Foreign. so the Market's been a little volatile up down like prices, buyers, sellers, confusion, of course, interest rates. All this volatility is an opportunity for the educated agent to help you get there. I Got my man Tom Tool in the house.

Grateful to be here as always my friend. Yes, thank you thank you. Uh, big game last night Dallas Mavericks versus the 76ers. How'd that work out? It worked out great because we had excellent seats.

Thanks to your hospitality and gratitude, we'll see what happens in the playoffs. man. I Don't know. exactly? All right? So Tommy uh, we were talking off camera about what we wanted to accomplish today and and even though we're we're giggling a little bit.

We cannot make light of someone right now is listening who is just like it's one of three, one of three people. I Don't know what to do right? Maybe maybe, uh, you know. got in the business right before the pandemic or during the pandemic. And they were a rock star during the pandemic and now they're kind of feeling like a rock.

Yeah, then you got the people that are just so busy right now that they're just overwhelmed. And then you got the people that are like legitimately trying to figure out. Hey, I've been in the business for five years. 10 years, 30 years and I just I Don't know where to start I just feel like there's so much volatility with interest rates with confusion in the marketplace.

like what's the game plan? So we literally wrote down what are the four rules for winning in a volatile market. So the first thing I wrote down and I'm going to give you guys my insight that I'm turning to Tommy to just say let it rip the I think the most important thing we were talking about it off camera like I go back to like 2006 and I'm I'm out I'm in the third year of starting this business and we are as a company I'm feeling really good. we're three years in. We're hitting numbers that when you get to a certain size of a business like everyone's like man, you've made it.

but I spent the entire balance of 2006 telling people the whole world's about to fall apart right? and like you know the the Insight was obvious, right? everybody can remember 2006. Like when when the joke is when like grandmothers and college kids were buying houses? Yeah, no money down Like that's when you know you've jumped the shark. it's over. You gotta it's it's when Bitcoin hit 50 and everyone you knew was buying Bitcoin and I'm like this is just stupid.

It's gonna end right. it's just common sense. But 2007 I literally remember saying to myself halfway through the year man, I could just go home I can close this whole thing down right and like it was just a moment like we all have a moment. you, you've been there I've been there, you've been where you just you're like this isn't worth it right? I've got all this responsibility.

we're doing all this work and you go from doing this much to this much right I think the person listen can relate like anybody can relate to this but I remember having this moment of like I just have to make a decision and for me the decision was that this was going to normalize and that I was going to make my way through it and if I had not made that decision in a back then a very volatile Mark we had no idea how bad it was going to get Summer of 2008 it was really bad right? I Remember 2009 it was really bad but in 2007 I'm like I just got to decide but then the next thing was I'm in this for the Long Haul I'm in this for the Long Haul we're talking about rules for winning in a volatile Market you've got to make a decision and the third thing I wrote down is I had to set a new ten five, three year plan right to sort of emotionally get charged around I'm in a I'm in a not my fault J curve yeah you with me I mean not my fault Jake I didn't I didn't intend this. Yep right I go from doing ten to six like in a year and I'm thinking to myself I'm working harder than I've ever worked before and it doesn't seem to matter how hard I work, we are still going down. But I had to say myself I know that everything takes like seven to ten years So setting that 10-year Vision in a volatile Market in a market of uncertainty I knew if I should say but this is where we're going right? That gave me the emotional fortitude to make less money and work harder to not have to fire everybody you with me to to instead say suck it up Buttercup This will end because if I do the work now when the market turns I'm going to be ahead of everybody. Everyone else is gonna be playing catch up.

So that was my first one talk to me so decide. 2006 was my second full year practicing real estate so very similar places and I remember vividly seeing Gary Keller promoting a shift book at Harrah's casino in Chester right? You guys know what this is It's a dump, but uh, and Deals just blowing apart GM's failing banks are closing and I also had to decide and a lot of people are afraid of that moment. And you've said this many times, the best agents are made in tough times, right? and we've been through a couple of these. Now you look at 2020.

It was very similar and you said you have to decide if you got a backup plan. No, you got no plan. You're not. There can't be a plan B You got to burn the boats in this business.

And if you decide you don't want to do that, then you're not going to be successful. Because when you have a backup plan, when things get tough, you start thinking about the backup plan right away and you're like, yeah, the backup plan is better than making the phone calls, having the tough conversations for sure, having the conversation maybe with your spouse like hey, it's gonna be rough for the next unforeseen future but I know if I do the work right, that's a that's a hard conversation because I mean who doesn't want security certainty? Now the answer is entrepreneurs for sure I mean like we kind of live in the uncertainty, but when you're married, you got to have those conversations with your spouse like hey, like this is what we have to do that That's one of the uncomfortable conversations real estate agents typically avoid. Yeah, and they just dump it on their spouse with their significant other. And to me, one of the key ingredients to be successful is have someone that buys in a supportive spouse or a supportive significant other and it's not going to be easy.

I've gotten more fights my wife about working than probably anybody in the history of work. Maybe I don't know I don't know about you probably I mean I'm married that's not very Italian man that's probably why they get along so well, but uh, yes, so that's that's a big issue. and in, if you don't decide what's going to happen is you're just going to kind of go with the market. Um, you gave me a story one time about someone that goes out and like tries to Surf right? and an ocean is pumping and that's what's happening right now and some people go out there and they end up on the shore and they're just destroyed versus people that know how to catch the wave, ride the wave and understand it right.

And that's what it takes in this market. You've got to be working on your business every day, you've got to commit. And and this is the problem. coming out of 2020 to 2022 is it was easy to do deals? Yeah, I've never seen it easier to do deals before.

And and congratulations to everyone who did the deal, that's great. Yeah, it takes a different skill set right now to do that. Where it's about customer education, it's about understanding. Here's how a sales funnel is.

You're getting like Point number four, but it's you're right. But you're right. You're right. All right.

So so the first one is you got to decide. You got to decide Am I in this is this my path. Is this my business or was this my ready hobby I wasn't totally all in I wasn't fully baked I wasn't like hey, this is this is the career I'm gonna build something monster in my Marketplace and and again you brought something up. Listen to me all the best people I Know they got battle tested in really hard times.

So if you came into the market in 2019 and went right into 2020 2021, 2022 and you did really well whatever that means to you I would argue that was a very difficult market right now. Now we could say man, historic low interest rates, massive buyer demand like a frenzy to buy houses, but it wasn't easy to be. Um, you know offer number 20 on a house that got 30 offers. That wasn't easy.

It wasn't easy five times right? I mean that's really the same client So so you know there was there was a hard in that Marketplace that was different that we've ever seen before. Plus you had to wear a hazmat suit Plus In the state of Pennsylvania you you couldn't sell a house legally until when in 2020 60 days we had it was uh, March 16th to May 15th. Yeah, I know exactly the day. So so my argument for the person listening right now, especially if if you're reflecting back on 20 21 22 right? And here we are in 23 you were through a hard Market This is just a different hard Market But in every hard Market In every good Market Where money is everywhere, you got to make a decision, Is this your career? Is this your business? Do you care enough about it to do whatever it takes? That was That was my thing with my wife.

I'm like I gotta do whatever it takes. What am I gonna do? Just stop. Stop being of value, stop serving what? Tell my kids hey, sorry It's been a great run, but Daddy only makes money in a good market. And I mean that That's a thing people don't want to realize is that they think it's easy.

And this has always been the problem with real estate. This isn't new, people think it's easy. You make a lot of money. They have these shows out there, you know, all great stuff.

But the reality is this is a grind. This is probably a harder business than anyone realizes. and when you go through a great Market you can be working hard and making a lot of money. Yeah, but in a market like this, you can be working hard and making no money and still doing the right thing that you need to do every day.

and eventually it's going to pay off because it's a long game, right? people? Don't get that. there's going to be tough times here. Like I mean a lot of Agents don't even realize the seasonal flow to the market. We're just seeing it for the first time since 2019, right where a couple years ago December 25th houses are selling, right? I mean multiple offers multiple offers every day like Merry Christmas Guys, and here's your offers.

Yeah, and so that that's not happening anymore and folks don't get that, there's a seasonal flow to this and you've got to make when the sun shines I think is the term yeah and right now, but you also need to plant a ton of seeds I mean we're sitting here on Mars whatever first, second, third like we've been talking about since last. October How many listing leads? How many listing hand raisers do I want When the spring Market hits and then what percentage of them am I going to convert like that's the game? All right, But let's we're getting into number two, which the the second formula. The second rule for winning in this market is more conversations, more appointments Now everybody says Get Back to Basics and listen to me very carefully. This is a good point I I I want to you said this to me and it kind of blew my mind.

Yeah, 10 minutes ago? Yeah. so so I'm talking to Gina Buffari CEO of Home Service yeah personal client forever right? Great guy, your buddy right and he says to me so what are you telling everybody and I said get Advanced and he's like what? get advance and I said look man I said everyone's talking about getting back to the basics Last time I checked the only people that consistently have lots of conversations and go on appointments are Advanced Agents The basics in real estate are like hey man, what are we doing for lunch today dude I I Don't know man like I was thinking about playing golf I Got you know I Gotta work on this I You know I'm thinking about opening up my CRM for the first time in a week Like that. Those are the basics of real estate. The advanced people are having consistent conversations with past clients in sphere and other opportunities and inbound leads and generating and doing whatever they have to do because whoever goes on the most appointments sells the most houses.

That's who wins. It's documented and proven over and over again. So so what do you? What are you seeing like? Okay, let's go back to the three types of people that could be listening right now, right? Somebody that was a rock star who feels like a rock, right? which is just massive uncertainty. So let's say they he or she's made a decision, You got the person that is just their hairs on fire and they're like our mutual buddy we were talking about last night.

He's like I don't have any time to make I'm so busy I don't even have time to make phone calls right? And then you've got this. This veteran this beautiful super experience. Great with clients but they're I Love Lucy at the Chocolate Factory and there's no chocolates coming down the conveyor belt and we want to help them turn on the machine. So let's talk about some some campaigns and things that are working right now to generate opportunities.

It to me, it starts with the calendar. We talked about this on a coaching call recently and um Brian our sales manager said the same thing to our our agents. which is, if you got white space in your calendar and you don't have appointments to go on one, you should be spending 70 to 80 percent of your time trying to set more appointments. Yes, that's a number one and most agents are like, well I made my hour calls, nothing happened.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow. No, that's not how it works I remember every time I was in a position where I felt I didn't have enough going on I'm like great I'm gonna go make more phone calls right? that was. and and you can have conversations a lot of different ways. That was the way.

I I Associated The best. If you have white space in your calendar and you're not going on appointments, spend that time setting more appointments and that's something a lot of Agents don't do right. They're done by 12. they're watching Netflix at home.

they're going to lunch. like you said, playing golf, whatever. and I I Don't think people treat it like a nine to five job and that's why so many agents fail. So that's number one.

it's not. Oh, if I don't have appointments today I'm gonna go get lunch or take a day off or whatever. fill the white space of your calendar with with a point. By the way, if you call it prospecting, just heads up on this prospecting is what dirty old men did and that sounds funny, but like let's just call it dirty men in.

California During the Gold Rush right they sat at Rivers trying to pan for gold. That's that's prospecting. We want to just do appointment setting. Get get prospecting out of your mindset.

Yeah, your job is to find people that have need and need to meet with someone to discover if now is the right time or the wrong time to get educated. The only: You're an appointment setter. You're an appointment center. Don't don't put in your calendar, prospecting and follow-up right.

Put in their appointment setting time. You have openings in your calendar appointment setting time. If you're not going on appointments, you need to set more appointments because you you can't sell a house with going on the appointment like I Think people, they just want to jump right to the deal right? And this is something from good to great. People want to jump to the results they don't want to get involved in like the slow flywheel process where they're pushing that Giant Wheel every day.

So if you don't have appointments, go set more appointments right. I Think that and you got to talk to people. I I You know you're on your phone right now. You know what you need to do with your phone.

Stop texting, stop emailing, open the phone setting and dial somebody and have a conversation start at Z Yes, well you know what I'm doing right now I'm so I was I was uh, going to Realtor.com So so Realtor.com Zillow Zillow.ca this is the easiest way. So Phil Jones and I talk about all the time. If you have 10 meaningful conversations a day, you're gonna find five people you can deliver value to. Yep and and delivering value could be so.

hey. Tom I noticed you know you would ask me about could I introduce you to why don't I make a connection for you? Let me text connect you guys that's delivering value. That's saying top of mind and being more than just the agent that sells them a house every 10 years, right? Five of those conversations, you're gonna be able to deliver some meaningful value. Two of those conversations you should find about an opportunity to do some business whether it's today or hey, we're not moving out until Stephen you know is out of college.

So I've got two years but in two years I'm gonna sell my place I already told you I'm moving to whatever Austin right? like as an example. So 10 meaningful conversations a day So people say to me, why do I have meaningful conversations I don't say to them I Go go to Realtor.ca go to Zillow type in their address, take a screenshot of their property and send it to him and say hey Tom and Bridget I Was thinking about you guys the other day. Check out this price on Zillow I have my opinion. what do you think? Send: Yep and if you send 10 text messages of just someone's whether they're a past client, a sphere, a buddy Elite It doesn't make a difference of their property or if it's a buyer and they don't own a house, a property in the neighborhood that they would like to go into a just sold I've got my opinion on this price.

What do you think? Text: you're gonna have a meaningful conversation and what you did there is so critical. Uh, the best scripts are series of questions. It's not. that's not like this magical objection handle.

Everyone thinks on this great objection. Handler Yeah I ask better questions than most people. Tell me more about that like that. Literally everyone should have that in front of them right now when they're talking to people and asking for appointments.

It's it's that simple. I Love what you're talking about there because you're delivering value and it's not lazy follow-up which we're gonna get to. Yeah, um and and you look at the market now people got a lot of questions. There's a lot of volatility.

oh my. God You can't I mean it's literally changing day by day by day. Yeah. I think it just spit on you there.

Sorry, Um, it's all good. I Don't know about that. So the the point is. welcome to the Tom Ferry podcast.

Yeah, this is this is how we roll. Um, the point is that if you bring a valid opinion and you actually know what you're talking about, people are going to value that a lot more than the canned oh, it's Tom It's always the right time to buy or sell. I Mean you hear all this stuff from Agents and people stop believing real estate agents in times like this because they feel like they're always trying to sell them something. right? You're talking about, hey, what's your opinion on a price? That's just a conversation and that's all it is.

And you know what they're gonna do. And you told me this many times if they got questions about real estate and they're serious, If you're having enough conversations, they're going to know you're a real estate agent, right? and then they're going to say something like oh well, they're gonna go right into it. Hey, we're thinking about moving. Tell us this.

Tell us that because only four to five percent of the population is even in a real estate decision making phase at any given time. So you're it's a numbers game and the more you bring value of I know everything. I'm here to help instead of are you ready to buy or sell yet I'm just checking in. Are you moving which is lazy follow-up That's what's going to win in this market, right? So is it like, do you know the company Palm Agent I'm I'm saying it to my my listener: do you know the company Palm agent So I Met with the uh, the son of the founder who now runs the company yesterday.

Big shout out to Jeremy and we're going through this app and this is all it is. All it is is a calculator, right? But it's a calculator that shows monthly affordability. sale Donette Rent versus buy a buy down calculator Right now here's a Three Two one. Buyer's a two one buy down like and it's now.

It's not you saying well let me think about or let me get you on the phone by lender. You literally hit the button. You're like, okay, let's go to the buy down calculator right? So you know it actually explains what a two to one is what a Three Two One is. And it's like, all right.

So the list price is 500 000 bucks. We're gonna do a uh, a 2-1 buy down. We're gonna put 10 down. The interest rate is 6.25 uh seller contribution 10 000 bucks.

Here's what it looks like: Most agents have trouble with math. We were talking about this earlier I know and I Know math answers 95 of questions for people and it's about payments. It's about cash to close. Those are the numbers you should be focusing on, not rates because that's what matters to people.

Look at this all right. So now we're just talking about just a regular old buyer. So hey, you know 500 000 purchase price. Oops.

Went to five million. uh, loan type conventional down payment 10. Do you want to do five? We can do. We can do five percent down.

Oops. So five percent down, uh, interest rate 6.25 is just baked inside there. Whatever. Whatever the rate is.

Term this that Hazard blah blah blah. and Texas it'll go all the way down and say Here's your taxes right? Oh, you have HOA in there. Let's put the HOA in because what does every buyer want to know? What's it gonna cost them? What's my payment? Yeah, they don't pay. They don't want what's my mortgage payment.

They want to know what's my mortgage payment, what's my HOA What's my taxes like What is my all-in payment and then look, boom. all I do is go compute Mike Thompson If you put 41 269 down, your payment's gonna be forty six hundred dollars. This is something we train our agents on. We call this the financial plan to get into the home.

Yes, it's here's your monthly payment, Everything taxes, Insurance whatever. right? Here's how much cash you need to come up without the closing. Uh-huh Most people don't write a check for their houses. No.

and I would argue most smart people don't because there's a lot of reasons you want to. You want to have some some long-term debt at a low rate? Yes. And if you break it down that simply and this was something my dad taught me my first couple years in the business. I would just do the closing cost estimate on the MLS Circle the numbers and say hey guys, right? here's what you need to do.

This is a much more advanced way to do it, and if you can have these conversations on the spot with people yes, when the emotions are high when they look at the house, when they're excited, then you're the knowledge broker. Number one. You're breaking it down in terms they can understand. Secondly, Realtors Talking Realtor jargon too much like LTV no one knows what that means.

Hey, here's how much it's going to cost you a month. and here's how much money you need to show up with a settlement. and you should say it just like that. Don't even.

yes, don't even mess around with monthly payments or P principal and interest or anything like that. Okay, I Showed you this one in the gym this morning, right? This is the okay. Well I was trying to buy a house in 2021 and it was on the market for 500 000 and it sold for 5.95 with like 22 offers. So so it literally gives you the let's type in what you tried to buy in 2022 at that price, but actually at the price it was going to sell for at the highest possible price with that interest rate versus today that 500 000 house, you might get it for 4.95 you might get for 515 because there's like three or four offers because it's in a tasty property and what your new payment is and then to be able to just show somebody and then have an infographic now Tom are you invest in this company? No but damn I wish I was Palm agent the guy told me I'm like was this created around the time of the Palm Pilot he goes yeah, my dad created it around me I was like I wonder Palm agent I was like so hey by the way, this um you should just check out this app right I I'm pretty certain It's all under either agency if you're kind of Agency Insurance like Title Insurance versus like west of Texas is gonna be like you know Fidelity first American all those guys but Fidelity I think has the lock on this.

Got it right. So I would check this out today. I Was shocked to hear that only like 600 000 agents in the country have this I think like, well probably the 600 000 are selling all the houses Have it? You took the words right out of my mouth. Yeah, and that's effective, right? right? So it's It's having intelligent conversations, doing that in real time, having that app in front of you.

We're getting a little into the kind of the face-to-face stuff. what else can they do to get appointments today? So I say CMA a day? But I mean literally just boom text Bam So we we've been doing the CMA a day at scale with our team. we we're big on we're gonna film a three minute video on Bomb Bomb and pull up the MLS information that nobody has into a screen share and give them enough information that it gets them excited. Yeah, and not so much that they're still going to want to meet with you.

And there's a fine line there because you have to. Oh, these three homes just sold right around you. they were this big. If you want to know more, let's talk.

I Can do an on-site evaluation I Haven't seen your home? Yeah, it'd be malpractice for me to give you a number without seeing it in person. It's value. People want to know what's going on in the market because there's so much volatility right now. I mean I've never seen the market this volatile before.

So what do you say to the person that's over here who went from uh, rock star to rock I'm not busting your chops, but you know what I'm saying, right? Just a lot of massive, a massive amount of uncertainty. Hey, I was Rookie of the Year and I haven't sold the house in the last 45 days or 60 days. They may not have enough past clients to call. Well, they may only have 100 people in their sphere.

What are they going to do to find more business? So I would argue they need to have the meeting with themselves and see what they're actually doing on a daily basis because you could have sold 20 homes last year by just catching leads as they came in. Yeah so you got to have that meeting with yourself. We talked about calendar how much time you're spending. it should be 80 of the day finding new appointments.

So if you're not doing that like just get real with yourself. you don't need to do it with anyone else but just talk to yourself. Have that meeting with yourself because to me it's always my fault. I Think you you have that same mindset, you're always causing the matter 100 responsible.

You start there. Then there's a lot of ways to generate business. You probably got old leads in your database. Most leads convert after 90 days, not the first two or three weeks.

Most it's 65 of the people's majority with end up transacting well after the time that the average real estate agent stops following up which for some is two weeks. For some is 90 days and then 65 of the transactions happen. Yep. So I mean call your old leads.

Old leads are great. Yep if you sold a house, call The Neighbors Door knock. Do do that stuff that like people used to make fun of and they would say well you know I'm not door knocking I'm too good for this Yeah I Got my first listing from a circle dial. that's Advanced You're right, you're knocking is Advanced because it takes the courage to go Hi my name is Tom Tools Re Max Main line Did you hear about your neighbor right? Like did your? Well, no what happened in the neighbor? Oh wow, They put their home all right.

We're gonna go basic I got you? Yeah, yeah you you said. start at your phone book and Z how many people you got on your phone I have 2356. Uh so 6015 as of yesterday. So just start there.

just call people that you know in your phone book. What do I say what do I say like I'm over here and and this is also really good for the veteran over here. the hair on fire person's like I I Barely have time to listen to this podcast. Yeah right.

So so the the veteran veteran who just feels like the you know, like the proverbial rug just got pulled out from under him or the brand new agent, they're going to call the people in their sphere. what do they say? So I would start off with if you haven't called them hey I've been a little remiss in my follow-up and I haven't been in touch with you. How you guys doing yeah, have a human conversation with the Ford script right? family occupation Recreation and dreams I never get to D By the way I think it's really weird Yeah, maybe I would talk about my friends but like hey, how's your family doing? how's your kid doing yeah, what's going on? How's the work environment Been over the past couple years because how's work? How's work changed for you guys the last like 20 or 10 minutes. It's a great question because so many people are like hybrid, half remote, whatever else, right? You got any summer vacation plans coming up? What do you guys do for the holidays? Like you can time it around that stuff.

just ask questions yeah to get them talking and what invariably will happen I Said this before all of a sudden they'll say something like oh, Wally got you Tom what do you think about that neighbor's home that just sold up the street and they will start to ask you if you have been doing a good job branding yourself as an agent right? The Branding only gets you so far. The calls are what convert and so just start with the force. Okay, you just you just spoke to every veteran over here I won't say the name of one of my clients in Beverly Hills Who said if I lose one more deal to someone I Just had dinner with in the last 30 to 45 days that suddenly bought a 5, 7, 10 15 million dollar house from somebody else I'm going to quit the business and I'm like listen my you know I did one of those like grabbed him by the shoulders I'm like listen you can be as friendly as you want if you don't segue to having meaningful conversations about buying and selling real estate and what their questions are about the market. You are a great person to go have dinner and drinks with and charity events but not so great to transact with.

Let me give you an example the truth and every every veteran knows what I'm talking about right now. Let me give you this. This happened to me recently. so we're at a Halloween party with my kids.

Right woman comes out to me says oh my house isn't selling, it's just rent it's in Fishtown blah blah blah she's dressed like the Bride of Frankenstein and and the World Series is on doing all this I said great I'm like hey you know what I'm gonna call you Monday and we're gonna have a real conversation about this because we're in a social environment I used to struggle with that a lot like it was like how do you train like I don't want to go in into full real estate mode at the Halloween party So I set a conversation with her, We talked, we went over what was going on, we sold the home she listed with us, canceled the other account like it was. It was so simple because I treated it like a business conversation and that's where people they they don't know how to turn it on and off. and I know from talking to you I mean you see Tom you see him socially over at the game last night. That's cool.

we're here. It's all business. You're on stage. It's all business.

You have to have that. Alter Ego right? like we talked about with Todd Herman a couple years ago in New York And if you can't do that and you're not showing up like the professional, it's going to hurt your business. Yes, because I don't want my doctor being my buddy if I'm getting surgery done I want him to be the surgeon right? I want her to be like on point Focus right? Exactly. and you've got to treat it that way and things got blurred a lot the past couple years because it was Go Go and the hustle component, like you said, was very real.

Where it was seven days a week, 15 hours a day, sometimes no breaks. You know my I'm at my kids soccer game. I'll come meet you in 10 minutes because we only have this 15 minute showing. That's fine, right? So having being able to transition from, they actually inquired about a real estate conversation.

You don't know if it's going to be real or not. Hey, I'm gonna call you Monday let's have it. Let's let's set up a time. Yeah, let's treat it like an appointment.

It was an appointment to get an appointment to sell a house, so that works really well. A lot of people struggle with that I I've struggled with that, especially in Social settings. Yeah, I never had that problem I mean I you know I I call somebody. you told me the guy down the street that I never met before is going to sell his house I'd go knock on his door.

but the social settings were weird and I think a lot of people yeah, they don't want to come off with commission breath right? right? Again, That goes back to willingness to have meaningful conversations exactly. Ask very curious question. it's so easy like hey man, what's your opinion on the market Hold time. It depends if you're looking to no no I mean like like I'm I'm the real estate agent and I'm just with my buddy and I'm like hey man, what's your opinion on the market? Everybody's got an opinion about the real estate market.

Everybody's got an opinion about the value. We talked about the the guy that you know is listed the house down the street from you right? Yeah, you're like oh my. God it's worth this. You're like, but it's probably not worth that, right? Like everybody's got an opinion, All you have to do is just go.

Hey, what's your opinion on the market? People love talking about real estate. Look at the amount of reality TV shows that have come out of the real estate business and we know some people on them they've been wildly successful. It's not it's it's great for them. But the reason they have them on is for viewership and people want to know more about this.

Okay and every one of those I mean so yesterday big shout out to Uh to James and David right? Million Dollar Listing John and Adam I Text him yesterday and I'm like how many appointments have you guys set so far listing appointments? They're like 19, 17, 21 I'm like all right boys like so yeah the TV stars that are killing it I'm walking Balboa Island I run into Josh Altman and his wife and I'm like hey man, what's up and it's like he's like oh man just like it's so nice to come down here I'm like you're making your phone calls he's like I'm always making my phone calls man like like the the advanced people. All right. So let's switch gears. Number three: You want to win in this market.

Watch this hook. Stop doing follow-up You want to win in this market. Stop doing follow-up where you think I'm going with this. You're talking about the kind of file that most agents do where it's hey I'm checking in No no I don't know I know I know Ready? So so I'm going to show you how you stop doing follow-up.

You ready to learn how to stop doing follow-up All right? So hey Tom so it's been great I'm super excited. Sounds like you and Bridget really want to do something. Maybe in the fall? Um so here's what I'd like to do: Open up your counter really fast. Okay, open up your calendar.

I'm looking right now at you guys gonna be. you guys gonna be in town over the month of August Yeah we will. Okay, what? Actually, you know let's go July you're gonna be in town Fourth of July No, we won't Okay, so you're gone Fourth of July you back the second week. All right.

So all right. So second week of July Let me just go to my calendar really fast here. Um, beginning of the week or end of the week? What's better for you? Um, end of the week? end of the week? Yeah, like like. So I'm looking at the calendar like like Thursday the 13th Friday the 14th Saturday the 15th Friday works Friday's good.

Okay, morning's your afternoon? Like what? I mean the best time for United afternoon afternoon. Okay, so okay. I got a one already scheduled and I got a four already scheduled. Can you do between two and four? Do you want me to call you after five? I can do two.

Okay, so all right, so two o'clock let me put it in really fast here. All right. So Tom Tool Okay, uh. prepare strategy session for getting Bridget and Tom's home on the market.

Okay, so Tom I've got you in my calendar for a prepare To Get Your Home On The Market strategy session for July 14th at two o'clock Do you want to do that face to face or you want to do it via Zoom Do you want to do it on a phone call? What's better for you? I mean it's a strategy session. Yeah it. Zoom Zoom's good. Okay, all right so I'll send you a Zoom link.

Will Bridget be there? Yes, she'll be there. So between the two of you like who who who would be more in the lead on like what we need to do to get the home ready with the kids? Definitely not me. Okay so so let's make sure Bridget actually give me Bridget's email sure and I've now put in Bridget's email and Tom's email and I'm like Okay cool. So I'm gonna I just put that on my calendar.

Um, you just got an email link for that. Okay, my assistant's gonna add a zoom so you're gonna get you're gonna get two you know, two emails on that. So heads up. So I should probably though ping you in June just to remind you that we're having that strategy session.

Okay, all right and obviously if anything comes up between now and June when I ping you? so June let me just go to my calendar really fast here and it's just a text. Tom Um, same thing. kind of end of the week? Sure. Okay, all right.

so one night like middle of the month? okay, June 16th that works. That's like right after my son's birthday. All right. So June 16th I'll text you kind of.

you know, sort of like you know, two o'clock ish and just say Tom thinking about you and Bridget at that point I'll probably give you a little insight on the market. Okay, should we just have a conversation about that or you want to just text I'm good. Either way. I I Like I Like phone calls.

So all right, that sounds good. All right. So why don't I call you? So actually, that'd be actually good because then 30 days later, we're doing the strategy session Perfect. So all right.

So let's see here. So June Okay, Tom call. So what I'll do is at that point, I'll do a little 12-month look back on home prices. Okay, we'll I'll do a quick, you know? like.

All right. So here's what. Here's where the market is with interest rates, so it's not going to make a difference because we have no idea where October is going to be. Um, and then I'll have at least the three to four recent sales, right? That would be the closest thing to comparable to your home.

But remember, I haven't like I haven't been in your home in a while so you know it's just those numbers. So I have all that stuff ready to go. Okay, so I'll call you. Um, cool.

So June 16th Two o'clock Boom in my calendar. No more follow-up It's the only thing you do is you what set an appointment? You set the next appointment to have the next notice. I didn't say hey on July 14th I'm gonna call you. What did I say? It's the strategy session to look at getting your home on the market in the Fall Planning Meeting Strategy session.

Consumers know what that means, right? They don't know what a listing appointment is or a market analysis. No, the tentative appointments. see, it's it's funny you say that because I was always big on get you get that commitment from somebody, you get it in their calendar, then you get a yes. Right and right? NLP Basics Are you start getting you stack the guesses? Yeah, you stack the yeses And the tentative appointment worked really well for me.

Like hey, I Gotta check with my wife. Great! So you know my schedule fills up pretty quickly. What do you think would be a good time for you guys? Let me just pencil it in and pencil it in is a great term you can write down and use too because they cancel whatever. At least you're you're in the game with them at that point so that makes a ton of sense.

So I've been doing that for years. I Just didn't know what you were talking about. Yeah, but that was good. Yeah, so it's the end of follow-up The only thing we do now is we schedule the next appointment.

You know you know where I got this my wife walking in. this is like I don't know, whatever. like some sometime before the pandemic. which whatever what you know.

everything is kind of before the pandemic after free March 2020 right? And and she walks in super frustrated because she can't get into her hairdresser because her hairdresser is slammed and we're about to travel and she's like ah, like, what am I getting an effect to myself her hairdresser. He books himself out like 60 to 90 days. So now every time she goes, she schedules the next hair appointment before she leaves. hair appointment.

selling your most valuable asset. Think about how personal experience it is getting your hair done I Think that, especially for women I mean I go every two weeks. it's a little different. Yep, my stylist.

whatever you want to call her. uh, she's booked out for months, right? I looked into July with her now right? Why aren't you doing that with your real estate business I Think that's the question you got to ask yourself. That's a great Point Yeah so so no more follow-up The only thing we do now is we always book the next appointment, even if the next appointment is just simply to touch base and give them an Insight on the market to figure out where they're at. Hey, look, hey, look, why don't we Tom I know you guys are kind of up in the air on this and you got a lot of different options.

Um, why don't Why don't we just schedule I don't know? how about like just in 30 days? Why don't we just have a conversation in 30 days? Sure and and look, what I'm going to show up with is just you know, some insight on the market right? and then you know just to figure out like where are you guys at? what are you guys thinking about and there's no obligation. it's just me doing what I do best which is I'm in the business of helping people get educated so they can make good decisions right? I'm not a salesperson like this is all I do what you just said. There is exactly the approach you need to have in this kind of. Market because if you advocate for the consumer hey, Tom I want to see what's gonna be best for you and Kathy and the boys like if you don't transact, that's cool I just want to give you information so you can make a great decision for your household, right? And if you really believe that, which if you're watching this, you're already reinvesting in yourself, you're probably doing that.

You're gonna win in this market because a lot of the people that were rocking and rolling and kind of became the rock. Like you said, they were just caring about the next deal and to me, one of the things you mentioned here is setting that next follow-up for the veteran out there, for the person that's hair is on fire and for the person that maybe is rocking and rolling and now not feeling that you got to use your CRM and set this stuff up Because right if you're you have to have such a big pool of clients, the bigger the pool, the bigger the business. And right if you're not working with an uncomfortable amount of people you're talking to, yeah, there's gonna be less homes to sell this year. Yeah, there's still four million I only need about a thousand of the four million so we're cool.

But but it's there's still plenty of houses that are going to sell. Yeah, you've You've got to lean on the stuff you already have that maybe you didn't think you needed to use or you had a story in your head about that right? Do you ever see my post uh the other day I did I was talking to Greer about this one and uh oftentimes for my for my friend here listening people say to me like I posted this and literally I got like 10 text messages. Was this because of our last coaching conversation? We're talking about this: were you talking to me and I'm like no I was I'm talking to myself It never gets easier. I've just gotten better at doing hard things it never get I mean it was for 33 years It never gets easier.

You've been here for 20 years. It never gets easier. We just get better at doing hard stuff. and if you can keep that in your head my friend, you keep that in your head.

you like making phone calls is hard. You know what's really hard having no future to live into right setting the next appointment is hard. You know what's really hard having no one to talk to, having no opportunities, no buyers, no sellers. You know what's really hard having your hair on fire all the time? You know? It's also really hard slowing down and hiring an assistant? You know what's also really hard slowing down and hiring a VA You know what's also really hard telling the client that's eating up all of your time, right? And you've got to drive 20 30 minutes every single time outside of your normal Marketplace to help them because they refer to you by a buddy and they want to buy a really expensive house, but they can't make a decision.

You know? it's also really hard having an honest conversation with them about narrowing down their Focus right simplifying and we're going to limit the time. But when we find opportunity, we're gonna write offers now like that's hard. You know it's also hard driving them around till the end of time. Everything is hard.

Yes, everything is hard. All right. Well said. Here's the last one and then I think we said 30 minutes and we're probably at 40.

All right. Um, typical. The number four Thanks. We said four rules for winning in a volatile Market You got to make the decision right in or out, Right conversations and appointments? Your your point was spot on.

Fill all the white space in your calendar with appointment setting time. I say number three the end of follow-up. No more follow-up Just schedule the next appointment even if it's just a check in. And then number four is what do you do with buyers and sellers that are just questioning the market and trying to time everything this is.

This is one of the biggest challenges agents are going to have. You know what you need to tell them what's actually going on If you're saying hey, Tom I'm nervous because rates went up and I can't afford the home I Want anymore? You know what the answer is to that? You're right, Affordability has gone down. Here's what we can afford. Now here's the facts of the market and the people that are serious about transacting right? well.

and I've been in these living rooms I've been in this spot when someone's losing their job, the Market's crashing. Talk about that, that four-year depression we went through, right? You've got to present the facts right and they're gonna say okay, we're gonna do this anyway because we have a life condition that's affecting this move, which is historically why people move in the first place. right? Death Divorce defaults. Yeah, Default Any relocation.

That's my favorite one. D Relocation diapers diamonds right? Well, it's this. It's the 70s, right? Well, and I I always I never remember the 70s I Just know when I hear someone's moving and the motivation matters we you. You challenged me last year to come up with like recession power rules.

You know what the number one was. Motivation matters because in in this kind of Market there's going to be people. You got three kids and you're in a two-bedroom townhouse and the kids are not getting smaller. The kids don't get smaller.

They get bigger. Yes, that person's moving no matter what, right? You see someone that's older and maybe can't handle maintaining a large home anymore. They're gonna move no matter what. You see someone that obviously like divorce like that's a bad situation and you're really helping people in all these instances.

And this is where a lot of Agents Don't get it. You're helping people even though it might be a tough conversation and they and the client May hate you the entire time because you're telling them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear which is the sign of a great agent. That's what. Carl Rizzuto told me I'm like my first coaching call with you guys, it's you.

the more conversations you have and when you ask the right questions because there's not and and then the motivation reveals itself and then when you hear that, that's the people you want to really pursue and help and set that next appointment with talking with Phil Jones every day and we're doing a live session for a bunch of people and I heard I know where you're going with this because yes, right? and I was like that's it and it's over my friend listening when you ask enough questions. So I'm listening to Tom and I'm like, okay, so you got three kids. You're in a three-bedroom condo. Yeah, you're out of room, you're working still part-time from home.

You're full of distractions. Yeah, But you're also concerned about buying power. Yep, right. But we know today you can actually still buy a home for X without 45 other offers competing.

You told me this is not your forever home. Yep, right. But it is the transition home because you told me when the kids get older, they want to go to this school. So Tom Bridget because you told me you got three kids and you're in his three bedroom and it's really getting uncomfortable.

The kids are only getting bigger, you're working from home and you don't have any space because you told me that this is not your forever home because you told me because you told me because you told me because you told me because you told me I'm gonna recommend you guys pull the trigger. My first coach Carl Rizzuto told me this. Bring it back to the Motivation every time. Always because it's easy to get wrapped up in the drama of a transaction or or getting the home ready for the market or everything else they started.

No, no one likes moving. Moving is one of the top five most stressful things. Sucks. Yeah, it's horrible.

Um, and they move because they want a better quality of life right? Whatever that looks like And it it. you talked about the 70s and it's all better quality. So when you bring it back to the motivation, all the drama of oh, they've made an offer that was too low or I don't want to drop my price or there's too many offers. Well, we're still in the situation so we've got to solve this and that's why people move.

It's life changes that cause this. And if you find the motivated clients, you find the motivated buyers and sellers and you can deliver them value to your first and second. Point That's how you win and take market share in times like these, right? And I Heard this on a podcast. You know no one ever gets market share back when they lose it, you only take market share.

This is every company in the history of business. This is the chance for people to go out. And there's career opportunities right now in times like these and it's It's so important to play offense, charge the storm like we talked about last night and you know you watch the Super Bowl right? Painful for me to watch. You know one the team has scored the most points and played offense and dictated Tempo Thank you very much I Mean it's it's when you're playing defense with your business you're gonna lose, right? It's it's not a sporting event.

so everything you said there I'm pumped up like this is getting me charged up here. This is by the way. the very first point I'm making everyone on my roadmap tours get on offense right? and you're I think you're I think the point of the day was every white space you have in your calendar. Fill it with appointments anytime like that.

Was it? Okay, you have a live show in five minutes. Oh all right, so thank you so much for watching. Follow Tom Tool: Send this to a rookie who's feeling like a rock. Send this to your buddy whose hair is on fire.

Send this to a buddy that is a veteran veteran who's is just she's just feeling a little displaced and she just needs a gentle nudge to remind her of her greatness. Reminder of how skilled she is with working with clients. and if she just picks up her phone and does the CMA a day or reaching out or she stops doing follow-up and starts booking appointments, she actually puts time in her calendar just to get appointments. she's gonna be on fire.

All right. Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you on the next show. Foreign.