. And it does change and ebb and flow because right now we don’t have a lot of expireds, so we have to do a lot more circle prospecting. But what’s interesting is the circle prospecting, it used to be like 80 to one. So for 80 of those I would get one. But now it’s 40 to one. So they have actually gotten better. They’re like listings in hiding. So I feel like a hunter.

Ren Jones (28:01):
Good.

Jennifer Murtland (28:01):
Like a panther or something.

Ren Jones (28:04):
They’re out there.

Jennifer Murtland (28:05):
They’re there. They’re just waiting for you.

Ren Jones (28:06):
Yeah.

Carley Hathaway (28:07):
Someone is asking do you call expireds on Saturday and Sundays?

Jennifer Murtland (28:11):
Yeah. So Saturday we call from nine to 11 and then Sunday we do four to six. Those are the best times.

Carley Hathaway (28:18):
Okay. And you say we, so you have a team. Can you tell us about your team?

Jennifer Murtland (28:22):
Sure. They’re fabulous people. Of course. They’re all very awesome. So we have Marianna who has our operations side. So she’s great. She does all the paperwork because we do it wrong and we do it wrong so that she does it well and we’re terrible at it. So that helps. And then our lead listing agent is Alan Weissman. He does a great job with all the listings. And we have Amber, Robbie, and Christie, are agents also.

Carley Hathaway (28:50):
Cool.

Jennifer Murtland (28:50):
Then me.

Ren Jones (28:51):
So when I ask about buyers and she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Amber and Christie and Robbie, they know what buyers are. Those are the people you sold the home. They have nowhere to live.

Jennifer Murtland (29:03):
Only if they’re homeless will we take a buyer. But even then we’ll like do-

Ren Jones (29:07):
How about a past client that calls you up it and says I need to buy some immediately.

Jennifer Murtland (29:12):
Well I would do a consultation with them to make sure.

Ren Jones (29:15):
That they are buying immediately.

Jennifer Murtland (29:17):
If my mom wanted to buy a house, I would do a consultation with her to make sure that she was motivated and ready. Especially people you know, they know you personally, so it-

Carley Hathaway (29:29):
That’s wasting your time.

Jennifer Murtland (29:30):
Exactly. Thank you. And I don’t like that. That makes me crazy. So I would pair them with the buyer’s agent that was going to be best able to handle it because it’s not me. I’m the best ISA.

Carley Hathaway (29:44):
So when you’re calling and you get a voicemail, do you leave a voicemail?

Jennifer Murtland (29:49):
I don’t. I’m just more of old school. I’ll call them back 30 times at different times or text them or whatever until I get them to answer.

Carley Hathaway (30:04):
Okay.

Jennifer Murtland (30:05):
I mean I think it just depends on if you believe that they will reply or not. I don’t think that they will. So it’s a waste of time because by the time I’m leaving a message, then I could’ve made three more calls.

Ren Jones (30:27):
But then you do iPING.

Jennifer Murtland (30:29):
Well, yeah, I like iPING because I don’t have to do it. Do you know what that is, Carley?

Ren Jones (30:33):
I ping the neighborhood I-P-I-N-G theneighborhood.com. So yes.

Jennifer Murtland (30:40):
Our goals have been to increase our average price point. Obviously. $80,000 wasn’t going to cut it. So in order to do that, we didn’t have listings in those neighborhoods. So we chose the neighborhoods that we want our average price point to be between $250,000 and $400,000. That’s like a sweet spot for us. And so we picked neighborhoods that were transient that didn’t have one agent that kind of dominated, you know what I mean? Yeah. So then the iPING sends out, I don’t fully understand it, but basically we give them a list and then on the computer it’ll send them a banner of the Team Synergy certified listing program and they can click on it. I mean, I don’t know all of it, but what it does is it creates inbound calls for us, which is awesome. Yeah. I’ll take come list me calls for sure.

Ren Jones (31:34):
Come list me, come list me. Yeah. And you get our work numbers too.

Jennifer Murtland (31:36):
Yeah, I like the work numbers because people are at work. People are at work and they’ll answer that phone even though they won’t answer their cell phone. So I like the work numbers.

Ren Jones (31:47):
Yeah. Perfect. Perfect.

Jennifer Murtland (31:48):
You should have done that a long time ago.

Ren Jones (31:51):
I know, I know. But we do it now.

Jennifer Murtland (31:52):
I had to go to the work. I’ve been to several people’s work when I couldn’t get a hold of them.

Ren Jones (31:58):
You just set an appointment. I want to have my hair done.

Jennifer Murtland (32:01):
Actually.

Ren Jones (32:04):
I need to list your house.

Jennifer Murtland (32:05):
Yeah, sign here.

Ren Jones (32:06):
Don’t cut my hair. Okay, so what else? The Dallas, Phoenix and Minneapolis. What else do they need to do between now and next week?

Jennifer Murtland (32:16):
Besides get a coach, track their numbers and that’s a lot in a week.

Ren Jones (32:21):
Okay. All right. Well that’ll work. Let’s look at questions. What time do you typically door knock? How many times per week?

Jennifer Murtland (32:27):
Oh, good question. So door knocking is usually best after three. So we’ll usually take a break from calling, unless we’re going to call our spare and past client, we’ll call until noon and then take a break until about three. And then that’s a good time to go door knocking until, I mean, in the summertime you can door knock longer, but in the winter it gets a little dark. So from three to six.

Ren Jones (32:52):
Okay, great.

Jennifer Murtland (32:52):
I mean I’ve door knocked in the rain, in the snow.

Carley Hathaway (32:55):
Oh no.

Jennifer Murtland (32:56):
I door knocked on holidays because I want people to feel bad for me and I try to play a game.

Ren Jones (33:00):
That’s the best way.

Jennifer Murtland (33:00):
On Memorial Day, I’m like, how many hotdogs and beers can I get? Or who’s going to invite me into their party?

Carley Hathaway (33:07):
Nice. These are good.

Ren Jones (33:08):
Yeah.

Jennifer Murtland (33:08):
It’s fun. They’re like, “You’re crazy.” And I’m like, “I know. And if I was selling your house, I’d be crazy about that. Wait until I have to make money.”

Ren Jones (33:16):
Yeah. How do I respond to, “I want to wait to list until later, after the holidays”?

Jennifer Murtland (33:24):
Well, I mean, I don’t really know why you would wait. So I would just find out a little bit more about their motivation. So I assume they were an expired, so what prompted you to put the house on the market in the first place? I would dig more into that. And then the thing about listening during the holidays is actually the house shows a lot better and you have a lot more emotional buyers, which as a seller, that increases your bottom line dramatically. So I think first you have to tap into their motivation before you-

Ren Jones (33:58):
You got to ask several questions.

Jennifer Murtland (34:00):
A lot of questions.

Ren Jones (34:00):
Figure out where they’re coming from. Yeah. Then craft the responses and there are a variety of responses.

Jennifer Murtland (34:06):
But there’s a reason why. So if they weren’t an expired and they want to wait. Well, the snarky remark is, do you always postpone your goals? Don’t say that. Don’t say that.

Ren Jones (34:21):
How many contacts are you making in a day?

Jennifer Murtland (34:24):
A minimum of 30, which takes less than three hours.

Ren Jones (34:30):
Do you do mailings to expireds, FSBOs or is it better to call?

Jennifer Murtland (34:35):
I don’t mail them anything. Mailing is really passive. You might as well just knock on the door because they’re getting a stack of mail. And the first time I sold a house by mail was never.

Ren Jones (34:49):
Generally speaking, it’s very infrequent.

Jennifer Murtland (34:52):
They’re throwing it away anyway.

Ren Jones (34:53):
But you add up all the expense and the labor involved in the process, they have the postage. It’ll pay for the one commission check that you got from that.

Jennifer Murtland (35:00):
By the time it gets there. I’ve already been there. You’re done.

Ren Jones (35:05):
Yep. Let’s see.

Carley Hathaway (35:06):
You sent email?

Ren Jones (35:07):
There’s somebody who’s running a little commercial. Okay. And that, yeah. Who else? Any other questions? Let’s see. How do you go from 2, 3, 4 listings per month to 16 listings last month? I don’t know what that means because she didn’t do… How would someone, if somebody’s taking only two, three or four listings a month now and they want to go to two, three or four a week?

Jennifer Murtland (35:33):
I would say, I mean-

Ren Jones (35:34):
How do you do four times deal?

Jennifer Murtland (35:36):
Well, it actually compounds on itself. It’s like compound interest, which is my favorite thing. But when you make 30 contacts a day and you have to get it within the first three hours, so like nine to 11, you make your 30 contacts in a few years, it will compound on itself. But you have to do it every day. All you have to do is show up on time, do your work every day. And ta-da!

Ren Jones (36:02):
There you go.

Jennifer Murtland (36:04):
Yay. It’s a magic trick. Just work.

Ren Jones (36:06):
Yeah. Let’s see. With FSBOs, do you go preview to see them face-to-face or only go to qualified appointments? Do you email or mail pre-listing packages before you go?

Jennifer Murtland (36:17):
Yes. Okay. So for sale by owners, I call them, I don’t always go. Every once in a while I will, but if you do that, you’ll just get into a pattern of being upset if they’re not ready to sign. So I don’t really do that. What the best thing to do is find out when their open house is, and let’s say it’s from two to four and show up at four after nobody came to their open house.

Ren Jones (36:44):
There you go. Quick answer on the circle prospecting. So what system’s connected to Vulcan7, Cole is. Go to the homepage where it says home and go to get neighborhood data and it’s all there. Okay. You can sign up with Cole, get your Cole subscription and they’re hooked together. Can you give us more information on iPING? Go there. Go to iPingthehood.com or iPingtheneighborhood.com and, I Googled it and couldn’t find information on it. Type in the exact address. I-P-I-N-Gtheneighborhood.com. It’s there. Okay. What would you need to do to take 30 listings per month? Great question!

Jennifer Murtland (37:28):
Great question! Tell me!

Ren Jones (37:31):
What do you need to do to take 30?

Jennifer Murtland (37:33):
Get better at my scripts, obviously.

Ren Jones (37:35):
There you go.

Jennifer Murtland (37:35):
Make more calls.

Ren Jones (37:35):
So really-

Jennifer Murtland (37:37):
Maybe take 60 calls.

Ren Jones (37:40):
Here’s the answer to that. What does she need to let go of that she’s doing that she shouldn’t be doing?

Jennifer Murtland (37:45):
That’s an even better question.

Ren Jones (37:46):
What do you need to let go of? What do you need to let go of that somebody else on the team can do?

Jennifer Murtland (37:50):
Yeah, no, that’s great.

Ren Jones (37:51):
Because if you look at the time per hour, she’s making $250 to $300 an hour. When she’s looking for business, she just needs to do more of it. Can you get to, I mean, you’re 16 a month. Can you get to 25 a month?

Jennifer Murtland (38:06):
Yes.

Ren Jones (38:08):
Great question. Love that.

Jennifer Murtland (38:10):
Thank you. That’s great.

Ren Jones (38:11):
Whoever said that. From Jess W. Jess, would you ask her that every day?

Jennifer Murtland (38:18):
Text me.

Ren Jones (38:19):
Text her that. Every day. Every day of your FSBO script. All right. That’s a good one.

Jennifer Murtland (38:27):
That’s a good one. I like the Jackie Kravitz one.

Ren Jones (38:29):
Okay.

Jennifer Murtland (38:31):
So it kind of depends on how the FSBO answers. So you want to mirror and match them and if I can net you more money, then you can net yourself. Is that something that you would be interested in taking a look at? And they always say yes. And then that’s why we need to meet. How’s Tuesday at four or five? That’s it. It’s pretty simple.

Ren Jones (38:51):
All right. Great, great, great.

Jennifer Murtland (38:52):
And I’m sure, yeah, they say if it’s easy, if you thought an agent could get you more money, you would’ve hired one by now. Right?

Ren Jones (39:02):
Okay. Can you do a FSBO role play? Seems like they’re overpriced a lot of the times. They’re always overpriced. That’s the good news. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be there.

Jennifer Murtland (39:11):
We would be out of a job. So the FSBOs, most of them, they want to try it on their own. So it’s really just the follow up game. So if you just talk to them at first, ask for the appointment. If they don’t give it to you, ask when the open house is and go at the end of the open house and then bring list. Oh my gosh, always carry two signs with you, two lock boxes with you and two contracts with you. That is one thing they can do. Between now and next week.

Ren Jones (39:46):
Between now and next week. Yeah. I mean, I had this exercise every day. I pulled my car around and put in three signs, three lock boxes. Everything for-

Jennifer Murtland (39:54):
Oh you did three? I should do three if I’m going to take 30 listings.

Ren Jones (39:57):
And then I unloaded every day. What was left? There were days where I took three listings, a four, a 5:30, and a seven. And they’re like, but my listing presentation isn’t that long. What that mean? How long is your listing presentation?

Jennifer Murtland (40:11):
Well, we do a pre-listing packet. So by the time we get there, it’s usually about 30 minutes. And it’s because we’re walking around the house. But they a lot of times have already filled out like the disclosures and then we send the contract with the price. So they already know what it.

Carley Hathaway (40:27):
Do you give them the price before you even meet with them?

Jennifer Murtland (40:29):
Well, yeah. I mean that’s what the relevant houses show is what the price is. I mean, I don’t make it up. So it’s what it is. It’s what their neighbors bought and sold for. So it’s pretty simple.

Ren Jones (40:44):
Somebody was asking what your definition of a contact is.

Jennifer Murtland (40:47):
A contact is a voice to voice conversation. Well, I also count people that tell me to F off and hang up. That’s a contact, they answer.

Ren Jones (40:56):
Well it is. Yeah. And that’s fair enough. The only time you wouldn’t is if a tiny child answered the phone.

Jennifer Murtland (41:03):
No, right.

Ren Jones (41:03):
You wouldn’t count that.

Jennifer Murtland (41:03):
They wouldn’t tell me to F off either.

Ren Jones (41:05):
They can’t give you the proper information.

Jennifer Murtland (41:07):
Right.

Ren Jones (41:09):
So yeah, you got to look at what you’re tracking folks. Stop tracking attempts or dials.

Jennifer Murtland (41:15):
You’ll make yourself crazy.

Ren Jones (41:16):
People call on calls. Well, what happens is they go, I called 137 people. Well how many of them answered Nine? You’re tracking a big number. Stop it. It’s like people that said, I didn’t blank millions in sales, you’re tracking a big number. Stop it. Ralph Kleiner, who’s probably watching this, he’s Beverly Hills, he was always saying how much volume he sold in millions he made until he was required to only state how many homes he sold. Oh, well he was only selling like nine to 12 homes. And then his sales went way up because he was only allowed to tell people how many homes he sold.

Jennifer Murtland (41:55):
Nice. And it was embarrassing.

Ren Jones (41:56):
Yeah, it was embarrassing. Although he was rich selling nine homes.

Jennifer Murtland (41:59):
Good for him.

Ren Jones (42:00):
So you know, got to track the lower number.

Jennifer Murtland (42:05):
Well, and the call attempts don’t equal the money. What equals the money is the conversation. So I like to track the money. So how many conversations do I need in order to get the appointments? And how many appointments do I need to get the listings and how many listings do I want? And then I can backtrack the whole thing. Makes your life a lot easier. Then you don’t have to think, you just go.

Ren Jones (42:33):
What do you think, Carley?

Carley Hathaway (42:35):
Let’s see. Do we have any other questions?

Ren Jones (42:41):
How far back do you go on old expireds and old FSBOs?

Jennifer Murtland (42:43):
Well, because we don’t have a lot of expireds. We’ve been going back to 2012 actually, and there’s some good ones in there. Yeah. Because people like they seem to have a 2012 mentality, which the world is very different.

Ren Jones (42:57):
Good. This was amazing. And you, a lot of you may have referrals from Cincinnati.

Jennifer Murtland (43:06):
Or Northern Kentucky.

Ren Jones (43:07):
Or northern Kentucky. It’s kind of a big metropolitan area here. And the website is?

Jennifer Murtland (43:12):
Teamsynergi.com

Ren Jones (43:14):
Spelled?

Jennifer Murtland (43:15):
Oh, it’s spelled weird. Of course. So it’s team, T-E-A-M and then S-Y-N-E-R-G-I.com. Or you can call me. I’ll give my number, is that okay?

Ren Jones (43:26):
Sure.

Jennifer Murtland (43:29):
5-1-3 5-7-8 2-6-3-3.

Ren Jones (43:33):
You’re going to end up with a bunch of role play partners.

Jennifer Murtland (43:35):
Yes, let’s do it.

Ren Jones (43:39):
Cool. All right, Carley, it’s always good to see you in San Diego. We’ll have a lot of fun. We’ll see you guys soon. See you next week. When we have Kari Kohler here and the week after Breann Llewelyn and they’re all taking a lot of listings, use the copycat principle, take the Vulcan7 challenge. See you next week everybody.

Carley Hathaway (43:57):
Thanks everybody. Bye. Have a good day!

Jennifer Murtland (43:59):
Bye-bye.

Ren Jones (44:02):
It’s time for our ice cream. Did your job, you get ice cream. Graeter’s, mint chocolate chip. See you next week everybody.

Carley Hathaway (44:17):
Bye.