4 Ways to get listings and unstoppable leads

Hey all you future 4X’ers… so glad that you tuned in.  Today we are going to talk about the Top 4 ways to get listings and create Unstoppable Leads.

Listings.  Get Listings.  Having a listing inventory is absolutely critical to your business success.  Absolutely.  It is crucial to your business building and it is crucial to your business plan.  Most people agree with this and I don’t think that I need to spend any more time convincing you that you need to maintain a healthy listing inventory.

Gary Keller in his book Millionaire Agent teaches about the 3 L’s.  Leads, Listings and Leverage.  I agree with that.  But we are going to discuss the LEVERAGE later. Everyone is effectively teaching, the same thing…that the goal is to list a lot of properties.  Be a Master at Listing properties.  If you list a lot of homes then your success is in direct proportion to the amount of listings that you carry.  Do you agree with that?  I don’t agree with that. That is not a Whole Truth.  Its a partial truth.  Let me explain.

The thought pattern is that you simply, put a property into the system, Into the Multiple Listing Services that are out there…. “List” a home, right.…in doing that, you effectively have hired 2000 or more agents, in most cases, to sell that property.  PLUS, add to that, the other website companies that are populating their sites, with your inventory, to help sell that listing for you.  That is true.  This is going on.  This is a very good reason for people to list their home with a licensed Real Estate professional for sure.  YES.

Ok…let me ask you this…. “how many listings can you handle?  What is the magic number? I mean HANDLE.  I mean serve everyone equally and maintain your ability to communicate and  – here’s the important thing….Fulfill your promises.   This is huge.  This is enormously important.  Or am I wrong….

Here’s my challenge with that mentality.  Its kind if like putting something, a product, a widget of some sort, in the classifieds waiting for buyers to contact you.  So, then you are simply processing deals.  Its about processing deals.  Its transactional. Its about processing as many transactions as possible.

I was that person.  It was my goal to get a bunch of listings.  I was carrying 25 to 50 Listings all the time and I was busy.  Sure, I was making money.  People looked at my ads and all my listings and thought I was successful.  And if you asked me, I would tell you the same thing.

I became ego dominated and I couldn’t stand it when someone else in another office got a listing.  IT became about winning.  I was in a never-ending battle all the time, trying to keep the brand strong.  Trying to stay ahead of the other top competitors.  People called me to talk to them about listing because I was out there so much, so it worked.  I attracted a lot of strangers.  IT was working but I couldn’t manage it all by myself.  I had to build a team.

I had to add people to deal with the Buyers who called us from our listings, and I needed someone to deal with the listing maintenance aspects of things…booking showings, placing the ads, communicating with the sellers, loading photos and tours and videos, and coordinating all of that, making sure brochures were there and then coordinating all of the open houses… I had no time to prepare properly for open houses, I would barely make it there on time, and throw up signs.

I met maybe half of the Buyers, that we attracted off of the listing inventory, and I netted less than half the money when they bought…I had no relationship with those buyers…I wasn’t the one communicating with my listing clients….When it fell off the market, I barely noticed, I was so focussed on hunting for more…Plus….throughout all of this, I was constantly in a mode of ….  “Where is all my money going?”…..  “I know there is a lot of money coming in….where is all of it going?”.  “Seriously…. I deposited over $50,000 this month….where did it all go??”

First off, it can be very expensive to maintain a large inventory of listings.  You need more people….they want to make money….you have to market and promise results to the these sellers…so all of the things that you need to do to market listings cost money.  The leads generated from the these listings need to be dealt with and if you don’t have time, then those leads will fall through the cracks, and so you are losing money….So then, you bring on people to deal with those leads and make a smaller percentage….

But does that help build your business?  This is the Leverage Part.  Use people to leverage your success to be a Millionaire Real Estate Agent.  They will tell you it does.  I am here to tell you it doesn’t.  IT doesn’t.

I was paying all of the costs.  I was taking all the risk.  I managed everyone.  I was the name and brand behind it all, so, I was paying for everything, to help other people build their businesses.  Everybody else was making money…because they had to get paid.  That’s all I did.  I financed their success.  And in truth, the true result was, eventually, was that, I was actually financing my competition.

So who was getting the Leverage.  They were leveraging me to build their businesses.  And Like an idiot, I did it, all to look successful.  Now you can disagree with me if you like.  You can say… “oh well those are supposed to be your clients.  They can’t take them.”  “Didn’t you have a good Client Management System?”  It may surprise you to know that nobody OWNS a client.  I may have a bunch of people in my database but I do not own them.  IT is impossible to own them.  Get that straight in your head right now.  This is really important.  You have to continue to earn their business.  You can’t brand them like cattle.

When I took the time and broke it all down.  I went over the stats.  I managed to maintain a database of loyal clients but I lost a lot of business….over the years.  More than I will ever know.  I will never know and to be honest, I don’t want to know.  IT will probably really freak me out.  I don’t want to go there.  BUT I made a crucial discovery.  The truth is, until you actually go through the battle, until you actually have been out there long enough making mistakes, or until you have gone through the heartache of having people leave your business and become a competitor and you witness, a good portion of your database move on;  until you have been truly humbled and come to a place of reflection….and eventual clarity…then you won’t be able to see the truth.  Your EGO can be your best friend and ally or it can be your worst enemy.  In my case it was my worst enemy.

But I was doing what they taught.  I became the persona or the character or manufactured idea of success, that they taught me.  Coming to this discovery was extremely painful at first.  I was angry.  I was so angry at myself.  But after I sorted through everything and the Clarity set in, I was fired up.  It became so clear.  When I started to put it into practice, it worked.  It worked better than I thought.  BUT more than anything the most wonderful thing about it, was, that I began to see that, If I could teach this to people then, I believe, anyone can make a lot of money in Real Estate….anyone.

You don’t have to be a heavy hitter, a listing machine, a superhero Real Estate professional.  You don’t.  You can be yourself and just operate with the proper intentions, with a proper plan, without using salesy scripts, and create a highly profitable business that is evergreen.  IT is always alive.  It is constantly producing fruit.  AND you can experience results fast.  Think of your business like a garden.  Create an organic business that is constantly growing…constantly producing fruit…and you are constantly planting and constantly pruning and watering and nurturing. This is the most profitable…the most satisfying and the most gratifying business.

My wife and I work together with no assistants and we earn multiple six figures a year and we retain upwards of multiple six figures a year and we take at least 3 to 4 vacations a year and go camping with the trailer and live our lives. Could we put a team together and build that business up to 30 to 50 listings etc…yes totally but I don’t want that.  We keep it under 15 and we sell our listings and we are very good at attracting business and more leads off of those listings and that is how it is done.  So I am going to give you a taste of how we teach things in the 4X Formula Real Estate Course.  Here are the 4 Ways to Get Listings and then create Unstoppable LEADS.

Here it is right here.  Attract – Attain – Serve-  and Retain.  Do every one of those really well and you will never run out of leads to Serve.  Get really good at attracting business.  Then get really good at Winning the Business.  Attaining the business when the opportunities come to you.  Then SERVE really well employing the right mindsets, tools and activities in order to create success and then get really good at Retaining the business.  Most people are good at one or maybe 2 of these 4 pillars.  Every one of those pillars gets you listings.  Now how do you break down the various business opportunities out there.  This is where a lot of people miss out.  This is why a lot of Agents think that they have to spend a lot of money on branding themselves and have a lot of listings….because they don’t even know how much business is falling through the cracks, while they are out there being “successful”.

Here is how I break it down:

Now Business.  There is a lot of Now business out there.  I don’t care where you are doing business…there is NOW business out there.  Check the hotsheets today.  Did a few sales get reported?  Did a few new listings come into the system?  That is all you need to know.  There is already a flow of business out there and you need to just divert some it your way.  Get into the flow.

Where is the Now business?

1) Low Hanging Fruit.  Staying on the organic theme.  There is Low Hanging Fruit out there right now.  Where is that NOW business?  We know For Sale By Owners are selling their homes.  They want to sell.  They want a Buyer to buy their home.  Is there a leverage point there?

2) People who failed to sell…Expired listings.  Where are they at now? Why didn’t they sell?  Is there an opportunity there?  Where did they want to do?  What was their plan?  Is the plan different now?  Maybe?

3) BUYERS..are there buyers out there looking right now?  Where are most of the buyers buying?  What product type do they buy?  Do Buyer’s ever have to sell something.  Yes…50% of the Buyers you run across have something to sell.  Figure out how to market that product to attract that Buyer.  A buyer is money in the bank.  What about Strategic Alliances that know people or could connect you to NOW people?  Mortgage Brokers, Financial Planners, Construction workers, and other professionals that run into people all the time… And of course the best NOW business comes from

4) Referrals.  Always be nurturing referrals by inspiring people to refer business to you.  We received 4 calls last week from past clients who want to make a move.  We met them and they are now business.  We are working on solutions for them.  Past business is the best now business.  You never know when it will come.  But if you are building a true 4X Formula business…ATTRACT – ATTAIN – SERVE – RETAIN…then this will happen for you.

ATTRACT – ATTAIN – SERVE – RETAIN.

That is the 4X business.  Get great at all 4 Pillars and you can’t help but succeed in Real Estate.

Ok the second level:  Then there is the SOON business.   The Fruit is coming but its not quite ready yet.  That’s ok.  Would you be ok if you always had a few people in this stage?  You know the time is coming?  You are part of the plan and you are part of their plan.  While you are working on the NOW business you are constantly nurturing, watering with drip campaigns, cultivating, and always planting seeds to create more business at the same time.

Paying attention to every detail.  Every lead. Just figure out where they are at in the process.  Where are they at?  What stage are they at?  Who can you engage to help them?  What do they need in order to make an appropriate plan? They are just in the planning stages.  Well most people in the planning stages need information in order to make a plan.  They need to have a good meeting with the mortgage lender and get their ducks in a row to make a proper plan.  Then when its go time, everyone is on the same page and going at full speed.  No sense even embarking on the mission, until the plan is ready to implement…make sense?

Then the 3^rd level is the FUTURE business.

This is the Future Nurture type of business.  You must stay top of mind.  You have to create Mindshare.  Make sure that you are relevant.  You have developed a certain level of Relationship.  You utilize all the different elements to cause this to happen.  You are face to face, you hand deliver items of value, you may be able to get their email addresses and phone numbers so now they are receiving emails, text and phone calls from you.

They are witnessing your marketing on social media and possibly in their neighborhood.  You are everywhere.  This is the seed planting.  When people talk about you…seeds are planted.  When you meet someone new a seed is planted.  When someone sees your marketing, a seed is planted.  When you do a good deed.  When you support a local business.  When you become a person of value in some way.  When you are seen to be working.  All of those seeds are planting and germinating all the time.

Now when you get a phone call or an inquiry or you meet someone at an open house…how do people see you?  Do they see you as someone who is untouchable?  A Superhero?  Someone who is beyond them.  Or do they see you as someone who they can relate to.  Someone who is their confidant.  Someone who is in their corner.  Someone they can trust.  Someone who fulfills their promises and exceeds expectations.  If they see that in you, you will never have to worry about business coming in.  You never have to worry about people referring business to you.  AND, that brings us to #4….

The underground root system.  This is the referral business.  Here’s the neat thing.  This referral business can come from all levels.  I have had referrals come to me from people, I have never done business with and I have had referrals come to me from people while I am in the middle of helping people.  The deal is not even done yet.

The NOW, the SOON and the FUTURE and the PAST Clients and Strategic alliances are all referral sources right now.  This is where your raving fans want to support you because you “wowed” them.  You helped them with their life change.  You are part of their lives.  They are thankful they met you.  They Trust and Respect you.  Because you have relationship.  You are not simply processing and leveraging deals.  Make sense?

This is where the law of Reciprocity and the law of Sewing and Reaping comes into play.  They want to support you because you deserve it.  This business is the best business you will ever receive.  IT is free to obtain.  You did your job.  You served well.  You are a positive influence in someone else’s life and now they are rewarding you with their confidence by telling other people about you.

Now let me ask you this.  Can I give world class service to 30 to 50 listing clients.  If I have 20 to 50 Buyer leads come in from those listings and I need to figure out how to serve them….what do I do?  I widdle everything down to the NOW business only.  That’s all I can focus on.  The Now business.  I throw the rest away for the my competition to take on. I hear this all the time.  I work with people all the time, that say, you know I have called up 4 or 5 other agents and nobody has offered to help me.  Are you kidding me?  That blows my mind.  That is now business or maybe it was SOON business.  That is money in the bank.  But they don’t see it because they are so busy processing and transacting…because they have to stay on the hamster wheel to keep the money machine fed and operating.

Meanwhile, that lead came to you and you focussed on the relationship.  DO you need to spend a bunch of money convincing people that you are successful?  Do you need to carry a large inventory of listings?  No you simply need to understand how to integrate your business building and business nurturing activities to be interwoven together to achieve those results and save a bunch of money.  Your billboards are your growing client base.  They do it for you.  That is who scatters more seeds than you could ever scatter.  Does this make sense?  That is where the roots of your business start to grow underground and spread to places that you would never think of reaching.  Then leads start popping up.  Pop pop pop.  It is awesome. AND any one of you watching or listening right now can create this.  Starting today!

Ok, I think that I am running out of time.  Have I convinced you?  Do you agree with me that it is possible to make a lot of money without all of those strategies that are being taught out there?  I am hoping that you are a new agent just starting out in the business and you are hungry for new information.  You are exactly who I am looking for.  Please comment below and don’t forget to hit the Subscribe button if you want more information like this.  If you click the little bell you will know as soon as the next video drops.  Thank you for watching or listening today…I appreciate you…Go out there and make a great day.