How Jesse Collins went from two bad months on the phone to his first listing

Ren Jones00:03

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 is consistently taking a lot of listings each month, and we have an exciting guest today. We encourage you to take notes and applies as much of their 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 Hathaway00:35

Hi Ren. Hi everybody. Real estate is going amazing. The markets picking back up and things are going great.

Ren Jones00:43

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, before I introduce our guest today, I want to remind everybody that we are also 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 will be pausing for commercial message during the show as a thank you to the Lead Gen folks, let’s welcome our guests today. Rather new to the business than taking off like crazy. From Water Street in beautiful downtown Santa Cruz. Mr. Jesse Collins, welcome to the show, Jesse.

Jesse Collins01:17

Thanks, Ren. Happy to be here. Hey, Carley.

Carley Hathaway01:19

Hi Jesse. We are so excited to have you. This is going to be an amazing interview. I can’t wait.

Jesse Collins01:24

I’m excited too.

Ren Jones01:26

And I’m particularly excited because you’re newer to the whole game and your trajectory is pretty impressive in a very short period of time. And there are a lot of people watching, there are a lot of people watching that are saying they watch people that we interview that are 8, 10, 15 years in the business. And I don’t know if I that I can do that, but I think some of them are going to be able to connect the dots a little easier because how many months have you been in the business?

Jesse Collins01:55

Month number 10?

Ren Jones01:57

Month number 10.

Carley Hathaway01:59

Number 10. And what’s your goal for the year? I guess because your first year?

Jesse Collins02:07

My goal is 11 million closed transactions.

Carley Hathaway02:10

That’s amazing.

Ren Jones02:11

Holy crow. So to be fair to the audience, what is that in units?

Jesse Collins02:19

Probably 16 transactions is what I’m shooting for.

Ren Jones02:23

All right. So Jesse is in a fortunate situation then, tell them about your market. You’re in Santa Cruz, so what’s an average selling price?

Jesse Collins02:32

The median price is eight around 877 for the month of August. The average is, I want to say in the 980s here in Santa Cruz County.

Ren Jones02:42

Gotcha. Is that the average price there or are you working a little higher or are you working about where the average is?

Jesse Collins02:48

I have a listing right now, at 609 and then I have a listing at 1.195. So I would say the low sixes is high-fives is kind of the bottom end and around 1.4 so far has been my top end.

Ren Jones03:02

Okay, so 600,000 is a dog house, huh?

Carley Hathaway03:04

Yeah. And so obviously you’re getting your business from all different places. Did you grow up in Santa Cruz? Do you have a big sphere of influence, friends, family you’re working with?

Jesse Collins03:14

I literally moved here in August of last year-

Ren Jones03:18

Oh, now I’m really excited.

Carley Hathaway03:21

Yeah.

Jesse Collins03:21

So zero circle of influence, zero network, new to the area. I did come out here-

Ren Jones03:28

Can you speak Californian? Where’d you move from?

Jesse Collins03:30

From Atlanta, Georgia.

Ren Jones03:31

Oh, now it doesn’t take a while to speak the language. They don’t call people honey in Santa Cruz, right?

Carley Hathaway03:38

Oh no. Do not call anyone honey in California.

Jesse Collins03:40

I have to watch my y’alls. I really.

Carley Hathaway03:42

Yeah. We don’t like y’alls, we don’t like honey, sweetie. We don’t like that stuff.

Jesse Collins03:49

And I always say, yes sir, yes ma’am. And I tend to talk to people with their last names like Mr. So-and-So, and sometimes that really helps. Sometimes I don’t know.

Carley Hathaway04:00

I think Mr. or Mrs. helps, but I think if you call a woman, ma’am, stay away from that, she’s going to go run and go get more Botox if you do that.

04:10Cool. So you’ve only been in Santa Cruz for less than a year and you’re doing amazing business. So where is the business coming from?

Jesse Collins04:18

I would say my main two are expireds and open houses, and I think those kind of go hand in hand. It’s a contact sport. I realized early on that if I wasn’t mixing it up and getting into conversations, then wasn’t going to be producing.

Carley Hathaway04:41

So calling expireds, let’s talk about that a little bit. Do you have a daily routine? Can we go through your daily schedule or routine?

Jesse Collins04:49

Yeah, so I get up around between 6:20, 6:30, take my dog out. I have a mirror in my bathroom where every morning I write my gratitudes. I have three gratitudes and sometimes I sit there until I write three out. It’s just a good way to get into a positive mindset in the morning. And then I keep a running to-do list every day because just things are so busy that I might forget what I need to do the next day. So I have a to-do list kind of on the mirror too. Get into work. I’m usually the first person in my office between 7:45, 8:00, fire up the Vulcan7. And in Santa Cruz County, we don’t have a ton of expireds coming off. I’d say in the summer we probably have three a week. In the fall, I call that expired season, we see more coming off, so I end up maybe calling a couple people in the morning, expired off the bat.

05:43And then usually I have a bunch of role play partners and I’ll call them up, do some role play, and then I will do my follow-ups calling people that I’m scheduled to talk to, previous expired that I talked to weeks before that I’m touching base with. So I do that. And then after that I kind of handle all my business with calling other agents, setting up showings, dealing with that whole business. And then around 11, 12, I usually hit some circle dialing and I’ll do that for an hour or so. And I use that really keeps, just keeps me in that mindset, the prospecting mindset. And it’s really how I’m building my network right now. So I’m filling my database with a lot of people who own homes in the places I want to sell. So a little, and then in the afternoon after 12 one, I set all my appointments like going to inspections and all buyer appointments and stuff like that. So that’s pretty much my average day.

Carley Hathaway06:45

And so you make it a point to not schedule any of those inspections, termite, whatever in the mornings? Even if a client’s really pushing for it, you don’t do it?

Jesse Collins06:54

Sometimes I will. The other day I had to, but I really try to push them till after 1:00 because the morning is really my time to be in the office and just do my prospecting. If I can call my expireds and then do my circle dialing, then everything after that is smooth sailing. I can be rest easy about the rest of my day knowing that I’ve done what I need to do.

Ren Jones07:20

How about for sale by owners?

Jesse Collins07:23

I have a funny story about that. My very first listing appointment I ever said was with the for sale by owner. It was $2.6 million. And I was using text message, email, phone calls for about two months. Finally he calls me back and I was at a home inspection. I was wearing jeans and sneakers and a shirt. He calls me up saying, “Hey, can you come over and see my place? I have about 30 minutes. Can you meet me there?” And I didn’t have time to go home and change. So I showed up there and I could tell right off the bat I had lost him because he saw me and immediately I could tell that there was just no rapport in the entire listing appointment. I had this sinking feeling in my stomach like, gosh, what can I say to change this around? I just felt like I was losing. And then I called him the next day and he said, “You know what? Don’t even waste your time.” And after that I was like, I am wearing a suit and dress clothes every day. So for me that was kind of a lesson, just always be prepared.

Carley Hathaway08:28

It’s so true. It’s such a big deal to dress well all the time. Even if you’re showing your sister’s cousin a place, they’re never even going to buy, you dress nice because what if the neighbor talks to you and they want to sell? You never know.

Ren Jones08:42

Yeah. I got to tell you, Jesse, though, a large part of our audience is not on board with that. They think you can just stroll in with anything and-

Carley Hathaway08:53

It’s not true.

Ren Jones08:54

You see the people that are taking a lot of listings up their game.

Carley Hathaway08:58

Yeah, I can’t tell you how many listings I’ve gotten just because I was dressed nicely. And they’ll even say, no, the other person has more experience than you, but you dressed beautifully. And I could tell you’re a professional, we want to hire you.

Jesse Collins09:11

I think it’s huge. I think I couldn’t stress it enough to be presentable before I go on a listing appointment I’ll wash my car.

Carley Hathaway09:19

Oh yeah.

Jesse Collins09:19

Details. Because when someone’s selling a house in a million dollars or plus, that’s a big investment and they want to know that they’re taken care of and they want to know that the person who’s doing that is paying attention to the details.

Carley Hathaway09:32

I totally agree with you, and we forget to talk about your car. It should be totally fresh and clean. They’re not going to get in your car, but they’re going to see it. They’re going to see it in front of their house. Yeah.

Jesse Collins09:43

Very important. The details.

Carley Hathaway09:45

For sure. And especially in Santa Cruz where people love wearing flip-flops all day every day.

Jesse Collins09:50

Exactly. It’s really easy to get into that frame of mind. And when I’m going to the store and stuff like that, I stand out like a sore thumb because I’m suited up and everybody’s pretty casual, but I’m willing to do that because at the end of the day, it really gets me ahead in this market.

Ren Jones10:06

You’re ready for any wedding or funeral after that?

Jesse Collins10:10

Yeah. Right.

10:11You have this confident, at least I do. I feel more confident when I know that I’m presentable and dressed well.

Carley Hathaway10:18

And you carry yourself differently and you walk more straight and you put your head up. So when we were talking about circle prospecting and you make sure you call the people that you want to do future business with and the beautiful homes and neighborhoods you want to get into, how often do you call those people? What’s your routine with them for future business?

Jesse Collins10:38

So I have different things I do. For example, for when I get a listing, for example, an expired listing, I’ll do kind of the neighborhood search around the area and I’ll extrapolate between 200 and 400 contacts. And then I will just every day for a week up to my open house, I will call them with a coming soon. And I’ll leave voicemail, I’ll do a prerecorded voicemail if I don’t get ahold of them, and I’ll leave about 70 voicemails a day. And then it drives traffic. And the thing is, it’s even if those people aren’t going to be buying and they’re just neighbors that are interested, the buyers that are coming through are going to see the crowds. And it really kind of helps increase that sense of urgency. Like, oh, we got to get on this because there’s a lot of people here.

11:29So I think it’s very effective if you’re selling the house. And also one thing, I’ll be on the phone with them and just talk with them, build some rapport, and then I’ll say, “Hey, I know you’re probably not looking to do anything right now, but down the road when you’re looking to buy or sell something, do you have an agent that you rely on”? And if they say no, “Hey, I would love to keep in touch with you.” So I’ll get their contact info and I do a newsletter every other week, and I design it myself, I do the graphics, I do everything. And it’s really cool. You can tell I put work into it, so I send that out to them. Sorry, I’m losing you. I don’t hear you Carley?

Carley Hathaway12:09

Sorry. So you just put local info and market updates and things like that.

Jesse Collins12:14

So I do a lot of reading. So I’ll do a book of the month and I’ll have kind of a little bit about that so that my potential clients can see the kind of books I’m reading. And then I will do, I mix it up. Sometimes I’ll do a little local history blurb. I did one about how Neil Young had a house in Santa Cruz in the 70s. And then I’ll do, I’ll have a featured listing of mine on there, maybe a featured listing of one of my partners on there just, and then maybe a real estate news.

Ren Jones12:46

How did they get this newsletter?

Jesse Collins12:48

Email. So I do it through Constant Contact. I add those people to my database. And then through Constant Contact, I do all that.

Ren Jones12:56

Okay, wonderful. Good. Okay.

Carley Hathaway12:57

I love it. I feel like that’s a really great way to keep in touch with people. It makes you become the local expert. And people love reading about their town because they’re proud of it. That’s why they live there.

Jesse Collins13:09

And it’s cool because I have people that will call me from that and they’ll say, “Hey, I’m not looking to buy or sell, but I was wondering if you knew a good electrician?” Or I had one guy call me up and say, “Hey, I’ve been trying to refinish the wood ceilings in my living room. And I was looking for some kind of low impact sandblaster that did walnut husks, and I can’t find anyone that would do that?” So I said, no problem. I hit the phones for him, found somebody called him up a couple days later and he was shocked. He’s like, oh, wow. So it’s kind of a cool way to interact with people and just build your brand.

Ren Jones13:45

Nice. Yeah.

Carley Hathaway13:47

I love it. That’s great. He’s rolling. So let’s get into a little bit the listing end. So how long is your average listing presentation?

Jesse Collins13:57

I try to do it in one shot. I don’t like the return. I know some agents will go for initial and they’ll come back later with the CMA and everything. I try to do all that upfront. My average listing appointments probably 45 minutes. I’ll do a brief walk around the house. I usually know the price that they need to be at beforehand. And I also tailor my listing presentations towards the kind of personality. I feel that a one size fits all approach to selling. It kind of, I don’t know, you know, have different kinds of people like your drivers, your analytics, your expressives, your amiables. So being able to realize the person you’re dealing with upfront and then prepare. We get a lot of tech people and a lot of engineers, so they’re very data driven. So I will really delve into the details as far as the market action index, the average days on market, the kind of inventory we’re up against, so I can exactly explain why we need to be at that price. And I found with those kind of people, that goes a long way. So I try to, I’ll also practice, role-play listing presentations with people before you.

Carley Hathaway15:15

Good for you. Yeah, that’s huge because you don’t want to be stuttering and not sounding like you know what you’re talking about.

Ren Jones15:21

Fantastic. This is exciting.

Carley Hathaway15:23

I know.

Ren Jones15:24

I like his script. Do you have an agent you rely on? And then if they don’t, then you adopt them?

Jesse Collins15:33

Yeah, it’s really low pressure. I’m not trying to, there’s some scripts out there that push for yeses so that when you ask that final question, they’ll give you a yes. And I feel that tends to, people feel like their back’s kind of up against the wall and they’ll give you fake yeses. Right? Yeah. So very low pressure.

Ren Jones15:53

I think it’s a fair question, and you’re going to get a certain percentage where they’ve already got that person and you’re not going to get very far. So you might as well, they can appreciate what you’re doing. You’re coming in contribution, so can’t be, I mean, everything wins when you do that.

Carley Hathaway16:12

Yeah, for sure. So honestly, you’re making it seem really, really easy to call these expireds. And you’ve only been doing it eight months. Did you just jump on the phone in confident, natural, easy?

Jesse Collins16:23

No, and in fact, if you told me before I started that you’re going to have to make 50 to 70 calls a day on average, I would’ve said, “Okay, well nevermind.” I wasn’t wanting to do calling. I kind of fell into it. The story behind that is when I first came here and got my license in the end of November, I joined a team called the Maverick Group, and the senior partner, Danny Alvarez there, he had a pocket listing over by the beach. And I was just thinking about, I was starting to watch Bryan Casella on YouTube, and he did a lot of door knocking. And to me that was terrifying going door to door, but I was thinking what would be a good way to door knock and where people wouldn’t reject me? And I was like, we could host a Christmas party at this pocket listing and then we could do invites and it would be a perfect thing to do.

17:14So I got my partners involved. We hired a band, we set up this whole party, we did a bunch of flyers, and then I door knocked like 500 doors just inviting people to the party. And a lot of people, they would open the door and as soon as they heard real estate, they would close. And I’d be like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I’m just inviting you to a party. And then they would come back out. So it was a good way to kind of like build up my sales chops or my confidence doing that. So after that, after I door knocked that and did that, then I hired a coach. I signed up for coaching through Tom Ferry, and my coach said, you need to start calling expireds. And he said, you need to call, make 100 before next week when I talk to you next. So having that door knocking experience kind of made calling a little bit easier, but it was terrifying putting, when I first started using the dialer, he told me about Vulcan7. So I signed up for Vulcan7, and I didn’t even know what expireds were, but I started using the dialer system and it was going so fast that I was just freaking out. So I started doing it all by hand.

Carley Hathaway18:26

Oh no.

Jesse Collins18:27

And I would study the listings and then I’d be like, oh crap, that is a really good agent. If he can’t sell that, how am I going to sell it? So it got all in my head, and for gosh, for about two months I called and because Vulcan7 gives you about six months of previous ones. So I was just calling through that and just people didn’t want to hear it. I was doing very poorly and started role-playing, and that’s kind of what changed everything. I started studying scripts, making my own scripts, role-playing, and just for about a month and a half did that. And then one day I set an appointment, I was like, whoa, that totally happened. And I set the appointment. I was like, whoa, that was crazy. And then I went on the listing presentation, got the listing, and funny story, put it on the market. We had a cash offer in four days full price.

Ren Jones19:24

Nice.

Carley Hathaway19:25

That’s awesome.

Ren Jones19:27

For the folks watching out here, I mean, the big point here is that role-play because yeah, when you start, the levels of rejection are very high. If your tonality’s off, your cadence is off, if your approach is off, if you don’t know what to say, you don’t know how to say the, it’s not the words. Some of it’s the words. A lot of it is the tone and the cadence and the banter that gets people to open up and that takes practice, lots and lots of practice.

Jesse Collins19:58

There’s no substitute for practice and role playing definitely helps.

Ren Jones20:02

You have five different role play partners or the same?

Jesse Collins20:06

I have around four or five. I have some on the east coast, some on the west coast. I like to do them in different markets, so I’m not-

Ren Jones20:11

You play Old Maid and trade one off here and there.

Jesse Collins20:14

Yeah, I kind of cycle through some, I have some old standbys that I talk with as well, but it’s kind of nice to talk with people in different markets because they give you objections you’ve never heard before. Right.

Ren Jones20:29

Well, there’s some things that work in Tennessee that don’t work in New York and vice versa and or Atlanta and Santa Cruz. You got to speak the local-

Carley Hathaway20:39

Language.

Ren Jones20:40

You know, got to adjust it for the local behaviors.

Carley Hathaway20:43

Yeah, I always have a really hard time role-playing with East Coasters, new Yorkers, especially because they, they’re aggressive and they talk fast. And I’m like, yeah, bro.

Ren Jones20:52

Yeah, they’ll bite. They bite.

Carley Hathaway20:54

Yeah.

Jesse Collins20:55

They definitely a little bit more aggressive on the East Coast. Here it’s a little bit more laid back for sure. But like you said, Ren, it’s a lot about building rapport and people have a tendency to like people that are similar to them. So if you can match their delivery, their tonality, their speed of talking.

Ren Jones21:15

And the people watching here, if you’re not at that stage yet, I can’t stress at how important it is when you’re able to, because people like people that sound like their family or themselves, and it’s a subtle thing. It’s an unconscious thing, but boy does it work.

Carley Hathaway21:32

Yeah.

Jesse Collins21:33

Absolutely. Good.

Ren Jones21:34

Well, this has been an amazing, amazing call. This is going to help a lot of people, Jesse. I’m very, very grateful and we’re, we’re going to have a lot of fun with this and I appreciate the contribution because there are people watching right now that go, doggone it, I can do this. And then they’ll play this over and over and over and over and over.

Carley Hathaway21:57

Definitely. And Jesse, how do people get ahold of you to send you all their amazing referral business? Because we all want to live in Santa Cruz.

Jesse Collins22:05

I can give you my email. Yes, it’s Jesse, J-E-S-S-E at maverickgroupre.com. And my phone number is (831) 227-9987.

Carley Hathaway22:20

Love it. And Maverick’s is my favorite wave in Santa Cruz, so I extra. Love it.

Jesse Collins22:25

Yeah, right. It’s just a really fitting name, so yeah.

Ren Jones22:28

Love it. Great. So everybody, if you’re watching on Vulcan7 and you want to get involved with the Lead Gen Facebook group that simulcasts our show, they are at facebook.com/groups/gotobjections.

22:43And I want to thank Aaron Wittenstein who runs that group. He has a program called trajectorynow.com.

22:48And 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.

22:59And if somebody’s 10 months in the business and they’re taking off like a rocket, the real truthful secret, the real truthful secret is what Jesse does is he drives down Water Street, takes a right, and then a left and a right, and stops at this little grocery. It’s anywhere in North America. Go to graeters.com and go and get some delicious Graeter’s mint chocolate chip. This is the one for listings. The other flavors like Rocky Road especially, are for working with buyers. But if you want the listing business, go with the mint chocolate chip. If the listing is slow to sell, dig a hole in the front yard and bury it upside down, and that listing will sell just like that.

23:39Want to thank everybody for being here. Thank you, Jesse. Thank you. carleyhathaway.com.

Carley Hathaway23:45

Thanks guys. It was so fun. I’m excited to get on the phones and start calling now. Jesse is my new spirit animal.

Ren Jones23:56

Well, on that note, we’ll see everybody next week.

Jesse Collins23:59

Thanks Ren. Thanks Carley, it’s been a pleasure.

Ren Jones24:01

Thanks, Jesse.

Carley Hathaway24:01

Thank you. Bye guys.

Ren Jones24:02

Bye.

24:02