S6 E4August 28, 2019·27 min·Devin Tryan, Keller Williams

How Devin Tryan went from 1 sale in 2 years to 37 units year to date on Oahu

Devin Tryan sold one home in his first two years on Oahu, then swapped board certifications for daily expired and FSBO calling. He is just under 37 units year to date against a 70 unit goal, and pays an assistant whose only job is to keep him on the phone for three hours.

How Devin Tryan went from 1 sale in 2 years to 37 units year to date on Oahu
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Key takeaways

  1. Spent his first two years collecting board certifications and sold 1 home, then moved to expired and FSBO calling after a single sales training class
  2. Pays an assistant whose only task for the first hours of the day is to prep the call list and take notes, so she cannot start work until he starts dialing
  3. Splits 3 hours Monday through Friday into 90 minutes of new expireds, an hour of follow-up and a final 30 minutes for research he deliberately skips beforehand
  4. Sets 1 appointment for every 9 to 12 conversations, loses 1 in 3 appointments to cancellations, and converts about 65% of the ones that hold
  5. Answers objections fast and closes immediately rather than working through a long question-based rebuttal
  6. Asks off-island sellers for an in-person appointment first, then pivots to seeing the house through a lockbox rather than settling for a phone appointment
  7. Has a pre-listing package printed and bound at the UPS store nearest the seller and delivered by an Uber driver the same day, for about $18 in total

Transcript

00:00 — Meeting Devin Tryan on Oahu

Ren Jones00:05

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, four, listings a week. 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 the Lead Gen Facebook group, you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions during the broadcast. Let me introduce my co-host from San Diego, Carley Hathaway. That’s carleyhathaway.com. Hi, Carly. How’s the real estate business?

Carley Hathaway00:48

Hi, Ren. Hi, everybody. Real estate is great.

Ren Jones00:50

Yeah?

Carley Hathaway00:52

San Diego is booming. Good time to be a listing agent.

Ren Jones00:55

Before I introduce our guest today, I want to remind everybody that we’re also simulcasting the show on the private Lead Gen Group on Facebook. They have 52,000 members now, so we have a large audience there today as well. We will be pausing for a commercial message during the show as a thank you to the Lead Gen folks.

01:15Let’s welcome our guest today from the beautiful state of Hawaii on wonderful Oahu, not too far from Waikiki. Mr. Devin Tryan. Welcome, Devin.

Devin Tryan01:29

Thank you for having me. Much appreciated.

Ren Jones01:32

Glad you’re here.

Carley Hathaway01:33

Thank you so much for joining us. We’re really excited for this interview.

Devin Tryan01:37

Mahalo, mahalo.

Ren Jones01:39

Yes.

Carley Hathaway01:39

Aloha.

Devin Tryan01:39

Maybe we should have filmed it live on set.

Carley Hathaway01:41

I know.

Ren Jones01:44

There was a time that these shows were live.

Carley Hathaway01:48

Devin, what is your goal for the year?

01:52 — The year goal of 70 units sold

Devin Tryan01:52

The goal for the year was, is, initially to hit 950 GCI. After getting back from the summit we were chatting about. Initially we’re aiming for 50 units, but now we actually pumped it up to 70 units sold.

Carley Hathaway02:09

Good for you. Congratulations.

Ren Jones02:11

All right.

Carley Hathaway02:11

Are you on track?

Devin Tryan02:12

Thank you. Yeah, we’re just under 37 units year to date.

Ren Jones02:18

And to be fair to our audience, you want to tell them what a typical list price is?

Devin Tryan02:25

They probably don’t want to know unless they’re from California, but we’re looking around average for a single family is about 750 to 1.3. If we’re in a condo, it’s about 400 to a million.

Carley Hathaway02:36

Yes. We love those prices.

Ren Jones02:40

Yeah. Sometimes people say, “Well, why didn’t he do a hundred transactions? He’s rich.”

Carley Hathaway02:47

Exactly. How long have you been in real estate?

02:52 — One sale in the first two years

Devin Tryan02:52

I got my license April 2014. For the first two years, so all of 2014 and 2015, I sold a total of one home.

Carley Hathaway03:01

That’s sounds about right.

Devin Tryan03:02

And that’s because somebody walked through an open house and they said, “I’ll buy it. Do you have a purchase contract?” I said, “I do.” She took it and she filled it out for me, because I didn’t know how to do it. She wrote an all cash offer, we opened escrow on a Monday, sold it on a Friday. That was my first transaction in two years.

Carley Hathaway03:20

You were like, “This is the easiest job in the world.”

Devin Tryan03:24

Well, yeah. Until I didn’t sell anything for another two years.

Carley Hathaway03:27

Yeah. Okay. Still, you haven’t been licensed very long and you’re doing big numbers. Okay, first two years you didn’t do much. What was the change? What was the trigger?

03:37 — Chasing certifications instead of sales training

Devin Tryan03:37

In late 2015, early 2016, all I sought after, all I focused on initially those first two years was GI, GRI, MRP, SRES, Board of Realtor certifications, because that’s what I thought made a really excellent realtor. I went to a training class and they said, “Well, no, you’re at a certification class, you need to come to sales training, come check out KW.” I was like, “I don’t know who you are, but free knowledge, I’ll take it.” I show up to this class and they’re like, “Devin, 33 touch, expireds, for sale by owners, door knocking, this, this,” I’m like, all I thought was, “Wow, I just thought I had to get more certifications.” That’s what I thought was going wrong. I told the teacher that day, I was like, “Libby,” that was her name, “Sign me up today.” She’s like, “Okay, here’s a transfer form, fill it out.” I filled it out, I was at KW the next week, learned about expired listings, learned about for sale by owners and door knocking, and then just went after it.

Carley Hathaway04:35

Nice.

Ren Jones04:35

Wow.

Carley Hathaway04:36

It’s almost like one of those things where you don’t know what you don’t know. You have your license, then it’s like, “Then what do I do?”

Devin Tryan04:43

Yeah. I actually thought that for some reason people were just going to start calling me.

Carley Hathaway04:50

I know. I think we all think that in the beginning.

Devin Tryan04:52

It took a few years to learn that’s not how it works.

Ren Jones04:54

What are you going to do with all those letters after your name?

Carley Hathaway04:57

I know. All those certificates.

Devin Tryan05:01

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway05:02

Your main business came from calling expireds and FSBOs. What was your motivation? I bet first week, first month, first six months calling expireds, was it getting listing appointments easily, or did it take some time?

05:17 — The first FSBO doors with no idea what he was doing

Devin Tryan05:17

Well, no, I was terrible, I was awful. I’m so glad there’s no recordings of me back then. I started calling, because… I was like 20 years old, 21 at the time. I’m 25 now, which is still, I understand that’s young for this business. I had a moped, and so I couldn’t hand out fliers, because I couldn’t just put them on the back of my little 49cc moped.

Carley Hathaway05:38

Oh, my God.

Devin Tryan05:39

I was like, “Well, I have to work with sellers.” I was new to the island, I didn’t know anybody. I was like, “Well,” if I go after expireds I can park down the road, I can walk up to their driveway, so they don’t, of course know, I don’t want to roll up to a million-dollar house on a darn white moped.”

Carley Hathaway05:56

Yeah.

Devin Tryan05:57

I’ll walk up and they’ll say, “Hey, where did you park?” I’ll be like, “Oh, could have parked in the driveway, but I found street parking. It was fine, don’t worry.” Then I started doing that. And then I got my first listing. It was a $1.6 million multifamily home from an expired.

Carley Hathaway06:14

Nice.

Devin Tryan06:14

I had no idea what I was doing. I was watching a Mike Ferry listing video 10 minutes before my presentation. I wrote it all down. And he said something along the lines of, “Listen, this is your business. They don’t know how it’s supposed to work. Just write down the checklist, refer to it, they’re not going to know, they don’t care. And then just follow it.” I showed up and I would cross off the checklist as if I knew what I was doing. I was like, “Okay, we went over this, now let’s go over this.” They’re like, “Wow, you’re the best agent we’ve met.”

Carley Hathaway06:46

Yeah.

Devin Tryan06:46

“Out of four or five of them.”

Carley Hathaway06:48

Yeah.

Devin Tryan06:48

I was just like, “Great.”

Carley Hathaway06:50

Yeah.

Devin Tryan06:50

This was my first one. So zero confidence, but I was winging it. Then I was like, “Wow, this really works.” Then put it under contract, sold it. It was a 1.55, I think it was. That was the biggest paycheck I’ve ever received in my entire life.

Ren Jones07:07

Did you trade in your Vespa and get a car?

Devin Tryan07:11

Yeah, I sure did. Like that. The day off.

Carley Hathaway07:15

That’s awesome. It’s true, if you go into a listing appointment and don’t have a game plan, whether you have the listing presentation memorized or not, you have to have some game plan. You can’t just go in there and wing it.

Devin Tryan07:29

You do.

Carley Hathaway07:32

Getting back to calling the expireds and stuff. I’m sure the first, like I said, few weeks you were getting beat up on the phones, you’re getting hung up on, you’re fumbling. What got you to stay on track and keep making those phone calls day after day?

07:46 — Getting a coach right after the first closing

Devin Tryan07:46

That’s a good one. I started coaching with… I got a coach right after that first closing. And his name was Dean Ayres, great guy. He is like, “Devin, all you got to do, you just got to call him, man. You don’t have to be fancy, you don’t have to do all this stuff.” We get on a phone call, he’d tell me what to do, we’d get on another phone call, and he would say, “How was the week? Did you do what I told you to do?” I’d be like, “Well, no. I found all this other stuff.”

08:14At one point, after eight weeks of this, he’s like, “All right, Devin, listen. Hold on. Stop the coaching call. Stop. Be real with me for a minute here. Why aren’t you doing what we talk about?” I was like, “Well, I’ve got all this other…” He is like, “No, dude. You’ve got nothing in escrow. You’re not busy, I know you’re not busy, you can’t be. For real, what’s stopping you?” I was like, “Well, blah, blah, blah,” giving him excuses. “Oh, hold on.” He’s like, “I’ve got dozens of clients that are calling expireds very successfully, so we know that lead source works.” I was like, “Okay.” He is like, “And are there people in your market that you’re aware of that are also doing well?” He’s eliminating some of my excuses. I’m like, “Well, yeah, there’s lots of people doing this.” He’s like, “So really, what’s the only thing stopping you from being successful? It’s not me. It’s not these other people.” I was like, “Well…” He’s like, “Come on,” I was like, “All right, it’s me. It’s me not doing the shit.” He’s like, “Yeah, dude, you’re wasting your F-ing money.”

09:12He’s like, “If you’re going to be in this business, you may as well do it. Don’t waste my time. Don’t waste your time. Switch to something else if you’re not going to do it.” And so my first six months I struggled, and even maybe my first year. And then he had a very real conversation with me about that. And he just called me out, and after that he is like, “I’m going to hang up. This is why I want you to do. I want you to think about what we just talked about. Call me back in one hour and tell me if you’re going to stay in this business or not.” So I called him back an hour later, I was like, “All right, let’s get real. What do we need to do?” And then that’s when it just, I did it so much it became a habit.

Carley Hathaway09:48

Yeah, that’s good. So you just needed a good kick in the butt to create that habit.

Devin Tryan09:53

Yeah. That helps.

Carley Hathaway09:55

Yeah. Good. And you’re still sticking with it, you’re still calling expireds and FSBOs every day?

Devin Tryan09:59

Daily. Daily, daily.

Carley Hathaway10:01

What’s your daily routine?

10:05 — Up at 4:00 and an assistant who cannot start until he dials

Devin Tryan10:05

So I’m up at 4:00. If I snooze, it’s 4:15. I have a trainer that I meet with at 5:00, from 5:00 to 6:00. From six to 6:00, I’m at the gym, or I’m showering. I usually get to the office about 7:15, my assistant will get there at 7:45. She will prep my call list, make sure there’s new duplicates. It’s usually never an issue, but if they re-list a home under a different address, they drop a C, or a dash, or something. So I’ll just have her double check everything to make sure.

10:38My current assistant, her name is Rachel, and her job actually is to prep the call list. And then she’s not allowed to do anything else until I get on the phone. So she takes all of my notes for me while I’m calling, actually. So this keeps me accountable, because sometimes it’s easy, you just don’t feel like doing it. So her only job for the first few hours of the day is just to make sure I stay on track. And she’ll take all the notes, because she can’t do anything unless I start. And so she’s been instructed to just sit there and collect her hourly income, and drink coffee until I start my calls.

Ren Jones11:12

So let me get this straight. That is probably, you’re paying her to be there and say, “Make another call.”

Devin Tryan11:21

Yeah. Yeah.

Ren Jones11:22

So that is the highest level… And if you don’t show up, I mean, you’re going to show up because you’re paying this person.

Devin Tryan11:28

Because I’m paying her.

Ren Jones11:29

And everything falls apart if you don’t show up.

Devin Tryan11:33

Exactly.

Ren Jones11:33

But if you show up, you have way more than enough money to pay her.

Devin Tryan11:37

Exactly. Oh, easily.

Ren Jones11:40

I mean, everybody that’s watching this, everybody should hire somebody just like that and do just that. Pam, to sit across from you, take the notes from the call, listen on the call, take notes, organize it, and just say, “Make another call.” That was amazing, “Make another call.”

Devin Tryan11:56

That’s it. That’s it.

Ren Jones12:00

Three hours? Two hours?

12:02 — How the three hour call block is divided

Devin Tryan12:02

First hour and a half is all of the new expireds. Second hour, so hour between hour 30 and 2:30 would be follow-up calls. And then 30 minutes is, because I don’t do any research before the calls, and then I have 30 minutes left over if I have to look something up, or research something and then call someone, that’s what I saved that last 30 minutes for. So three hours a day, Monday through Friday.

Carley Hathaway12:24

I noticed when you are in the middle of calling, if you do start to look at too much into a property, you fall down the rabbit hole and your calling stops.

Devin Tryan12:31

Don’t worry for them.

Carley Hathaway12:32

Yeah.

Ren Jones12:34

Yeah. And we’re going to make everybody watch this little section, just play and hire somebody.

Devin Tryan12:40

I’ll tell you where the idea came from. There was a point where I was starting to fall behind on the calls, and inevitably what happens to your business, it does the same thing. And I hired a trainer, and I hadn’t missed a day of working out in months, because Ben is there at 5:00 AM waiting for me, and if I don’t show up, he’s going to call me and be like, “What the heck are you doing? Where are you at? Come to the gym.” So I don’t want to let him down. And so I realized the accountability in that is so effective. And I said, “Well, why don’t I just do the same exact thing?” And it worked just as well, if not better.

Carley Hathaway13:19

I was going to say the accountability with the trainer is going to carry over into the accountability for making your phone calls. A hundred percent.

Ren Jones13:25

I mean, that is the biggest struggle everybody has, is the I-don’t-want-to voice. And if nobody’s standing there waiting for you to show up, the I-don’t-want-to voice is going to prevail.

Devin Tryan13:37

Exactly.

Carley Hathaway13:39

That’s great. What a great idea.

Devin Tryan13:42

Easy. And it’s so easy, because like you said, I mean, the dollar per hour cost, versus the dollar per hour income, totally offsets anything no matter what.

Ren Jones13:56

Yeah. Are you going to make a six digit income this year, or do you already?

Devin Tryan14:00

Well, the goal is for seven digit.

Ren Jones14:02

Your goal for one million. Sorry, I’m off by digit. One million

Devin Tryan14:06

A little bit over, actually, because I mean, in our business, our cost, our overhead is so, it can be so high if you’re listing based, staging and everything else that goes with that. So yeah, gross income at least.

Ren Jones14:21

But commission checks are like 2020 grand, or whatever.

Devin Tryan14:25

25. I think mine’s an average between about 18 and 25.

Ren Jones14:30

Okay. Okay. Good. And times, times 70.

Devin Tryan14:34

70, yeah. We’ll hit about 70, I think. It’s a bit of a stretch, but we’ll definitely get to 60.

14:41 — The objections that come up on every call

Carley Hathaway14:41

Yeah. When you’re on the phone calls, I know there’s only a few really objections. What do you feel is the most common objection that you’re getting when your call expireds, and how do you overcome it?

Devin Tryan14:52

It’s the same exact thing that probably every person who’s on this call, everybody says you’ve got really only three. You’ve got, I mean, a few variations, of course, and people can bring up some crazy stuff, but you’ve got the ones that don’t want to sell, or they tell you they’ve changed their mind. Or, “We’re taking it off the market, we never want to sell again.” You’ve got the ones that say, “Hey, we’re re-listing with the same agent. And then, at least in our market, you’ll get though, we’re just going to rent it out.” You do have variations. We want to try it ourselves. And that’s usually not even true. A lot of objections I’ve actually learned is you can just blow past them. People try and get too deep into them. You don’t even have to handle them sometimes.

Ren Jones15:35

So Devin, when they give those objections, what do they really mean? What do they really mean? Why did they even say them?

Devin Tryan15:41

Yeah. I mean, it depends on the person too. You got to look at their motivation. It could be that they want to get you off the phone, it could be that they’re just giving you excuses. It could be sometimes they’re just trying to feel you out and see how serious you are and if you’re good.

Ren Jones15:55

Slow you down to check you out so they don’t have 20 people coming over.

16:02 — Short, powerful answers that go straight for the close

Devin Tryan16:02

So the most important thing, and with a lot of the objections that I’ve learned, and I learned this from, we talked about a little bit from Carolyn Young, actually. Now, when they give you these objections, you cannot answer in a long, drawn out, even question-based selling manner. It has to be really fast, powerful, and just go for the clothes every time. So when they say, “Hey, Devin, we want to rent it.” I just say, “Why would you want to do that?” And they’re like, “Well…” I’m like, “Listen, you spent a ton of time trying to sell. Let me come over and take a second look at it. When are you free?” And so not even just anything else, it’s just very… Or if they say, “We want to stick with the same agent,” all I say is, “Yeah. That’s great. I got to get in there and take a look at it first though, before you do anything crazy.”

Carley Hathaway16:55

I like that one. It’s simple.

Ren Jones16:55

Nice, nice, nice. Keep it short, simple, and closed. Yes.

Devin Tryan16:58

I’m going somewhere else. Let me take a look at it. And it’s very high energy. It’s a little bit in your face, but it’s very effective. You just got to get in the door.

Ren Jones17:10

Open them up. Well, energy’s attractive. And it sounds like you have plenty of it.

Devin Tryan17:15

Thank you.

Carley Hathaway17:16

Let’s talk about mindset a little bit. So your morning routine is really, really tight and locked up down to every 15 minutes. How important is that in your daily production?

Devin Tryan17:28

I mean, everybody has their own way of doing things. I find that I feel better if I don’t wake up at 7:30 and then go straight to calling, if I get my workout in. It’s nice because I don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day, it’s already anchored. I mean, you have to do something, so you may as well do something that’s effective or conducive to your business.

Carley Hathaway17:52

Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, totally.

Devin Tryan17:54

And if you have those systems in place to keep you accountable, it’s a lot. I mean, it’s a lot more difficult to hit this news button. I mean, I rarely miss a workout unless I’m sick.

Carley Hathaway18:07

Yeah.

18:08And If you’re sick, will you still make your phone calls?

Devin Tryan18:10

Well, those are actually the best times to make phone calls. If you’re in a bad mood, or if you’re sick, your voice is a little gruff. I remember two events ago, it was a Tom Ferry event. It was a long day. They have you shouting and yelling, my voice was gone. I couldn’t even, I would talk and I’d sound like a 55-year-old smoker. I was also in a bad mood, because I was up at 4:00, and it was California, and it was supposed to be 1:00 AM. And it’s like 6:00 PM now, and I’m making phone calls. And I think in an hour I set five appointments. If you just don’t take BS from people, and you’re just a little bit rough around the edges, they respect it.

Carley Hathaway19:00

Yeah, agreed. And just think if you would’ve listened to your body and your throat and taken that day off, you wouldn’t have had those listening appointments. You know what I mean?

Devin Tryan19:07

Right, right. Exactly.

Carley Hathaway19:09

That’s great. You found tremendous success at such a young age. It’s awesome.

Devin Tryan19:13

Thank you.

Carley Hathaway19:13

And do you have a team? I know you have Rachel that is whipping you to make your call.

Devin Tryan19:19

Essentially, yeah, when we joke about that too. So I’m heavily leveraged, I’m the only active producing agent. I have a full-time videographer, a full-time transaction coordinator, and a full-time assistant. So anything that I can outsource that doesn’t directly impact the client in a negative way, I will. Meaning they’re always still talking to me, but heavily leveraged.

Ren Jones19:43

Do you track numbers, by the way?

Devin Tryan19:45

I do. I do.

19:47 — The numbers behind every listing appointment

Ren Jones19:47

Do you know what your batting average is? You go on 10 listing appointments, how many do you do?

Devin Tryan19:52

Depending on, I mean, this is just for expired, so it’s different for every source.

Ren Jones19:57

Gotcha.

Devin Tryan19:57

I think I’m between, every nine to 12 conversations, I’ll set one appointment.

Ren Jones20:02

Gotcha.

Devin Tryan20:04

And for every three appointments I set, one will always cancel. No matter what, it’s just part of the business, I’ve learned. One will either end up not selling, not listing, or not listing with me. Now, sometimes I can convert those down the road, but I really don’t factor it in, those are longer term leads. And then one will end up listing.

Ren Jones20:26

So about 50%¡

Devin Tryan20:30

Yeah, for the most part. Sometimes a little bit higher because I’ll convert them a little bit later.

Ren Jones20:34

Sometimes two out of three.

Devin Tryan20:36

I think it actually converts to be about 65%.

Ren Jones20:40

Two out of three. Okay. That’s fine. Good. So you’re doing a little pre-qualifying there. So you’re making sure they’re where you need them to be.

20:51 — Cutting no-shows once the appointment is set

Devin Tryan20:51

Exactly. So after I set the appointment, because initially when I started, I had a ton of no-shows. And those are really detrimental to your business. If you’re doing two or three of those every week, that’s tough, no-shows, because that’s an hour or two your time. So before we hang up, I say, “Okay, Ren, I’m going to be at your house,” and I just double confirm, “At 4:30 tomorrow you’re going to be home. I don’t want to be in your house without you there.” “No, I’m going to be there.” “Okay. Do me a favor. If something happens and your car breaks down and you’re an hour away, call me beforehand and let me know, okay? Because I’m going to be there.” And every time they’re like, “Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it, I got it.” And I’m just like, “Are you sure?” And they’re like, yeah, yeah. I’ll see you then.

Ren Jones21:35

Good. Well, while we’re on that point, because you’re in a paradise, and a lot of people have a second home there, and there’s bound to be a certain percentage of those owners that you’re doing this over the phone. Is that correct?

Devin Tryan21:50

Very often, yeah.

Ren Jones21:50

They’re in Seattle, they’re in Los Angeles, they’re in San Diego, they’re in Phoenix, they’re in wherever they may be. So tell me how that works. How do you set the appointment?

22:01 — Going for the appointment even when the seller is off island

Devin Tryan22:01

Okay. So what you have to do with off island properties is, you always, always go for the appointment, even if you know they’re off island as if you think they’re on island. You want them to be like, “Oh, this guy’s serious he wants to meet me.” So I say, “Ren, when can I come over and meet you?” Even their mailing address is California, it doesn’t matter. And then you get them to tell you like, “Hey, actually I’m off island.” Then you just say, “Well, half the reason I need to come over was see the house anyway, I still want to go there and take a look. Who has a key that can let me in?”

Carley Hathaway22:32

I like that.

Devin Tryan22:32

And then whatever they’re saying, then you just say, “Okay, is there a lockbox?” I’m going to go there regardless. Ideally, I want to see inside before we go over everything else. And that’s how you handle it. Because if you just say, “Let’s set a phone appointment to do a listing process or procedure,” I found it’s not the same.

Ren Jones22:53

Gotcha. I like that approach. That’s perfect.

Carley Hathaway22:56

Yeah. That’s really good. And then when you do set the phone appointment, if you’re following the regular listing presentation, correct? Just over the phone.

23:06 — The pre-listing package delivered by Uber

Devin Tryan23:06

It depends. Over the phone it’s a little bit different. So what I always do after I essentially set a preview appointment, is what that would be, is I have a pre-listing package delivered to their door the day of. So what we do is, let’s say they’re in San Bernardino. My assistant will call the UPS office there. She will have them print and bind a pre-listing package. Then she’ll find out how soon they can have it there, if it’s not the same day. She will call an Uber driver to come pick up the package and have it delivered. And this whole thing only costs, we do the UPS closest to their house anyway. The pre-listing package costs like $8. The Uber driver’s at most 10 bucks. And it’s not even about the pre-listing package, it’s just like saying, “Hey Carly, we’re serious. We mean business. I told you I’m going to have you this today. You have it today.” And they’re like, “Holy crap, we’re impressed.”

Carley Hathaway24:10

And it just shows an extra level of professionalism, I think.

Devin Tryan24:12

Exactly.

Carley Hathaway24:15

And I love the Uber driver idea. Someone else we talked to does the same thing. And it’s such a great way…

Devin Tryan24:20

They probably stole it for me, yeah.

Carley Hathaway24:21

And it’s inexpensive.

Ren Jones24:23

There you go. Folks, there’s some good ideas in this show. We’re going to play it over. And they’re going to have to sleep, learn it, just play it overnight. This is great. This has just been fantastic. And this is gold. These are some great ideas. We’re all going to move to Oahu and just loose property. The good news is you can do it in Kansas City, you can do it in Chicago, you can do it anywhere. It works.

Carley Hathaway24:50

And it’s really inspiring to see, especially for newer agents, or agents, even if they’ve been in the business for 20 years but haven’t called expireds, they can do it. You did it, it’s possible, it’s doable. No one wants to get on the phone, but then once you see the results, it’s so worth it.

Devin Tryan25:05

Absolutely. And it is challenging. Even myself, when I go away for a week, I feel a little bit of that call reluctance going back, no matter what. And that’s why it’s so important to have those systems in place.

Ren Jones25:17

So in 2014 and 15, you really didn’t sell anything. And then 2016, 17, 18, you blew up. Is that right? So folks, in 36 months, you can be a millionaire, making million dollars a year. How about that? I love it.

Devin Tryan25:33

Probably a little bit faster if you follow the advice.

Ren Jones25:35

That’s right. Just watch this. Cut the time in half, go ahead and hire it. You’ve never done it before, but hire the person to sit across from you and say, “That was great. Make another call and take notes.” This is gold. This has been a treat.

Carley Hathaway25:50

Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. We got some amazing takeaways. I know I’m going to rewatch it a few times. I’m sure everyone else will. Thank you so much.

Devin Tryan25:57

Of course.

Ren Jones25:58

I want to thank everybody that’s watching on Facebook. For those of you that are watching on Lead Gen Scripps and Objections on Facebook, they have 52,000 members, and you can join them at facebook.com/groups/gotobjections. And I want to thank Aaron Wittenstein, who runs that. He’s got a great program called ExpiredMasteryElite.com.

26:21And then finally, if you’re watching on Facebook and you’re not yet involved with Vulcan7, make sure to sign up at vulcan7.com/leadgen for a special deal.

26:31And then a lot of people are wondering, is it really that easy? Well, one of the reasons that Devin makes it so easy is his secret. Now, he didn’t share it, but I will share his secret. What he does is he goes down to Waikiki, and he goes to the Whole Foods there, and he gets delicious Dreyer’s, mint chocolate chip. This is the one for listings, the other flavors like Rocky Road, that’s from working with fires. That’s always Rocky Road, isn’t it? Yes. So this is the one for listings. And if the listing is slow to sell, just dig a hole in the ground, bear it upside down, and it will sell just like that. I want to thank everybody for being here. We’ll be back next week with another exciting guest who’s taking two or three listings a week. Thanks, everybody. See you next week.

Carley Hathaway27:20

Thanks. Bye, guys. Aloha.

27:20 

Questions this episode answers

How do you hold yourself accountable to prospecting every day?

Devin Tryan pays for accountability twice. He meets a trainer at 5:00, and employs an assistant whose only job for the first hours of the day is to prep his call list and take notes while he dials. She is instructed to do nothing else until he starts, so skipping calls wastes money he is already spending.

How many conversations does it take to set a listing appointment?

Tryan sets one appointment for every nine to twelve conversations on expired listings, and notes the ratio differs by lead source. Of every three appointments he sets, one cancels regardless of what he does. Of the appointments that hold, he converts about 65% into listings.

How do you handle a seller who says they want to rent the house instead?

Tryan keeps the answer short and closes straight away. He asks why they would want to do that, points out how much time they have already spent trying to sell, and asks when he can come and take a second look. He learned to keep objection answers fast and closed rather than long and question-based.

How do you list a house when the owner lives out of state?

Tryan asks for an in-person appointment as though the seller were local, which prompts them to volunteer that they are away. He then says he still needs to see the house anyway and asks who holds a key or whether there is a lockbox. He finds a straight phone appointment does not convert as well.

What should a new real estate agent do first?

Tryan spent two years on GRI, MRP, SRES and board certifications and sold one home, which came from an open house visitor who filled out the contract herself. After one sales training class he changed brokerages and began calling expired listings and for sale by owners, and his production changed.

Guest

Devin Tryan

Keller Williams · Honolulu / Oahu, HI

Sells with Keller Williams on Oahu, Hawaii, where single family homes run about $750,000 to $1.3 million.

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