We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
We Are Selling is a weekly podcast about real estate, business and tackling life's challenges. Hosted by renowned real estate industry coach, Lee Woodward, learn from experts in their field and maximise your life.
We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
184 - The 24-Month Money Machine: When Patience Pays Off in Real Estate
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The secret to real estate success lies in systematically nurturing your "warm" leads over time, rather than just chasing new business. Adam Joske returns to share strategies for converting potential clients who aren't ready to sell immediately into future listings through consistent, value-added communication.
• The industry-wide gap between handling "hot" leads (immediate sellers) and maintaining cold databases, with most agents neglecting "warm" leads (6-24 months away from selling)
• Why clients forget even exceptional agents after the initial appraisal meeting
• The problem with "checking in" calls and why they make potential vendors feel pressured
• Building a library of 30-40 valuable touchpoints combining calls, emails, and text messages
• Specific touchpoint ideas, including local development updates, conveyancer referrals, and director calls
• Creating educational resources like knowledge books on topics from styling to self-managed super funds
• Implementing a systematic monthly time-blocking approach to nurture 100+ warm leads
• How converting just a portion of your warm lead database can yield 30-50 additional listings annually
Block out the first Tuesday of every month from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. to work through your warm lead list with meaningful touchpoints. After 24 months of consistent communication, it becomes very difficult for potential vendors not to choose you when they're ready to sell.
Hosted by Lee Woodward
Proudly brought to you by Lee Woodward Training Systems.
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast we Are Selling, brought to you by the Complete Salesperson Course and our Super Coaching Program. Speaking of coaching, only two episodes ago we had the amazing Adam Joski join us and we did a coach-to-coach session and we had such a response to that session and one part of that session that today he's back by popular demand and we're going to discuss the follow-up, the follow-on, the sequence that gets you the nurturing to actually convert leads that aren't convertible when you first meet them. Please welcome back to the program, mr Adam Joski. Adam, welcome back.
Speaker 2:Thank you again, Lee. It feels like only yesterday.
Speaker 1:I know and, adam, it was one of the best downloaded podcasts we've had, which is congratulations to your content and level of information. And today we're going to do one point we touched on and that point is this just for our listener all around the world, and that point is this just for our listener all around the world. When you go out to win business, if the business is winnable and Adam brought this up in his great example that he goes up against a certain competitor when he was listing and selling, and if it was game on, they're going to list in the next few days, it's a 50-50 chance. If it's not and it's going to be six months from now, adam would go into that 90-95, 100% chance because the competitor didn't have the nurturing program or the winning sequence after, say, a six-week period, which is anyone can do that.
Speaker 1:But how do you put in a system in place so nothing falls through the cracks and the leakage of your business is not your biggest challenge? Because when you lose that one, you've just bought yourself another hundred cold calls chasing strangers hours and hours, and hours and hours. Yet you had the grand final moment and it didn't go any further. So, adam, that's our brief for you today and it was great for you and I to chat off air from the response to the podcast. But take us into it. What's your views on this and what was your personal sequence?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, lee. I think the long and short of it is. I've discovered working with literally hundreds of clients. You said to me that you've seen the same thing and that is, everyone has their hot, warm and cold list and many are good with the hot and the hot list is your prospective vendor that might list in, like you say, six weeks or possibly up to three months. Some are okay with the cold and really the cold is your general database nurturing where you might send information just listed and just sold and newsletters and market reports.
Speaker 2:But we've identified that, that warm list or that warm period, which is different for each agent, but for me it's sort of six months or even four months, up until about two years. That's where we see that leakage that you talk about and I think what that's about and again, you and I have discussed this where we see agents going in doing an appraisal, spending an hour there, spending another half an hour on prep, driving there, driving back. It's a two and a half three hour exercise. The client says, well, I'm not going to sell for 12 months and they don't know what to do in that period. A lot of the clients that I work with they say to me well, I want to double or triple in my income. What shall I do? And invariably, my first response is get that right. Because to go into an appraisal for someone who's definitely selling, build that beautiful relationship they're all so good at in terms of building rapport and then not speaking to them again, but always chasing new business, to me is the definition of insanity.
Speaker 1:Couldn't agree more because you're right all the preps done, the proposals, the pre-listing kits, there's this massive song and dance without an understanding of the current situation. So our agents are doing the same spin for every single one and I don't mind that, because sometimes we've all had that situation where someone says do you know what Stuff it we're going to go on the market and you can excite someone into let's do it now. Why are we waiting? Why would you wait 12 months when you could do it now? Can you afford not to sell now? And sometimes you can break through in that situation. But when you don't, what do you find is the duration of follow-up and what are the assets, conversations, drop-offs that you would use?
Speaker 2:assets, conversations, drop-offs that you would use, yeah, so look, the first thing that I'll say to you is I've met many, many agents that have gone in and done that appraisal. They haven't been able to, as you say, convert it to an immediate seller. That vendor might be a year away, a year and a half away. Another agent's board goes up and then you find the agent kicks and screams and says well, I've got on so well with that vendor, why the hell didn't they call me?
Speaker 2:And what I've discovered over the years and I was very much guilty of this as an agent is we think the client's going to remember us, but they don't. And when we see another agent's board 12 months later, we're in disbelief that we didn't get a call in. And I say that it doesn't matter how good the agent is, they're not that memorable. And to me, for that warm period, you're not going to get a listing based on your listing presentation. It doesn't matter how good it is. I think that they forget over time how good it is. To me, you're going to get a listing based on those activities that you do in the meantime.
Speaker 1:Adam couldn't agree more again, and when I was working with Lisa Novak, this came up as she used the words I want to be unforgettable and her internal training program is called Unforgettable. But even for Lisa, she's seen that situation where they do a lot of digital appraisals so they're not physically getting in and as you know, adam, with the price updates you're sending stuff out all the time, which is a great part of your sequence and for most people in the country right now they will get someone on a price update and then it's six months before the next one. Six months. There's got to be movement in that time. You can't just rely on the digital link going out. They're great at the digital link with the recent sales or the surrounding sales, but you've also got to have interest in their situation.
Speaker 1:Education-based marketing is based off that. Adam, in your scenario and I'll be showing your report to people all around the country, as I do you had the weatherboard report for your suburb, then you had the semi-detached dwellings for your area and because it was targeted, I think that tailored, nurtured approach showed that difference of I'm an agent, everything's real estate too. I'm just talking to you about Weatherboard at this point. What else was your assets and movements in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, to me there's two types of marketing. There's the marketing that you're talking about, which is really around listings, and sales market activity. Then I think the second part of that is what I correctly or incorrectly call content marketing, and I think that's where agents are falling down. I think, just before I move into that and maybe give you some examples of what the best agents are doing, I think that when you're calling a vendor, a respective vendor, through this period of decision making, there must be a call about something and something of value.
Speaker 2:And when I'm talking about something of value, it's and I'm not just talking about calls as well. I'm talking about calls, emails, smss, really, because it's about combining those three methods. You can't just call all the time. You need to find a balance between different mediums, but there must be some value added where you're giving them something. And there must be some value added where you're making them smarter by informing them about something they didn't already know.
Speaker 2:And I'm finding too many agents are calling and doing the check-in. They're doing the check-in, they're touching base, they're seeing what the vendor is up to, they're seeing if the vendor has got any questions, and I find that when agents make this call without any value add, it actually makes the client feel uncomfortable. They feel pressured and I think that for agents who are doing that more times than not, the vendor on the other end of the phone is actually thinking to themselves. Well, I told you I wasn't ready to sell for six months. Why are you calling me now and checking in? I've got nothing to say. I feel pressured from you, so I think this is around contacting them regularly will lose the business If it's not a client information call where it's?
Speaker 1:Adam Lee from Bailey's just to call to let you know there's been an Audi approved four streets from you. They've taken up the big corner site, which is an exciting part for the suburb. As they do so much research before deciding where they're going to be, I just thought I'd let you know. That's going to have a good effect on our pricing in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's brilliant. I mean, that to me is telling me something that is actually something of interest, and I think that, and to do that, rather than the check-in call, you're actually telling me something that I want to know, and I think once you've done that, you've then actually earned the right to say well, has anything changed in your situation? You said you were looking at selling in six months' time, in June next year. Is that still the case? Is there anything you need? Can I help with anything? But it's not until you actually give them something that to me, you've actually earned that right to ask that question.
Speaker 1:And this is where we need a list of a just to let you know calls because you can let them know that a listing's just gone on with a competitor two streets behind them. Just letting you know once that's sold I'll keep you in the loop because it's going to be a good indicator for us in the market. Just to let you know could be a council approval. Just to let you know it's a zone. Just to let you know we've just sold one virtually identical in its features to yours. Obviously, the outside look and feels slightly different and it went for this amount of money. And just to let you know if you can build a reasons to call this. Just to let you know that would be a great outcome from this podcast today.
Speaker 2:Reasons to call this just to let you know that would be a great outcome from this podcast today. Oh, I love that and really I think yeah, that's a lead on to what I was going to say next, which is, you know, I think that the best agents that I've seen that at nurturing this warm period, they actually have a library of content. They have a library of content that is there at their fingertips that they can use at any point. I'll give an example right, if one of the library of content material might be referring a conveyancer so you can get the contract and everything else and everything organized. Now how good would it be if, after a number of months, you could call up the client and say hey, lee, adam, here from ABC Real Estate. I was just thinking about you because I just sold a property yesterday and these people actually used the conveyancer and they actually blew my mind. They were so responsive, they were incredibly well-priced, they had everything organized very quickly and accurately. And I was just thinking about you and I know you're not ready to sell for six months. You made that very, very clear. And I was just thinking about you and I know you're not ready to sell for six months. You made that very, very clear, and I think that's really important as well is to make it very clear that you've understood their instruction. But, lee, I just thought of you, this conveyance, it was fantastic. I know you're not ready to sell, but, look, I thought I'd send on their details because when you are ready to sell, in six months at least you'll have someone there. So if it's okay, can I just send you an email with that information? These are the sort of touch points that I'm talking about. We're actually fixing problems, coming up with solutions. You touched on past sales, past listings. There's articles, interest rates dropped last week. There could be some great commentary around that.
Speaker 2:So many things you can do when chasing a listing A Saturday call after your inspections or a short text message to say I had a great weekend, met 62 people and sold three auctions. It was a great weekend. Just so I'd let you know that the market is moving along. Sending testimonials, getting a past vendor I just sold something yesterday. Why don't I get that past vendor to call you as their prospective vendor and say how was your experience with Adam? Tell them all about the experience. Try and gain that trust. There's just so many things you can do Send videos, examples of property videos that you might have sent.
Speaker 2:This is a big one and this is one that I love, lee, that I think I might have shared with you before, and I call it the director call, and I think it's probably just about the most important thing you can do in chasing a listing. You know you're chasing a listing. Get your director to call and for the director of the office to call and say Lee, I know you're speaking with John, our salesperson, who came and saw you. John is absolutely amazing, he's fantastic, he's a great agent, been with us a long time. So you're always reinforcing that John's a great agent.
Speaker 2:But I just wanted to let you know that I'm here If you ever need anything at all. You're very important to us. You're a VIP client and always at the end of the phone, and just that phone call alone. It's a great touchpoint in that warm period and it's a great touchpoint straight after an appraisal, even for a hot seller who's thinking about selling. Just to do that alone. And the other thing that that director call does is for a director to be able to say to you Lee, is there anything that John missed out? Is there any information you're waiting for John. Do you think you'd sell with John at the right time? It's amazing how much they'll uncover, because the director will pick up stuff that the client may not necessarily tell you in fear of offending you or something.
Speaker 1:So there's so much you can do, adam that used to happen to me beautifully, so direct to call, I called it the management escalation call. But my principal would call and they would one just love that he'd reached out to say hello. But we'd have situations on would have been two or three times that he'd be making calls on my behalf and they'd say, look, lee was great, we really like Lee. We've decided this time we want a female agent and we had some great girls in the office and we could save that versus we see it listed with somebody else and it's a female agent, keep it in the office and we could save that versus we see it listed with somebody else and it's a female agent, keep it in the family. But to not know and a different voice is so powerful. So I love everything you've just said. Then, Definitely we're achieving our clarity today of giving this sequence of what do you do when you don't just ring and say have you made a decision yet? So unpacking that I bet you actually just been down in your neck of the woods.
Speaker 1:I'm looking after the Barry Plant group at the moment and we just launched two things for them. One was a series of knowledge books, so these are very small, micro magazine, high quality booklets that you can drop off, and we're about to do the digital version of that. That will live on their website under the tab advice. When people go to your website they're looking for advice. But I was able to and I've written these documents in the past for many people and although it's a templated conversation, the actual subjects are incredible. So in the series for that of the drop-offs or the digital links, you've got 101 tips for presenting your home for sale and that goes through a checklist for them. Then there's another one and Barry Plant's done stunning graphics and photography right through these booklets. They look perfect. The second topic was dealing with divorce life spaces, so people moving into a lifestyle village sorry, people moving into a vertical community. Then we also did maintaining, preparing your home for profit, so those that want to get stuck into the house and go down to Bunnings and get it all fixed up, that's an exciting time for them.
Speaker 1:Selling in unexpected circumstances this happens a lot to families, but something no one was expecting happens and no one was expecting happens and no one knows what to do. No one knows who the solicitor is and where the wills are. Styling your home was another one of the booklets, my favorite was the new Australian dream, which is how to purchase property with a self-managed super fund. That would solve our housing crisis if people understood that. And then your greatest move is the one that allows you to move into a lifestyle village. So they've got these little drop-off booklets.
Speaker 1:I can't wait for the digital links to be done, because on your website you've got this. Your website's your home turf and I'll give this tip to everyone If you can have this great knowledge, this advice there. Whenever you're on the phone to someone say, look, at the end of this phone call I'm going to shoot you a link and it's got everything you need to know about moving into a lifestyle village or dealing with divorce. But you just text the link but they're back on your main site where they may want to book an appraisal. But it means you're not updating all these separate links all the time. You're using your site as the master file.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great, love that. And there's so much you can do. I mean, you can, you know, with Barry Plans system. Obviously they've created this system for this process. I mean they can just keep going forever. You know spring cleaning and gardening tips and, like you said, styling advice and you know testimonials and market reports. There's just so much you can do.
Speaker 2:In fact, we worked with an agent the other day and they said to me I want to send this prospective vendor something. I don't want to put pressure on them. I've run out of things to send. I've done absolutely everything and we brainstormed it together. We thought why don't you just send them a copy of the agreement, a blank copy of the agreement, and just to cover email saying Hi, john and Mary, as you'll be selling shortly, thought I'd send you a blank copy of the agreement, so you're very familiar with what you signed. Doesn't matter whatever agent you pick, let me know if I can help anymore. And just little activities like that, just building trust and, like we said earlier, connecting with something of value, is just so important. And I think for any agent, you know if he can compile that library of 20, 30, 40 touch points, much like what Barry Planter obviously worked on, which is brilliant. It's just such an easy system to run. You know, this agent also said to me and I'll just talk about this also said to me I've done absolutely everything.
Speaker 2:And I think that it's a very dangerous statement to make when you say I've done absolutely everything, because I think that, going back to our last session, that we did, which was traits of the greats. I don't think the great agents ever use that sort of language. I think they use the language of you know what else can I do? We've talked about director calls and videos and sending authorities and past this, and I think that the best people are always looking at what else can I do, and then when they lose, they look at it and they go.
Speaker 2:Well, out of the 30 or 40 touch points, how many have I actually done? And the answer might be 10. Well, there's another 20 or 30 that you could have touched these people with and solidified the relationship. So that I've done everything. I think is a very dangerous move and I think that if there are directors listening to your show, I think that the best advice I can give is to absolutely ban that sort of language from your office, because it does breed complacency. You know, as soon as you say that it's almost like well, it's finite and it's finished, you know we've done everything. We've either got it or lost it.
Speaker 1:I agree. You know that statement I'll say to people all the time how's that serving you? They go. What do you mean? How's that serving you? And they go. What do you mean? Go well, you keep saying it and what does it do for you? Whereas you know, if you and I walked into a coffee shop today to have lunch together, we'd look at the menu and then you'd pick something. So at the end of this audio, go back through it, listen to everything.
Speaker 1:Make your master menu of things you can do to reach out to people. I used to do that. I had a menu of things that I would do. I call it my chip and chase chart, because this game is about chip and chase and I think, okay, that one. There. They said this, this and this. What could I do for them? I know what I could do for them.
Speaker 1:I mentioned to them there's a chance that someone from overseas returning back to Australia may want to buy it and it would be good for us to get a rental certificate. So I'm going to ring up and say hi, helen. I just was speaking to my property managers today and market's going really, really well. There's nothing out there for rent at the moment. So that's pushed the numbers up. Would you be okay if I was to bring over Rosie and she's going to do a rental certificate and now's just the peak time to get it? But if I've to bring over Rosie and she's going to do a rental certificate and now it's just the peak time to get it, but if I've got that on file, that'll be a great thing.
Speaker 1:And if someone asks me Lee, have you got something in this area? We're going to rent it out for a couple of years and I can actually say look, I did a rental certificate on one the other day. It's not on the market. I could reach out to the owners. But for yourselves, john and Helen, you were mentioning about possibly buying land and building. What if you stayed the tenant for a period of time? But you had the money? So suddenly there's this different conversation going on. But if they say, oh, lee, pop over whenever you need to, that is your best indication of the success you're going to have in that relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that and what a great idea. I mean, what a great thing to add to the library, getting your property manager through there. It gives you another excuse to get in the door. Your property manager is going to go and absolutely rave about you and the firm. What a great way of, like you say, solidifying and getting that listing.
Speaker 1:It's brilliant and I think this becomes an important part of database management. You can't just have this whole big bucket of people in there and, adam, you were very good at categorizing those. What was your categories and how did you treat those different categories?
Speaker 2:That's an interesting question because I think that when you're going through a really high level with database management, you'll end up with a good 20 or 30 categories. I can talk about this forever, Lee, but maybe this is another session that we can do around database management in general. I think we're talking today about the warm choice. It's a whole other conversation.
Speaker 1:It is, and knowing what they are means you build programs for the category, and I think that's a huge part of winning in this particular game, in what we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think when we're talking about the warm choice, I think you asked me earlier or alluded to what's the system around it, and I think that to me it's pretty simple. I mean, if people are running those two lists the hot list and then the warm list invariably what will happen with an agent is they might have 20 or 30 prospective vendors on that hot list and that hot list, as you say, is maybe up to three months or six months and the agent's constantly looking at it all the time, every day. They're scouring over what can I do today to secure this listing? Typically, that warm list might have the typical warm list that I'll work with clients on might have 100 people on it. It's every appraisal you're doing that might transact in the next 24 months and the system around it is so simple. I say to these agents categorize these people. You're talking about categories. Categorize these people in your CRM as a warm seller. Make sure that all the junk is out of that so you're not compiling a whole lot of people in warm seller category that are not actually warm sellers. But be accurate in categorizing these people. And to me it's very simple Pick a day of the month Someone's not selling for 24 months.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say, okay, the first Tuesday of every month, which is when the Reserve Bank meet, I'm going to block out my diary from 8am until 1pm. So there's four hours. Sorry, that's five hours. So you got five hours there. It's a matter of taking those 100 in your warm list and going through that list one by one and saying, right, I've got these 30 or 40 touchpoint ideas in my library. Which one's relevant for these people?
Speaker 2:I'm going to do one activity with each of those people, with each of those 100 people that are now into my warm list, because I've done 100 appraisals or over 100 appraisals for that particular year. So it's not a difficult process. Now, after 24 months, if you just time, block that first Tuesday of every month or whatever works for you, spend that four or five hours and do one activity with each of those 100 people. After 24 months, you've now had 24 quality communications with these people, and it's probably going to be more, because you're going to send stuff and they're going to reply and say thanks very much, what do you think of this? And, organically, it's going to start a conversation anyway. So it's going to be a lot more than 24 because it's going to be a two-way conversation. But if you just did that, you've got 24 communications versus just sending a six-month report or something. I mean, it's going to be very difficult for you not to get that listing in 24 months' time.
Speaker 1:You're so right. And then there's the feeder to those categories. So if you look at the top 10 places where data come from, you've got your service area and those people don't really know you and that's why you're doing area promotions and so forth. But then you've got your advocates. You've got those people that are pushing your name out there all the time. So they need their contact because they feed into the funnel. You've got your contacts, but you're still going to need your sendable items and assets that you send. Then you've got your people that are potential vendors because they're on the updates and that's where your categories come in.
Speaker 1:But how many appraisals are sitting out there for unsigned business? What's that number? And people go I don't know that number. But if you knew the number you'd have a list. If you had a list you'd apply yourself. You know what you've got listed. You know how many buyers you've got. You know how many you've sold. And then the other number they don't know is the established client number. How many established clients have you got? You start to blend all that together. There's no time to cold call.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you think about it, if an agent's doing, you know, let's talk about an average agent in Australia right, An average agent might be doing two appraisals a week. Let's call it two to three. So you've got 100 to 150 appraisals. You've done for the year Now 100 to 150 appraisals you've done for the year. Now, let's say, a third of those, let's call it 150. Let's say a third of those have actually transacted. The other two-thirds and I think this is probably a reasonably accurate number the other two-thirds are not quite ready. They're in that warm list or they might be warm to cold. But imagine if you've got 100 of those and every month you're doing something with these people, something that's targeted, that's quality communication, because you've time blocked, the time aside. How can you not in 24 months? If you list half of them, if you list a third of them, well, there's 30 to 50 listings and you're not doing any more activity. All you're doing is nurturing that warm prospect.
Speaker 1:And that's the word. Adam. We could have relabeled this program to the nurturing sequence, but people are prospecting to get one now because the pressure's on. There's a big gap in the middle. There's no nurture. But if that one thing was corrected and this one audio could correct that for you from the actions that you need to take and then attend the courses that you've been resisting doing because you think everything's the same out there and it's not. But I think today has been a brilliant example. And, Adam, I want to thank you for coming back on the program. It was very, very short notice and you agreed to come back on and we absolutely love having you on the program we are selling.
Speaker 2:Thanks, lee, it was great.