S7 E15: Taking Listings in a Competitive Market

Ren Jones (00:04):
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 several listings each month. 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 Copy Cat 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 (00:39):
Hi Ren, hi everybody. Real estate is fabulous. I love being a listing agent when the inventory is so low, things are moving fast.

Ren Jones (00:48):
Great. Before I introduce our guests 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, so we have a large audience there today as well. And we will be pausing for a commercial message during the show as a thank you to the Lead Gen folks. Let’s welcome our guest today from beautiful, beautiful Southern Florida, from Boca all the way down to Miami, and in between and maybe a little further up and down. Kimberly DeSocio. Welcome Kimberly.

Kimberly DeSocio (01:20):
Hi there. Hi, thanks for having me. I’m very excited to be here today.

Ren Jones (01:23):
Glad you’re here.

Carley Hathaway (01:24):
Yeah. We’re excited to have you on, Kimberly. Thank you so much.

Kimberly DeSocio (01:28):
Thank you, Carley.

Carley Hathaway (01:29):
Cool. Hey, so let’s just get right into it. Can we start out learning a little bit about you? What is your goal for the year?

Kimberly DeSocio (01:37):
My goal for the year? Well in a market that we’re in, which none of us expected it to take off the way it did, I’ve been inundated with listings. And I do thank Vulcan7 for that, and learning all the new skills that we we’re able to be taught and it’s really helped my business a lot tremendously. So right now I’ve been a listing machine and the market is really great here in South Florida. As everybody knows, everybody’s been migrating here from the northeast and that’s keeping us really busy.

Carley Hathaway (02:12):
That’s great. You love just being a listing agent. It’s so nice.

Kimberly DeSocio (02:15):
I do. I do. And sometimes it has you all over the place and you’re going in a lot of different directions. But for me, I work with so many people that are also snowbirds and they don’t live here full time, and that makes everything very interesting and different every single day. And who wouldn’t love working at the beach.

Ren Jones (02:35):
And you have to learn a little French here and there probably, and a little Spanish.

Kimberly DeSocio (02:39):
A little bit of everything.

Ren Jones (02:40):
Or maybe a lot of Spanish.

Kimberly DeSocio (02:42):
Yeah. Yeah.

Carley Hathaway (02:44):
Good for you. And how long have you been in the industry?

Kimberly DeSocio (02:46):
I’ve been in since 2012.

Carley Hathaway (02:49):
Okay, so a while. But you’re newer to prospecting, is that right?

Kimberly DeSocio (02:53):
I worked for probably the first five years as more of a buyer’s agent just because of the particular company that I was with. Didn’t really know much more of the other side of it. And then once I changed companies, I started to figure out what do I need to do? How do I want to run my business? And then just recently going into Vulcan7 because I needed something more to add to my business, and that has opened up a whole new world for me actually. And now I do business a whole different way because of that.

Carley Hathaway (03:31):
Okay, interesting. I like it. So how long have you been calling with Vulcan7 then?

Kimberly DeSocio (03:36):
Probably I’ll be coming up just almost a year. Just almost a year.

Carley Hathaway (03:40):
Okay.

Ren Jones (03:40):
And I’ve heard you’ve really blown it up and you’re picking up a lot of business from that.

Kimberly DeSocio (03:44):
I did. I did. I picked up 10 listings just recently, and I have about $20 million in inventory right now.

Carley Hathaway (03:52):
Ooh, I love that. $20 million, I’ll take it.

Kimberly DeSocio (03:55):
And I owe that to Vulcan7. I really do, because I would’ve never gone outside the box, as I call it, to do you know what I do every single day. I now make prospecting a big part of my day and it’s every single day, rather than trying to find the time for it I now devote the time for it.

Carley Hathaway (04:17):
You love hearing that.

Ren Jones (04:20):
Great. We have people that watch this that struggle with the idea of going down this road and calling people they don’t know. Might be an expired or for sale owner, or maybe they’re calling around a recent listing or a sale or whatever it may be. What advice can you give them? Because the only thing this show is about is to help people that get a listing now and then, get a buyer now and then, to get into where they can make a tremendous fortune. What advice would you give somebody who’s in the earlier stages of this? What did you have to go through mentally or in your routine to get that thing really moving?

Kimberly DeSocio (04:57):
A lot of mental, a lot of mental every day. It was not easy. Rejection’s not easy for anybody. I don’t care what business you’re in, nobody likes rejection. And nobody likes cold calling. If you asked me I would’ve said, “No way. I’m not going to do it”. I’m a single mom and I have a 10-year-old daughter, there is no plan B. There’s only plan A. And so I made myself every single day get on the phone. And even the days that were challenging, I would tell myself, “Okay, just do 30 minutes. If you just do 30 minutes today, 30 minutes tomorrow, it’ll all get easier and easier”. And it’s true, it did. The more that I did it, the more skills that I had. Those help come over those challenges and those obstacles that we play in our mind every single day with rejection and objections. And every day it got easier and every day I got more confident until it was like now I’ll talk to anybody on the phone. I don’t care how angry they are, I don’t care what personality they are. The harder they are, the more I feel even more motivated.

Carley Hathaway (06:17):
Yeah, good.

Ren Jones (06:17):
Wow. Because it probably chases off everybody else that calls. And if you hang in there, you win.

Kimberly DeSocio (06:22):
Yeah. And I feel there’s enough food for everybody. And there might be some that you know didn’t win, and it’s okay because tomorrow’s a new day and there’s more to go to the next day.

Carley Hathaway (06:36):
Mm-hmm. There’s an abundance for sure.

Kimberly DeSocio (06:38):
Yeah.

Carley Hathaway (06:39):
And it sounds like you have a really strong why, your wonderful 10-year-old daughter. So keeping that in mind, you say now you prospect every day, can you just walk us through your morning routine now that you made prospecting a priority?

Kimberly DeSocio (06:52):
Yeah. So I start at eight o’clock in the morning every day. I shifted some things around to make sure that eight o’clock I’m on the phone. And I prospect usually I’ll go through whatever comes in my database for those particular zip codes that I might have asked to be put in. And then from there I’ll then go into calls that were from the day before, a couple of days before. I try to at least do at least an hour. If there’s days that I could do more than that, I do. But I typically try to do at least an hour, and I try to do at least a hundred people, at least a hundred names in my bucket as I call it.

Carley Hathaway (07:35):
Mm-hmm. That’s wonderful. And I heard you said before you started with 30 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day, you pushed yourself and now you’re up to an hour a day, sometimes more.

Kimberly DeSocio (07:43):
Yes.

Carley Hathaway (07:43):
How long did it take you for that breakthrough to get to an hour a day?

Kimberly DeSocio (07:50):
I would probably say maybe within a couple of weeks or so. I’m just that type of personality that I knew that I could be very successful at this if I just learned to master it. If I just stuck it out and I just learned to master it, then I knew that I would succeed. And that’s what I told myself every day. But I’m the type that also has to break it down into smaller segments so that I could feel better about it. If I bid off too much that I can’t chew, then I get discouraged. So if I did little increments of that 30 minutes, then that just made me feel better every day. So every day I would add to it, and it might be 45 minutes and then it might be 50 minutes. And there’s been days that I’ve done two and a half hours, and some days I’ve done AM and PM.

Carley Hathaway (08:43):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (08:43):
It almost sounds like a gym membership where you go and then you start out with the eight pound weights and you go to the tens and the twelves. You work out a little longer duration, and one day you look in the mirror and go, “Woohoo”. Well in your case, you look in your bank account and go, “Woohoo”.

Kimberly DeSocio (08:57):
Exactly. No exactly.

Carley Hathaway (08:59):
And now instead of the lower weights and struggling, when you’re getting objections you’re laughing them off and moving forward.

Kimberly DeSocio (09:06):
Yeah. There was a guy today actually, and I called him a few times, they don’t remember us most cases. And I called him again and each time he said he already had somebody and he was listing it already. And so today I got him on the phone again and I said, “Well, is it signed? Is your paperwork signed?”. “Well, no. I’m going to”. And then I said, “Well, wouldn’t you like another option? And at least another opinion? As a business decision that makes the most sense, doesn’t it?”. And I said, “So when can I interview for the job of selling your home?”. And he said, “I’ll be in town on Tuesday. Call me”.

Carley Hathaway (09:41):
Woohoo.

Ren Jones (09:43):
I love that, and I love that you are saying that. And I’ve heard that, on rare occasions from people that are really good at this, where they’re like, “Well, when can I meet with you?” right after a point where they say, “I’m already blah, blah, blah”.

Carley Hathaway (09:57):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (09:58):
When you say that, and then all of a sudden it’s sort of like a door opens.

Kimberly DeSocio (10:02):
It totally changed.

Ren Jones (10:02):
It’s a great script, but people are afraid to use it because they buy into the defense, which is a lot of times it’s a make them up you.

Kimberly DeSocio (10:10):
Right.

Ren Jones (10:11):
Yeah. So folks that, what she just did, try it. It works. It works.

Carley Hathaway (10:17):
Get a second opinion, always.

Ren Jones (10:19):
Yeah. It’s when can I meet with you? When can I schedule an interview? Even though they say, “Well, we’ve got that all figured out”. “When can I?”. And then they’re like, “Hold on, how about Thursday?”. So you’re like, “How did that happen?”.

Kimberly DeSocio (10:32):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (10:32):
But it’s so common.

Carley Hathaway (10:34):
And like you said-

Ren Jones (10:36):
If you use that script. Most agents will not use that script.

Kimberly DeSocio (10:39):
Mm-hmm. Right.

Carley Hathaway (10:40):
And you stuck with it and you kept calling him. Like you said, they don’t remember you.

Kimberly DeSocio (10:44):
No. Right.

Carley Hathaway (10:45):
They didn’t write your name down.

Ren Jones (10:47):
Mike Darda used to do that one, and he sells on the other side of your state. He’s taking 20 listings a month using our system. They would say, “Well we’ve already got blah, blah, blah”. And he goes, “When can I schedule my interview?”. And they’d say, “Hold on, how about Wednesday at four?”. So it’s a rarely used script, but it works well.

Kimberly DeSocio (11:04):
Right. You catch them off guard.

Ren Jones (11:06):
Yeah.

Carley Hathaway (11:07):
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly DeSocio (11:07):
You catch them off guard. Because again, there’s really only a handful of things that a seller says. If you really wrote it down every single day, they all say about the same six things. So if we just stick to what we’re going to say, knowing that that’s coming up, then we already have it covered. And asking them questions really kind of trips them up and then the next thing you know you’re having a conversation.

Carley Hathaway (11:36):
Yeah. That’s perfect. And like you said, you learn those same four, five, six objections and you’re ready for them and you can’t wait to hear them because they’re that much closer to a yes.

Kimberly DeSocio (11:47):
Right, exactly.

Carley Hathaway (11:48):
The more you do it, the more you’ll learn. Totally.

Kimberly DeSocio (11:49):
Right.

Carley Hathaway (11:50):
So you start calling at 8:00 AM and you said you call your zip codes, but are you calling expireds? Are you calling FSBOs? Who are you calling?

Kimberly DeSocio (11:58):
I strictly go after expireds.

Carley Hathaway (11:59):
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly DeSocio (12:00):
Sometimes I’ve called FSBOs, but I feel for me I like the expireds because I know that they were already on the market. I know that they had unsuccessful results, I know the way I do business and what I can do for them, and that’s how I lead in.

Carley Hathaway (12:21):
Okay. I like it. And are you using a script to call those expireds?

Kimberly DeSocio (12:25):
I do. Yep. Definitely. And in the beginning I did not because I didn’t feel comfortable with the script and I thought, “Okay, you know what? That’s not me. I’m not going to say that. I’ll say this”. I got nowhere. I got nowhere. I said, “Okay, you know what? I better follow that script. Maybe I’ll just read it the way it goes”. And then it was like a light bulb went off and then the doors opened, and it works like a charm.

Carley Hathaway (12:48):
Yep.

Kimberly DeSocio (12:48):
Works like a charm.

Carley Hathaway (12:51):
We’ve heard that so many times. People try to go it on their own and then as soon as they just… Finally, like you said, the light bulb goes off and they use the script. They’re like, “Oh my God, I’m getting listing appointments”.

Ren Jones (13:01):
Yeah. There’s a fear of scripts because what they remember is the poor use of a script, and that’s offensive. A script is not offensive. In fact, it’s pretty pure and powerful because it’s well thought out. The poor use of a script is offensive.

Kimberly DeSocio (13:17):
Mm-hmm.

Carley Hathaway (13:17):
Right, right.

Ren Jones (13:19):
If it sounds like you’re chopping your way through it, as we’ve heard from people that call from time to time. But as you internalize that and you make it in your words at your cadence, and it gets what do they call it? Predictable and duplicatable. Whereas wing it is not predictable and duplicatable.

Carley Hathaway (13:40):
Yeah.

Kimberly DeSocio (13:40):
Yeah. When you wing it you aren’t prepared for what they might say. And I know sometimes, for lack of a better word, because script sometimes makes it feel like it’s so sales pitchy, but it’s not. The script that we use is really a conversation. It’s a conversation to have with the people. So even though we are following a script, you wouldn’t know we’re following a script because we’re talking as a conversation.

Ren Jones (14:12):
Exactly.

Kimberly DeSocio (14:13):
So it’s a whole different approach. So you’re not really coming across so sales pitchy.

Carley Hathaway (14:20):
Yeah, exactly.

Ren Jones (14:21):
Exactly. Now you’ve been doing this eight years, so you’re bound to have a lot of past clients and people that know you. A database, if you will.

Kimberly DeSocio (14:29):
Yes, yes. Yep.

Ren Jones (14:30):
So how big is your database? 200, 300?

Kimberly DeSocio (14:33):
Actually I think I might have maybe about 700?

Ren Jones (14:37):
700. Okay.

Kimberly DeSocio (14:40):
But out of that, believe it or not, in the short time of almost a year with Vulcan7, I have about 150 leads that came from Vulcan7.

Ren Jones (14:49):
Nice. Good, good, good. There’s some suspects there. Good.

Kimberly DeSocio (14:52):
Right.

Ren Jones (14:55):
One of the powers of the business is not only calling the people you don’t know, which you’re doing very well, but continuing to call the people you know that you’ve either done business with them or you know them well because it’s creates that long-term pipeline. Are you doing that? Or, as I did for 16 years, are you neglecting the hell out of them?

Kimberly DeSocio (15:13):
No. Well one of the things that I’m really, really good at is follow up.

Ren Jones (15:18):
Good.

Kimberly DeSocio (15:18):
I am extremely great in follow up. And believe it or not, probably most of my success with Vulcan7 is because I followed up with these people. They were not ready, not ready. No, no, no. But I got them to give me their email so then they became a lead. I touched them at least two to three times per month. I’m reaching out to them, I’m showing them whenever I get a new listing, they’re getting notified, they see my listings. And little by little it starts to build the know, like, and trust. And once you do that, it’s kind of like dating and courting, you know? You can’t expect somebody to marry you just because you called them today. So they get to know me, they feel they get to know me, like me, trust me, and then next thing you know I’m getting the listing. One lady, it was just when COVID 19 hit in March and she came up expired. It took me probably about five months, and then she was ready and I got a $2.4 million listing.

Carley Hathaway (16:23):
Woo.

Ren Jones (16:24):
And the big point here is most of the business comes on lead follow up, and there’s so many people that struggle with that. They’ll call once or twice and then it’ll fall off. And then obviously Kimberly gets it.

Kimberly DeSocio (16:34):
Yes. Right. I don’t go away.

Carley Hathaway (16:37):
And once you have them in as a lead, you have their email, how often are you calling them? I know you’re sending them emails with your new listings and stuff, but how often are you actually calling them?

Kimberly DeSocio (16:47):
I guess it probably depends who it might be, what they might have told me. If there’s a certain reason why they’re delaying or something like that. Otherwise, I’m probably calling them probably every three weeks or so.

Carley Hathaway (17:03):
Okay.

Kimberly DeSocio (17:04):
It could be more than that, but sometimes I don’t want to turn somebody off with too much. But I’m also emails with information. So a lot of times I’ll send an email and I’ll give a market data. I’ll tell them how many properties closed and how many are pending based on their area, based on their condo building, something like that. So I try to give value each time. It’s not asking for business, it’s I want to give you value.

Carley Hathaway (17:32):
That’s smart, because then you’re going to be their go-to person when they are ready.

Kimberly DeSocio (17:36):
Exactly. Exactly. And that’s pretty much how I got most of my listings was because of that.

Carley Hathaway (17:42):
Good. And as Ren would say, what’s your batting average? How many listings are you taking that you go on?

Ren Jones (17:52):
You go 10, how many do you take?

Kimberly DeSocio (17:56):
It’s been the ones that I’ve followed up. The ones that I’ve gotten the appointment like that on the phone and I’ve gone to, I didn’t get. And they always loved my presentation, but for whatever reason they selected someone else. But the ones that I continually followed up on were just like, “Okay, I’m ready. Come over”.

(18:16):
And then I just had the listing. Sometimes I didn’t even have to ask. They were just like, “Did you bring the paperwork?”.

Carley Hathaway (18:23):
So you build that strong-

Ren Jones (18:25):
You’re not tracking that batting average that tightly then?

Kimberly DeSocio (18:28):
Yeah. Yeah.

Ren Jones (18:30):
Do you track your numbers in a way?

Kimberly DeSocio (18:32):
I do track my numbers. They probably could be fine-tuned a little bit more than that.

Ren Jones (18:38):
Okay. One of the reasons, and you mentioned a couple times, our Take52 training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One of the things that they do is try to push a lot of people into formal coaching so you have the accountability and you’re tracking your numbers and all that piece. And we get a lot of people that get involved with us because of one coaching company or another, and we try to push them back to that to get into. Even though a lot of those are a thousand a month, the yield on that is even higher because of the additional accountability piece. You think that would be in your future?

Kimberly DeSocio (19:12):
Yeah, for sure.

Ren Jones (19:13):
Good.

Kimberly DeSocio (19:14):
I think that-

Ren Jones (19:15):
We got to sign you up for somebody’s coaching.

Kimberly DeSocio (19:17):
Yeah.

Ren Jones (19:18):
How did find us in the first place?

Kimberly DeSocio (19:21):
I was with a different brokerage and they had this call center that had a place for us to go and it would provide numbers and names for us to call for business. And so I went there a couple times, found out that it was Vulcan7, and I immediately liked it and knew that it had potential. But I didn’t like the setting because we were kind of in this hole in the wall place and there were people listening and-

Ren Jones (19:49):
It was a boiler room, you were right next to the boiler?

Kimberly DeSocio (19:53):
Something like that. Exactly. Something like that. And then somebody over your shoulder listening and then saying something and you’re already uncomfortable to begin with.

Ren Jones (20:02):
Yeah.

Kimberly DeSocio (20:02):
You’re already out of your comfort zone.

Ren Jones (20:04):
Torture me.

Kimberly DeSocio (20:07):
So I was just like, “You know what? I can’t do this. I need to do this in my house”.

Ren Jones (20:09):
I know. Yeah, it’s nice. You just go down the hall, turn into the next room and you’re at work and then come back, which in 2020 that’s what we’re all doing.

Carley Hathaway (20:18):
Yeah.

Kimberly DeSocio (20:19):
So I knew it had potential way back then, but I need it to be in my setting and nobody hovering over me.

Ren Jones (20:27):
Yeah. So now you got the best of both worlds and you make all the money.

Kimberly DeSocio (20:32):
Awesome. Right.

Ren Jones (20:33):
We are so excited about your success and all the money that you’re making.

Kimberly DeSocio (20:36):
Thank you.

Ren Jones (20:37):
This has been a real treat, Kimberly. A real treat.

Carley Hathaway (20:40):
Yeah. Thank you so, so much.

Kimberly DeSocio (20:42):
Thank you guys. Thank you. I mean this has just changed my life, my daughter’s life, and my business.

Ren Jones (20:49):
If somebody watching this has a listing referral for your part of the world, which is common, and actually even more. Folks, as a real estate agent, especially if you’re in Chicago or the Northeast somewhere or her previous old hometown up in Connecticut, where it’s cold as heck and you want a second home she will fix you up. But if you have a referral for her, what’s the best way for them to find you Kimberly?

Kimberly DeSocio (21:15):
They can find me on Facebook. They can Google my name, Kimberly DeSocio. I appear everywhere, I’m very active in social media. And they can go to kimberlydesociohomes.com is my website.

Ren Jones (21:28):
Good, good, good.

Carley Hathaway (21:29):
Amazing.

Ren Jones (21:30):
We’re going to check back with you in about six months or so and see how it’s going.

Kimberly DeSocio (21:33):
Okay, great.

Ren Jones (21:35):
Good.

Kimberly DeSocio (21:35):
All right.

Carley Hathaway (21:35):
And-

Ren Jones (21:35):
Folks, if you’re watching on Vulcan7 and you want to get involved with the Lead Gen Facebook group, you can find them at facebook.com/groups/gotobjections. We’re so grateful for their simulcast. And finally, if you’re watching on Facebook on that group and you’re not yet involved with Vulcan7, make sure to sign up at vulcan7.com/leadgen for a special deal.

(21:58):
And now you’ve wanted to know what Kimberly’s secret is that she didn’t tell you because she didn’t tell you her number one secret. What happens is each day after she makes her calls, she goes to the freezer and gets out Graeter’s Mint Chocolate Chip. This is the one for listings. You know the other flavors like Rocky Road, that’s working with buyers. That’s why they call it Rocky Road. But the Graeter’s Mint Chocolate Chip is for taking listings. If the listing is slow to sell, in the case of Kimberly you dig a hole in the front yard in the sand, you bury it upside down and that listing will sell just like that. So we want to thank everybody for being here. You can find Graeter’s all over North America. Just go to graeters.com to find the store near you.

(22:46):
Excited to have everybody here.

Carley Hathaway (22:48):
Thank you so much. Kimberly, thank you so much. Thank you everybody for watching. It’s been a great show.

Kimberly DeSocio (22:53):
Thank you guys.

Carley Hathaway (22:53):
So much good information.

Ren Jones (22:54):
Thank you for the information and I hope that inspires a lot of people to be as wealthy as you are.

Kimberly DeSocio (22:59):
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Ren Jones (23:01):
Thanks again, Kimberly.

Carley Hathaway (23:01):
Bye.

Kimberly DeSocio (23:01):
Bye.