The best of the first eleven Roadmap episodes, with Sarah Close

Ren Jones00:04

Welcome to Roadmap, how to take three listings a week until you’re ready for more. Each week we interview a great agent who’s consistently taking two, three, more listings each week, and today we have not only an exciting guest, it’s the highlight show — we’re going to review the last eleven interviews and show you highlights from those shows. This is the best show, this is a keeper, this is the one to play over and over again. We encourage you to take notes, apply as much of their knowledge as quickly as you can, and then apply the copycat principle. My co-host won’t be joining me, but you’ll see clips of her in the interviews. Let’s talk first about the Vulcan7 challenge: once a month, shadow a great agent in another market that’s taking two, three, four listings or more. Drive two, three hours away where there’s no competition, or fly there. Get there that evening, have dinner with them if they’re available, the next morning get to the office early, record them, write notes, follow them around, go to lunch with them, and then go back home. Do that once a month, and at the end of 12 months you’ll have a dozen great friends that are very successful, and you’ll be one of them. Before I introduce our guest, I want to remind everybody we are also simulcasting the show on the private Lead Gen group on Facebook — Lead Gen has 40,000 members — so we have a large audience there today as well, and we’ll be pausing for a commercial message during the show as a thank you to Aaron Wittenstein and the Lead Gen folks.

Ren Jones01:56

My guest today, this is a real treat for me, is Sarah Close. Sarah’s been in the business a good while, been very successful, takes two, three, four listings a month, and owns a few real estate offices, market centers, throughout the Cincinnati area. How many agents?

Sarah Close02:19

Real close to 550 agents — Dayton and West Chester, Cincinnati, working in the Kentucky area as well, and maybe a sale in Indiana now.

Ren Jones02:38

It’s a real treat. You’ve bought investment property, you’re doing a lot of wonderful things, you have a great life because you went to the listing side of the business — that’s where it is. She’s been coached by some of the best, including Mike Ferry, and many great coaches, and you’re still involved in a coaching program, sharpening those skills. So having Sarah here today, as we go through the last 11 guests, is a real treat, because she’s been down the pike and has knowledge in all of these areas. Let’s jump in.

Ren Jones03:14

Our first, on our pilot show, was Shad McCarthy from New Orleans. What’s interesting, Sarah, is when he went to that market, the average price was like 180, 200 thousand back then, and he said, “I’m going to work four, five, six, seven hundred thousand,” which he chose to do. And you can do it too — you can go to whatever market you’re in and declare, “I’d like to work a little higher price range than I’m in,” and just do it.

Sarah Close03:46

We see people do it the other way — they come in and go lower, or they let their career network evolve, as opposed to making a purposeful decision about where they want to go with their average sale price. So you can do it, we’ve seen it. Some of those transactions go together a lot easier, and the process is the same regardless of the price range. As long as you’re working in an area with enough velocity and turnover, a higher price point pays better.

Ren Jones04:29

Now we’re going to watch a clip. He’s doing something a lot of people are not doing — a lot of just listed calls. Watch this clip.

Shad McCarthy04:38

I’m not sure how many people do this — I don’t think many people in the New Orleans market do — but we make a lot of just listed calls. When we list a piece of property, we’re usually loading up 50 at a time and making those calls, but for each listing we try to hit about 250, 300 people. It’s a great source of new business. Neighbors are like, “Oh, I saw the house around the corner that you’re talking about, we may be interested in selling,” or “We’ve got friends that want to move to the area.” And it’s a great way to build up your database.

Ren Jones05:19

You’re calling on the listing to tell them about it — how do you then also put them in the database? What do you say?

Shad McCarthy05:31

When we’re having these one-minute, minute-and-a-half conversations, we’re specifically asking them if they know anybody interested in moving to the neighborhood, and, following scripts, we’re asking how long they’ve lived in the neighborhood, if they were going to move where would they go, and then finally, “We’d love to keep you updated on what’s going on in the market, what’s your best email address?”

Ren Jones05:58

You get a warm feeling and you add them in. How often do you stay in touch with those people?

Shad McCarthy06:03

Not as much as we should — like everybody, you kind of get bogged down. We’ll hit those people once a month with an email, and we try to touch them, give them a kiss if you will, two or three times a year. We’ve got — I’m guessing, I don’t have it in front of me — probably 35,000 people in our Vulcan database, put in different folders, and we try to hit them at least twice a year.

Ren Jones06:48

Those just listed calls are usually well received, because you’re hawking their neighbor’s listing, and he’s doing two things simultaneously — talk about leveraging your time.

Sarah Close06:59

First of all, he’s delivering a huge service to his client by getting out there and proactively selling the property — it kind of takes care of that “what are you doing for me?” question sellers give you. And secondly, he’s building his community, and as we develop in the real estate business, that community we’re in constant contact with is going to be an even more important source of our business as we move forward, so adding them now and delivering value now is a big deal.

Ren Jones07:31

And it’s so easy — if you’re brand new and you only have one listing, you can call around all the company listings, having the exact same result. It doesn’t matter whose listing it is, they just need you to care, and they’re excited you’re doing that service. Here’s a man making a million and a half a year in New Orleans doing this, working Monday through Friday, enjoying his weekends and six to eight weeks vacation. What a great life, putting in four or five hours every day doing that.

Ren Jones08:16

Let’s jump into the next one. We have a guy named Tim Davis, lives in Central Oregon, Bend, Redmond, that little area — right down the street from a little town called Madras where they had a total eclipse and were flooded with people not too long ago. The guy’s taking 18 to 20 listings a month. We’re going to show you a role play, and you’ve got to look at this and go, “What is he doing that’s so amazing?” The secret is in the hours — five hours a day, Monday through Friday — because the rest is not as amazing as you’d think, but it’s powerful because he’s doing it and you’re not.

Tim Davis09:04

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

Ren Jones11:18

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

Tim Davis11:22

Yes.

Ren Jones11:26

And then for sale by owners — somebody asked, how do you overcome the objection that a for sale by owner doesn’t want to list with an agent? “Thanks for calling, Tim, but we’re not going to list with an agent.”

Tim Davis11:39

“We don’t like real estate agents.” “No, we like it, we’re just trying to save money.” “Tim, if I could net you as much money as you’d get on your own, and handle everything for you, would you be open to seeing what I can do to sell your home?” A question like that, that simple.

Ren Jones11:59

That works? Keep it simple. So really, we’re just overcomplicating this.

Sarah Close12:09

Everybody feels like they have to have the magic words, or is it just that they need to spend four to five hours doing it every day?

Ren Jones12:15

It’s the four to five hours doing it every day. He’s not saying all these things that are like, “oh my god” — he’s just spending the time, and then he has the time. He and his lovely wife and their two daughters have had a wonderful life, he’s bought lots and lots of real estate, they go to Maui all the time, he’s off on the weekends. It’s really simple.

Sarah Close13:01

Why is it so hard for people to, on a five-day-a-week basis, spend more than a few minutes on the phone? I think it’s a matter of setting up the routine and sticking to the commitment you make with yourself — time blocking, whatever you want to call it. Tim’s very clear he’s on the phone four to five hours a day, five days a week. My suspicion is he doesn’t get up and say, “Am I going to do this today?” It’s a predetermined decision, so he can free up all of that brain space to think about more important things instead of making the same decision over and over. It’s that consistency, and in the simplicity of his script is kind of where the magic lives.

Ren Jones13:40

He’s got the harder piece down. There are a lot of great people out here who, after 20 minutes of making calls, have a little bit of sweat on their forehead and they’re out the door working on their pending. But where he’s really winning is, if you watch his demeanor, he’s unflappable — he’s approving, affirming what you’re saying, and you’re falling right down into his trap for the appointment. You can’t escape and be logical at the same time.

Ren Jones14:51

The next one is somebody we’ve had here in Cincinnati — Aaron Wittenstein is going to be joining us, and we’re actually broadcasting over his Lead Gen Facebook group. He’s on there doing live expired calls — talk about accountability, 14,000 people watching. Let’s take a peek and listen to him talk about time management, because he’s only working some 7:45 to 5:00 — he’s got his kids, he’s got his life, and that’s the big piece for him.

Aaron Wittenstein15:29

It’s time management and mindset — those are the two things people really fail at, because they don’t do what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it, and they have this mindset of scarcity, of “I’m not good enough, what if I suck?” It’s the judgmental talk you do to yourself. Today, for example, was take-my-son-to-school day — I wouldn’t have missed that for the world, I refuse to miss that stuff, but my day is totally off because I’m not sticking to my exact schedule. I get in the office at 7:45, I’m home between 4:00 and 5:00 every day, I don’t work Sundays, I work Saturdays by appointment only. It’s me right now on the team, and this beautiful person behind me, Priscilla, and we have a VA — so it’s three of us, and this year we’ll do 20, 25 million. It’s all up here.

Aaron Wittenstein16:53

I wake up at 5:00, my alarm goes off at 5:00. I go in, leave that 15 minutes to your imagination, then I go upstairs. What I’m working on is a little bit of meditation, haven’t gotten to it yet, but I’m trying. I write out three things I’m grateful for and three things I’m going to be intentional about for the day — three things that, no matter what, if I do them, I’ve had a successful day. I’m there at about 5:30, have a cup of coffee, iced tea, my milk because I like it steamed, I sit down and clear my email box out, get it down to the important stuff, get anything out of the way I want to get done. At 6:30 I have my gym in my garage, I work out 30 minutes give or take, then shower, let the dogs out, feed the dogs, kiss my three small children — a five, almost six year old, and two-and-a-half year old twins. I’m out the door, in the office by 7:45, and on the phone calling the brand new expireds at 7:58. My goal is to do two hours of brand-new lead generation and one hour of lead follow-up. I can’t control the amount of people that answer the phone, I can only control the time I’m committing to actually do the activity.

Ren Jones19:07

What do you think, it’s the steamed milk?

Sarah Close19:13

He said it very well — he has a very simple but predictable morning routine, and that’s what enables him to get the important pieces out of the way. Having the three items he’s really intentional about, you can have that satisfaction of actually winning the day regardless of whatever else gets thrown at you. It’s the magic word of routine — it’s an unconscious activity, it pulls you, whereas a to-do list is a lot harder. And doing it first thing in the morning — from the time you wake up until noon, that’s the part you can control. If you think about your flow of energy, when do you start to droop? That 2:00 to 3:00. If you have to do something that requires willpower or forced accountability, the likelihood of doing it successfully at that time is greatly reduced. It’s the same hours on the clock, just shoved into a more successful time block.

Ren Jones20:29

It’s been proven — I believe it was a Harvard study — regardless of what you’re selling, if you’re looking for business in the morning versus the afternoon, equal amounts of time, equal approach, the math came out that looking for business in the morning yielded almost exactly twice as much as the afternoon. And, as Gary Keller says, eat your vegetables first.

Ren Jones21:16

We’ve got two clips of our next one. Let’s roll it.

Ren Jones21:24

You shocked me the other day. Let me put this in context — how old are you now?

Jennifer Merlin21:35

37 years old.

Ren Jones21:38

And I said, where do you want to be five years from now? And you said, “I’m going to be retired.” How does that work?

Jennifer Merlin21:47

With investment properties. I started buying in 2010, and now I own 31 units, and they’re almost all paid for. Another five years of accumulating property. That’s why I live in a crappy house, so I can buy investment properties.

Ren Jones22:18

If you’re this focused, you can have unlimited passive income and go have fun. She’s right here in your company.

Sarah Close23:01

Real estate people, successful listing agents who list property, have a great opportunity to buy property — they see the deals, they know value, they know the neighborhoods. It’s the number one thing an agent should be doing with the money they’re making, reinvesting it back into the product we’re selling. Having access to that inventory as soon as it’s available, if not before, puts you in an excellent position to make great decisions — taking care of your clients first, then your family. And there’s an authority Jennifer has when speaking with other investor clients, because she’s doing what she’s asking them to do, which makes her very effective.

Ren Jones24:07

You know Neil Schwartz does a little outline with real estate agents and shows how you put down 20, 25 percent, and with 15 years of your money you get something paying for itself — the mortgage pays the payments, and at the end of the 15th year you pay off your first house, then your second, and if you buy one or three a year, he showed how many millions of dollars you have at the end of a short period, permanent comfort for life. People always need a place to live, and we get to buy at a 3% discount, usually, and sometimes more because you find the right one. So if you’re not buying properties, you’re missing the boat.

Ren Jones25:14

Let’s look at the second clip of Jennifer Merlin.

Jennifer Merlin25:17

We actually do pretty big FSBO business, because most for sale by owners want to list. I understand they want to try it on their own, and I just say, “You know, I’ve seen this movie before, I know how it ends. May I share with you how it ends?” It’s follow-up — they want to try it, and that’s fine, but we know that within four weeks they will end up listing with an agent, and I want it to be us.

Ren Jones25:46

I love that clip, the energy. She’s great with for sale by owners.

Sarah Close25:50

She’s so passionate and enthusiastic, and they can feel that — they’re looking for someone who’s going to have energy behind getting their product sold. What’s the rule? Energy sells, energy is attractive, and we manufacture that. It’s showtime. That’s part of the reason you’ve always encouraged everyone you’ve coached to do your calls while standing up, let your body get into that energy flow, so you’ve got all the possible help to convey that energy through the phone when you only have your voice.

Ren Jones26:39

I remember on the script, when you’d ask about where they’re getting ready to move to, I would stand there ready, and I’d say, “So if you were going to move, where would you go next?” and whatever they said, “Denver,” I would pop up, just to shove as much energy into the phone as I could. They can feel that, and nothing’s more exciting than getting them to open up about where they’re moving to.

Sarah Close27:13

What Jennifer does really well too is she’s very good in her follow-up. People want to look good and be right, and she’s not making them wrong in that call — she’s simply embracing what they’re doing and helping them move through that decision process to get with an agent a bit faster, because it is going to happen.

Ren Jones28:02

We have another treat — Kari Kohler and her husband came and shadowed you, watched you prospect, drove from Chicago to Cincinnati to spend the morning watching. Let’s take a look at Kari Kohler, all about accountability and objection handlers.

Kari Kohler28:38

I have two sets of Google Hangouts with a bunch of pictures of a whole bunch of us making calls, and it’s so much fun. There are people from across the country, a bunch of Chicago people, all coached by different coaches, so they all have a little different perspective on how they answer objections and go through their scripts. What’s so much fun is I can hear their objection handlers, scribble it down, use it, modify it. It’s also a way to keep the energy flowing, because if you’re gone from the screen for more than five minutes, he’s like, “Kari, Kari, Kari,” screaming at me to come back to the screen, and if we’re not on there, they’re calling or texting, “Where are you?” It’s a major accountability and a major learning experience.

Kari Kohler30:01

And then you have somebody you text every day — that’s just with the driver, because I happen to be a driver myself, so it’s just a few phrases: “Have you started?” “Yes.” “I need to get a qualified listing appointment.” “Yes.” It’s not “how’s the family,” none of that, it’s just “get it done.”

Ren Jones30:26

Talk about accountability — when you have a couple dozen accountability play partners and somebody texting you, whoa.

Sarah Close30:35

And she’s able to get that information so quick, like she was saying about the objection handlers — it’s like speed dating for learning scripts, you get all of that at once. You’re tuning in, someone’s calling, “Oh, that was a good one, I like that.” And you get to hear how people use the scripts, because there are a lot of similarities, but sometimes when someone puts a little more emphasis or inflection on one point, it’s like, “Oh, that came across differently, I can benefit from that.”

Ren Jones31:03

Kari’s amazing, it’s just fun to watch the business she’s building over the last several years, first class, and she’s going about it in the right way. There are going to be so many cases where we wake up and don’t feel like doing that — it happens to the best of us. Imagine if she had 24 people all going, “Where are you?”

Ren Jones31:38

This next one’s a treat. We interviewed her five years ago also — now she’s 29, she was 24 at the time. You know who this is, Gordon Watson’s daughter, Brianne Llewellyn. Let’s watch.

Brianne Llewellyn32:07

Yesterday I actually had a bad call — this guy was cussing me, calling me all kinds of name combinations I probably haven’t been called before — and I was just polite, “I understand, I’m sorry, have a bad day, thanks for your time,” and I just started laughing. I was like, man, I have never been called that before, but that’s really funny. A lot of times I’ll just laugh. Sometimes people are just rude, having a bad day — trust me, I’ve answered the phone before and not been nice, and it wasn’t from anything they did, my daughter was acting up or whatever. So sometimes I just diffuse the situation, apologize for catching them at a bad time, and offer to call at a different time. There aren’t too many times you get an awful call, but when you do, I just laugh.

Ren Jones33:11

What you’re describing is probably one of the toughest things for people to overcome — they get on the phone, after about 45 minutes there’s a bead of sweat on their forehead, a knot in their stomach, and sometimes they stop for days. Was it just your personality, or did it take you two or three years to work through that?

Brianne Llewellyn33:35

It definitely didn’t take me years. We all have mental roadblocks to overcome, I’m just like anybody else. I’ve just seen what calling every day has done for my business, so I choose to focus on that. The most frustrating part for me at first was when I started prospecting with my dad every day, and he was setting one, two, three appointments every single day, and I’m saying the same things, doing the same things, and not setting any. So at first it was frustrating, and then I learned it’s not just what you say, but how you say it, making it a conversation and expecting the best outcome. You’ve got to get the perfect ingredients together. It doesn’t happen overnight, you just have to be patient and get better, like anything else.

Sarah Close34:37

I think she’s amazing. What she was talking about, having the difficult person — I remember hearing people on live calls and it finally dawning on me that I’m not the only one that gets wackos on the other end of the line, and it’s not a reflection of how good a job I’m doing. If you go into those calls with an expectation that you’re likely to hit a wacko, I don’t think you can get derailed quite as easily.

Ren Jones35:36

She was lit up, and I almost want to play that ten times. That’s the healthy way to go about it, because it can get pretty heavy otherwise. It has nothing to do with her or with me — it’s everything to do with that person and whatever their mood is for the day. Your job is to sort of sterilize yourself from it and don’t let it come through the phone.

Ren Jones36:22

Somebody wrote on the chat, “I can’t believe you use three by five cards to track your leads.” Well, she’s 29, that’s all she knows — she doesn’t have a website, she uses three by five cards, very old-fashioned. But guess what, 150 sales a year. In her senior year of high school, 67 sales. Five years ago when we interviewed her she was 24, doing 150 sales, two assistants, no buyer agent, mostly sellers.

Sarah Close37:15

She’s only showing one or two buyers a house the rare times she does work with buyers, and they’re homeless because she sold their house, so they’re fast and pre-qualified. And she’s really getting granular in that pre-qualification process, which enables her to use her time effectively — she’s not driving out to a house where someone’s not in a position or doesn’t have the right motivation. 93% of the time she takes the listing, she’s heavily pre-qualified, pre-listing package, in and out 15, 20 minutes, so she can take two or three listings in a day.

Ren Jones38:04

Let’s go next, back to Chicago — Ron Wexler.

Ron Wexler38:18

Instead of saying “when can we meet” or “when would you like to meet,” it was “what daytime hours do you have available this week for us to sit down together?” What daytime hours — so I just eliminated weekends and nights in my question. Because if I say “when are you available,” you’re automatically going to say, “Oh, we get home at 6 o’clock and blah blah blah.” When I would ask that question, they’d go, “Well, actually, I can shoot home early on Thursday, that’s my wife’s day off.” The same person, if you said “when are you available,” would have said seven o’clock on Thursday.

Ren Jones39:11

So we’re back to scripts again — “what daytime hours.” Everything’s driven by that script. It’s sort of like McDonald’s, which is run by 16-year-olds — it’s very well run, but it’s the script, it’s not the 16-year-olds.

Sarah Close39:31

I shared this with Ren the other day — the thing that’s really hit me recently, we just bought our third office, and I’m coaching and teaching a Language of Sales class, which is a blast. It teaches you to be amazing at scripts.

Ren Jones39:57

Language of Sales, with Keller Williams MAPS coaching, is that correct? So you want to get involved in that. It’s the right words — the exact words. If you’re going to say “what’s a good time to get together,” they’re not going to pick one you like — “no, that’s on Saturday at four.” Brilliant. He’s not doing anything earth-shattering, but he’s doing something very thoughtful, specific and purposeful. “What daytime hours do you have this week?” That has to be a pattern interrupt for the person receiving it, because now they weren’t expecting that, so they have to really think.

Ren Jones40:41

We’ve met people — Ron’s one of them — and there was another gal, Valerie Carr, who because of her horses always wanted afternoons, she’d do 1 o’clock and 3 o’clock. And we know a number of people whose goal is to work from 8 to 5. Ron was one of those — selling 19, 20 homes a year for many years, always being able to pull into his driveway at 5 p.m. He’d always say the reason agents work so many hours and so many days is they weren’t doing what they’re supposed to do during their work hours. So more power to him, you deserve to be home at 5 if you’re highly efficient.

Sarah Close41:28

In that Language of Sales course he’s referring to, there’s magic in that — simple, predictable results you’ll get by using a specific word pattern, and it’s proven, something with your mind chemistry.

Ren Jones41:41

Neuro-linguistic, cause-and-effect language, single binds, double binds, all of that. And notice, all these people we don’t really talk about it much, but everybody’s always referring to “my coach,” “when I was with this coach and that coach.” A lot of them are paying typically a thousand a month, and they do it for decades, which means they’re getting that return — they’re still in the business decades later.

Ren Jones42:18

The next one’s a real treat — he’s in the rejection business. It’s very infectious, I could watch him for hours. Let’s roll it — James Matz.

James Matz42:30

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

James Matz43:36

I’m a former athlete, and when you look at those guys that make incredible shots at the end of the game or a big home run, the manifestation of that didn’t just happen in that game — it came after repeated practice after practice. So when people ask what kind of business I’m in, I always say I’m in the rejection business, because the more I’m rejected, the more money I make.

James Matz44:21

I think the thing people do is they make it about them. Everyone wants to be successful, that’s a personal decision, yet the wall comes when you start understanding what you have to do to attain that success. At the end of the day, it’s all about the decisions you make — when you make good decisions, good things happen. In the sales business, lead generation is the most important activity, and the thing that’s helped me over the years is that I don’t do the lead generation to create the outcome, I do the lead generation so that I can do the lead generation. If you make the calls, at some point you’re going to catch a fish. Just because you put your line out in the water doesn’t mean you’re going to catch one, but keep your line out in the water and it’s an inevitable conclusion.

Sarah Close45:54

I could listen to him for hours, he’s got a very convicted manner of speaking. Delayed gratification is hard for Americans — we don’t like that, we want it now. We want to sit down at a piano and within an hour be ready for Carnegie Hall. He has an interesting take on his lead generation time, being in the rejection business — when he’s being rejected, he’s winning, because that’s his business.

Ren Jones46:33

Kind of like Brianne laughing at the hostile call, they’re moving toward that.

Sarah Close46:38

He’s got a really good point — when you make a call and have a discussion, one of three things happens: you get an appointment, you figure out a reason to follow up and make that person a nurture, or you determine it’s someone you never need to talk to again. All three are really okay, so you can win any way you set up the game.

Ren Jones47:00

Next, somebody I went to shadow in Nashville, Tennessee, following the Vulcan7 format — Bernie Gallerani. He moved from Las Vegas to Nashville about a decade ago, and the first year in the business sold 49 homes. He’s at three million now and trying to get to ten million, studying what somebody who makes ten million a year does, how they behave. Let’s look at this deep mindset piece.

Bernie Gallerani48:18

Here’s what I’d say to all people listening: you have to have a goal that’s strong enough to get you past your bad habits, because we all have habits, and these habits have been ingrained in us for so long that you have to identify that it’s a bad habit and work on making it better. It’s not going to lay down for you, it’s something you have to conquer in time, and how you conquer it is to develop a goal you want to achieve — a smaller goal or a bigger goal, up to your listeners. The goal has to have an end date, because if a goal doesn’t have an end date, it’s nothing but a dream. It might be “I want to list two properties this week,” or “list 30 properties this year,” whatever it is.

Bernie Gallerani49:22

Number two, control the controllables. I learned this from one of my daughters who was in college. As an agent I’d say, “I’m going to get three listing appointments,” and if I didn’t, “Oh crap, I didn’t do my job.” My daughter said, “Why don’t you work on the controllables instead of focusing on the things you can’t control? You can control what time you get up, what time you go to the gym, what time you show up to the office, how long you’re going to prospect. You can almost control the people you talk to — if you want to call 30 people and it doesn’t happen in three hours, you might have to put four hours in, but you can control that. You can’t control how many people list with you, you can only control how many people you talk to.” This is powerful — my goal no longer is how many listings I take. I back out how many contacts I have to make to take five listings a week, and I dedicate that time. If I get to the office at 7 o’clock, I just won. If I get on the phones at 7:45, I just won. If I make thirty contacts a day, I just won. If I do the things I can control and I win, the listings will always show up.

Bernie Gallerani51:16

About three or four years into the business I was feeling like I knew it all, I was tired of prospecting, I wanted to make a lot of money but didn’t want to work that hard for it. I’d considered getting out of coaching — and not only that, I was creating an ally of other people who believed like I believed, I was the ringleader saying, “Aren’t you tired of this crap?” Then one day I stuck in an audiotape, Mike Ferry talking about this same issue, how your mind will prevent you from being successful based on how you typically think, and that you have to keep conditioning yourself and get bigger, more desirable goals. So I cut out a picture of an Aston Martin and put it on my dream board, and I looked at that thing for about four days and pondered it — do I want to work that hard to have it? Why is it important? I thought, the only difference between me and me sitting in that car is the crap that keeps going on in my head. Remove that crap, and I’ll have that car. So I made a decision that day that I was the problem.

Bernie Gallerani53:11

Then success created an issue — “Gosh, I’m making a half a million a year, how much more do I really need? Why don’t I throw my feet up and enjoy my life?” But those are things losers say. Actually, it’s interesting, I make a lot more money than I used to and I don’t work really any more time. When I got my mind right, my balance right, my focus, my energy level, my attitude right, what I tell myself every day is total domination — unless I own total domination in my marketplace. My wife doesn’t understand when enough is enough, and here’s what I said: the dream was given to me, I don’t expect her to see it, because the vision was given to me. In my vision, why can’t I make ten million dollars a year? I worked harder to make two than I do to make three.

Ren Jones54:51

There seems to be a direct correlation between the more you sell and the less you work, in some ways — do you run into that?

Bernie Gallerani54:59

Once you get there, I work at least 25% less now, selling almost 400 houses, than I did selling fifty, because I was launching, getting off the launch pad. Rockets burn 70% of their fuel getting off the launch pad.

Sarah Close55:52

What’s happened is he’s gotten into a momentum and a flow and built the systems, tools and patterns he needs, so he’s not figuring it out every day, he’s just implementing and leveraging and thinking strategically about how to get to 400 houses sold, versus when you’re down in the weeds trying to get your first 50 figured out. And he takes complete ownership of everything — it’s the junk in his head, not an outside set of circumstances preventing his success. He owns all of it.

Ren Jones56:35

That clip — the last 25 minutes of his interview — I have played personally over and over and over. That’s episode six for any of you that want to know, episode nine to watch that. There’s no ego in it, it’s just about what he wants and what he’s willing to do to get it.

Ren Jones57:03

We’re going to go up to Jersey City, Patrick Southern. Patrick’s really about taking the value up to a client, because a lot of agents are like, “I’ll get you three actives and three solds and see what it’s worth” — that’s your value. But he’s taking the value much higher, to where he’s really an authority on the market, and people like that. Let’s watch.

Patrick Southern57:30

I also work people around capital gains landmarks. Anyone who’s bought a home after two years, in my marketplace, if they’re above a certain price point — I don’t call anything below 700 — anything that passes capital gains, I’ll reach out and let them know, “Congratulations, you’re past this point, when do you think you’ll be moving?” You bring something of value during a landmark. If someone rents out a property, call them at the two-year mark before they go into capital gains. There are creative ways to work a marketplace, you just have to find where the service you can provide that prospect is, and that call becomes a hell of a lot easier. Rather than, “Hey, I’m looking to do something,” you call and say, “Are you aware you’ve passed this great threshold of capital gains? Do you know how that works?” They say, “Gosh, I didn’t know anything about it,” and right away you’re providing service and you’re the authority they go to.

Patrick Southern58:35

I did about 32 new listings in October, and 22 million in pending. For myself, the team is very small — I do the listing side, my sister Shay does the buyer side, another guy Anthony does buyer side, and I have a listing coordinator, a transaction manager and a personal assistant. I keep about 90 percent, we run very lean. The biggest misconception about getting a team and a buyer’s agent is that a buyer’s agent is a direct result of the inability to handle a business load and service it correctly. I first got a buyer agent because I didn’t have time to deal with buyers anymore, and a second because we were busting at the seams — it’s my obligation to feed those buyer agents with leads, not buy it off Zillow or Trulia. We run lean because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Ren Jones01:01:22

Somebody typed on the chat, “Where’s he getting the leads for the buyer agents?” That would be 32 listings in October — you sell their house, they have nowhere to live. Ninety percent profit, versus most teams operating off 55 percent expenses, and some of these teams he’s describing running 15 to 20 percent margins.

Sarah Close01:02:12

He’s bringing his clients an element of expertise and thoughtfulness they aren’t getting from everybody else. When he’s making those calls about capital gains, there’s probably not anyone else in his marketplace doing that, so he’s the go-to person, the authority. And you want to go to the best.

Ren Jones01:03:07

Our last one, somebody right here in town — somebody I’ve been courting for a while. They’re a real treat, very successful here in Cincinnati, with a local company — Sue Wall and Sue Miller.

Ren Jones01:03:44

You’ve been doing this for 24 years — do you guys still role play and practice the scripts?

Sue Wall01:03:51

Yes, we do, every day. We’ve had a lot of different role play partners throughout the years, and some we aren’t as strong with. Right now I have a role play partner in Florida who’s very tough on me, but brings up some great points, helps me, makes me think about things when I’m making calls, so it keeps my edge. Maybe it is about the words, because he’s really helping me during a script to bring closers in more often than I typically would — I’m more amiable, and he’s more of a driver, direct to the point. On Friday mornings, boy, I’m on task.

Ren Jones01:05:12

Look at people that are newer to this — a typical expired listing in the city, what do you think they get, 25, 30, 35 calls? That’s what the owner tells you. And what I always find fascinating is they end up meeting with the same three or four people. That means you guys are a lot more persistent, because the other ones lay down — “We’re going to go back to the same agent,” “Okay, well, thanks, good luck to you.” But you have to be ready for that reflex no. Do you ever feel some tension, like maybe I better get off the phone, but I’m going to try one more time?

Sue Wall01:06:06

Of course — try one more time, keep asking more questions, keeping them engaged.

Ren Jones01:06:17

What do you say if they’re getting ready to hang up, “Well, I appreciate you calling” — what do you say to pull them right back in?

Sue Wall01:06:26

“Well, why don’t we try to meet, why don’t we just go by, Wednesday at five?” Or, “Would it be a problem if your house was sold in 30 days?”

Ren Jones01:06:43

Okay, great, would that be it?

Sue Wall01:06:50

“I do sell homes, Ren.” “No, what do you do?” “Well, I’ll tell you what, I have time this afternoon at four, or tomorrow at five would be better.” A third time, come on — “I’d love to come over and show you.” “All right, four or five.” Then I’d go into a pre-qual script.

Ren Jones01:07:14

Just like that. They’re very kind, and they get the appointments, they get the listings, they dominate here — they’ve taken 93 listings so far this year. You can’t be practicing every day for 24 years and not be effective. It’s just time on the task, and they’re very learning-based — I see them at seminars all the time, always participating in education, role play partners, everything else. You can’t have that much of the right stuff going on and not get the results they’re getting.

Ren Jones01:07:56

We really appreciate you joining us for the highlight show, Sarah, we’ll do it again in about three months. A thank you again to Aaron Wittenstein and his Facebook group Lead Gen, 40,000 people — if you want to get involved, go to facebook.com/groups/gotobjections, and he’d like me to mention his program expiredmasteryelite.com. If you’re watching on Lead Gen and you’re not involved with Vulcan7, you can get a nice price by going to vulcan7.com/leadgen. And finally, most importantly, if you’ve done your job — you worked out, hit a good breakfast, did some affirmations, role played, got on the phones and prospected until about 11:30 or 12:00, returned some calls, went to lunch — get a big spoon and get some good Graeter’s mint chocolate chip ice cream. If you don’t live in the area, go to graeters.com and look up where you can buy it in your market. Thanks for joining us, we’ll be back next week with someone else just like Sarah — not only does she take two, three, four listings a week, she owns a bunch of market centers, rental property, horses, and travels all over. Get up on the listing side of the business and have a great life. And for those of you that watch Roadmap every week, you can text me anytime, we’ll answer questions all week long — 513-409-1620. We’ll see you next week, folks, bye-bye.