Presentation

Cold 3rd Party Leads

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I hate these.

We recently subscribed to Zillow in a small way. The closest actual area with leads available in it is about 30-35 minutes from my home. That’s where we did it.

I know the area okay, but it’s not my backyard. I’ve sold a couple/few houses over there, but there are parts of it I don’t know, and the surrounding towns are even more obscure for me.

That’s not what’s important though. What’s important is the quality of the lead.

I have friends who sell tons of shit and their primary lead source is Zillow. I’m not knocking it for them. But for me? Eh…

So, I got the Zillow call. It’s Saturday, 1:30 in the afternoon. I just finished lunch with my family and we’re literally walking out the door to go for a walk in the woods. Classic Zillow timing.

I try to actually not take the call because I was feeling very invested in spending time with my family and going on this walk.

They connected the lead to me anyway.

I texted the person because I was prompted to, saying that I was out and about, that today would not work, but that I would work on scheduling something when I was with my computer a little later. They said okay. Tomorrow after 2 would work for them.

I’m still reluctant. It’s gotta be tomorrow because it can’t be today, and I have the afternoon saved so my wife can go out with her friend while I stay with the kids. That’s not until 4. If I schedule this for 2, maybe I can get back in time to make it all work.

Zillow’s model is predicated on you being the appointment scheduler—the door opener. It degrades, at least initially, the role of the buyer agent to the most banal of examples of a real estate professional.

Can you tell it hurts my pride?

I get back and schedule the appointment. I reached back out to the buyer. I’d like to connect for a couple minutes on the phone before we show up at the house together.1 They don’t respond.

I wait a while (hours) and then text a question mark. They said something like, “Can’t talk now. Still good for tomorrow at 2?”

I replied that the appointment was scheduled, but that I like to jump on the phone, at least briefly, prior to the appointment so we can cover a few things.2

They didn’t respond.

I texted a while later that if it was easier for them to text, we could do that too. I asked whether they’d be using financing or cash to buy a home if they found one they liked.

Nothing.

I’m very reluctant to drive thirty minutes each way to show a condo anyway, not to mention to a cold lead, not to mention to an ice cold lead I’ve never spoken with, NOT TO MENTION an ice cold lead I’ve never spoken with who can’t seem to see any importance is humoring me with ten minutes on the phone.

Finally, I said that if we were not able to connect briefly to chat—whether via text or call—prior to the appointment, I was going to have to cancel it and I wouldn’t be able to help them.

They immediately texted me that they could talk.

They preferred texting.3 I asked whether this would be the first home they’d seen, or if they’d already been out to see some. They immediately texted and said that their agent was away tomorrow, and that’s why they needed me to show them the home. Their agent will be writing and submitting the offer, he just can’t show the house tomorrow.

Thank God.

I responded by thanking them profusely for telling me that, and telling them that I would be canceling the appointment, could not help them, and that they should ask their agent why if they felt confused.

I sent the email to cancel the Zillow subscription and to notify me when there’s availability closer to our office.

Bah humbug, and it’s not even October yet.

  1. I’ve only done two others in the last month or so. I’ve shown up at the house to meet them, and the listing agent in one case, and had established almost zero rapport prior to the appointment. I was tired of that because of how foreign it was to my process with warm leads. And I’ve always thought that agents who’ve done that when I’ve represented sellers in the past were weak, especially when they show up and the buyer doesn’t. Call me an asshole. It’s just not strong salesmanship or agency. ↩︎
  2. Qualify them so I don’t waste any more of my time. ↩︎
  3. This is also beginning to make me skeptical. I had an experience earlier this year where I listed a piece of raw land for someone who didn’t own it. It pays to be scrupulous with people these days—if it ever didn’t! ↩︎
Cold 3rd Party Leads

Warm Buyer Lead Process

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Most of the buyers that I deal with either find me online or are referred to me by someone I know. That doesn’t mean I’m not interviewing to work with them or that I’m not otherwise on trial.

It usually begins as an email or a form they fill out on my website or sometimes as a text message. Almost never is this a phone call.

I greet them and then I move on to selling the appointment. I’m not selling them a house or anything else. The only thing I’m focused on is selling the appointment. I either want to get face-to-face (ideal, if they’re local) or on the phone.

It’s usually easier to justify the phone call as a first measure. It’s easy to do because I can step them up by selling them on a “quick phone call when it’s convenient for them.” If they’re warm (which all these kinds of leads are), this is rarely met with any resistance.

Once I get them on the phone, I—casually—work through the questions that I want answered. I qualify them. I usually begin by encouraging them to explain their situation to me. 1 Once they’ve finished, I’ll reiterate some of what they’ve said back to them, “You’re living in Virginia with your wife but you’re moving back up and want to begin your home search in the spring. That makes sense,” and then I’ll move into some questions that I have. I’ll usually preface this question-asking by saying something like, “I just have a few questions for my process that I’ll ask you now. Does that sound alright?” Then I’ll move through my qualifying questions. 2

  • What’s the best email for you?
  • How do I spell your last name (if that’s not already known)?
  • You mentioned your (spouse, wife, husband, children, dog, aunt, etc.). Is it just them that’s moving with you? (Identify the decisionmakers)
  • Great. What is/are their name(s)?
  • What do you expect is your budget? 3
  • Are you preapproved?
  • Are you open to speaking to my number 1 mortgage professional (whether they’re preapproved or not, I sell the relationship because he’s excellent at what he does and it makes a big difference in the experience)?
  • What’s your timeframe/when would you like to be settled?
  • What do you expect from someone in my position?
  • Do you have a house to sell?

I don’t robotically go through these questions unless there’s an utter lack of rapport, then sometimes it does feel a bit forced. I go through these questions conversationally with context added in and around them. With the question about what their expectations are, I might begin by saying something like, “You’ve bought a house before/sold a house before,” or, “Maybe you’ve never bought or sold a house before, but maybe you’ve dealt with an attorney or a financial advisor where the person you were interacting with was in a position to help you with an important matter. In situations like that one as well as our situation, what sort of things are important to you or do you expect from the person that’s in my role?”

In this portion, it’s pretty natural to touch on agency and why it’s important to have a relationship with an agent that is on a client level rather than a customer level. Today, the prospect mentioned that it seemed like their agent—when they bought their current home—was only showing them houses that the agent wanted and was less inclined to show them houses they wanted to see. I explained that usually in this situation, which is a common complaint among consumers, the agent was likely trying to steer them toward listings the agent or the agent’s office represented because there was a financial incentive to do so. I went on to explain that this is why it’s important to have a buyer agent who respects the nature of the fiduciary relationship and is out to represent the client and their best interests, not the other way around. This is a useful pre-frame for setting the second appointment/call where you review paperwork and secure the client.

If there’s some rapport, the conversation should flow somewhat smoothly.

Once I get through these, the next step is to sell the appointment/second appointment. 4 I’m working to establish the next steps as I’m concluding my conversation. If they’ve agreed to talk to the lender, I’m explaining that I’ll be sending them an email once we hang up so they’ll have my contact information and I’ll also include the mortgage professional’s contact information. If they’d prefer, I can have the lender reach out directly to them so it’s one less thing they have to think about. 5

The next step from there is to set up a time so we dig further into the agency laws and discuss more about what it looks like to form a representative relationship. At this point, too, we can really dial in the home search criteria and set up an automatic search using the MLS so they can begin seeing properties.

When’s a good time for them? This will either be a phone call or a face-to-face appointment. Depending on the level of rapport, I may insist on the spouse being present. If they’re not local, it’s difficult to justify their driving to meet me at an office or public place for this purpose, especially when we can e-sign everything. If they are local, that’s almost always my approach, but I’m backing off trying to get non-local people to drive to meet me just so we can review the paperwork. The warmest of them will, but I think it’s more of a challenge than most people are willing to bear. So opt for the phone call with one or both and review the client paperwork together to answer questions like you would in person. This is where you secure the client, and that’s the second step in the buyer process.

  • Step 1 – Secure the appointment/call
  • Step 2 – (Secure the second appointment/call so you can…) Secure the client
  1. This will be what their current situation is, who all is involved, etc. ↩︎
  2. I’ll write out these questions in a note in my CRM so I can type them in during the call and just click save. I used to keep them in my Notes app under a folder called Buyer Notes (and Seller Notes). I still will grab quick stuff there as it comes up but the CRM is the ultimate storage place for all things people. ↩︎
  3. Their response will tell you how much they’re aware of their ability to buy. Some people have this very dialed in, others will speak in terms of a monthly payment, and others will take a stab, arbitrarily, at a dollar amount for the house. It’s less about what they say and more about how they say it so you can intuit, in the moment, how to proceed. This question sets up your tonality and approach for the next two questions. ↩︎
  4. If I got the appointment in the first place rather than the call, I’ll go through all these things in person. I’ll almost always have at least a quick call before scheduling the appointment in person. ↩︎
  5. Usually this has appeal to it, assuming they’re open to the conversation with the LO. ↩︎
Warm Buyer Lead Process

The Autopsy Report

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Something I learned from an excellent real estate coach named Brian Moses is the importance of reflecting on things that go well and things that don’t. The emphasis was on things that didn’t go well, but it can be applied to positive situations as well.

Brian talked about filling notebook after notebook with what he called “Autopsies.” He would autopsy situations after they were done, in writing, to learn what he could do better next time when the situation presented itself again.

This is based on the professional wisdom that at a certain point, situations we encounter in business aren’t really new. My father-in-law talked about this during his last visit with us. He spoke about how employees that come into his business fit into archetypes and he can predict how well they’ll turn out in many cases because he’s seen and hired and fired the same guy (not literally) before.

Whenever I have a deal die or I have a lead that I feel should have converted but didn’t or when I lose a listing appointment, I autopsy it.

In practice, this basically looks like journaling about the situation. But more specifically, I ask myself where I could have done better, where I was at fault. On further reflection, It’s usually evident where I messed up.

The one that comes to mind is a listing appointment from last summer. They were sort of an odd couple, around my age, and the house was a bit unusual. Mostly because there were something like a half-dozen or more cats living there. There was one bedroom of the five that was actually for the cats.

The people were nice enough. He was a bit more forward, she a bit more reserved. I quickly grew comfortable with them because of our closeness in age. We toured the home, sat at the table, and I went through my presentation. Prior to the presentation, I felt that we had established rapport. I especially felt that way with the man.

Well, I have the unfortunate habit of vulgar speech. It’s rarely a problem in my professional life, but it’s a character handicap inherited from my parents and perfected in the Marines that I’d rather not have. Because I felt especially comfortable with the man, and to a lesser degree with the woman but still comfortable, at some point I began speaking freely as I would with friends.

At the time, it felt pretty natural. There were no adverse reactions, and there may have even been some reciprocity.

I followed up a couple times as it was just a matter of time for them to list. Then one day, she told me that her friend recommended she work with someone and she decided to take her friend’s recommendation. She wasn’t bitter about it, and she was obviously forthcoming and didn’t just ignore me. I asked her point blank if there was something more I could have done to win her business, or, if there was anything I could have done better.

She paused and seemed to consider it, then convincingly said, “No.”

I was a little pissed about the situation. It was in the bag. $12k, gone.

Of course, I hung up congenially enough. But I was hurting.

I thought of Brian. So, I opened a Word doc and wrote through it. It was informative for me. Similar to seeking direction the way I described in yesterday’s post, this is a way that I can uncover stuff that’s holding me back, stuff that I otherwise won’t notice that I’m coming up against.

Here’s the Autopsy Report below as an example:

Autopsy Report
 
(The Person’s Name Was Here)

I interviewed for the listing and she said she was going to clean the house and paint and get her shit out before listing in about a month. I followed up with her after 1 week via text saying, “Just checking in with you. Were you able to connect with Attorney _______ about the capital gains tax question?” She responded saying that she hadn’t had a chance to call him but would hopefully by the end of the week. I asked if she had any other questions or things I could assist with. She said, “No not yet. I’m working on packing and cleaning/painting.”
 
I followed up again two weeks later on 6/21/22 asking her how the painting was going. She responded “Hi, I’m doing good. I’ve just decided to go with a realtor that a friend of mine just used, but thank you for your time and advice.”
 
I asked her if there were any other differentiators besides her friend’s recommendation that helped her decide. She said no, it was just the recommendation.
 
Damn!
 
I could have communicated more often. I let two weeks slip by before I reached back out again. By then it was too late. How do I continue to add value while seller leads are in nurture mode? I didn’t establish sufficient trust for her anyway. I won over the boyfriend, but I didn’t win her over.
 
I swore profusely while I presented to them because I felt comfortable. That was a mistake.
 
My communication is limited to texts and emails on Tuesdays. While that’s a step in the right direction as far as what I’ve otherwise done previously (structure), it’s not a very upbeat rhythm. I need to increase communication, but do it systematically.
 
What else can I do to add value and help to build trust with sellers? Brian would say that I should have left with the client docs signed. Some of these sellers aren’t ready to sign though. I stumbled a little through the presentation too I remember because the listing sheets were the CloudCMA listing sheets and I wasn’t familiar with where some of the details are located on the page. I need to know them like I know my phone number. Even if there was some other factor, she wouldn’t say it. If there was some other factor, she may not even be aware of it. It’s more unconscious. Trust. You increase trust by increasing communication. But how do you increase communication with somebody without coming across as over-the-top? Maybe over-the-top would have been preferable to the bi-weekly texter…
 
She tells me she needs a month to get it ready to list. She finds a new realtor somewhere between week 1 and week 3. I could have called last week. I don’t call. I could have called ever. I could send her listings as they come on market. I could send them the digital pdf version of the report. I could increase the fear and tension rather than putting them at ease. How? By increasing motivation to list sooner because of market conditions worsening. Because of buyers disappearing and becoming more particular as time goes by.
 
The fact of the matter is, she felt no problem with taking another realtor over me and not letting me know. She didn’t care about letting me know because what I was delivering was a commodity service. There was no real relationship there. Nothing to speak of. Now, whether or not this is somebody that you would get lunch with, this is somebody that’s in the market to sell a $400k home. Transactional. She found you (number one) on her own, but then when push came to shove she preferred a referral from a friend of hers who’d just had a positive experience with someone else. You should use your referrals and Success Stories more in your listing presentations.
 
You could ask people who you’ve just helped if they know anyone who’s thinking of buying or selling in the next few months. Other agents do this, and this is part of the reason why they find themselves in these situations and you don’t. You have to learn how to ask for the referral.
 
Pay attention to who gets this listing. Irrespective, note that this is something that you do not know how to do and need to learn how to do. This is a weakness of yours, not a quality of your character.
 
Now don’t beat yourself up. God wants you to learn. Like Yoda said last night, “The greatest teacher, failure is.” Use it.

That’s a good example. I was able to uncover some ideas and insight that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Furthermore, I felt somewhat better after I wrote this out. I put my arms around it, identified where I fell short, and committed to not making those same mistakes twice. To me, this is the work of a pro. We all make mistakes. The question is whether or not we learn from them.

The Autopsy Report

Pricing

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I’m grateful that I spent a disproportionate amount of time creating CMAs early on. Effective pricing is a skill that I’m really glad to have.

When I was pretty new, I discovered Bold Leads and thought I’d found the holy grail. To be honest, it really didn’t win me that much business, but I was thrilled to be getting in front of sellers in any capacity in my first year. What it did do for me, was it introduced me to the idea of creating CMAs for seller leads which is what got me very engaged in pricing property.1

I read The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch and it blew my fucking mind. I was aware of the notion of 80/20 from Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Workweek which was the first business book I read when I got back from the Marines. Fast forward like seven years and I’m reading Koch. From that book, I began really considering what the most important thing I did was to generate revenue. It was creating these CMAs and getting them into the hands of seller leads. So I doubled and tripled down on it.

This became my primary focus. I was engineering a script for seller leads based on the book Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort, laser-focusing in on CMAs and my Bold Leads seller leads, and working diligently every day to become the biggest REAL ESTATE AGENT I COULD.2

Because I was doing those CMAs like my ass was on fire and it was the only way to put it out, I learned a lot about pricing homes in my market — particularly in the average home price range.

I’ve never been a guy to look at the market monitor every day. The little thing that shows you what’s sold, what’s new, what’s under agreement, what’s terminated, etc.3 The best of us look at that once per day and know everything. I admire you and them. My business partner is this way. It’s great.

I’ve always thought it was a bit time-consuming, and maybe I’ve paid the price in terms of effectiveness because of that, but I don’t think I’ve missed much. What I do know, is that pulling comps, making adjustments, using a CMA software4 that makes the whole process streamlined, and doing lots of market analyses and BPOs have made it such that my pricing has rarely been off.5

Some notably successful agents I know will take a listing even if it’s highly overpriced. The logic is to get the price down sufficient to sell the property — even if it takes a while. That’s how I was first brought up.

I believe that this method of listing homes is ineffective. For me, the sellers being pissed off was the thing that made it suck. Something could be said about the ethical quality of the fiduciary who misleads the client into thinking the home is worth more. 6 It’s dishonest. If I’m upfront with them about price, they disagree, I go through my whole process and they still want to list high, we either agree to reduce the price after X days if X activity doesn’t occur, or I don’t take the listing.7 It’s not worth it to me.

Finding a good CMA software that helps to create not only the analysis but also the ancillary documents that make up a killer presentation packet has been essential for me. Just the other day, my business partner said that he now understands why I do full-on CMAs. Because he did (finally) and his soon-to-be clients were impressed as hell. Little do they know that much of that work is done by a computer.8

A lot could be said about making adjustments as well as pricing strategy. I live and work in a market that’s in rural New Hampshire, so I don’t have hundred-unit developments with identical homes throughout. We have to pull comps by knowing which neighborhoods are comparable, which municipalities are comparable, and then what homes are comparable. It’s more complex than what one will typically find in a city and more than in an area with large developments. We have historic homes here that are wildly different. We have acreage to account for. Every market’s different in some ways and similar in others, but it’s just to say that this one takes some attention when comping properties.

In closing, these are the things I did that helped me:

  • Finding a good CMA software
  • Familiarizing myself with how it worked and optimizing it
  • Creating Comparative Market Analyses and Broker Price Opinions for every seller lead I could
  • Generating seller leads to create these reports for
  • Presenting them9

There aren’t many skills I think are more important to a marketer and seller of homes than knowing how to price them.

  1. Another post should be written about the importance of learning contracts. Something I, for some reason, didn’t consider exciting enough to warrant spending my time on when I was newer. But I did create CMAs. I didn’t even need you to respond to me. I was making that thing and first-class mailing it to you. ↩︎
  2. The grandiosity was debilitating. I can recall sometimes feeling so anxious in my first couple of years that I would literally go to my little 800 SF luxury condo and lay on my pleather couch in the middle of the day to try to nap. This can be a hard business. ↩︎
  3. In our MLS, “Hotsheets” are basically the MLS equivalent of a spreadsheet with no photos and I don’t find them to be user-friendly. So, the tool that’s used by many is called Market Monitor. We use Paragon software for MLS. ↩︎
  4. Bold Leads introduced me to Cloud CMA back in 2018 and I’ve used it ever since. ↩︎
  5. I don’t like to take listings for more money than I know they’re worth. I hate it. ↩︎
  6. This was a tactic used to win the listing while competing with other agents. ↩︎
  7. I will walk away from a listing opportunity if the seller won’t come to terms about price or if it’s too far. I don’t like to compete for listings if they’re more than like 30 minutes from my home or office. If I know the person, I will list their house and sell the bajesus out of it. But I don’t want to make the trip unless I know I’m the only one gunning for it. ↩︎
  8. I don’t mean the selection of comps or the adjustments, but the averages and percentages and ratios and then all the extra documents that support the presentation. I spend more time than I probably should analyzing the comps, and I like to make adjustments to the comps in order to really dial in what I believe the list price should be. ↩︎
  9. Mastering the delivery of the presentation came with lots of practice. I took Public Speaking in my time in community college and it helped me a lot with presenting. I don’t look to that and think of the skills I specifically learned, but it popped my cherry a bit more and made it so this thing was just another performance. I have another group that I belong to where I’ve had lots of experience over the years speaking to a room full of people. I recommend it. Toastmasters is something I’ve been recently looking into as well. The CMA is the prop that also guides the presentation and provides cues throughout so you know what to talk about. It’s brilliant really. Use this shit. Most people print comps and wing it every time. Make it a science. ↩︎
Pricing