Are you looking for specific suggestions for how to get more listings? This is the episode for you! In this chat we give a pretty comprehensive list of different methods for drumming up new listing business. With recent changes in the industry growing a thriving listing business is more important than ever. We share the specifics of using open houses, geographical farming, circle prospecting, just listed/sold campaigns, contacting expired or FSBO sellers, optimizing your google profile, online leads, and our favorite: database campaigns. Find out the specific niche of neighborhoods you might want to focus on plus why you don’t want to contact an expired listing seller the first day it expires. And what about homes that need to get listed due to divorce or death? We are talking about those too. We touch on door knocking and our thoughts as well as what you can do on social media if you prefer an online approach to lead generation. We remind you that you don’t need to do ALL of these things to be successful, in fact we hope you’ll take away from this episode that when you do everything you can’t be great at anything.

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The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.

Katy 0:01
He was like, Oh, my God. Do you think that other people know? Like, then she was suddenly like, like, who else does everyone know? I

Alissa 0:07
didn’t want anybody to know yet. Does

Katy 0:08
everyone know? Right? She was like, do my neighbors know? I don’t want them to know. I might not even go.

Alissa 0:14
I got responses from all four. All four said, No, we’re not moving. But thank you so much for telling us he’s gonna die in this house.

Katy 0:26
Okay, you don’t need about that.

Alissa 0:27
He put my card on the fridge for when he’s gone when he’s gone. So hi, y’all welcome to hustle. Humbly. It’s Alyssa and Katie, and we are two top producing realtors in the Baton Rouge market. We

Katy 0:42
work for two different companies where we should be competitors, but we have chosen community over competition.

Alissa 0:47
The goal of our podcast is to encourage you to find your own way in business. So stop comparing yourself and start embracing your strengths. Hi, Alyssa. Hey, Katie.

Katy 0:56
How are you great? This is episode 267, how to get listings. Okay, how to get listings.

Alissa 1:05
It was funny because one of our listeners that wrote in for this one was like, how do you get listings, besides friends and family and besides cold calling and besides expireds and besides it for sale by owners, and not social media, yeah, not social media. I’m like, oh, man, we’re really running out of options. What do you want to do? I don’t think we have a magic answer for you, but I think we have some good tips we can bring agree.

Katy 1:34
And I would like to say there are really a lot of ways you can get business listings or buyers? Yeah, and this is going to be a handful of those ways to get listings, but you just pick the ones that work for you.

Alissa 1:45
Yes. Be mindful that when we give suggestions, you do all of these. You cannot do everything. You cannot do everything well. You need to pick what you’re good at and

Katy 1:55
you want to be really good at something, yeah, what did they say if you try to do everything, you won’t be good at anything, yeah. So you can do anything, you can’t do everything, but I like what you said better. Okay, if you try to be good at everything, you’ll be good at nothing. That’s good, just nothing. Okay, so I read a couple of articles from my good friend Jimmy Burgess. I have yet to read something of his that I wasn’t like, Yeah, and he’s a very thorough researcher I find. So thanks, Jimmy. You’re gonna help us out today. These articles were both in Inman, which I always enjoy my subscription to, and again, not affiliated in any way. No, maybe one day we’ll get an affiliate link from Inman. Okay, why don’t we start with, how do you get your listings?

Alissa 2:47
I mean, every single one is a little bit different. Obviously, at this point in my business, I’m very repeat and referral based, right? So people just know I’m in real estate, right? So they call me. Okay, easy peasy. Yeah, listed,

Katy 3:03
listed, done. Yes, this is done. I would say most of mine are also repeat referral. Back in the day, there was a point in time when I paid my original very first time I bought leads in 2006 before the big Z was around. I bought leads from a thing called House values.com Okay? And House values.com would put actual TV commercials on CNN or whatever cable channel, and they would put on there, get your house value at this website. And because there was no such thing as a Zestimate. And so people would go to the website, type in their address, be like, I want to know my house value. And then they would distribute these out to the agents who had paid to get these contact people. So I would, I did all these webinars and learned what I should do. They were like, make the CMAS deliver hand deliver them to their door. I didn’t do a lot of that, but you had their email address and you could send them their market report. So I did a lot of that, and that is, was a great way to get business people don’t reach out for that anymore, because any number of websites will tell them what their home value is, right? So it’s a different kind of online lead. It’s almost easier. For a while, it’s been easier for online portals to grab the buyer leads, right? Yeah, I want to see this house clicks. I want to Okay, fine. They’re going to start tracking your people. We talked about this a little on the on the episode about database two ago. They’re going to start tracking your people. They’re already tracking your people. So if you’re not keeping up with your past clients, with your sphere, with your database, some portal is, yeah, some AI is, some machine is tracking them the minute they log on to Google and type in my house, my home’s value. Or

Alissa 4:55
how do I what do I need to do to sell my house? Or, like, the.

Katy 4:59
I know. How do I get pre approved for a mortgage? Oh, all the bells and whistles go off. I have a funny story about this. My lender, I think, uses homebot, or one of these, and I think that actually comes up in this list of ways you can get listings. She reaches out to me. It’s like, hey, our past client, x, just applied for a mortgage. Do you know what’s going on? Not with her? Like her system triggered her that they their credit got pulled, or whatever the trigger was, I don’t know, crazy. And she’s like, Do you know where they’re going? And I’m like, Well, no, they’ve been in their house a few years. I haven’t heard from her. She’s like, I don’t know, like, should I reach out? And I’m like, Oh, that’s so invasive. It is invasive. But I just, and I talked to this girl all the time, like on social media, so I just kind of was real gently like, Hey, how’s it going? Are everything’s good over there? She’s, I’m like, Are y’all thinking about staying for I don’t remember what I said. And she was like, we’re actually looking at some new construction homes in a different city. How did you know that? And I’m like, I’m not gonna lie. I’m like, the lender knew. She was like, Oh, my God. Do you think that other people know? Like, then she was suddenly like, like, who else does everyone know? I didn’t want anybody to know yet. Does everyone know? Right? She was like, do my neighbors know? I don’t want them to know. I might not even go and I’m like, whatever. But my point is, Don’t kid yourself. You can do nothing online that isn’t going to be tracked by someone, okay, so put a pin in that. What are some of so yours repeat referral, yeah, but

Alissa 6:27
one of the things you mentioned about the home value, one my list of things that I do, that I do think has helped me become a good listing agent, is the Market Report. I think you can do this through our PR or any other like, there’s different your broker has a particular, yeah, our broker has a particular software. But basically, if you have their subdivision and an email address, you can set them. I set them up all my people in my database on a monthly subdivision report for their neighborhood. I like, once a month is enough, plenty. If it’s a small neighborhood, I do once a quarter, okay? Because sometimes there’s not a ton of data, yeah. But you know, once a month, it is all about their subdivision. It does have my small picture at the top, okay, but it’s about how our house is selling in your neighborhood. And then you can click and see what it sold for. How many days has been on the market. What does the inside of their house look like? Yeah, I have never had anybody unsubscribe from one of these reports, right? I have had many people respond and say, Wow, that house sold so fast. Or, Wow, maybe I should think about selling. Or, Wow, that house is not updated at all. I’m surprised they’re asking so much. So I get interaction from this, which is what you need. And I think it’s because it goes back to it provides value, yeah, and it’s about them, not you, correct. It’s about your neighborhood. And it has also helped me on listing appointments, because they are not as surprised with their value. They have an idea. They are in the know with their subdivision, right? So whenever I joined that women’s networking group, before I had kids, I just did it as a way to like be involved, meet new people, grow my database. What was perfect about this group is that they had a directory, and it had like over 100 women in it, yeah, and it had their address and their email address. And so I made a Excel spreadsheet, because I need just their subdivision. I don’t need their address for this report. I went into MLS, looked up their street, made a new column in Excel of what subdivision that is, and then I just set them up on a once a month thing for their subdivision. Did you write responses? Did

Katy 8:50
you ask them, or you didn’t, yeah, or I emailed before, and was just like, but there was an unsubscribe button, yeah, so they didn’t want it. How did the first time you sent it, were you like, hey, yes, remember me from the group?

Alissa 9:04
Yeah, I did. I said we have this new software, and I wanted to see if you would mind. This is how I always I like to say this every time I set somebody up, because I do want to make sure it’s accurate. Yeah, especially with all the MLS is merging right now, yeah, I have learned that there’s a Maplewood estates in other cities of Louisiana as well. So it’s sort of messed up some of my profile report, yeah, because it’s pulling data from multiple Maplewood estates, an example of one. So I just said, Hey, my company has this. I thought it would be helpful for your subdivision. I’m looking for people I know to just review it once a month and tell me if they see any errors, and let me know if you find it helpful. I love it. I did not get any negative responses. Great. I had one lady that was like the person in my Hoa, wants to know if we can, like, have other people signed up to get this. Report to like, yeah, yeah, send me all the email ads, anyone you want. So anyway, it’s providing value without just like a random newsletter with random news on it. Exactly helpful. But it brings me back to when this, when we started getting these requests from listeners about, how do I get listings? The main question too is, how are you marketing yourself,

Katy 10:24
right?

Alissa 10:24
Are you marketing yourself as a listing agent? Is your day to day activity featuring you as a listing agent? If that’s what you’re trying to do, right? I don’t know. You know we’re not you, and I have never been just a buyer’s agent or but I will say, I used to say if you need to buy, sell or invest, right? Well, now I don’t say that. I just say if you need to buy or sell, because I don’t work with investors as much anymore. You know, for me, it wasn’t great. So I just took that off. I’m trying to

Katy 10:59
and what you put out there as far as the content you’re providing. So yes, we have both always worked with buyers and sellers. But when I got further on in my career and I realized that I wanted to work with more sellers, I would that’s when I started posting so much staging content. How do you stage so here’s like, you know, tips for your listing things, the more I’m going on a listing photos. I’m going on a listing appointment, you can you can direct the narrative whichever way you want it to go. Does it mean I didn’t also do a showing that day? No, but I didn’t want to share that as much as I want to share the listing stuff, because you’re trying to get more whatever you put out there grows. Whatever you focus on grows. And that’s not just in your social media content, but in your mind as well. If you’re like, Oh, I’m working with so many buyers right now, and you’re just, all you’re doing is talking about buyers looking up listings, you know, going on showings. Take a minute and be like, I’m gonna do some CMAs, like, whether they’re for someone or not, which you might as well make them be for someone in your database, but focus on a listing activity, yes, so that you can grow that part of your business. So

Alissa 12:06
episode 62 we talk about transitioning from being primarily a buyer’s agent so good to a seller’s age. That

Katy 12:13
would help here.

Alissa 12:14
There’s a lot of good tips in Episode 62 so if you want to dive into that more, because that’s the natural progression, yes, as you are in the business, longer and longer, you become more listing heavy. And speaking of like, you know, what you do grows. I post a lot when I see a pretty tree, I have gotten a few listings from people who, like, I just talked to on social media. Some not even in my database because I don’t know them that well, like, I don’t have their email and stuff. Yeah, that when it came time to list their house, they messaged me because of the tree. They were like, look, we have this amazing tree in our backyard, and we knew you’d be really excited about it. That’s very niche, yeah,

Katy 12:58
such a great example of why focusing on something, yeah,

Alissa 13:02
any kind of focus I have, other agents tag me in their listings with trees, like Alyssa, look at this tree I have. Yeah. They’re like, cover sale, yes. And so it’s like, I know that when we’re asked questions, people want very specific, easy answers, like, do this, you get a listing, what did you say? It’s like, I’ll order three listings next week, right?

Katy 13:24
Thank you, because she right. She was like, I don’t want to do this or this or this. And be like, well, you just call up, and you’re just like, hello,

Alissa 13:32
I want three listings in this price range, not how. Fortunately, you know that the ways we’ve get listings, if I went through my listings. It’s like I got this one because they knew I liked trees. Okay, all right, but

Katy 13:46
you put that out there online, so I’m going to go through. There was a nine ways you can get business. Okay, number one was open house. So if you want to get another listing, Alyssa, how would you get it in an open house?

Alissa 14:01
I I find that the agents that market their open houses really well make sellers go, Well, I want her to market my house. Yeah, when I was brand new and had no listings of my own, I was only doing listings in like the South Downs area, which is just the neighborhood here, you would pick the open house based on the area. Yes, I stayed in one area, and at the time, we had a big this is 2011 so we had a big section in the newspaper for open houses no longer, but I had so many people repeat because I was in the same area and got some of my first listings that way. Yeah, I got a few buyers, but I actually it was like, I was impressing the sellers that were coming through. They were like, every time we checked the newspaper, you’re in here with the open house. And so also, if you have no listings, but. Want listings. When you are at an open house, it is not just to sit there for two hours. No, no, no, no, no. You need to be posting and showing that you’re working right that episode we just did about how to show you’re an agent. Like, don’t just say, Are you looking to buy or sell? Call me No. Like, that doesn’t work. But if you say, I’m doing an open house on this listing, right? You don’t need to advertise that. It’s not yours. Just be doing an open house on this listing. Here’s the information. Get some videos. Just use your time wisely and show that you are a good listing agent. Yeah,

Katy 15:37
all right, next up on the list of ways to get listings geographical farming. Do you remember our farming episode and we took the farming photo? Yeah, so we have a whole episode on geographical farming while we’re in that though, I want to talk about circle prospecting, because this is a term sometimes you will hear. So I’m going to read what it says about circle prospecting. I have not heard this term, okay, circle prospecting involves calling homeowners around a home that recently had sales activity, a new listing or recent sale, start from a place of providing information about the activity on the home, and the conversations will lead to how these sales affect their home’s value. Basically, hey, it’s Katie. I just wanted to let you know I listed a house around the corner for you. It’s at this price per square foot. If you have anyone you know that wants to be your neighbor, send them by we’re having an open house on Sunday, or you could send that in a postcard or in a whatever, a Facebook post. If you’re in the neighborhood Facebook group or know someone, okay, so it says you’re gonna start by providing that type of value. This is a great strategy for building a database of homeowners and to overcome uncover immediate opportunities. Circle prospecting is the best way I know to generate conversations with potential sellers immediately. The ability to start at any time, and the potential for immediate business makes circle prospecting a strategy that never goes out of style, and it means you have a listing. Now you are contacting the closest homeowners to be like, Hey, I have a listing. Or, Hey, I just sold a listing. Wanted to let you know it closed for this, this amount, and we had three offers. You could tell anyone anything. And I never did it like that, but I did

Alissa 17:20
do postcards. I was gonna say, when we lived in Maplewood, you did a great job,

Katy 17:24
because that’s the neighborhood I lived in, and I wanted to geographically farm it. So if I had a listing, or I wanted to send out information about the neighborhood or the recent sales, I would just target that neighborhood. Now in the system for postcards, it is a four postcard series that I learned when I was at REMAX. It goes just listed, right? So, yeah, send out the postcard to the 100 nearest addresses. If this is a neighborhood that you want to work in. Again, it’s worth it. If you want to take another listing there, if you take a listing that you don’t want to work there, again, don’t do the postcards because they cost money. 100. Nearest address is just listed. Make it look however you want it to look. There’s a bajillion stupid templates in Canva. You can make it look cute. Just listed. This is the price. When it goes under contract. You send a second postcard. This one says under contract. We had, you know, three offers closing at the end of whatever, just this house is under contract, the original listing. One is for the seller. This is one of the facets of your marketing, for the sellers. So when you say, Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Seller, I’m so excited to sell your house, or you’re in a listing interview, I’m going to send a postcard to your hundreds nearest neighbors, in case they know someone who wants to be in the neighborhood. That’s for them, yes, and technically for you. But the next three are all for you to try and get more listings, right? So now the second one is under contract. You send that whether you got it under contract the first day or three weeks later or whatever, right? So maybe you just sent, just listed, and two days later it’s under contract. I would still like send it so they come back to back then the third one is just sold home, sold for this amount. You can tell them whatever you want about the you know, three offers, no whatever. Lalo, fine. The most important postcard you send is 30 days after closing, and it simply has the same every, one of these postcards had the same photo on it, the same branding. I had a certain style. It was the same. They all looked exactly the same, because you need some brand recognition here, right? So don’t change out to different photos, because you’re like, oh, I need to just shake it. No. It needs to look exactly the same. Just listed under contract, just sold. We need more inventory. Is the last postcard. It simply has the picture of the house that you sold with the banner across it that says, we need more inventory on the back. It’s just gonna say, Hey, are you interested in, you know, learning what your house is worth. We are looking for more. There are buyers looking for homes in your neighborhood. Reach out to me here. Yeah.

Alissa 19:59
I love it.

Katy 20:00
I got quite a few listings off of these postcards. We

Alissa 20:03
need more inventory. We

Katy 20:05
need more inventory. Now, did I get a listing off of every single postcard series I did no one for a full year, every listing I took, I did it, regardless of the neighborhood. I spent about $3,000 on postcards that year. And this has been probably a good you know, six ish years ago, but I, I made over $30,000 in commissions, right? So it was huge return on investment, yeah. And then I started to see, well, okay, I better pick the neighborhoods I really want to go back to, because if you keep getting listings in the same neighborhood, and you keep doing the postcard series, it will continue to make you be the neighborhood expert, and the first person people reach out to Yes, because they’re like, Oh, she’s an expert on the neighborhood’s her second listing. It’s her third Yeah. And you can be that same expert by having a really thoughtful social media plan too. Like, are you posting the nearby restaurants to a neighborhood? What listings just came on the market or sold? Like, what activities are going on in a certain neighborhood. Do you live in the neighborhood? Ideally, it’s super easy to do it that way too. Yeah. Okay, what’s next on your list? Oh, so

Alissa 21:13
I have had luck with for sale by owners only when I have an actual buyer. You can’t lie. I know there’s a lot of coaches out there pretend to have a buyer and get your foot in the door and all of that. I know we do not endorse. We don’t endorse lying. We’re trying to bring professionalism back to the realtor brand. But the times I’ve shown it for sale by owner, you know, they’re always a little bit on guard and, you know, and I’m like, can I just I’ll show it. Can I show it to them, you know? And we meet, and then they’re like, oh, realtors are real people. They’re nice, you know. And then I leave as wonderful feedback as I can, yeah, like, it was not the house for them because of this and this, you know, if you get to where you need help with staging and things like that, and you get to where you’re ready to list, I’d be happy to help you. Otherwise, I wish you the best of luck. Yeah, hope it gets sold. You never want to come in as you know, you can’t do this on your negative you know, I actually just had sort of a interest. I just got a listing, okay, from a for sale by owner, because another agent door knocked Okay, and put such a bad taste in her mouth. And was like, so I see you’re trying to sell your house on your own. And she was like, yeah. And he was like, So what do you do for a living? And she was like, oh, like, I’m, um, accountant. And he was like, oh, okay, so you don’t sell real estate as a living, like I do. I’m like, I cannot believe there are. Why is it always a dude? It’s always a dude. Hey, man, hey, yeah, I see here. And so anyway, he somehow finagled his way into the front door and sat at her kitchen island. And I think she just didn’t know what to do, but she he hired him. She was about to hire him, and thankfully, he sent the documents electronically. Okay, so she was like, What do I do? What do I do? She’s like, a single lady. She was like, very she felt very intimidated. Didn’t know what to do. So her she called her friend, and was like, This guy just came and now I have these listing papers. And she was like, if you’re gonna list your house, you need to call Alyssa. She would not treat you that way and this and that. So she called me and tells me this whole story, and I’m like, You’re kidding me? And she’s like, No, and I just don’t know what to do. And so anyway, I listed her house. Sorry, dude. Sorry, dude, and he was mad about it, but, yeah, he was, but it’s just interesting. I said I only tell that story. One, it’s funny. Two, that’s not the way to get a for sale by owner. Is not to intimidate them, right? They want to feel comfortable. They’re not listening with the agent, probably because they, you know, they’re trying to save money. Yeah, maybe they have a financial reason. Yeah, maybe they had a bad previous experience. And you just need to be mindful how you’re handling you have to be so sensitive. Yes, but one of my first listings, I showed a house in Shenandoah. It was a for sale by owner. My buyers did not care for it, and it was a cute house, but definitely not presented, yeah, properly. And I just left feedback, very kind. And then they called me a week later and was like, Hey, you mentioned you know that it didn’t show super well. We’re not getting a lot of interest. We know we need to list it. Could you come help us? Yeah, I was like, Sure, and I helped them, and we took pictures and sold it. I love it, and it was just perfect. Because, you know, I’ve shared that story in the very, very, very beginning of my career, when my goal was to call 100 for sale by. Own right. We’ve been down this road, and I kept a spreadsheet of who I had called, and I got zero listings from it, yeah, none. And it was like, the worst. I was like, Yeah, I’m not going to do real estate anymore. Is what it is. This isn’t for me. One other way with using, like, my actual buyers. So I have a client who I show how I’ve been showing our houses for like, two years, on and off. Okay, you know, always kind of looking but she has a very small bubble, yeah. So she messaged me, and she was like, hey, if this is too much, just tell me. You can fire me if you I was like, okay, she said I was walking in the name so she lives in the area now, okay, that’s why she doesn’t want to leave, but she needs a bigger house. She’s like, on my walk today, I wrote down four addresses of houses that are not for sale, but that I always stop and look at, okay, could you maybe just reach out to them and see if they’re thinking about selling? And I was like, Sure, you know, like, it’ll help her. It may give me some good contacts. So I wanted to make sure it didn’t come off as a mass postcard, you know. So I hand wrote four letters on my letter stationary, yeah, with my tree on it, yeah. And just said, Hey, my name is Alyssa. I work for this company. I have a buyer I’ve been helping for like, two years. She lives in your neighborhood now, and she does not want to leave your neighborhood. She needs a bigger house, though. Yeah, your house catches her eye every time she walks by it. It’s beautiful. Any chance you are interested in selling you letter, handwritten, wrote this letter and put a stamp on it, okay? And hand addressed the envelope, okay? And mailed it, got it, and then I put in there. Feel free to reach me by phone or email. You don’t have to snail mail me back.

Katy 26:48
That would take a long time.

Alissa 26:50
I got responses from all 444 said, No, we’re not moving, but thank you so much for telling us. It makes us feel good about our house. That’s cute. And you know what’s funny? Three responded via email. Okay, they are now on subdivision reports. Shut up, because I know where you’re a genius and I have your email address. The third one was a sweet older man who told me he’s not, he’s gonna die in his house. Okay, you don’t need he put my card on the fridge for when he’s gone, when he’s gone, so they know who to call. Way that’s

Katy 27:32
crazy. We’ll get to to what that could work for. But I also had in here using you just described it, using buyers as bait, circle prospecting. So the circle prospect, okay, the circle prospecting like we talked about when you had the listing. Yeah, the bait is like this, Mr. And Mrs. Homeowner, my name is blank. With blank, we have a client that has a strong desire to buy a home and move into your neighborhood, just like you just did, right? So much so that they’d be willing to pay a premium if they found the perfect home for them. The reason I’m calling is that we’re doing anything in our power to help them find the home. Okay, so exactly what have you heard about any of your neighbors that might consider selling that would be a nice like a little added something in there?

Alissa 28:16
Yeah. I mean, I’m targeting you specifically, right? I need your neighborhood. You don’t want

Katy 28:21
to lie about this, right? So you just, you did. You did the circle prospecting. Only one really a circle is more like a rectangle. Yeah, just four. Yeah, just these. Okay, now the sweet man who put your card on the fridge for the later person to show up and find it would be in the estate category. Okay? So another way to get listings would be to partner with an estate attorney, or something like that divorce attorney, yeah? Or you any attorney who does wills, does estate work? Yeah. Or your divorce attorneys, they have the need for you to help them get values for homes and figure things out. And then these houses need to be sold, right? And a lot of times, a couple, especially in a divorce situation, might have a realtor they use together and liked, yeah, but then they don’t want to go back to the realtor, because maybe the one thinks, oh, that’s your realtor, yeah, oh, that’s your realtor. And then they each want their own realtor. And sometimes I feel like the divorce attorney just is, like, here’s a neutral third party, right? You could be the neutral third party. So that’s a good source of leads. If you want to partner with some attorneys,

Alissa 29:27
you just have to form the right relationships with those attorneys. Yeah,

Katy 29:32
and we have a listener who does this very well and is nearly 30% of her business now, wow, because she has partnered with one attorney who then sent her quite a few, and it was not he didn’t find her for this, like they got together because she knew the people that were selling. But then he was like, Oh, I have another one that I need a report on, or I might need help with. And then it just sort of spiraled. And now he’s referring her to the other attorneys in his office. So it’s really. Good. That’s a great niche. It’s a really great niche. Okay, here’s another one maybe you haven’t thought about, but is really good. Optimize your Google profile like, get your own dang online leads. Get your own online leads, yes, and I have actually gotten listings from my Google profile, yeah, not from a social media post, not from some service I was paying my actual Google profile, and be like, Hey, how did you find me?

Alissa 30:26
Oh, I’m Google. Well, it’s so funny, because we had a month long challenge in our hustle, humbly community, where we were updating our Google profile and seeing who could get the most reviews. And the success from that was so good, yeah,

Katy 30:44
they really, they got business, they got reviews. You’d be surprised at how effective that is. So that’s an easy one. Make sure your Google profile is up to date and that you have some reviews on there, and that you have some of your specialties put in, yeah, like, put out that information on the neighborhoods you want to work. All right, do we want to talk about expired listings.

Alissa 31:02
I’m surprised. So I’ve tried those a few times, simply because I felt like they were easier, in theory, than a for sale by owner who’s like, no, agent. No, we don’t like you. I’m like, well, this person was okay with Agent photos.

Katy 31:19
They didn’t know that. They thought it was their agent’s fault.

Alissa 31:21
I know, so I’m like, and I really gave it a good go. Didn’t have the best of luck. No luck. Actually, I did talk to a few people, but it never resulted in a listing. But in theory, it really seems like it would work.

Katy 31:37
It can work. But I think this is not a strategy that is a secret, right, right? So as soon as the listing hits expired in the system, they’re all these companies that grab that data and sell it off to all these realtors who are like, I’m using blah blah blah bot that’s told me this listing expired, and they’re all calling on day one, so much so that we’ve had to tell our clients that we’re withdrawing to, like, do some renovations, or they want to take it off the market and put it back on the next year, or something happened, you have to put in the public and in the realtor remarks on the MLS, please don’t contact my seller. They are putting it back on the market in three months with me. They do not need an agent leave. I’ve had clients who they withdrew for whatever reason or expired, and they got calls to their daughter’s cell phone, the grandmother’s cell phone, like, I don’t know where these companies, they get any number associated with that address, and they just give them all out, and people just start dialing for dollars, right? Don’t do that, not on the day that it was expired. You’re gonna be one of many, and the odds of any of you winning get slimmer with each next call.

Alissa 32:47
They get more aggravated, right? Each call makes it less likely they’re gonna pick any of you. And if it’s like a typed whatever, whatever, just know they have gotten those every single one. I had a seller one time we took the house off the market to do a 90 day reset. It had been on the market for a very long time. It was getting stale. It was reaching a year on the market. Yep. As we were approaching Christmas, we decided to take it off in our market. If you take it off for 90 days, it resets the days on market. Yeah. So if you take it off and put it back, it just resumes. But if you wait 90 days, it refreshes the whole thing. Yeah, I lost a listing this way. Oh, so frustrating. Well, I went back to list it, and they had this huge stack on the kitchen and I was on the kitchen counter. I was like, Oh, what is this? They were like, This is all the mail we got from other agents who told us they have buyers or that they could sell the house. And I went through this stack, and I was like, they all say the same, pretty much the same thing, like, identical. And they were like, we knew, because it’s like, it’s been on the market a year. If you had a buyer, it’s been here. You

Katy 33:59
have to look at this too. All those agents paid probably the same service to send the same postcards. It’s just and they’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping that maybe one of these sellers will stick. I’ll just keep throwing a 500 $1,000 a month at this service. Who’s gonna blanket mail out every expired listing. I

Alissa 34:19
really think you have to find a way to be way more personal. And I think targeting this specifically is a full time job. Yeah, it would be better if you went through your buyer list and contacted the expireds, because talk about match.

Katy 34:35
Yes, that match. Okay, well, so good news. Jimmy gave us a really good idea if you want to try expired, because obviously there was a point in time when these people were trying to sell. Go look at the listings that expired six to 24, months previously, not the day they expired, because they got annoyed and they said, forget it. But six months later. Earlier to maybe 24 months later, but when you look them up, also check to make sure it didn’t actually sell in the period of time after. I learned that right away too. Okay, but I do think it’s a good idea if, especially in your case of like, you have a buyer and like, hey, look, I know you were looking to sell your house a year ago and you didn’t. I do have a buyer that’s looking in your neighborhood. Is, you know, Would you consider selling? Or, Hey, I’ve been working in your neighborhood, and I noticed you tried to sell a while ago. Would you be interested in a current market, whatever, whatever you want to do? But I think that niche of an expired makes sense. Yeah, I think so too, or you’d have a better chance. So I like that one. How about our old orphan neighborhoods? I

Alissa 35:40
think this one’s great. Do

Katy 35:41
you remember the orphan neighborhoods? Yeah, so new construction neighborhoods in the three to seven year time frame, especially if it’s like a first time buyer, entry level home neighborhood. They had a model home. They sold lots of houses in there where the buyer came unrepresented, right? And then

Alissa 36:00
it went straight to the model home. The builders, realtor or sales representative handled all the sales for that neighborhood. Then

Katy 36:09
they closed the model home, they sold it as a house, and they rolled out, yeah, to the next neighborhood.

Alissa 36:15
All of these

Katy 36:16
orphaned buyers don’t have someone following up with them in their database. They’re not a past client, right? So if you start, even if you wanted to do postcards, or if you wanted to knock on some doors, like go to that neighborhood, that would be a much better neighborhood to go to, much better idea. Much better idea. So there’s definitely going to be some people in there that are that are looking maybe at some point in the near future to sell. All right, we talked a little bit about giving market reports to our database, but I like also just the keep on working every few days you do your unsolicited CMAs to the people in your database, to your past clients, to whomever, and make sure you start at the oldest past clients. Don’t start at the most recent ones. They’re not moving. Start at the ones that might actually be ready to move. Okay, what else do you have on getting a listing?

Alissa 37:11
When we were talking about sort of farming again, being the neighborhood realtor, being the realtor that’s actually positive and helpful in the Facebook group.

Katy 37:21
Oh, yeah,

Alissa 37:22
I know we just did a whole episode on HOAs, and now they can be negative, and we touched on this in that episode, but if you’re the agent that is only commenting positive things in the next door app or the neighborhood Facebook group, you’re going to be the one that they see. Yeah and call and they’re like, Oh, she’s nice, yeah, she’s not complaining or screaming at my children right on the Facebook group, public forum, yeah, please don’t like she’s being helpful, yeah? So I think that was my last thing that I have, was just being able to use those as a way to, yeah, be friendly. I like that. Form some sort of relationship.

Katy 38:03
I let yourself out there. Smart, smart thinking. There are a couple of other ones. Jimmy you recommended if you wanted to try out out of town, homeowners or landowners. So you can, you know, pull tax records. But it’s like, I How do you know if someone does or doesn’t want to sell? It’s just like, again, needle in a haystack, kind of vibes, like, we’re just gonna keep throwing it out there. Time could be better spent, right? I do like, build a relationship with a builder. Yeah, you think that every single builder is represented, but it doesn’t take much for a builder to not, and they switch all the time, all the time. So I like that one was good. Obviously, we talked about our database a lot two weeks ago, we’re going to lean into that as much as possible. And then I wanted to share this because I thought it was pretty smart. Top 25 VIP list, there are 25 people in your sphere of influence or past clients who will send you referrals if you are top of mind for them, All right, so out of your database, there’s about 25 people who if they’re top of mind, if you provide small gifts or thank you cards for sending referrals, this group will feed your business, right? So do you have some sort of referral, like just even a system that you thank people? A great way to stay in contact with this list is to call text or private message every single day. It’s like, call one every day of the 25 people. I don’t want to call one every day, but I guess it’s only once. But again, do we need to call them once a month? I guess if they’re sending you referrals, you want to call Yeah, all right, this means having contact with them about every five weeks. It says, Okay, I mean, it makes sure you’re consistent in communication and that your relationship is you’re showing them that their relationship is valuable to you. Like, hey, you’re such an important part of my business. You know, you sent two referrals in the last two years. I just wanted to say thanks. I wouldn’t say that every five weeks, right? But at some point, yeah. I mean, make sure you say it at some point. I think that’s all of the How To Get listings. Well, I think that you.

Alissa 39:59
How to Get listings, how to get buyers, how to get clients. It’s all the same. It’s all very similar. You need to without people, you don’t have any business, right? So you need to make sure that you have some people, that you’re meeting, people, that you are friendly, right, and that you know you’re you’re tracking and keeping right all these people in one place. And if we have so many episodes, yeah, on working with sellers, and look,

Katy 40:28
when you get one listing, you better squeeze every bit of juice out of that thing. You should be posting it and showing it and using it for, you know, like anything you can to talk about listings. Doesn’t you know, just really,

Alissa 40:47
and if you go to hustle humbly podcast.com/sellers, it’s a list of just our episodes on working with sellers and listings. Yeah, so you can narrow down what you’re specifically, specifically,

Katy 41:01
this was good. I hope everyone gets out there and gets those listings. You know, I love them. Let’s

Alissa 41:06
do a toast.

Katy 41:07
Can’t wait. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 41:09
My name is Ali O’Leary from magis, Oregon. I would like to toast my office administrator charity dubasar, you are the foundation of my life, and thank you for everything you’ve done for me in this time, I’m crying because you mean so much to me, and I’m so appreciative and grateful to have you in my life, not only in business, but also personally. I love you lots.

Alissa 41:32
Thank you so much for tuning in to the hustle humbly podcast.

Katy 41:36
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to rate this podcast.com/hustle humbly and leave us a review or drop a comment if you’re listening on Spotify,

Alissa 41:44
if you have an episode topic or someone you’d like to toast on the show, please email us at team. At hustle humbly. Podcast.com,

Katy 41:51
find us on social media at hustle humbly. Podcast, don’t forget to find all of the free resources at hustle humbly. Podcast.com/resources,

Alissa 41:59
see you next week. This

Katy 42:03
is the good life. You.