How Breann Llewellyn built a listing business after getting licensed at 18

Ren Jones00:05

It’s that time.

00:09Welcome to Roadmap, how to take three listings a week until you’re ready for more. Each week we interview a great agent and we have an exciting guest today, someone that’s taking 3 or 4 or 5 listings a week. And this show is all about mindset and best practices. So welcome season five, episode two. Glad you’re here. Anyway, today our guest, this is actually a little flashback. She joined us in season one, episode six, and you may have watched the whole thing and I’d encourage you to go back and take a look at that. We’re going to look at some excerpts from that show and talk about mindset and best practices. They go hand in hand.

00:52And first of all, if you believe you can, you can. How are you looking at life? This time of year, if you’re watching this live, is a very important time of the year, because we look at our life and say, “What has my life become? What do I resolve to do? What are my convictions? What do I believe in?”. If you believe you can. Here’s somebody in our… We’re going to watch some clips of Breann Llewellyn from Oklahoma City. When she was 18, in high school, her senior year, she got into the real estate business. Pretty exciting and so it became part-time. And I’ve watched this happen with people, where they go into the real estate business part-time. They just work on the weekends or maybe some evenings and they build a fabulous business out of nothing. If you believe you can, you can. So let’s take a look at what is possible for this 18 year old that got in the business.

Breann Llewellyn01:47

So I got licensed on my 18th birthday, in September of my senior year. And so in that first full year of selling, I closed 67 that year.

Carley Hathaway01:57

Oh my goodness.

Ren Jones01:58

Part-time in high school.

Carley Hathaway01:59

That’s incredible. That’s amazing. What made you get into this at such a young age?

Breann Llewellyn02:07

Really my family. My family owned our company and my grandfather really saw that I was gifted in this area and in his grandfatherly way, kind of pushed me just to try it in my senior year. I really honestly wanted to go into the medical field and was going on to college on scholarships. He’s like, “Just get in and try it. See what you think your senior year. Worst case scenario, you hate it, but you’ve earned some spending money.”. He passed away right before I got licensed, and so it really even drove me even further. And I mean about six months into it, I was like, “Yep, he knew what he was doing. I’m not going to college.”.

Ren Jones02:48

So to be fair, she had the best practices, because so many people get into the business and they don’t have the best practices down. They go into the office, what should I do? An office manager goes, “Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you hold some open houses?”. Agents in the business, that have been in the business in a while, know that open houses aren’t going to really build a big business and they corral in newer agents. So a lot of times we aren’t following best practices, because we don’t know what they are.

03:18So one of the things that’s very important is to make sure that you’re doing the things that can allow you to take two or three listings every week. You’re going to start off with one listing a week, and really what else do you have to do? You don’t have any pendings. So getting one listing a week, sure you could take some buyers around, but are you going to build a big business that way? So to be fair, her whole family, her father was in the business and she grew up, he never held open houses. He was on the listing side of the business, so she knew the best practices. So there was the combination.

03:49We also have to believe that we can do it. Do you believe you can take four or five listings a week or even four or five a month? You have to have that belief. And then we have to be strong and we have to have conviction, and we have to have confidence. So let’s take a look at this next cut. So a lot of it is standing strong in… Like, for example, this one about commission cutting, standing strong in defending our fee and also the best practices of having a great script, a good response. We have to internalize that material. One of the parts of best practices is using the material. Let’s take a look.

Breann Llewellyn04:30

You’ll get agents that go in and will list a property for 4%. So certainly there are times I get pushback on wanting to be at 6%, when someone else is willing to come in at 4%. So there certainly are times when there’s pushbacks or I lose listings. Just, it sounds like I got out commissioned.

Carley Hathaway04:48

Yeah. Do you have a good way to overcome that in a listing appointment? Can you give us a little demo maybe of a little role playing of that?

Breann Llewellyn04:59

I always find it comes back to, you get what you pay for.

Carley Hathaway05:03

Okay.

Breann Llewellyn05:04

So, Carlie, have you ever gone to the store and found a really great deal in a shirt? Seemed a little bit too good to be true. You took it home, wore it once and the next day it had a hole in it?

Carley Hathaway05:14

Totally.

Breann Llewellyn05:15

Yeah. It was a complete letdown, because sadly you got what you paid for.

Carley Hathaway05:19

Yeah.

Breann Llewellyn05:20

Now, selling your home, it’s no different.

Carley Hathaway05:22

Okay.

Breann Llewellyn05:22

You’re going to get what you pay for. So yes, you can save a little bit of money on paper. However, if they’re willing to cut their commission now, how strong are they going to be when it comes to negotiating, when we do get an offer?

Ren Jones05:37

Pretty powerful stuff. Commission cutting is a challenge and there are a lot of other things the seller may say, “We want to think it over.”, and you have to be ready with that. They may say, “We’re not… They may have some questions. You have to be ready for those. You have to internalize a lot of material and you have to study the best practices for high production, not the best practices for low production. New agents come into the business, they hold some open houses, they take some buyers around. They worry about branding themselves and getting their name out and then they wonder why nobody is calling. Well, that’s not how it works as we know. So follow the models that work and stay on the listing side.

06:20One of the key ingredients that’ll keep you safe is, real estate is a contact sport. Real estate’s just a contact sport. That’s the way it is, folks. You have to talk to a certain number of people every day and whatever that goal is… Let’s say your goal is 25 people a day. No matter what gets in the way, not allowing anything to get in the way. Let’s take a look at an example of something that could really get in the way. Rejection isn’t a lot of fun and we have to find a way to shake that off and keep moving forward to hit your 25, no matter what. Whether you’re working out at the gym, we always have to push through to reach our goals, so we can be proud of that and get the result we want. Let’s take a look.

Breann Llewellyn07:04

I actually, yesterday, had a bad call and I mean this guy was cussing me, calling me all kinds of names in combinations I probably haven’t been called before and I was just polite and I was just like, “I understand. I’m sorry you’re having a bad day. Thanks for your time.”. Hung up, and I just started laughing.

Ren Jones07:22

I can see it on your face right now.

Breann Llewellyn07:26

I was like, “Man, I have never been called that before, but that’s really funny.”. A lot of times I’ll just laugh and sometimes when people are just rude, they’re having a bad day. Trust me, I’ve answered the phone before and not been nice. And it’s not from anything they did. They just maybe caught me when my daughter was acting up or I was dealing with something, whatever. So sometimes I just try to diffuse the situation and apologize for calling and catching them at a bad time, and offer to call at a different time. So there’s not too many times you just get an awful call, but when you do, I just laugh.

Ren Jones08:03

Could you push through that rejection? You have a goal of 25 people a day, maybe that’s your number. Whatever your number is, start at the shallow end of the pool. If you’re new to this, maybe your goal’s 12 a day. Maybe then 15, then 18, and keep moving forward. Are you going to be easily defeated and go make a flyer for your open house or are you going to talk to the number of people? Think about the power of that for a minute. 25 a day. You’re working five days a week. Don’t work seven. Work a good normal week, take a couple of days vacation. You’ve talked to 150 people at the end of a month, you’ve talked to 6 or 700 people. At the end of a year, you’ve talked to 7,000 people about listing their home. What are the odds you’re going to have a great year?

08:48Sure. I mean, brands making 6, 7, $800,000 a year, it’s a great income. Maybe you’d be happy with 200,000 or 300,000. Start somewhere. Build this up. Do not allow anything to get in the way. Mindset, best practices. Mindset, best practices. Make sure you’re following that recipe.

09:10I hope you have a great week. One more secret, and it’s a very important one, if you’re listing a lot of property, you have to have the right tools. So after you’ve made your 25 contacts, go get some delicious Graeter’s mint, chocolate chip. It’s the one for listings. They have a lot of other flavors. Those are for working with buyers. You’re not going to make the income you want, so work with listings and enjoy Graeter’s mint, chocolate chip. If the listing is a little slow to sell, dig a hole in the front yard, bury it upside down, and that listing, it’ll be gone in a minute.

09:41Have a great week everybody. See you next week, for The Highlight Show.

09:41