Do you want a straightforward, low-cost, proven plan to increase your listing inventory, regardless of market conditions? If your answer is yes, these 13 rock-solid steps will help you get more qualified appointments, and become a real estate listing machine. This article is based on an interview with Edward Estrada, who listed 18 homes in his first 90 days prospecting REDX seller leads, following this step-by-step guide.
Here Are The 13 Steps To Follow To Become A Listing Machine:
Step 1: Let Go To Take Control
Step 2: Immerse Yourself In Positive Environments
Step 3: Build A Real Estate Sales Funnel
Step 4: Find A Good Coach And Attend Trainings
Step 5: Stick To A Daily Routine
Step 6: Have A Bad-Day Backup Plan
Step 7: Activate Gratefulness
Step 8: Learn Like The Terminator
Step 9: Get Your Lead Stack Right
Step 10: Be The First Caller
Step 11: Make Money Like Google
Step 12: Find Unlimited Lead Sources
Step 13: Project Power (Benevolently)
Step 1: Let Go To Take Control
Several years ago Edward Estrada found himself in a tough place. Business was bad. He was having a hard time getting many listings and was on the edge of staying in real estate. With little more than $20 in his bank account, he decided to leave the “just show up and wing it” path he saw other agents following to take control of his business once and for all.
He sat down with his broker and was asked, “What do you want in your business, and what are you willing to do to get there?”
After this conversation Edward realized he needed to change his mental model for getting listings. Concepts he previously ignored now needed to be considered. Tactics he once dismissed now needed to be embraced. What he once thought of himself now needed to change.
“First of all, let your ego go,” Edward recommends. “A lot of us can’t do great things because we are held back by a big ego. We think we know it all. We think we’re always right. But we really don’t. Once you can master that, you become coachable. If you don’t know how to ask for help or learn to take criticism, there’s no way for you to grow.”
If you’re struggling to find or get listings, maybe the image of who you think you are is blocking the agent you need to become. It’s hard to see new opportunities if you don’t change how you look at the world. And while it’s not easy to abandon your ego, if you find yourself in a position like Edward did, it might be your best and only option.
Step 2: Immerse Yourself In Positive Environments
After Edward loosened his ego’s grip, he realized how much of an effect negative people had on him. The enthusiasm he could’ve put into his business was drained by the vampire-like emotions of people in his personal life.
The next logical step is to cultivate a positive environment and immerse yourself in it.
Edward says, “Your mind is like a garden; you have to constantly weed and water it so it can grow and flourish.” He recommends “weeding” out the negative people and places in your life and “planting” yourself in a space that promotes your best self.
If you can’t physically “replant yourself”, you can mentally replant yourself by immersing yourself in free real estate podcasts, focused on success, cold calling, and prospecting.
Step 3: Build A Real Estate Sales Funnel
After you “weed out” negativity, you’ll have a rare (and under-appreciated) luxury: mindspace. This is your opportunity to put your full attention on your “why.” Your “why” is what drives and powers you toward meaningful goal setting.
The clearer you are on why you want something, the clearer your path will be to get it. This is why Edward recommends being absolutely clear on your why before setting your goals.
If you’re telling yourself, “Well, I want to make $100,000 in six months!” Edward’s response would be, “Well, why? How do you plan to get there? What are you going to do with your money once you do?”
A popular way to transform your “why” into tactics is with a proven plan based on the real estate sales funnel.
Purpose-driven goals help you pin down your target income then work the funnel from the bottom up. You’ll know how many leads, contacts, appointments, listings, and closings you’ll need to achieve your goals.
Step 4: Find A Good Coach And Attend Trainings
Crack open the head of any agent who’s truly a real estate listing machine, and you’ll see “programming” designed to help them pick up the phone, overcome objections, and get listing appointments.
But how does this programming get in there? It’s not a freak accident, and no—they’re not born with it. These real estate agents commit to professional development the same way you learn to ride a bike.
But before becoming a listing machine, real estate agents like Edward attend trainings like Prospecting Clinic and hire coaches to teach, guide, and prevent self-sabotage.
“It all comes down to having the right coach,” Edward says. “And don’t get me wrong, I don’t do it all the time. I forget stuff. I get tied to things because after you’ve succeeded once you think it works flawlessly. But we all make mistakes and it’s okay to ask for help.”
Success is never a straight line. It’s a messy scribble forward into the future. But how messy it gets is within in your control. When you choose education over ignorance and coaching over ego, you’ll have people and processes to keep you moving forward.
Step 5: Stick To A Daily Routine
To become a real estate listing machine you must consistently find and get listing appointments. But if you don’t consistently talk to qualified homeowners, how do you expect to get listings?
Like a machine, Edwards follows a daily routine his coach helped him design to achieve the conversation goals he set in Step 3 (Build A Real Estate Sales Funnel).
This routine helps him stay physically, mentally, and financially fit. He doesn’t worry about what to do next, he just follows the plan and trusts the results will follow!
As Edward said, “Everything you do, everything you’ve done—be thankful for the things you have and be thankful for the people around you. Because the way you start your day is going to carry over when you pick up the phone.”
Step 6: Have A Bad Day Backup Plan
Once you become a listing machine, you’ll feel a sense of control you’ve never experienced before. But you’ll still be human.
That means everyday won’t be your best day. When the machine “breaks down” and you fall out of your routine, or a bad call bombs your confidence, you’ll need a backup plan to “reboot” and refocus.
Edward recommends accountability reminders. He uses what he calls a “Who I Am” card, and says you should keep one with you wherever you go.
“There are always times when you’re challenged mentally,” Edward tells us. “Sometimes by the people around you—even people like your family. And when times get tough, you can pull out your ‘Who I Am’ card and read it. Remind yourself of you who you are so when you’re done reading and you put your card away you can tell yourself, I know who I am.
On your card you might list positive phrases or meditations to remind yourself of your goals. Also, finding an “account-abili-buddy” is a great tactic you can use to reboot when the day breaks down.
Now you have two choices: stay stuck in the mud, or move on. It’s simple, but it’s not always easy.
Step 7: Activate Gratefulness
Listing machines are not robots. They are real estate agents who know how to visualize the future and connect today’s actions with tomorrow’s results. That’s what makes this next step so critical. By activating gratefulness you find the happiness in your life now so you can prospect your way to the future happiness you desire.
Edward does this by keeping what he calls a “Mindset Journal.” When he gets to the office at 7:00 each morning, the first thing he does is write down ten things he’s grateful for. Family, friends, and good health are a few things he writes down in his journal before he starts prospecting.
“After I write in my journal,” Edward remarks, “I set that aside and I do a lot of visualization and meditation. I visualize me getting on the phone and making sure I’m good to start dialing. Because the reality is if I’m not okay in my mind, it’s going to transfer to my phone calls.”
Every well-trained and coached prospector activates gratefulness as part of their pre-prospecting routine. They do it because the positive mindset they create carries to their calls, which gets them more listing appointments.
Step 8: Learn Like The Terminator
Do you know how Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes intelligent? Learning machines get smart the same way real estate agents do: repetition and practice. That’s why practicing your scripts and objections is the next step to becoming a listing machine.
In Edward’s world, he continues from the last step (Activating Gratefulness) with a 15-30 minute session of script practice with a roleplay partner.
He recommends working with different practice partners each week. Edward rotates between five different partners, finding new ones every two months to avoid getting comfortable with any specific person.
Edward says finding practice partners can be difficult, but pays off with how much he learns from different agents.
On days when you don’t have anyone to practice with, it’s okay to practice your scripts by yourself. “Right before I get into my prospecting session, for two to three minutes, I just talk to myself,” says Edward. “That’s my zen time. Because I understand the game.”
Step 9: Get Your Lead Stack Right
Real estate is a numbers game. But unlike gambling, how the odds play out is in your control. Top prospectors know this and use “lead stacking” to improve their odds. They know how to stack the deck in their favor and control the game.
If the term “lead stacking” is new to you, it refers to the order in which you call different lead types based on the probability of contacting homeowners, and your ability to set a listing appointment.
Edward stacks his leads like this:
Brand new Expireds and FSBO leads (30-45 min.)
Statistically, he knows one-third will set an appointment with the first skilled agent they speak to.
Expireds and FSBO leads less than one week old (1 hr.)
He relies on Vortex Lead Manager to automatically filter out relisted properties.
Hot Leads (1 hr.)
These are people he’s had a bonafide conversation with about buying or selling a home in the next 30 days.
GeoLeads (1-3 hrs.)
When Edward needs more leads to hit his daily conversation goal, he turns to GeoLeads and a Just Listed/Just Sold script.
Edward’s lead stack didn’t start this way. It evolved over time. When he was new to prospecting and cold calling, he did circle prospecting, then his Sphere of Influence, and that’s it. Later, as his skills improved, his coach added Expired and FSBO leads to his stack.
As you discover higher performing call times and your appointment setting skills improve, your lead stack will change. Evolving your lead stack is an essential step to becoming a listing machine.
Step 10: Be The First Caller
The previous step explained how to stack the odds of getting a listing appointment in your favor. This step further increases those odds. To get these enhanced results, you must discover your market’s optimal call times so you can be the first caller.
At first, start your prospecting sessions at the time you listed in step 5 (Stick To A Daily Routine). If you repeatedly find you’re the 3th, 5th, or even the 10th agent calling that morning alone, you should adjust your start time.
Because every market has a “best” and “worst” time to call. The best time to call might be earlier or later, depending on which market you prospect. This is where you need to test different times (while obeying the law, of course).
Try shifting your call time back or forward by 30 minutes, then try this new start time for five days. If you find your new time does not generate more conversations, shift your time 30 minutes in the other direction (from your original start time).
Also bear in mind your market’s optimal call time may depend on seasonality. For instance, homes located in popular school zones are influenced by summer and winter holidays, so it’s worth uncovering one or two “timing factors” in the areas you prospect.
Knowing your market’s optimal call times will give you a significant competitive advantage. It can render your competition irrelevant. By the time they call, you already have the appointment.
Step 11: Make Money Like Google
70% of Google’s $100 billion in sales comes from advertising. One thing that makes this possible is tracking. Every time you click an ad, Google tracks where you came from and where you go. They crunch this data and leave competing search engines behind.
Isn’t this what you want?… An uncontestable approach to making money? Google does it by tracking clicks. You can do it by tracking calls, and you don’t need billion dollar supercomputers to do it.
Edward recommends using a spreadsheet to track calls, so you don’t have to do the math. Then, for the next two weeks, let the spreadsheet track your ratio of seller leads to contacts, contacts to appointments, and appointments to listings.
At the end of the two weeks, review your data with your coach or broker (from Step 4). You will discover where to improve, as well as how many calls are needed to hit your goals (outlined in Step 3).
When Edward began tracking his numbers, he would set 1 appointment for every 55 contacts. After tracking and reviewing his metrics with a coach, he averaged 1 appointment for every 21 contacts, a near 100% improvement.
So you want be a listing machine? You must act like one. Edward tells fellow agents, “Do you know your numbers? Do you know exactly where your business is coming from? If your answer is ‘no’, how do you own a business?”
Step 12: Find Unlimited Lead Sources
Can you image a phone that never runs out of power? How about a car that never runs out of fuel? What about an agent who never runs out of listings? Science is still working on the first two, but some real estate agents have already found the secret to unlimited listings.
It’s hard to become (or stay) a listing machine without an unlimited source of seller leads. Leads are the fuel, and your commitment to a daily prospecting routine (Step 5) is the combustion chamber.
The reason prospectors like Edward never run out of listings, even when market conditions change, is they know how to tap and adapt to new lead sources. In other words, they change their fuel, they change their scripts, and they stick to their routine and their goals.
“When I’m low on contacts and need to speed up my calling session, I turn to my GeoLeads. I choose any area, drop a pin, and start dialing. Don’t worry about the specific information, you get that as you go into the phone call. Go with the positive mindset to help someone and you’ll find success along the way.”
Like renewable energy sources, top prospectors like Edward enjoy a sustainable and predictable business because they know how to fuel their prospecting no matter the market conditions.
Step 13: Project Power (Benevolently)
Type “what is power” into Google and you’ll see it defined as, “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events”. As a real estate agent, you need power and have two ways to project it: aggressively or benevolently.
For real estate agents it’s hard to apply an aggressive approach, because initially your prospects have all the power. They can simply hang up the phone or close the door. Opportunity over. That makes a benevolent approach your best choice.
However, to project power you must first gain it.
Edward says, “When I’m on a call, I don’t go in with the intention of what I can do with this person, I go with the intention of how I can help this person. I often don’t know who they are or what they might want. I don’t even know if they’re going to pick up the phone or not. But it doesn’t matter – you get that information as you get into the call”.
Remember, you’re the one asking for their time, not the other way around. You must gauge their psychology and adapt your words to the context of their situation. Let your prospects express any frustrations, then you can lead them in a more positive direction
A Challenge To You
Most real estate agents want fast results at no cost, and don’t want to do the work it takes to become a listing machine. The risk agents like this face is, when market conditions change, they haven’t developed the skills and mindset needed to survive.
These 13 steps are a hedge against an unpredictable future. They work in a buyer’s market, a seller’s market, and apply no matter where you work. They are timeless steps thousands of prospectors have taken to secure long-lasting careers.
The challenge to you is to take out a piece of paper, go through each step, and write down one element you can apply now. You should have a list of at least 13 ideas (one from each step) you can start with today.
With that in mind, just reading this article is not enough. You must do something to put these steps into practice for you.
If you have any of your own “prospecting hacks” you’d like to share, or any questions about the 13 steps to becoming a listing machine, please comment below.
*REDX maintains the position that all agents should be compliant with state and federal telecom laws. Learn more here.
About REDX
REDX offers real estate professionals a complete all-in-one prospecting platform for generating listing appointments. The platform includes seller leads, a dialer with up to three lines, and a lead management tool for simple follow-up. REDX maintains the position that all agents should be compliant with state and federal telecom laws – learn more here. Call (800) 731-7339 option 1 to learn more about prospecting FSBOs, Expireds, FRBOs, Pre Foreclosures, GeoLeads, and our Power Dialer – or visit www.redx.com
