How Sohail Salahuddin closes 75 percent of his listing appointments by pre-qualifying heavy

Ren Jones00:04

Welcome to Roadmap, how to take three listings a week until you’re ready for more — and I hope you’re ready for more. Each week we interview a great agent who’s consistently taking two, three, four listings a 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. If you’re watching on Vulcan7 or on the Lead Gen Facebook group, you’ll have an opportunity to ask some questions during the broadcast. Let me introduce my co-host from San Diego, Carley Hathaway, that’s carleyhathaway.com. Hi Carley, how’s the real estate business?

Carley Hathaway00:44

Hi Ren. Real estate’s great as always, I can never complain. Definitely a great time to be a listing agent.

Ren Jones00:52

Wonderful. So before I introduce our guest today, I want to remind everyone we’re simulcasting the show on the private Lead Gen group on Facebook — they have over 50,000 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 the Lead Gen folks. So let’s welcome our guest today from beautiful Chicago, Illinois and surrounds — Sohail Salahuddin, if I got that right. Sohail Salahuddin.

Sohail Salahuddin01:23

It’s close enough, yes. Thank you so much for being here.

Ren Jones01:32

Great, glad to have you here. And let’s see if we can have some folks send a nice referral to you, listing or buyer — what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Sohail Salahuddin01:41

Email is primary. It’s my first name spelled S-O-H-A-I-L, that’s sohail@sohailrealestate.com. And my cell phone is (312) 437-7799.

Ren Jones02:04

Perfect. And they could go to sohailrealestate.com and learn more about you too.

Sohail Salahuddin02:06

Yeah, sohailrealestate.com and sohailrealestateteam.com.

Ren Jones02:14

Perfect. You’re in a great city.

Carley Hathaway02:20

So can I ask, let’s start out with, what’s your goal this year?

Sohail Salahuddin02:22

120 to 150 closed sales.

Carley Hathaway02:27

Nice. And are you on track?

Sohail Salahuddin02:31

Yeah, I think so. Last month we did about between 20 and 30 closings. This month we should have another 20, 30 closings. So just looking year over year, from past years, you start to see the trends within your own business, and you can define when’s the best time to take listings or when most of your closings are occurring. When you really tailor in with the numbers and the tracking, you can fine-tune your business with your personal life as well. As realtors, if you’re really heavy in listings, you have to have the staff — there’s a lot of loose arms and loose legs.

Carley Hathaway03:09

Definitely. And you say “we” are going to take 20 to 30 — you have a team obviously. Can you tell us what your team is made up of?

Sohail Salahuddin03:16

It’s a small team. I have a listings and transactions manager and a marketing manager. I have a few different buyer’s agents — I have one who’s been with me for a long time, his name is Don Beard, we’ve been working together since 2010 at least. And then I have a few other people on my team that help with the buyers and showings as well, because we try to show our own properties instead of lockboxing them.

Carley Hathaway03:50

Oh, that’s good. I’m sure sellers appreciate that.

Sohail Salahuddin03:51

They do, yeah.

Ren Jones03:53

So it’d be a fairly strong market there. You double-siding a lot?

Sohail Salahuddin03:58

I am, actually — I think this year more than ever. It seems, and I heard this from somebody else, I hadn’t noticed it until just recently, where I’m having buyers reach out to me directly on my listings. I think they believe there’s going to be an advantage to that.

Ren Jones04:12

Let them think that.

Carley Hathaway04:14

They think they’re saving money somehow, I don’t know how, but… Okay, cool. So it sounds like you have a lot of clients, you’re very busy. Where does the majority of your clientele come from?

Sohail Salahuddin04:35

So I built up my business from canceled expireds. That’s really how I built it up. Once I built up enough, I started following a specific training system.

Ren Jones04:51

Anything in particular?

Sohail Salahuddin04:53

Mike Ferry. And my coach is Steve Powers, who’s helped me tremendously. I was so heavily focused on canceled expireds that I let everything else I could be doing fall to the wayside. So now I’m starting to realize you can use a dialer for your past clients, the just listed, just sold calls, your sphere of influence — there’s a number of ways to prospect, and I would say there’s a hierarchy of where the lowest-hanging fruit starts and where it ends up.

Ren Jones05:30

Is that how you run it? Lowest-hanging fruit on through the morning.

Sohail Salahuddin05:34

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway05:35

When you started a few years ago to build your business with the expireds, you must have been on the phones all the time. Can you walk through your routine?

Sohail Salahuddin05:52

Oh my gosh. Well, when I first started, I was coached — I didn’t know how to prospect. This was 2012 or 2013. It took me a long time. The coach I had beat into my head that I should stay focused on taking listings, and it took me months to realize that when I took my focus off that and started working with buyers, or say someone wanted to rent a property, I would lose the opportunity to focus on the listings. And then the magic happened — someone introduced me to Vulcan7 and a dialer. I was dialing by hand before, and it was a different data provider, I don’t think they had cell phones, so I would just call. And when I talked to somebody I didn’t know how to close, so I’d try to get their email address and then follow up with a video from BombBomb. It was a crazy system, not the most efficient and probably not the most effective, but it was a work in progress.

Ren Jones06:59

Got to start somewhere.

Carley Hathaway07:05

So once you discovered Vulcan, the dialer, and you’re using the Mike Ferry scripts, it all came together for you?

Sohail Salahuddin07:15

Yeah. Back then I was using the Mike Ferry scripts because everybody really uses them, but the dialer just totally changed my business. It wasn’t me hand-dialing. And from a mental standpoint, Ren — we spoke about this a second ago — with the dialer it became so fast-paced that it didn’t give me time to look at how much the property’s listed for, or who the last agent was, because those things psych you out of going after the listing. “Oh, it’s a couple million dollars — why are they going to want to list with me?” Or the last listing agent…

Ren Jones07:53

They paid too much three years ago. “Let me look at this one.” Yeah, the dialer forces you into the game.

Sohail Salahuddin07:57

It forces you, so you can’t think, which is good. Don’t think, just do.

Ren Jones08:05

We have people that use it and dial by hand — they have our system. Not that many, but there are people that do that, and once they start on the dialer, they never let it go.

Sohail Salahuddin08:16

No, it’s impossible.

Ren Jones08:23

It’s like cutting down a tree with a chainsaw, versus pulling on it.

Sohail Salahuddin08:25

There you go. That’s a good analogy.

Ren Jones08:35

So how many people are you talking to every day?

Sohail Salahuddin08:37

I’d say an average of about 50, at least 50 conversations. I stopped counting the contacts because I’m trying not to focus on contacts.

Ren Jones08:52

What do you count?

Sohail Salahuddin08:54

Appointments. When you get somebody on the phone, do everything you can to get the appointment. Especially now, with so many agents calling, it’s rare that after you get them on the phone you’ll get another chance — you start to lose so much.

Ren Jones09:12

You get one shot on fresh expireds. Fresh expireds, one-shot deal. For sale by owners, old expireds — different story. Go for it, Carley.

Carley Hathaway09:31

What time do you normally get on the phones, and what’s your daily routine? What time do you get up in the morning? Tell us all.

Sohail Salahuddin09:35

I get up very early. It’s kind of extreme for a lot of people, but it works for me — I wake up at 2:15 in the morning.

Ren Jones09:43

It’s late in the day. I know a lot of realtors do that, but I didn’t know you were one of them. 2:15 a.m.

Sohail Salahuddin09:56

I do some meditation, get my mind right, I read, I get through my emails in the morning. And if I have to prepare for listing appointments, CMAs, all that will be done before 4:00 a.m. Then at 4:00 a.m. I go to the gym — I’m usually there from 4:30 to 6:00.

Ren Jones10:19

Is the sun still up when you go to bed?

Sohail Salahuddin10:20

It might be. I try to get to bed about 9:00, so at this time of year it might be just going down. Then I get on the phones — I try to make it by 7:45, but it’s in that window of 7:45 and 8:00 a.m.

Carley Hathaway10:41

Do you role play?

Sohail Salahuddin10:43

I do, five days a week.

Ren Jones10:44

Different role-play partners?

Sohail Salahuddin10:47

Yeah, I have different partners, it’s going good. Role playing is a phenomenal advantage if you have the right partners. Everybody’s going to be at a different stage, and as you progress you’ve got to find partners who are at the same level or better than you on the phones. It goes back to improving your skills, and the only way to do that is to learn from somebody else. So I have one partner I do Mondays and Thursdays with, because he and I have the same approach to communicating.

Ren Jones11:27

And they’re all in different markets, I assume? Not your market.

Sohail Salahuddin11:33

I have two here in the Chicagoland area, and the rest are — I have one in Florida, one in Arizona, one on the East Coast.

Carley Hathaway11:44

When you’re role playing, you’re working on skills, and you emphasize skills a few times. How important is it to really know your scripts and have the skills and knowledge down?

Sohail Salahuddin11:56

It’s very important, because it goes back to effective communication. It’s not just knowing what to say, it’s knowing how to navigate through the conversation and when to close, because sometimes closing is a natural occurrence based on what the person on the other end is telling you. A lot of people feel like you’ve got to follow the script all the way to the end, but sometimes you’ve got to close right away, because the person on their end isn’t paying attention — you can talk for 10 minutes and you’re just losing their attention span. Depending on the personality type, you have to quickly gauge who the person is on the other end and use that to close.

Carley Hathaway12:44

Good, I like it. So how many listing appointments are you going on a day or a week?

Sohail Salahuddin12:47

Three to five a week.

Carley Hathaway12:53

And are you closing? What percentage?

Sohail Salahuddin12:56

I’d say probably about 70, 75%.

Carley Hathaway13:03

You’re closing at 75, so I’m guessing you do a strong pre-qual before you even make an appointment or go to the house. Did that take you a while to learn? You learn the hard way?

Sohail Salahuddin13:16

It does. It goes back to listening very carefully, and if you’re getting vague answers, you have to dig deeper. I found that the best appointments I have are when I send them something ahead of time and I pre-qual heavy. When I go there, they’re ready to go — it’s not like I have to fight from there on, they’re ready to list with me, because everything’s done beforehand. So I send them what they can research on their own, and I try to minimize it, because if you send too much they’re not going to read through it. If I could, I’d send them just one sheet of paper — I think it might actually be more effective.

Ren Jones14:01

I know sometimes people send a book full of kaka. You sound like one of those people I occasionally meet where your pre-qual is so in-depth, and the material you send is so complete, that by the time you get there they know they want to list with you. Is that the case for you a lot of the time?

Sohail Salahuddin14:19

That’s what I try to aim for. It’s not always the case, but my goal is to do everything before I get there, so they’re ramped up and it’s a short presentation. I’m a driver personality, so I like to get straight to the point — it helps me. I don’t like to waste time at the appointment where the conversation goes off track about their family. That’s all important, but as a professional I want to keep it straight to the presentation and make sure they understand what I’m there for.

Ren Jones14:56

So there are a lot of people watching who get to a listing presentation and this happens to them — they plan to go in for 30, 40 minutes, and two hours later they’re finally leaving because the seller controls the conversation. Can you give them a couple pointers on that?

Sohail Salahuddin15:22

You’re not going in there to be their friend, you’re going in there to be their professional. You don’t want to be their friend who’s also a real estate broker — you want to be their professional real estate broker who’s friendly. So you can be friendly, and if you get out of pattern, you can do a pattern interrupt and pull them back.

Ren Jones15:44

Tell them what that is, if you would.

Sohail Salahuddin15:46

If you’re talking to somebody and the conversation gets off course, where the prospective seller starts to control it, you can say something or do something, or maybe pretend you’ve got an important phone call to make, to interrupt that pattern. When you come back, you take control of the conversation again.

Ren Jones16:04

And a lot of times it’s just the next question on the script.

Sohail Salahuddin16:07

Yeah, absolutely, it’s just questions.

Ren Jones16:09

It’s a question that gets it back onto where you take control again. And it works like a charm. How long is the presentation typically, from the time you get there?

Sohail Salahuddin16:24

I try to keep it within a half hour. Sometimes it gets to an hour, if they want to show me the house and point out all the things they’ve done — I try to see it myself. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Ren Jones16:39

Because they don’t know you, and it’s like, this stranger wants to go through my house, how come he doesn’t want me to walk through with him? But you could conceivably go on two or three in an evening if you had to.

Sohail Salahuddin16:55

Yeah. Sometimes it’s fish when the fish are biting. Sometimes I’ll have set up so many appointments that I’m double-booking them at the same time, and that’s when the pre-qual comes in handy — to pre-qual both really hard and decide which one I want to go on.

Carley Hathaway17:04

That’s a pretty good problem to have, don’t you think?

Sohail Salahuddin17:15

Again, it’s not always. That goes back to really understanding how your market reacts to certain conditions — the best times of year to get on the phones, the best times to follow up with your past clients. You can dial into that, but it takes time, you’re not going to figure it out right away. I’d say get a coach who understands these things — they can help you dial it in. Just the littlest things my coach changed my business completely, and it goes back to communication.

Ren Jones17:52

It’s interesting — we have a lot of people on here involved with one coaching organization or another, yours is a common one. Everybody says, “I have a coach.” I’m just wondering, if you didn’t have a coach, would you be selling anywhere near what you’re selling? We’re not promoting coaching on here, but it seems the people that sell a lot have one.

Sohail Salahuddin18:14

I don’t think I would be, because at one time I was focused on canceled expireds — my coach is the one who got me off that tunnel vision. That’s all I was doing, and some days I’d be on the phone for six to eight hours and not get anything, because I didn’t have that level of efficiency. Canceled expireds are good only in the morning or the evening. I’ve got to hit my past clients, because they know me, they worked with me. I should be following up with everybody I’m working with currently, letting them know what we’re doing to get their property sold, and seeing who else they know that needs a great agent. And all of our pendings — once a property goes under pending, I think the sellers are really excited, because that first step they’ve been waiting for is accomplished. You can follow up with them after the inspection, after attorney review, after the appraisal, and each time you can ask, “Who do you know that needs to get their property sold?”

Ren Jones19:26

That’s such a great source of business. It’s the most neglected category — you’re not one of them, but real estate agents typically won’t ask their pendings for business, yet it’s the most likely time they’d get a referral, while it’s under contract before closing.

Sohail Salahuddin19:41

Sometimes it’s hard to ask, but you have to. That goes back to getting past that mindset and any negative mental barriers. I used to have a hard time calling my past clients, because in the back of my mind I knew I was calling to get business — but I also wanted to see how they were doing and reinvigorate that relationship. My coach is the one who taught me how to do it, how to be effective with that conversation, and to hone the skills I have on the appointment, on the phones, with past clients and current clients.

Carley Hathaway20:29

How often are you reaching out to past clients now? Do you have a routine?

Sohail Salahuddin20:32

I reach out to them every quarter, and a video goes out to my database as well. And then I have one client appreciation party, which I do with a lender I work with, so we do it together.

Ren Jones20:52

The lender pays for it, right? Good deal.

Ren Jones21:00

We’re starting to get a number of questions in. Jordan Wilson and Gary Voorhees are asking what some of the important pre-qual questions are, and what you send in that little pre-listing packet — the vital pieces.

Sohail Salahuddin21:21

Great question. In the pre-listing packet I have some testimonials, my marketing plan — I highlight the most important parts the person should read — my track record, and a copy of the sales and marketing agreement. And then I also send them a CMA. The more stuff you send, the less focus they’ll have on what’s really important — when you send too much, they lose sight of what you’re going there for.

Ren Jones22:00

There’s a lot of things you can discuss with them later, like how to organize the house and get it ready for showing — leave that out, do that once you’ve listed it. Send the nuts and bolts. So you’re sending them a sales and marketing agreement — is that a listing contract?

Sohail Salahuddin22:14

Yes. We call it a sales agreement.

Ren Jones22:17

Send them a listing contract — and I can tell you, most agents, it never occurred to them to do that in advance. But it speaks volumes that you’re the professional and you’re bold enough to send it.

Carley Hathaway22:36

Jordan’s asking, what are the pre-qual questions you ask?

Sohail Salahuddin22:41

You can get them from Mike Ferry, they’re part of his free scripts. But you really just want to find out what’s important to them. Are they prepared to list their home with you? How much do they plan to list for? What’s important to them? Where are they moving to, what’s the timeline? Have they ever thought about selling it themselves? Do they want to get all their cash out, or would they do something creative for a buyer who may need it? And during the pre-qual, you’re also finding out their personality type, so you’re more prepared when you go over there for the presentation.

Ren Jones23:18

Right, how they receive information. Perfect.

Carley Hathaway23:21

So for example, if they’re a driver like you, you’re just going to get right down to the point?

Sohail Salahuddin23:23

Yeah. And if they’re analytical, you’re going to come with more facts and data. Amiable, you may want to prepare to be there a little longer than expected. And expressive, same thing — they’re going to talk a lot, you need to listen, and you probably have to use a couple of different pattern interrupts.

Ren Jones23:52

Somebody was asking — this depends on who you’re calling — you come across an interested client but they’re not ready to meet on the first call. How do you follow up? If it’s an expired you need to close then, but on a for sale by owner or someone else you may have to do some follow-ups. Any strategy?

Sohail Salahuddin24:14

The canceled expireds, you do have to get them, and if you can’t get them in that one shot, try two or three more times at least. Even if they already told you no, it doesn’t hurt to try.

Ren Jones24:30

Just call back in the afternoon.

Sohail Salahuddin24:31

Call back in the afternoon, call back the next day. They may be frustrated, they may be busy at work, you never know. Try, try, try again and deplete all your attempts. For sale by owners is really just a follow-up thing — you have to constantly follow up, because you’re not going to get anywhere until they decide and entertain the idea of working with an agent.

Ren Jones25:03

Do you leave voicemails for people that don’t answer the phone?

Sohail Salahuddin25:05

I do, I’ll leave one or two. I don’t want to leave too many, because once they see my phone number and I’ve left too many, it can become a little bit of harassment — if they’re not calling back on the first one, they may not call back on the tenth. But I think it’s important to leave at least one or two, because I do get calls back from them.

Ren Jones25:32

Ryan Lally is asking, what is that hierarchy for you — where the lowest-hanging fruit is on up? What’s the lowest-hanging fruit?

Sohail Salahuddin25:45

The new canceled expireds for the day.

Ren Jones25:48

And what would be next after that?

Sohail Salahuddin25:51

The hot leads you’ve been following up with — someone who’s ready to do something in the next couple weeks. Then past clients.

Ren Jones25:56

People you know, after that.

Sohail Salahuddin26:05

Yeah, and then the for sale by owners, then just listed, just solds. After that would be the old expireds, but in the past year I haven’t even called anybody past a week — I don’t have time.

Ren Jones26:15

Now, for a lot of the people watching, one of the best things they can do is old expireds, because the skill level required is lower and the chance of getting the listing goes way up if you’re newer or haven’t been calling expireds much. An old expired is friendly, nobody else is calling them, and the odds of getting the listing go up. It’s a great way to start at the shallow end of the pool and get one or two listings a month from it — and that’s not so bad.

Sohail Salahuddin26:53

And trust me, if I had an ISA or someone doing the calls, if I had more time, I’d be going to the old expireds. But in my marketplace there are so many canceled expireds that come out.

Ren Jones27:04

But your skill level’s higher, so you can handle it. A lot of agents are calling the same ones you are and getting a goose egg, but your skill level’s so high that somebody like you calls and it’s all over — they’re going to pick you. Divjot Moore asked who your coach is — that was Steve Powers with the Mike Ferry organization.

Carley Hathaway27:32

Bart asks, how do you go about circle prospecting? What do you say to just listed, just solds?

Sohail Salahuddin27:38

Circle prospecting for me is the same as just listed, just solds, and I just follow the Mike Ferry scripts. The scripts work, but you have to follow them. Most people give up too much because they hear the first one or two nos — but the secret is you want them to say no at least two or three times, because then they feel like they’re in control. You want them to feel like they’re in control, and then the skill comes in where you’re able to turn that conversation around to yeses. Part of communicating effectively is learning how to ask the right questions.

Sohail Salahuddin28:22

It’s learning how to navigate and how to ask the questions. You can ask a yes-or-no question and structure it so they say yes, or structure it so they say no — they’ll give you a no if you structure it that way, and a yes if you structure it that way.

Ren Jones28:39

The power is in the ability to ask good questions. “Did you want to set an appointment, or should I just come over?” Give them one where you don’t care how they answer.

Carley Hathaway28:55

Do you have any other questions?

Ren Jones28:58

This has been a real treat. I learned a lot, I’ve got some good thoughts for strategy. It’s been wonderful, Sohail, we really appreciate it.

Sohail Salahuddin29:09

My pleasure.

Carley Hathaway29:12

I think we all got some really good takeaways from this. I can’t wait to rewatch it a few times.

Ren Jones29:17

Me too. Let me do that little spot I need to do. If you’re watching on Vulcan7 and you want to get involved in the Lead Gen Facebook group who simulcasts this show, they’re at facebook.com/groups/gotobjections. And I want to thank Aaron Wittenstein, who rebroadcasts this show live — he’s a real giver, he runs a program called trajectorynow.com for people that are newer at this. And finally, if you’re watching on Facebook and you’re not involved with Vulcan7 for expireds, for sale by owners, neighborhood search, circle prospecting and a dialer, go to vulcan7.com/leadgen for a very special deal. And if you’ve done what Sohail did today — he made all his calls, started at 8:00 a.m., and he’s setting two or three appointments today — you deserve to treat yourself. You know what motivates him? I have his secret. This is why he makes those calls, this is why he’s successful: he gets the delicious Graeter’s mint chocolate chip. Not only do they sell it in Chicago, they sell it all over North America — go to graeters.com to find the mint chocolate chip. It’s the only one for listing agents. And if the house isn’t selling, dig a hole in the front yard, bury it upside down, and it will cause the house to sell.

Sohail Salahuddin30:46

It’s like Popeye’s spinach.

Ren Jones30:51

That is it. But only the mint chocolate chip — if you get any other flavor, you’re going to end up with too many buyers and no sellers.

Carley Hathaway30:57

Thank you so much for tuning in, everybody. We had such a good time.

Ren Jones31:02

Thanks everybody for joining us.

Sohail Salahuddin31:08

Thanks, everybody.

Ren Jones31:11

Bye everybody, see you next week.