Hey everybody, how you doing? Kelly Johnson here from the 4X Formula and I’m so excited you’re here today again. Thanks for joining me. I had an epiphany a couple of years ago. I was understanding that what was going on in my relationship with my clients is when things didn’t work out right, when they didn’t get their house sold or, when they didn’t find the right place or whatever… It was based on, actually a lot of times, more often than not, decisions they made. I wasn’t strong enough to basically say to them, “No, you have to do this.” This is the thing, I was trying to be the big man all the time. So what ended up happening is they were looking to me as the guy who could pull it off. So I’m going to talk to you about a new strategy, but first the intro.
Hi, I’m Kelly Johnson, founder of the 4X formula and the big question is this: How are real estate agents like us able to create a constant stream of commissions and a constant stream of leads while enjoying life without wasting big budgets on branding, without working crazy hours, without worrying where the next deal’s coming from in today’s real estate market. This podcast is here to reveal the answers.
What I learned in the industry is what I call “The We Talk.” The We Talk. Everything that’s going on when you enter into this relationship. These people want to achieve something, right? Do you agree with me on that? So buyer or seller, they want to achieve something. So let’s talk about sellers for a second. So you sit down with them and they’ve now decided to work with you because you’ve won the business. So I’m assuming that we’re at that point now with these people. You could start to use this verbiage and this kind of talk while you’re entering into that or working your way into that or whatever. Even in the first meeting if you want. But my point is when it comes down to making decisions. Making decisions on how they’re going to present the home, when we’re going to launch the listing, when they’re going to get it on the market, what their game plan is after they sell.
And when you sitting down and you’re talking about pricing.. That strategy. I use the word strategy a lot because people think that when they use a strategy that they’re doing something smart. They’re using strategic thinking. They’re not just coming off the cuff, right? We’re analyzing. We’re coming to a place of formulating a really good strategy and when you do that, usually you’re making good decisions if you’re coming with the right strategy, right?
I love the word strategy and I use that a lot, but “The We Talk” is really important, so what they need to understand is that we are all a team. We are all making the decisions on all of this together. I’m one part of the team, a strategic partner if you will, and I’m going to help you with information and I’m going to help you make a great decision. So I’m in your corner and I’m part of the team. We’re a team together.
But guess what, Mr and Mrs. Seller, you’re also on the team and nobody’s on the bench here, right? You’re not sitting on the bench going, “Okay, Kelly, you’re the big man. Make it happen for me. I’m not going to do anything. You just better pull it off man.” Like if that’s the attitude, then there is a no win in that situation because if you don’t pull it off, you’re killing your relationship and you’re never going to get referrals and it’s brutal. But you got to shift a little bit of the responsibility onto the people you’re serving, right? Like how they present the home. Do they have it ready for showings? Are we scheduling appropriately? Are they doing what they need to do to prepare the home?
Are we having this talk with them going “Okay , we’re all on the same team here, right? And so we want to get the best result for you. Here’s what it takes to get the best result for you. Here’s your part. Guys, I’m sorry, but you’re going to live a little bit differently in the home now. Because we, the collective we, are in selling mode now. So we’re not in living mode anymore. You were in living mode before and you can kind of leave the dishes on the counter and you know the clothes on the floor and you could kind of relax with all that stuff while you’re living. But now we’re in showing mode. We need to be ready for showings. Now yes, we try and get as much notice as possible so you can prepare and schedule around things and we can get the house all set up and make sure lights are on and maybe some music playing or whatever.
Like all those, let’s set the stage to make it, make the buying process or the buyer get the most excited about your property. Let’s always make sure that we’re working towards that end always. But, you know, the world isn’t perfect, right? Things happen in the world. You know, all of a sudden someone’s driving through the neighborhood and going, wait a minute, Mr Buyer’s agent, why don’t you tell me about this house? This house looks great. Can we look at it? Now, hey, that’s brutal when that happens. It’s horrible. They make a call and can we show it in five minutes or 20 minutes? That’s horrible. We all hate it. But maybe that’s the buyer. We don’t know. We never know. And you know what, we’re not going to like that situation, but you know what, if we’re always prepared for opportunity then there’s always a chance we could take advantage of opportunity.
And that’s why we all got to be kind in that showing mode kind of thing. So here’s some information on how to get ready” and we provide this stuff. In our 4X Formula training. Included in the training is a whole pile of tools. and things that we just provide, we’ve created it for you. It’s branded, it looks beautiful, it looks really professional. It elevates you as an agent. It says 4X agent. They’re going to say, what’s a 4X agent?
“Well, a person who has been trained in specific ways! And look, here’s an example. Here’s one of the tools that we provide to our clients so that there is no guesswork on how we are going to work together here. Okay? So here’s some suggestions. You know what? You guys got it pretty good here. I don’t have to have the clutter talk with you. You’re pretty good. I just make sure the counters are clear here and make sure this is going on. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to go spend 10, 15 bucks on some colorful plants to come in front of the house, just to give a more welcoming look, not that your house isn’t welcoming, but let’s just add a little flavor to it. These are all suggestions. But you know, I’m not saying you got to do all these things, but let’s give you the best chance of getting the best result at the end of the day. My job is to get the eyeballs on the home. My job is to get people through the home and I’m going to do that. I do a bunch of marketing things. Here’s all the things I do to get people through. More eyeballs gives us more opportunity for a better result for you. But we all need to be working together to make that happen. Does that make sense to you? Okay, super.”
So you’re not on the bench, you’re in the field with us. We’re all working together to get a great result. So that’s kind of “The We Talk” and I use the word we a lot. “We were hoping for this, but here’s what we ended up with. Here’s the offer that we are looking for, looking at right now and here’s the offer, but you know what? We got an offer that’s exciting, right?” So you hear the “we” in there? We’re all together on this. We’re all emotionally together in this. We’re all invested in this together.
“I was hoping to get a better offer for you, but I, you know, didn’t achieve that” has way different language to it and a different connotation to that. See the understanding in that. Hear the difference in that. So the seller is sitting there thinking, “Well, you didn’t do this. You didn’t get this for me. You didn’t achieve this for me. You are a liar. You are not as good as I thought you were going to be.” But if it’s we and we go, “Hey, we were hoping for this man, but hey, let’s take a look at it together and let’s just see if there’s isn’t something we can do here. Let me work on this now, let me work on this. And then you achieve something. Let me see if I can get more money for you on this. You know, that’s what we’re hoping for, right? So let me work on this.” Now I go work on this, I come back with a better result. Now I’m looking pretty good, right? That’s exciting stuff.
Working with buyers, same thing. “Hey, what do we want to do here? What are we looking for? What are we hoping to buy this property for? So let list at 399. Okay. Gosh, you know what? If you could get it anywhere in that kind of 385, 390 range would be fantastic. But you know, all the stuff “we” have looked at, “we” have seen, “we” have experienced together is telling us actually this list price isn’t bad at all. You know, it’s pretty good. 399. So really in my opinion, it’s actually not a bad price. I mean, you’ve seen everything. We saw what other things have sold for. It’s actually not bad at all. But having said that, hey, let’s try and do better. Right? “Let’s”, let “us”, “we”, you know what? We’re going to try and do better there. So let me go work on that.” Now I go do better on that. Now it’s me. I get to take responsibility for that but the rest of it is all “we”, right? I hope that makes sense. This is just a little quick one. I just wanted to throw this one out there and just get you thinking about that. It’s a different language. I call that The We Talk.
Here’s the other thing. If you’re in an office that provides a bunch of stuff or if you’re brand new in the office, so you’re a guy just starting out. So you don’t really have a whole bunch of stories. You don’t have a whole bunch of ammunition in the background. You don’t have a whole bunch of experiences to draw upon yet. You can add in The We Talk on that. So the strength of the “we”, so if, if your office has a bunch of cool things going on and I don’t know anything about your office, there’s so many different types of offices out there and so many different variables in how the offices participate in your success. I can’t speak to that but, if there is something there with that, some offices really talk, they train their agents to talk a lot about the brand and all that. Well, you know what the brand better means something if they’re talking about it. It really better means something.
Better agents, better results. More agents, more results. That doesn’t mean a whole lot to me, honestly. But what does it mean? Here’s what our office does, here’s how we market things. This is our philosophy in our office of how we work with people. Here is our value proposition. So it’s not just me, me, me, me, I, I, I. “Here’s how I’m going to implement all of these things that we provide.” That is a different conversation that carries way more weight to it, right? Remember that cell phone commercial and the guy with the funny glasses and the yellow shirt. I think he wears a yellow shirt. Now he’s with that company.
But anyway, there was a time they were talking about “the network”. So he would be standing there and he’d be kind of going, “Hey, this is me, but I got this network behind me” and there’s the whole pile of people behind him. He’s going “Oh my Gosh, that is major support!” So that’s kind of how you can be approaching that as a new agent, kind of going, “Hey, but I’ve got the network behind me.” Right? Whether it’s a team or a realtor that’s mentoring you or the infrastructure that the offices offering for you.
Our office provides that. So it’s great. Like our office, the brand of our office really does support the fact that there is a network behind each person. So brand new people get to say, I do all these things or we do all these things but not a lot of offices can do that. There’s a lot of people out there that are kind of lone wolf and even though they’re in an office of a lot of people, it’s really up to their budget and their abilities and their talents and what they’re willing to spend money on and all that kind of stuff to market homes.
In the 4X Formula, how we talk about things… We’ll talk about that and we’ll train on all that. We find lots of inexpensive ways to do some great things and get really good bang for your buck. But in that you can create your own value proposition. And we work really hard on that in the 4X Formula. But until then, just you right now listening to this podcast, just think about the language of that and include in your clients. Because then what happens is they take an equal responsibility for the results that happen. But what’s great is when the results happen or don’t happen, it’s all shared. When the success of it happens, and it’s the end of the day and they have the really good feeling, the dopamine feeling of achievement after it’s all over, who do they give the accolades to? They give them to you. And that’s a truth.
That’s how you build up that following of raving fans and people who love you. Because what ends up happening is as you include them on the journey, you’re the leader and you’re all part of a team together, but you’re the leader of the team and at the end of it, you’re directing everybody, you’re analyzing things, you’re talking strategy with them, you’re keeping in touch with them, you’re giving suggestions, you’re in their corner pumping them up. You’re not letting them off the hook either. You’re kind of saying, “Hey guys! Here some comments came back, it’d be great if you can kind of do these few things and I think that would be great.”
You’re leading them down that path, but then when you have success, they go, “Wow, this person gave me great advice. This person included me along the journey. This person succeeded, we succeeded together. I don’t think we could’ve done it without him or her.” And that’s what you want at the end because then they go and talk to their friends and go, “You know what? The experience was fantastic.”
So I hope that can happen for you. I really do wish that for you. I’m gonna tap out of this for today. At the end of the day, we’re looking for 4Xers, 4X agents. This podcast is directing you towards that. We just want to give these little snippets of information just to help you along your journey as a real estate professional. I believe anybody can make money in real estate and I really want that for you. Take care. Have a great day.