How Josh Barker built a team that closed 595 transactions

Ren Jones 00:00

Welcome to Roadmap, how to take three listings a week until you’re ready for more. Each week we interview a great agent who is consistently taking two, three or more listings each week, and we have an exciting guest today. We encourage you to take notes and apply as much of their knowledge as quickly as you can, and then use the copycat principle.

00:23 If you’re watching on Vulcan7 or the Lead Gen network, you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions. Before I introduce our guest today, I want to remind everybody we’re simulcasting the show in the private Lead Gen group on Facebook. They have 45,000 members now, and we have a large audience there today as well.

00:53 My co-host is an occasional co-host. She’s joined us before and we’re thrilled to have her here today. She’s Sarah Close, and Sarah owns several real estate market centers in southern Ohio.

01:34 I want to introduce our guest. I got a chance to shadow him. It was a four-hour drive from the nearest airport that takes jets. You can get there on a propeller plane. He was, after expenses, netting right about a million dollars about five years ago, but I understand he has really amped it way up beyond that now. From Redding, California, let me welcome Mr. Josh Barker.

Josh Barker 02:04

How’s it going? Thanks for having me on the call. I appreciate that. I’ve never been on Facebook Live before, so it’s a new experience. Hopefully I won’t mess it up for you guys.

Ren Jones 02:22

If they have a referral for Redding, Chico and all through Northern California, what’s the best way to find you?

Josh Barker 02:36

There’s two ways to communicate. One would be email, and the other would be to make a phone call.

Ren Jones 03:02

As a bonus, they could probably go to ReddingHomes.com and learn about how you’re set up and what you’re doing.

Josh Barker 03:06

You’re absolutely right. They sure could.

Ren Jones 03:14

How many did you sell last year, now that we’re into 2018?

Josh Barker 03:26

Finishing off 2017, we closed 595 transactions. We carried over another 82 transactions into 2018.

Ren Jones 03:54

Your team is basically an entire company, right?

Josh Barker 04:00

That’s correct. I own a small RE/MAX franchise, but it’s essentially a shell for our sales team. We don’t have independent agents that work for us or anything like that.

04:30 Our company is broken down into two main segments. One is our sales team, which last year in 2017 comprised a total of eight salespeople, me being one of those. The other part of the company is the administrative staff. We do our very best to keep the salespeople, including myself, in the roles of representing buyers and sellers, and we keep our administrative staff focused on the administrative activities related to that.

05:09 As a company, we listed 450 listings last year. Of that, 325 I listed personally. We closed 325 of those listings, of which I personally handled 250 of them. We closed 270 buyer transactions, of which I did zero. I don’t represent any buyers in the market. We have our agents take care of that.

05:42 The company grossed about $3.85 million. The imperfect part of the model we have is that I still represent a very large portion of the transactions for the company. Long term, we want to scale this company to 1,000 transactions, which obviously means I’m going to need more people doing more transactions to get there.

06:38 For the most part, between the end of February and the end of July, in the past I’ve worked five and a half days a week to accommodate all those listings. That’s when the greatest amount of new sellers come to the market. After that, all the way through February, I’m down to a regular five-day workweek. I don’t have to work weekends for about half the year.

Josh Barker 07:52

I’m very careful who we select when we first bring them in. I don’t bring in new, green agents as a rule. Some of the learning curves that a new agent goes through would mean we’d be wasting too many opportunities and resources.

08:19 We need an agent that’s been in the business for a year or two, understands the vernacular, understands the market and understands how real estate is transacted in our area. I don’t need them to be great agents yet. I just need them to have a basic foundation of what an agent is and how they operate.

08:36 When I have that agent and I know that by them being in business with me I can make them a better agent than they could be on their own, that’s when I know they’re the right fit for the company.

09:17 I would want them to have a goal for 50 transactions a year after being with me for 12 months. I want them thinking at that volume from day one. If they can’t think that way, they’re probably not the right fit from the start.

09:39 I also want to make sure that whatever they need in a business relationship with me, I actually have what they need. If they want coaching, mentoring and training, we’re the right company for that. If an agent doesn’t like doing administrative activities and likes to stay in the role of selling, that’s what we do. We handle the transaction management, listing management and most of the client communications once the property is sold.

Josh Barker 11:23

I’ve been very fortunate. In our market, we have about 145,000 people in the county we serve. Fifty percent of our business comes from past clients and center of influence. We have to earn the right to continue to serve them.

11:39 Part of that is communicating with them on a quarterly basis. We give market updates each month. We provide the highest level of service we’re capable of providing. The response from that has been that 50% of our business, both buyers and sellers, has been past-client repeat and referral business.

12:02 We ask, on a scale of one to ten, ten being highly likely, how likely is it that you would continue to refer business or do business with us in the future? We rate that when we first list a property for sale, while we’re in escrow and at the close of escrow.

12:32 Any time we get a rating that’s lower than a nine, I’m personally notified. Then I can get involved and decide how we as a company want to solve the potential for an unhappy client.

13:02 As the owner of the company, whether it is a client I had a relationship with or an agent who works for me, I get on the phone and talk with the client on behalf of the company. I try to solve the problem because we want to do the right thing and continue to be recognized in our community as service-oriented. I also want to free that agent as fast as possible. Agents become unproductive quickly if they’re dragged down with a negative situation with a client.

13:47 Each department does the evaluation. Our listing department does the scale of one to ten right after we’ve got the property to market. If we have a problem with photography, signs, marketing or promotion, we want to identify it upfront so we can solve it right away.

14:08 When we’re in escrow, our escrow managers ask the question once we get through the request for repair. After close of escrow, our client care coordinator makes the phone call, follows up and makes sure they were completely satisfied.

14:44 Each one of those is reported into our system. We’re on a CRM called Salesforce, so each activity is recorded. I can go into any file at any time and see that they’ve been rated on a scale of one to ten. I know I’m going to get involved if it’s less than a nine.

Josh Barker 15:57

I started off as an individual agent and figured out pretty early that if the administrative staff communicated and did not use my name, the client felt like they were handed off and I would have to get reinserted into these transactions more frequently.

16:13 What we learned a long time ago was that when you call the client, you say, “Josh asked me to give you a call. Josh wanted to share this information. I spoke with Josh. This is what Josh recommends that we do.” We make sure the scripting is associated around whoever the agent is that’s representing that client.

16:45 I believe it’s the company that’s ultimately responsible for the overall client experience. The minimum level of service the company delivers should be so high and so strong, and then what the agent does is that much more and puts us that much more over the top.

Josh Barker 17:37

It depends on what side of the business you’re looking at. There’s obviously the listing side and the buying side. I believe the company is responsible for delivering between 50% and 75% of all the lead opportunities that the company services.

17:52 I take responsibility as the owner of the company that I have to generate or create tools, systems and lead generation ideas that create opportunities for the company. I own that. That’s one of my jobs in the company. Lead generation is the number one priority for the company.

18:24 If you’re expecting to get 50% of your business from past clients and center of influence, you’re going to have to provide amazing service to your clients. You have to have great communication systems in place. We’re talking to them on a quarterly basis and giving market updates once a month.

18:44 You need to offer more value than just selling a home. If they need a painter, carpenter, plumber or whatever, you want to become that resource in your marketplace for previous and future clients, so when they think about real estate they’re thinking about you.

19:02 Most agents are going to need some sort of lead generation platform, a personalized website that can drive buyer and seller traffic. Social media has proven to be a very good tool. I don’t do any of the social media. I have a marketing department that does it, but I make sure we have social marketing and media going out.

19:29 If you’re marketing and promoting your listings properly, you will generate opportunity as a result of that. We get hired quite a bit because sellers in the marketplace see our high-quality photography and marketing exposure and want a similar experience.

Josh Barker 20:03

Prospecting is a big piece of what we do as a company. Because I know the company has to control a large portion of all the leads that come in, part of my job is to make sure those leads are being converted into appointments for both buyers and sellers.

20:23 I spend a lot of time coaching and training our agents so they can convert at the highest level. We have a culture of agents prospecting between two and three hours a day. They’re not cold calls in most situations. They’re doing lead follow-up on consumers who have already inquired about real estate.

20:47 We use a website called Real Geeks. On the backend there’s a CRM where we can manage all of our buyer and seller leads. My agents essentially have their own accounts and they make calls into that account every single day. It’s my job as the company owner to make sure they’re converting those leads at the highest level.

21:28 On the listing business, if you take away the 50% that comes from what I’ve already told you, we do seller valuation tools in the marketplace. Social media tends to be a big piece of it. Because I’m the top agent in our market, we get a lot of business that comes just because of that position.

22:02 Then there’s a lot of prospecting calls: expireds and canceleds, for sale by owners, just listed, just sold, all the things you would expect as an agent.

Josh Barker 22:12

I had to make some shifts about four or five years ago. Back then I was doing probably 150 transactions a year, and I didn’t feel I was able to prospect more hours per day to get to 250.

22:30 I started saying I’m going to have to create some lead generation tools and systems that will give me potential seller leads that I can call, because I’m great at calling people and I’m great at scripts and converting them into appointments, but I needed a higher-quality call list.

22:48 I started creating lead generation tools like seller valuation tools and identifying people responding to emails we send out once a month. They revealed themselves to me as somebody who might be interested in selling their home. There are a lot of different things you can do that create a higher-quality call list.

23:05 I started calling higher-quality leads, and that allowed me to convert at a higher level and get to the 250 that I did this last year.

23:30 We’ve got a bit over 3,000 past clients and center of influence. When I send out a market update or anything like that to our existing database, it’s going to 3,000 people we’ve done business with. It’s going to another 17,000 that I haven’t done business with, but we have their information. It’s a huge footprint of people we’re communicating with.

Josh Barker 24:29

On the listing side, you’d be on the phone by 8:00 in the morning prospecting. There’s an order to prospecting that we follow. We call expireds first, canceleds second, then past clients and center of influence, just listed and just sold calls.

24:44 Make sure you have enough people to call to cover between two and a half and three and a half hours a day of phone calls or contacts.

24:56 On the listing side, the goal is about ten contacts per hour. That’s actual conversations, ten conversations per hour. On the buying side, it skews down a little bit because those conversations tend to be longer. If they’re calling buyer lead opportunities, it’s probably somewhere between six or seven an hour.

25:31 We have a numbers analyzer for the company. It allows me to track the agents’ productivity, but I can also measure the agents against each other, not necessarily to compete. If I have an agent who’s really strong at converting a phone call to an appointment, I might pair them with another agent who’s not as strong in that area.

25:52 If I’ve got an agent who’s really strong at converting a listing presentation into a listing, I might want that person working with somebody who’s not as strong. It allows me to pair the agents with the right people.

Josh Barker 26:25

I don’t have it figured out. That’s why I still do it. I’ve been with Mike Ferry as my coach since 1999.

26:43 The gentleman I’m referring to works with me now. We’re in business together here at Diamond Real Estate. A friend of mine said, “Joshua, if you’re going to want to do this at a high level, you need to listen to these CDs and tapes.” I think it was tapes back then. It happened to be a Mike Ferry Superstar Retreat from around 1995.

27:01 I wore out those cassettes for the first 12 months. I hadn’t met Mike yet at that point, but I had about 12 months of just listening to all of his tapes all day.

27:20 I was the typical agent in the back of the room looking at all these top producers in the front of the room and this guy on the stage who was speaking a message that was so simple, so clear, so direct and so unapologetic. I was hooked from day one.

28:15 Since then, we’ve created a great relationship. I’ve had the opportunity to be a coach for him a few times, and we redid the team-building class together for a while where we were helping some agents grow their businesses.

28:33 If I hadn’t learned how to prospect, do great lead follow-up, make quality presentations and provide a great customer experience when I was young, it would have changed the direction of my business. I’m 42 now, so I was about 23 or 24 at the time. Having that kind of exposure at that level changed my life.

Josh Barker 29:04

For me, it’s getting shorter. My favorite presentation is 20 minutes long. I’ve always thought that was a little bit longer than it needed to be, so 15 minutes tends to be where my average presentation is. Then it takes about 10 or 15 minutes to finalize the paperwork, thank them for their time and get out the door.

29:27 My presentation has changed. My assumption of me taking the listing is so high now. I used to go on interviews thinking I was interviewing for the job of selling the home. Now I believe I’ve already been hired when I show up.

29:44 It’s a matter of walking them through the process. They need to know what to do to get their home prepared for sale. They need to know what their home is going to sell for. They need to know what we’re going to do to market and promote it and how that process works, and they need to know what they’re going to net.

30:21 I never leave the client not knowing what to expect next. We know our jobs so well that we can follow along with our own presentations easily because we say them all the time. Our clients don’t hear most of what we say anyway, so there’s no reason to cloud them with too much stuff.

30:45 Once the listing is signed, I make sure our client always knows what to expect next. In our situation, it would be them hearing from our listing department to schedule photography or home staging or whatever it is.

30:58 Every time we talk to a seller with the market update each week, they always know what to expect next. It might be, “If we don’t generate an offer between now and next Tuesday, you’ll be hearing from our office to confirm any showings you’ve had between now and then.” I’ve found that it makes everything go a lot smoother.

31:26 This last year, for me personally, my listings taken was 80%. The company set just over 500 listing appointments last year where clients called in and wanted to interview my company for the job of selling their home. I ended up going on just over 400 of those appointments personally and listed 325 of those.

Josh Barker 32:29

When a client calls into the office, more than nine times out of ten they won’t talk to me personally because I’m not available. I’m either on an appointment, on the phone or meeting with a client.

Before I get there, the client has been prequalified and they’ve received information so I understand what I’m walking into. That preparation is a big part of why the actual presentation can stay short and focused.

Josh Barker 39:00

As the business grows, the goal is to build systems and people around the activities that don’t require the salesperson personally. The salesperson should remain focused on the activities where their skills create the most value.

Josh Barker 44:00

When you know the numbers behind contacts, appointments and listings, you can identify where an agent is strong and where the conversion process is breaking down. That gives you something specific to coach instead of simply telling an agent to work harder.

Josh Barker 49:42

Watch this transformation. It was 125 contacts in the beginning. As I got better at my scripts and skills, that dropped into maybe the 75 range. Even better, it got down into 50 contacts to an appointment set.

49:55 For a long time when I was doing 150 deals a year, it was probably in that 20 to 30 contact range where the appointments were being set each day. Then that’s the point when I realized I wanted a better call list. I wanted to be able to talk to ten people and set an appointment.

50:12 How I did that was I started improving the quality of the people I was calling. Expireds are top-shelf stuff. Once you get past those really top-shelf things that we all know, you’ve got to start creating additional call lists that have high-quality prospects on them.

Ren Jones 50:31

This is chock-full of good information. Maybe you need to get involved with some sort of coaching. It’s helped Josh Barker. There are a lot of ways to get out there and do something.

51:39 Thank you again, everybody, for being here. We’ll see you guys again next week. I don’t know if we’re going to find anybody that does 596 units, but we’ll see you in seven days. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Josh.

Josh Barker 51:53

Thanks, guys. See you soon.