S6 E2: Corporate Calling

Ren Jones (00:05):
It’s that time. 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 or four listings a week. We have an exciting show today. This is the corporate calling show. We encourage you to take notes and apply as much of the knowledge as quickly as you can, and then use the copycat principle. Let me introduce my co-host from San Diego, Carley Hathaway. That’s Carleyhathaway.com. Hi Carley, how’s the real estate business?

Carley Hathaway (00:41):
Hi Ren. Hi everybody. Real estate is great. Like I always say, it’s the best time to be a listing agent.

Ren Jones (00:48):
Good. Are you making those calls?

Carley Hathaway (00:50):
I am. I am.

Ren Jones (00:52):
Good, good. Good. Yes, I’m tracking your numbers.

Carley Hathaway (00:57):
I know.

Ren Jones (00:59):
All right. I want to remind everybody, we’re simulcasting the show on the private lead gen group on Facebook. They have 52,000 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. We don’t have a guest today. We are talking about corporate calling. So Carley, what do you think about when we talk about corporate calling? Anything coming to mind? Anything?

Carley Hathaway (01:22):
Well, I’m really excited for this show because I have never done corporate calling, but I really want to get into it because it just seems like a really great path to make higher amounts of money with shorter amount of kind of follow up and negotiating and stuff like that. But I’m not sure, I’m super excited to learn about it though.

Ren Jones (01:40):
Right. And corporate calling’s gold because it’s repeat business. I call it pipeline business because every time you turn around they’re calling you with another buyer or seller and it just goes on for years once you get the business. Whereas, a lot of times, we get a piece of business and we have to go look for more. So this keeps on giving. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. And real estate agents don’t teach it. We’re steeped in tradition. And for decades, the traditional real estate companies had relocation departments, and they corporate called. They wouldn’t let the agents do it. Oh no, you can’t do it. That’s what we do. And then the newer companies didn’t even have relocation departments. The traditional company’s still corporate call, and they get that business and they refer it out to their agents. So it’s gold. It is gold.

(02:32):
So let’s talk about different ways to do that because you as an agent or an agent team, if you go into your market and you go to a small company and you talk to somebody in the head of HR who calls you every time somebody moves in and out. When I look at my business for many years, selling 150 to 180 homes a year for many years. A good 15% to 20% of that business was that pipeline corporate business. And I got it from large and small, the DuPont Corporation, which was a major employer in my market, and smaller companies, little insurance companies and different manufacturing companies who would call me and say, “We’ve got somebody moving in, we’ve got somebody moving out.” And it worked out very, very well. So where do you find those kind of things? Where would you find them? You want to find out a company that’s transferring people in and out? Where would you go?

Carley Hathaway (03:31):
I don’t really know. I feel like I would start with some tech companies that are growing or doing a lot of transferring. But I really wouldn’t even know where to start.

Ren Jones (03:39):
Right. Well, one good resource online, and it’s not in every city, folks, but you can find it in many cities. And look right here, as you can see, the print typed out, bizjournals.com, bizjournals. B-I-Z-J-O-U-R-N-A-L-S.com. Just read that. Type that in. And in many cities, Chicago or Baltimore or wherever it may be, you’ll find a business journal that talks about companies that are moving people in or out or setting up shop. Even in regular news, this exists.

(04:19):
And you can even pick it up off of Google. You can go to Google and go to the advanced search and put in, you know how you can put it in a plus sign. You would put in your city name, you would put in San Diego, and then you would put in, let me find it here. You would put in, ‘is moving to’ in quotes. “San Diego” + “is moving to,” I think that’s correct. Oh yes. Is moving to. And for whatever reason, that will help you get returns that talks about companies that are moving in or moving out. You’ll get articles about that. You get articles that don’t match up, but you get a lot of them. You’ve got a lot of articles that talk about companies that are moving in and out of your market. And then you call them, a lot of times they tell you who the contact is.

Carley Hathaway (05:15):
That was going to be my next question is, say I did find a company and they’re going to be moving a lot of people in. Who am I asking for? Who am I trying to get through to within that company?

Ren Jones (05:25):
You might want to just say something like this. The person that answers the phone, they call up, it just says, such and such insurance. And then you may want to say, “I’m trying to reach the person at your company. Can you help me? The person that works with any employee that’s moving in or moving out, transferring in and out of the city when you hire people from other markets or they’re moving to another division or something like that.” And they’ll say, “Oh, then you would want to talk to so-and-so.” A lot of times if you ask the receptionist for their help, a lot of times they’ll at least tell you who you should talk to. Now, whether they let you talk to them or not, that’s another story. So you got to be good at getting through, and you have to be persistent.

(06:13):
But these things are gold. You just have to get that appointment. And you want to get them on the phone. They’ll say, “Send me something. Send me a card.” And you’ll say, “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go ahead and send you a little bit of information about me and my company.” And then just say, “Now, I know you’re busy and I am too. But what is the possibility of, say, next week, say, Thursday after lunch to stop in for five minutes just so you can put a face with a name.” That’s real important. You’ve got to have a little 5 or 10 minute face-to-face. They’ll never send you business unless they meet you.

Carley Hathaway (06:52):
Okay. And then once you start building that relationship, how often do you think we should call them or check in with them?

Ren Jones (06:59):
Quarterly.

Carley Hathaway (07:00):
Okay. Okay.

Ren Jones (07:02):
Yeah, exactly. Just stay in touch. And if they’re a big account, go see them once a year or more. I did a lot of DuPont business, so I would drive from Virginia up to Wilmington, Delaware and meet with them. Or sometimes they came into town because their headquarters were in Delaware.

Carley Hathaway (07:24):
Because you want to be their go-to person every time they have a new employee coming in?

Ren Jones (07:28):
Right. So it just depends, because some people are only going to send you one a year or two a year. Some companies are going to send you one or two a month and everything in between. So let’s look at some of the different categories. So folks, write these down. Write these down. Write these down. Ready? Okay. Probate attorneys, people that handle estates. Somebody has died, that’s all listing business. Probate attorneys, people that settle estates. They do estates and trusts and probate. It’s a great business. And if you court them, they’ll send you 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 a year. Huge business.

Carley Hathaway (08:14):
Agreed.

Ren Jones (08:15):
Huge business. Divorce attorneys. Sometimes that’s three sales. One listing sold, and two buyer sales. And you can guess why.

Carley Hathaway (08:27):
And you know what I’ve noticed with people that are getting divorced, they do want to use a new agent that neither one of them have connections to. So it’s like even playing ground.

Ren Jones (08:37):
Right. And you have to make that point. You have to tell them, look them both in the eye. And don’t meet with them together. Don’t say, “When can we all get together?” Number one mistake. They don’t want to be together. Meet with them both separately, okay?

Carley Hathaway (08:54):
Yes.

Ren Jones (08:55):
Meet with them separately and say, “One of the reasons you’re going to hire me is I’m neutral. I’m Switzerland. I don’t know either one of you personally, but professionally, and I’m going to protect your equity and the other person’s equity.” Perfect. That works out well. Okay. Moving and storage companies. Sometimes you know about a move ahead and you can refer business to them. Sometimes they know about a move ahead and they can refer business to you.

Carley Hathaway (09:24):
Aah. That’s a good one. I haven’t thought about that one. That’s outside of the box.

Ren Jones (09:30):
Small and medium size builders. Small, like 5’2. No, I’m just teasing. Small and medium size builders. And then you can use large builders. They have a big development, and a lot of times they’re so focused on the new construction. You pick up the resale because they’ve got to get a home sold, in the resale business and work with the large builders, go talk to them. Just say, “Let’s work together.” And that works really well.

Carley Hathaway (10:05):
What I’ve noticed with the builders, and if you could give us some tips on how to navigate this, they always want us to discount the commission, like big time because they’re going to give you lots of future business. And I just feel like I sometimes have a hard time navigating that discounted commission, which I don’t want to do.

Ren Jones (10:24):
Right. Well, I think you have to practice those scripts to say, “I can appreciate that. And when you’ve done this in the past, are you getting A+ service? What if we do this? What if we just concentrate on both making good money and us doing a lot of business together?” I mean you just practice all the different commission scripts.

Carley Hathaway (10:46):
Okay, good idea.

Ren Jones (10:48):
Yeah. Let’s see how well we work together on normal commission. And then if we really are picking up some volume, I’m happy to tighten it up. But I want to keep a certain level of service, and I have to pay on my team and so and so, so that you can have the support you need to get the job done.”

Carley Hathaway (11:06):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (11:08):
Because agents do that and they give a discount and then they don’t pay attention to it. And then what’s it worth? So you have to practice your scripts. This is a big one, different physician groups. Physicians, a lot of times, run in packs of 10 or 12 physicians in a little LLC, and they’re all in a group together. And they buy some nice homes and they sell some nice homes and they move in and out.

(11:38):
You know what’s interesting, if you go to somebody who’s been in the business for 15 years or more and you say, “Are you doing anything like this, any corporate calling?” They go, “Well, as a matter of fact, I get a lot of the business from Rubbermaid, who’s in our city, and also Bank of America, who sends me business.” “Well, how did you get that?” “Well, really quite by accident. But I have a friend over who works for Bank of America and one that works for Rubbermaid.” And they get it by accident. So they have two. But imagine if every year they had a goal of picking up three. Every year they go 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20. Whoa. It happens so much by accident. And seasoned agents who’ve been in the business a long time stumble on this. But what if they purposefully look for it?

Carley Hathaway (12:37):
Right.

Ren Jones (12:38):
Universities. It’s a good source. Some of the different departments.

Carley Hathaway (12:46):
Professors?

Ren Jones (12:47):
We see some of that going on locally where real estate agents get in the loop. Retirement communities. You have to have a certain personality, and it’s not expressive, to be on that one.

Carley Hathaway (13:00):
Oh, no.

Ren Jones (13:00):
You need to be a very amiable person because you will have to be patient. But if you do retirement communities, I know this one guy, he has four different retirement communities because you get one and then it helps you get the second, third, and fourth one because they think if you’re handling one, then you’re probably pretty good at this. You have to have a great, patient bedside manner.

Carley Hathaway (13:28):
All right. That’s something I’ll have to work on.

Ren Jones (13:30):
And me, I have no patience for that. I could never. But some of you out there have that, and if you get one, you can have four because you pit them against each other. “Well, I’m handling everything at Cedar Field Retirement Community.” And then they are like, well, they’re that good? They’re handling that? They can handle this. Then they’d be good for us too. So it’s all listing business.

Carley Hathaway (13:57):
Exactly.

Ren Jones (13:57):
Because once you go in, you never come out.

Carley Hathaway (14:02):
I like it.

Ren Jones (14:02):
Not very often. Owners of multiple properties, this is one of my favorites. You can go into the tax records and find people that own 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 homes. In fact, we will be selling, Vulcan 7 will be selling FRBOs here in a few weeks. You can call for rent by owners and see if they want to sell. And while you have them on the phone, “By the way, how many properties do you have?” “I have 37 properties.” “Great. Are there any you want to sell or perhaps trade, exchange for something more lucrative, do a 1031 exchange?” You want to talk to people that own 20, 30, 40, 50. You can have 12, 15 of them, people that own a lot of doors, and spend your whole life just working with those folks because they’re always playing Old Maid.

Carley Hathaway (14:52):
Yeah. And I’ve noticed that’s an easier phone call because they like talking real estate, they like talking to you and they’re proud of what they’ve built. So it’s an open conversation.

Ren Jones (15:02):
Yes, indeed. Absolutely. So it’s gold. Yeah, it’s gold. So owners of multiple properties, landlords. Cross town agents, this works in large markets, very, very large markets. Where you are, it seems like everybody goes from Tijuana up to Oceanside.

Carley Hathaway (15:25):
Pretty much.

Ren Jones (15:27):
But there are markets like in Chicago and Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston and whatnot. And I’ve seen it in small cities, I saw it in Richmond, Virginia where we have barely a million people. They hit the county line and they won’t cross over. They’ll refer to the other side of town because it is just human nature a lot of times. “Well, I don’t know that side of town.” And many, many, many cities are that way. And in our city here, we’re on a state line. We’ve got Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana all together here. So it’s unbelievable how many agents will refer a Kentucky agent to Ohio, Ohio to Kentucky. Now, many of them have both licenses. Same thing up in DC. And I don’t understand, if you’re there, you should have Virginia, Maryland and DC. But some have one out of three or two out of three, and they refer. So if you’re in one of those kind of markets, the cross-town agents that are doing a lot of business.

Carley Hathaway (16:28):
So reach out to those agents and just say, “Hey.”

Ren Jones (16:30):
Yeah. Let’s work together.

Carley Hathaway (16:32):
“I’ll give you business, you give me business.”

Ren Jones (16:34):
Let’s work together. Key transfer cities. Key transfer cities like in Virginia, in Richmond, people came from Atlanta all the time. So it was always good to know a heavy hitter in Atlanta. And same where I am now, in Cincinnati, Chicago, back and forth, Chicago, Cincinnati. So always getting to know agents in the likely transfer market, whatever that is for you, wherever you are. I wrote down BNI, but I don’t mean BNI because the problem with BNI, as a real estate coach for many years, I always asked the same question when agents said, “I’m at BNI.” I always asked, “How much business do you get from that a year?” And the number was usually 7 to 10 transactions.

(17:21):
Now some of you might think that’s a great number. But not for the amount of time you spend at BNI going every week. I mean, they’ll eat you for lunch. But what I wrote down BNI is start your own, and meet once a month. Meet 12 times a year, not 48 times a year. Meet 12 times a year and have a powerful person, one person in every industry. One banker, one CPA, one real estate agent, one person that sells commercial telephone systems. One person that sells whatever they sell. Somebody that works for a radio station because they’re all connected. And have about 15 to 20 people meet once a month for breakfast, swap leads. Because once a month, the yield is there. The BNI, that’s a lot of work for 7 to 10 homes a year.

Carley Hathaway (18:15):
Yeah. But once a month is not bad. So that definitely could work.

Ren Jones (18:20):
Chamber of commerce. There’s so many corporate calling places to get business. Rural agents. Rural agents, that’s one of the last ones on my list because every city has an area in the country, and those agents are referred back into the city. It’s kind of fun. But corporate calling, start going to your business journal, go online, find companies that are moving in and out and call them and meet with them and get that business on purpose.

Carley Hathaway (18:58):
Yeah, I love the idea of continual business just on having a relationship with someone you talk to once a month or so.

Ren Jones (19:06):
That’s it. So you can build a pipeline of business, folks. You can build a pipeline of business. Anyway, that’s our show for today. You want to tune in next week when we have an exciting guest who’s taking 2, 3, 4 listings. And if you’re watching on Vulcan 7, you want to get involved with the lead gen Facebook group who airs our shows. Thank you. They’re at facebook.com/groups/gotobjections. I want to thank Aaron Wittenstein who runs that group. He has a great program called trajectorynow.com. And finally, if you’re watching on Facebook and you’re not involved with Vulcan 7, imagine that. Make sure to sign up at vulcan7.com/leadgen for a special deal.

(19:46):
And then if you really want to be powerful, if you want to be powerful, we have the secret here for listing property. What you want to do is go down, go to Graeters.com and find the store near you in North America. They sell all over North America. Get Graeter’s mint chocolate chip. This is the one for listings, folks. If you’re working with buyers, that’s Rocky Road, as you know. But Graeter’s mint chocolate chip is for listings. If the listing is slow to sell, dig a hole in the front yard bury it upside down and it will sell just like that.

Carley Hathaway (20:21):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (20:22):
That’s it. We’ll see everybody next week.

Carley Hathaway (20:25):
Thank you so much, Ren. Some great insight. Really cool thinking, outside of the box, way to get listings. I’m excited.

Ren Jones (20:31):
Go get another listing.

Carley Hathaway (20:33):
Corporate calling today.

Ren Jones (20:34):
That’s it. Okay.