KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Farming for a Lifetime Supply of Leads & Listings with Wilson Leung

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

Welcome back, Real Estate Rockstars. I'm Shelby Johnson, and today I'm here with Wilson Leung out of San Francisco, California. He has been in the real estate game since he was 16 years old. He's 35 now. But he's been licensed since 2010, started his team in 2014. And this past year, the team closed 82 units and just under $100 million in volume. And half of those were listings. And the cool thing, one of the cool things about Wilson is that he is still the primary listing agent on his. team. You know, he built it up so much that, you know, a lot of us are familiar with the seven levels and the seventh being, you know, you're out of the business, really. But he chose to stay in the business and still doing listings and a lot of interaction with his team. So today, we are going to go deep into farming and into his actions as a listing agent, getting super into the nitty-gritty, really tactical, what to say, how to win, all of those things. So, Wilson, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I look forward to sharing what I can to help the agents listening.

And thank you so much for the great intro. Dude, of course. Let's freaking go. Okay, Wilson, you got into the game when you were 16. How did, how, why real estate? What is, tell us a little bit about your journey. I know we got like 20 years to cover here. So you pick and choose what's important. Yeah, so I'll give you to bullet points so we can make it the TLDR version. 16. I was a property manager for my parents. My parents were in a, you know, their own businesses. They traded seafood. We traveled down to Mexico to ship things to Hong Kong and China. And that showed me that if you take risk, and it was a capital intensive business, but most

importantly, if you take risk and you do things that are unorthodox, you can succeed and you can control your income and how you spend your time as much as there are sacrifices and there are risk along the way. So they eventually sunset the business and because I got early exposure in property management, when I was 21 and I graduated from college, I got my broker's license at that time in California. You can go straight for the broker's license. And when I turned 22, I started full time in real estate sales. Now, I think the part of the story that most people don't know is I'm an introvert. I have no sales skills. I never worked the W2 outside of helping my parents in business. So it was a very rough, quote unquote, you know, start or, um, uh,

beginning for my career. And it took me a lot of time to figure things out, um, just because I, I, I was so raw in a sense that I had no sales skills. I, but I knew real estate. I, I managed it. Um, and, you know, here we are. 13, 14. years later in this sales business being licensed. Oh my gosh. So having being an introvert with no sales skills, did you build your business based on the farming that we're going to talk about today? Or how did you originally build it? When I started, I did not believe in cold prospecting, but my belief held me back from early success because let's be real. I think a lot of people starting in their early 20s, their friend groups are not quite ready to purchase or sell yet.

in fact, don't have anything to sell unless they were lucky enough to inherit something, right? And their parents are not going to be convinced by, you know, their kids who are, you know, young adults to convey a message to work with me. Totally. So, yeah. The quicker that I realized that I needed to go out there and put myself out there and find cold and convert cold business, that's the only, that's like one of the main ways I was able to succeed. So I had to grow up quick in this business to be. be able to succeed. I think that's a really cool point, too, just because I know agents are not into cold.

Most of them are not into cold. You know, they just think that they can post one time on social media and all the leads. You know, all of their mass amounts of followers will just come out of the sky and be like, yes, please, let me help you. You know, I want to work with you. So that realization early is very interesting, especially being an introvert because tackling conversations is just a whole other level of difficulty when you are an introvert. And I know this.

I'm married to one. And so I hear the dialogue that happens. So getting starting out, when you say you had to find and convert bold business, was it farming? Or like, walk us through it. Yes. I think you'll uncover some things that I say that I think will help agents listening to this if they're starting their career or if you're considering farming. I Mojo Dialed before I farmed and I Circle Prospected with Mojo Dialer.

And I was able to get a lot of nurtures and I would mail these people. Yet, as much as I followed a system to create a database, so to say, from circle dialing, what I realized was after those interactions, if I go out and farmed, which I tried eventually, that face-to-face interaction, even if I didn't capture that person's contact information, was so much more impactful because I had the face-to-face versus over-to-phone, just a voice, and sending a piece of mail, and it costing me some money. So I did call calling for a good year. I added 800 people to my database for follow-up opportunities because I always asked for that.

I never just went for the close of, hey, do you want to sell? Of course, I asked in an indirect way, but my goal wasn't to get a ready. willing able seller at that very moment. My goal was actually to build a database because as we say in this industry, the quality and quantity of the people in your database will dictate your success. And of course, there's follow-up campaigns and there's things that you do to keep in front of your people. But ultimately, that's why database was so important for me early on my career. And what I realized was the database I was building that was based by coal calling was less quality than the people I met face to face in person and the farm, as much as in the beginning

of my career, I believed, and I think a lot of people have this limited belief that, hey, people don't want to talk to you in the neighborhood. Why are you here? You don't belong. Why are you walking up and down my driveway? But what you'll realize, and we can dive deeper into this is the more you present yourself as you belong and you are a part of the neighborhood and you're providing value and you should be walking up to the driveway up to the door, that they will also accept. They will reciprocate because they assume that you are a part of the neighborhood. So a lot of it starts into mind and then it shows up in your body language and your language.

And of course, there's still going to be nasty people. We've all encountered them regardless of prospecting method. And that's just a part of it. We have to find peace in the fact that that's going to happen. But it's so rewarding when you are able to be. bright in someone's day because let's say it's someone that doesn't have family living anymore. It's an empty nester. Maybe one spouse passed away. And you were the only conversation outside of going to the grocery store at a post office that they had, how much of an impact can we have,

even if it's just a high buy relationship? They will remember you. And that's why farming is so effective. That's beautiful, Wilson. Okay, I would love, let's go deep. Let's go deep into farming. And I think I would love to start with your definition of farming. Because, you know, some people are like, oh, it's door knocking a neighborhood. Some people, it's like mailers. So what is farming to you? Farming is an all-encompassing topic of creating mindshare with a group of people. So farming could be door-knocking 100 homes.

Farming could be canvassing 500 homes. Farming could be creating a catered list. of, you know, 55 plus with a lot of equity in their home. Like farming is anything that you are going to target, quote, unquote, to build relationships, but not just one time. Here's what's not farming to me. Farming is not, you get a listing and you knock five doors to the right, five doors to the left, and ten doors across the street. That is a one-time ordeal, and you're looking for gold instead of looking for the silver, looking for, uh, looking for, for other parts of that have value.

Building relationships take time, and yes, you will find gold along the way. Maybe one in 250 people you talk to is going to say, hey, yeah, Shelby, I'm ready to sell. But oftentimes we have to nurture these relationships way before to even suggest they are interested in selling. And if you adopt that mindset of building a relationship, taking priority over finding a listing today,

you're going to show up different, and they're going to be more accepting of your opportunity to follow up because you're going to give them something of value. Okay. Makes sense. How do I pick? Let's just do a hypothetical. You know, maybe in this market today that right now it's the very end of November, 2023, which means probably won't even come up until January, 2024.

Perfect. So if I want to get into farming for the first time, what are my considerations in regard to picking a farm? Yeah. let's just start there. Okay, perfect. So let's break down traditional farming, which we'll talk about, is a geographic location or a neighborhood. And there's two types of property types, at least in our area. There's going to be single family and there's going to be condos and townhomes. Most condos and townhomes have CCNRs in there that they have some sort of no solicitation kind of clause where if there's a shared entry for condos, you won't be able to get in any

If it's a gated community, you won't be able to get in any way. So I would say traditional farming, you typically also still want to target single-family homes. Resale homes are the best because most of the time people have varying degree of occupancy there. It's not completely new. And there's a huge kind of range of different people, different population that lives there. And with that variety, it actually makes it more fun too because you get to meet a lot of people. of people, but those are the ones that you likely could solicit. So what I'm suggesting is check your city and or your HOA rolls if you're farming a condor townhome. With that said, the turnover

rate for single-family residences across the board is going to be a bit less than condos in townhomes, which is fine. And with that, I would say the more affluent neighborhood, the larger to lots, the actually, the bigger the barrier to entry to farm a more affluent neighborhood, because they also probably had a couple of moves to get to that neighborhood. So my suggestion is if you start farming, unless you really love a neighborhood or you live in one, Shelby suggested the most important part is dissecting based on best practice as a business person. So what we did was we picked the non-affluent market that no one wanted to work because the barrier to entry was easier. The turnover rate was very similar.

In fact, I think a more entry-level single-family residence neighborhood has higher turnover than a final destination affluent neighborhood where people want to stay longer term because you're targeting a place that's a first-time purchase, but also they might have future aspirations, and it becomes a buy-sell situation for you as an agent. So the next part I would look at is ask your broker if they have access to broker metrics or do some research on the MLS to look for. if there's a consistent dominant agent in the pocket that you're looking for. Because there's two parts of getting a listing. It's getting the attention to get the call. And then the second part is converting the opportunity at the consultation. If you're going up against a prominent agent in your market, you might always get the call,

but you're always going to face the person that has been winning already for some time, which creates what I consider a uphill climb, where if you choose your farm correctly, you don't have to create the uphill climb for yourself. It could be easier. The friction could be less. So the most important thing I look for is first decide to type of property. I would suggest single family residence neighborhoods. Second, I would look at not just turnover because turnover is going to be similar across the board, but competition. Who is getting market share? So let's dissect that even further. If there's one person with 8% or more, that person's pretty dominant. That means they're getting about one in 10 transactions, one in 10 listings there. If there's three people getting about 10 percent and it's scattered across like three,

three, four, that's not bad. It doesn't, it means that there's not one person or one group or team that is taking too much market share. You want to look for a market that has pretty scattered representation when it comes to listings. That means no one's putting an effort. And let's say someone is putting an effort, they're not getting the business yet. And as you start farming, you'll start seeing who's leaving things behind. As you start building relationships with people in the farm, you'll start asking and they'll start saying these are the people that actually come out here, or maybe it's non-existent. So that's how it would start. And in terms of capacity, you can, in our neighborhoods, you can canvas about 75 to 80 doors per hour, which means you

leave something behind snug under a doormat or in between a doorknob or under the garage. Keep in mind, the mailboxes are the property of USPS, so we cannot put things in the mailboxes, right? But we can leave things snug, especially in our area, it gets really windy. So canvassing, you can do 75, 80 doors per hour. If you're actually knocking in our neighborhoods and having conversations, you'll probably do 25 plus or minus doors per hour. But your conversation rate will be higher per hour. And I'll stop there. Okay. I was like, I have questions.

Okay. So on this canvassing, are you, their lead behind? 75 to 80 doors an hour, are you actually trying to have a conversation? Are you knocking on the door at all? Really good question. If you're starting your farm, I think you'll build a bit more confidence by walking up and down the pathways and up to homes more frequently. And eventually, once you maybe do two, three pass-bys and drop-offs, you'll start building the confidence and familiarity with these properties where you might have said some in passing a high buy or or, hey, your garden looks great, or I love the paint color of your home, or, hey, I'm so curious what you've done, you know, when you did your roof because it looks great or whatever.

Or you're starting to notice the Christmas decorations right now it's December or early in the year. They might have different decorations and you might make comments and compliments to the people. In canvassing, you are not intentionally knocking on a door, but of course, if you do pass someone walking your dog or gardening or doing something, you are having those conversations. And I'll kind of break down. Yeah. Don't be worried and, you know, act like you're there and say, oh, shoot, someone's there. I don't want to talk to it. Yeah. I'll give you a really good idea. When you know when trash day is in your neighborhood, that's the best day to go because you can always offer help. They're not going to take your help. Like you can say, hey, do you need help with, you know, taking the bin in or taking the bin out? They're always going to say no, but it's almost like you start the conversation on a positive note and they're like, who's this stranger? And eventually they get to know you. And, you'll have more interactions per hour. Of course, knocking, it's more intentful. You'll have more conversations per hour,

but it's still highly efficient to canvas and leave things behind per door per hour, but you'll still have, I would say, six to eight conversations per hour, any time of a day, just canvassing. Okay, I have one more question on canvassing. What are we leaving behind? Really good question.

So as long as you always adopt the idea of leaving something of value behind, whether it's perceived at that moment because that content piece or that flyer is relevant for that person this month, next month. As long as your intention is always coming from, I'm trying to give value, eventually it will be received regardless of the piece. So let's talk about what it can be. The most basic is sold. The most basic is market data. Some of the not so obvious is planning updates in your city that you fish around for on a planning website because residents want to know what's going on where they live, especially if there's a new Safeway or a new supermarket coming up or they're converting,

you know, a shopping mall into a biotech facilities, and that's what's happening one of the cities that we serve. It might seem obvious to you because you're always looking at real estate news, but maybe not for the person that just watches news on TV or maybe is less kind of connected online. Other things that you could do that provide value are sports calendars. So three times a year, you know, in our area, it's the Golden State Warriors, it's a San Francisco 49ers, it is the San Francisco Giants. You know, schedules surprisingly are something that people really look forward to after doing this for many years. And I even get voicemail calls. saying, hey, I've been looking forward to this.

Thank you so much for dropping it off. It makes people's days, even though we know it's so convenient. We have it on our phone already. We can look at the schedule. Google tells us the moment we search our local team, if there's a game today, but it's surprising how much people appreciate something in physical form. And in talking about physical form,

the people that are more likely going to be your sellers are the older demographic that appreciates different things from, let's say, millennials and Gen Z. people, right? So we need to, you know, act and adopt methods that are catered to the demographic that we might be targeting. So study your demographics of your neighborhood, from competition to turnover rate, to absentee owner occupied rates, which averages about absentees 15 to 25% in any neighborhood, and, you know, age groups, and that way you can cater your value proposition a little bit better.

Okay. Earlier you mentioned, you know, this is the slow role. We're not necessarily looking for gold. We're looking for silver and, you know, other things of value relationships, right? And then based on my Instagram stalking before this, you did a video about farming, taking, you know, essentially nine months, which is a long time. And if we're doing canvassing, this is money, you know. So I'm starting out.

curious about budgeting for this canvassing and is nine months still the turnaround that we can expect those questions? I love the question because we need to set proper expectations with ourselves as agents on when we should expect results. Now, if you get a listing and you strike gold, so to say, within the first month of doing this, props to you, but that is probably far from what is, you know, common in our area. We live in a slightly higher priced area where people tend to stay longer than the national average, given it's so expensive to move all the time. But let's break down to nine months. Here's why it's nine months. Nine months means that's when you'll get your first paycheck, because here's what it looks like. Our average seller we studied

for our year, I think it was a couple years back, it took us from the moment of meeting the person, to signing a listing was six months. Each listing averages about one month of preparations. Each listing in our area takes two to three weeks to sell one or two days to negotiate, and a 30-day escrow takes us to four to five weeks again. So when we break down to nine months, in a average case scenario for our team, from a moment of meeting the client to getting a paycheck is nine months.

but let me kind of justify why it's still so worth it to understand this delayed gratification. Yes, you can work sellers at this time. If you're on a team or you have Zillow Flex or Zillow Premier or you're generating online leads, whatever method, they might convert at a faster pace. But here's what I can say about farming. I have not found another way to consistently get listings in a specific geographic location. Now, some people are going to argue the idea of, well, I can target FISBOS and Expireds in my market. That is true.

But FisBels and Expirits are so much more spread out than a micro-neighborhood of 500 homes. If you want to build a dominant presence in a small neighborhood, that is relationships and name recognition and branding for life for the rest of your career to get consistent listings. farming is one of the best ways to do that. So with that said, understand that nine months. It's a strong leg and very foundational piece of your business that you can have to have consistent listings. And it takes a little bit of time, but you should not just go all in. You should diversify your activities when it comes to lead generation.

So if you do have online leads, you know, maybe you do spend two to three hours a day following up and talking to the new contacts. that come in. But on a weekly basis, maybe spend two to three days or through windows of time, two to three hours farming. And depending on the size of your farm, it's either more or less time than that. Okay. Expectation managed, nine months to first paycheck. And in the meantime, we are also still closing any other possible business that could come away via other pillars within our marketing strategy. To loop back real quick to the budgeting part before, I, I want to keep going farming, but I just want to talk about if you had to manage your expectations up front with not just time, but also money, what would that look like?

We all start with more time or more money, right? When I started in my early 20s, I didn't have much money. So I had a lot of time. And that means I have to get very, you know, frugal or efficient with the budget that I did spend early on in someone's career, or even if you've you've been in the business for a while, you have more money to spend. If I were to restart, maybe that's the best way I can answer this question is I would print valuable information at my office and that way it's cost savings because I'm already paying my dues to my office and I would pass those out. Now, is it the most quality piece?

Is it card stock? Is it full print? It probably is not. But you have to start somewhere. And until you build the confidence with yourself that you're getting some sort of result, now here's another thing. You need to measure small wins because you're going to easily feel defeated or discouraged when you don't get that positive, yes, I'm thinking about selling, especially if that's not going to happen. That's not our expectation from farming. So you have to build a small win kind of, you need to measure your wins at a smaller increment, which is captures in your farming session, which is conversations per farming session. And even maybe in the beginning, it's you said you would do two hours and you did two hours.

Now go reward yourself and grab an afternoon cup of coffee or the Costco pizza that you crave. Like, go reward yourself. Build that, like, self-mechanism so that you are encouraged to do it again. Or, like, for example, it's a warm-up before you go to the gym because you're breaking sweat, walking, you know, speedwalking in the neighborhood, for example. So, but measure to small wins, and that's my kind of best advice, but start small, print at the office. Once you start justifying, you're getting results, then go to a local printer and print higher quality. Okay. And so over this time period, it's, you know, value first and basically canvassing, trying to have small conversations, you're working your way up to door knocking. And I guess other than we got canvassing, we got door knocking, what other things are we doing in the neighborhood? And when we start getting more comfortable with these conversations, are we at all? Like, can we walk through what the conversation looks like? Let's walk through the conversation. I'll answer your first question.

of what else are we doing. At this point, we have 10% market share. So that means that we always have listings and we always have signs and neighbors are coming in. We're inviting them to our open houses and twilight tours or champagne tours or wine and cheese tours. So we try to make it fun. So they constantly see our signs. They see us in person if they're able to make it. They're walking in the neighborhood. They pass by and they come into the home that we're hosting. The other things that we do are events. And this is probably not a new topic. but hosting your first event is probably the most friction, honestly, in your mind, more so than it is hosting it and putting it together. So on a yearly basis, we host two picnics, a spring

Easter picnic with an egg hunt. We also host a fall picnic back to school. We also do a shred day after tax season. And surprisingly, the people that appreciate shred day are typically adults that have paperwork that, you know, statute of limitations for whatever they've been saving is over. So they feel appropriate and they want it to safely shred. And they want to see it go in the truck and shred. And they actually appreciate that. And have fun. You can capture contacts from that. We also host a movie day. So we book out a one theater of 290. And we invite the neighbors. And it's usually a Disney or Pixar movie. So it's kid friendly. And we want families to come out. We make it as if it's a Disney event.

We dress up and we give goody bags. Everything that we do is making residents feel like, you know, we're supporting the community, bringing people together, and it's fun, and it's low, low expectation of, hey, we're real estate agents. That's, in fact, the third afterthought when they come show up for an event. So think about this. Nowadays, they get one postcard every two weeks. That's 24 touches.

That's prior to capturing their contact. information. They see our signs, A-frames for sale signs. They come to our open houses. There's two picnics. There's a before and after invitation. There's the actual event that they show up for. There's the shred day. There's the movie day. There's the invitation, the event and the post-event pictures that we distribute. And then now let's talk about you capturing people's contact information. They land in your database. There's a newsletter that goes out on a weekly basis created by our marketing manager. And then there's also a market update for their specific city or neighborhood that tells them what's going on, our prices going up, going down. And there's also, lastly, your manual

effort of calls and your manual updates that you give that are time sensitive. Let's say rates are, the Fed rate is going to drop. And that's the expectation in May. And you send it out before anyone knows about that. That's valuable. So there's so many touches. And that's not even including your canvassing efforts for net for me now. because I send postcards, but I also go out there and I give something of value such as sports calendars. They get so many touches. And there's no coincidence then that we have 10% market share. Now, are you going to have 10% market share when you start? Probably not. But you can build your way up. Do one event before you do it a second. Do one postcard a month before you do two postcards a month

and continue to reiterate and improve your value proposition. And eventually you're going to get the attention and people are going to think, hey, ring, ring, I raise my hand. Shelby, I'm thinking about selling. It seems like you do a lot of work here. And we can go into the role play if you want. I do. I love this. So we ask our guests to provide a tool for the listeners in toolbox. And I was curious, do you have like this? I mean, it feels very systematized. Do you have like your process for touches in any document that you would be comfortable sharing and maybe our listeners could to replicate within their own markets? What I can do is I can create a bullet pointed action plan or items of value or touch

points for a farm. And it should give ideas. And I can also attach, you know, some sample postcards and or handouts so that people know what a quote unquote item of value could look like, especially if you're starting new. And, you know, we don't want you to get into a. analysis paralysis where you're like, oh my gosh, Wilson talked about, you know, 50, 70 touch points. I just need one to start with. So we'll create, we'll give that to you. Dude, MVP, huge trophy. Listeners, I'm going to follow up with Wilson, but he's the type he's going to

follow up. He's going to do it. So go to real estate rockstars network.com slash toolbox and get your free tool from Wilson. Thank you very much. So excited because all their stuff like seems so fun too. I wouldn't dread any of those things. They just legitimately sound fun. But yeah, let's totally, let's pivot. Let's go into the nitty-gritty what to say, you know, those little lessons learned over the years and how to take this magical farming and convert it into revenue for your business. Let's do that. The way I think about it is I think about it as a conversation tree. And let's just start with this. They either want to talk to you or they don't want to talk to you. If they don't want to talk to you, then you acknowledge it and you

exit gracefully, but you set the expectation that they're going to continue to see your stuff and see you in the farm. Because if you don't set the expectation, then they could blow you off and you might create a situation where the next time they see you, they told you that they don't want to see you again. So let's talk about that conversation first. Let's say I canvass and I say, hey, how's it going? It's Wilson. I wanted to make sure you receive this market update or this invitation to a picnic. And let's just say they're very sour, they're just short on time at that moment. They say, oh, I don't want any of your stuff. Most of us will say, oh, all right, have a great day, see ya. And then you walk away really quickly because we feel the rejection.

I think that is a natural response because you're getting away from a uncomfortable situation, but that is not the best response that you can have. Here's what I would say. Let's say Shelby says, oh, I don't want any of your stuff. Don't leave it behind. I'll say, hey, I appreciate you so much just for telling me. It seems like you're busy at this time or there's a lot going on.

I just really appreciate meeting you. By the way, my name's Wilson. I know you don't want this, but it's really valuable. I'll leave it at the doorstep, so on my way out. And by the way, you know, I'll see you next time. just that mirror, I'll see you next time. And also, you're not pushing in a sense that you're doing something they don't want. You express that there's something of value that I'm handing out.

And that's the reason why I feel compelled to leave behind still, even though you told me to get lost and you don't want it. They do not expect you to be pleasant. They expect you to, oh my gosh, I'm going to walk away. So when you are actually pleasant and you reaffirm and express that you have something of value, they have a hard time rebuttaling because they either have to double down on being the bad guy, which no one wants to be, unless they're just really truthfully, really busy. And if they tell you, no, I don't want it, then you still give yourself a graceful exit and say, hey, look him in the eye and just say, hey, I really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much. I'll see you next time. Because the next time, like when you leave, let's think about what's going on in this person's head. This person might be busy. they're not going to remember you. But if they were to vaguely remember the interaction and the next time they see your face, because human beings were really good at, like, assessing

and fight or flight response, if I remember my, like, rough, positive or negative connotation I had of that first interaction with you, and it's positive, but I don't remember what it was, because it was so brief, it was like 10 seconds, guess what their natural body language and inclination is going to be the next time they see? it's going to be more open because they remember something positive, right?

Exactly. And it's like, and here's the trick. Let's say it's that same person and you meet them again or taking out the trash three months earlier. And you remember, if people are like me, I'm a people watcher and I'm somewhat of a troll, I like to see people's reactions. But that interaction specifically, I act as if we're best friends that haven't seen each other in a long time. So when he's taking out the trash, even though I remembered a conversation, it wasn't good, but I left in a positive note. I'm going to say, oh my gosh, how's it been?

The last time it was about three months ago, there's something different item of value X, Y, and Z. I want to make sure you receive. Do you need help with that? Are they really going to reject you? It's so hard to keep the negative, you know, quote unquote mindset or the negative kind of frame that if they have to continue that every single time they see someone like you in the neighborhood, oh my gosh, they are really the grinch of the neighborhood. Maybe you don't want to have a conversation with them. But the likelihood of that actually happening is very low. They're going to remember you.

It was a positive first conversation. They might actually say, hey, yeah, I remember you. And once you start having a conversation, here's when it's a yes, which it goes into the conversation tree. If it's a no, exit gracefully, accept the expectation. If it's a yes, and let's say in this instance, it's a second conversation, treat them as a neighbor. Ask them how they've been. Ask them, you know, what they've, the most recent thing they've done to their home. Ask them, you know, if it's close to the summer or do they have any summer plans?

If there was a recent basketball game for a local team, ask them, hey, how do you think we did? Are you a fan? If you see, you know, a flag of the Marines, ask them, hey, I'm always been curious. I get a chance to ask you the first time. but can you tell me a little bit more? I'm curious. I would love to learn more. Where did you serve? Or is there someone in a family that's served? If they have a beautiful garden, ask them, hey, you know, do you do it yourself or do you actually hire a gardener? It looks great. There's so much that you can talk about. And guess what I didn't mention? Real estate.

That's what they're going to appreciate about you because you took the long-term approach. you're not the guy that's an investor that's leaving a handwritten note saying, hey, have you thought about selling? Because truthfully, they know when their house is the shitty one on the block. Right. But you appreciate the little things that you notice about them or their house, and you played a long game to build a relationship. And the byproduct of them having the good conversation for you is keeping in touch.

And there's a little bit on your value proposition of a flyer that probably mentions that you're a real estate agent. And that is a strategy. Is this like, do you do this with your team, like as a role playing scripting time of thing where you go around the circle and you guys have to be on the spot, ask them something about like, is that like a popcorn thing? I feel like that would be really fun. You know, it's a great idea, actually. We do a popcorn thing where it's like you have to ask open end the questions because we tend to ask close end the questions. That's another kind of exercise. But it sounds like a good. really good idea. And the challenge is new real estate agents, when they start out farming,

they have a hard time thinking about it because they're afraid of what the other person is going to say. And that's why they want to stick to a script, yet they haven't adopted it in their natural language. And it comes across as very rigid. My best advice is don't have an expectation that you're going to talk about real estate. Just go out there and have the frame that you belong there and that you are providing something of value and your intention is to just get to know these people because they're human beings. And that's it. If they do bring up, oh, by the way, you're a real estate agent, how's the market? Then maybe you need to have some sort of can response or something that you've prepared to carry that conversation forward to, let's say,

the end goal that you're looking for, which is a nurture relationship or a walkthrough scheduled later. But that's what, yeah. So I'm like, I'm so with it. Love it. Don't be the sales person down the throat type of thing. But at what point is there any sort of push or open door? Or do you just wait? You just know that your farming is doing its thing, subconscious or taking over mind share. Like how does that piece play? I think this is such a counterintuitive method of farming that you're, if we kind of dumb down business to if we don't have relationships, we don't have opportunities to buy, help people buy or sell. So our goal is to build relationships.

And if we have a relationship, that conversation of specifically real estate and needs will come up when they have a need and you're the first person they think of. If you remember the red book in there, it says how many agents does a seller interview before selecting one? And I think it was one third of the time they talked to one agent. and about 70 to 80% of the time they talk to two. So as long as you're position number one, and sometimes you might be position number two, if there is a top agent or if there's a friend or family member, that's a realtor in their mind,

you are just positioning yourself with your farming efforts to be that person they call. Now, let's act with a little more intention, because I know where you're going with this question. Let's say out of the, if you're farming and you're touching each, kind of door once a month. One in three or one and four or one and two conversations or value points could be specifically about real estate. So the intention is typically your value proposition will bring up the conversation of real estate, but your verbal conversation

tends to be about building a relationship. So what does that look like when you go out there? Let's say I knock on a door. I haven't met you before. Hey, how's it going? My name's Wilson. I'm my neighbor as well. I wanted to make sure I provided this item of value events. And oh, by the way, I'm just so curious.

How long have you lived here? We have a market update on the other side. And that alone brings up the idea of real estate. And if they have a question about market, their house, their goals, and they feel compelled and comfortable enough to talk to you about it, they probably will at that moment. If not, then build a relationship. Do you ever straight up ask for their contact information? Like at what point does that piece happen? Really good question. Let's break it down by they don't want to talk to you and they do want to talk to you because you

can ask in both instances. Let's say knock on your door or I see you coming out and you say, oh, no, I'm good today. Hey, look, it sounds like you're really busy at this time. I'm going to make sure I leave something of value behind. This is a market update. If you're like any neighbor in the neighborhood, most people really appreciate the market updates that I create because it's specific to XYZ neighborhood. What's your best email? Is it a Gmail or Yahoo? So I can send you to market update and you look at your phone. And they say, oh, no, no, I'm good.

I'm good. I don't feel comfortable giving my information out. Hey, look, I really appreciate you saying that because if I was meeting someone for the first time in neighborhood too, I would feel exactly the same way. So I totally understand what you're saying. Why don't I do this? If email is not as convenient, why don't I text you? Here's my eye messages. What's your phone number?

Is it a 650 or 415? I'll send you our most recent update. Now, you beat a judge. Read their body language. If you're absolutely a no, maybe don't go for it a second time. But here's what I do know. If you don't ask, what's the chances of them giving contact information or for you to have a follow-up? Zero.

Yeah, it's just a math equation. I'm going to be your A student, Wilson. I'm here to win the gold star. If you don't ask, yeah, it's clear. It's going to be a zero. But if you ask, even if it's a 15% chance, after talking to 100 people, just because you purely asked,

you have 15 people, additional people in your database. Look, people have defensive mechanisms and habits built into how they respond. When you walk into Nordstrom, and you know the person has good intentions and they're asking, hey, how can it help you today? Do you need help finding a size? What's our gut reaction? I need nothing from you. Please leave me alone. I'm good. I'm just looking.

Yeah. So your job is to ask the additional opportunity question, which is, hey, look, I totally understand that. I'll be right here if you need me to help with the dressing room or finding a size. or you can also say, hey, look, I appreciate you telling me that. Do you definitely look on your own. I do want to remind you that today we have some sort of promotion. And most people don't know because we don't put it out there, but I thought this would be helpful. What did you just do with the consumer?

You made it easier for them to reenter a conversation with you because they put themselves on a pedestal that, no, I don't need help. But you need to create a pathway for them to step down to have a conversation with you. Otherwise, guess what? Because they feel like they feel bad. They might not reengage you. They're going to reengage a shoe guy in a shoe section, right? Because you were offended by them saying no. And you didn't say it, but your body language showed it.

So that's why these little things are important. Dude, these are the little things that make or break. Like I want to do a whole show just on these little tweaks. And right now, I mean, we're at 44 minutes. So I have to, I'm going to ask one more. Is there any other, like, you know, little wordsmithing thing that you love that maybe is your favorite that could be really impactful for our listeners? Yes. I would say that it's, you know, when I think of wordsmithing and scripting, I think of seven habits in the section. It's called empathetic listening. And if we use quick fix and, um,

If we try to scheme our way into earning the trust of people, the words might make sense, but the person's heart and gut doesn't trust what we say. So I think fundamentally, we always have to start with our identity, our value, and our character. If you are out there looking for business today, yet your language is trying to build a relationship, it's going to show in the way you show up. So with that, the best way to kind of adopt the right way to think about it is what I said earlier is just to go out there and you heard Shelby say it, go out and have fun, right? If you're having fun and you're lighthearted, it shows on your body language, shows on your face,

you're not offended by little things that people say. They're going to appreciate you because you look resilient. and you also, maybe you're the only positive person that they had in their life because they had a rough work day, for example, right? So, and then if it's a more tactical thing, I would always use a structure in a response, which is appreciate, reframe, ask a question. So whatever they say, no, I'm not thinking of selling. Hey, I appreciate you so much for saying you have no intentions on selling, which from my understanding is I meet a lot of neighbors out here, that means you love where you live. And I appreciate that about you because I love this neighborhood too,

and that's why I'm here. By the way, I am curious because you do love it. How long have you lived here? So if you can adopt that framework, you can de-escalate any situation. And maybe it's not a de-escalation. Maybe it's, oh, you know, I'm so curious, how's the market? Use that same process. I appreciate so much that you ask about the market because I do see what's going on since I'm the local real estate agent. And you're probably asking because you're curious about home values and what's going to happen in 2024 next quarter. And I'm so excited to share with you, can I ask, are you looking to refinance? Are you looking to move? Are you looking to invest? I use the same exact framework in a negative and a positive conversation. And it's so effective because,

because it continues the conversation. And if you can adopt that framework, you are golden for any conversation. So hopefully that helps. Yes, I love stuff like this where it's like step by step. And I can tell, you know, the introvert in you and clearly your systems base has like developed frameworks on like how not to be a robot, how to be a human. Nailing it. Okay, Wilson, this time is flown by. We are headed to our wrap up questions, which is number of.

one. Oh, and by the way, I changed this from our show flow, so we're about to go off-roading. You didn't know this was coming. What is something cool that you've learned recently? Doesn't have to be real estate. It can be anything in your life or it can be business. Something that I learned recently. Let me think about this real quick. Because I do read and listen to a lot of stuff. So I feel like a lot of it is reaffirming. Okay, here. Something I learned recently, and it's also always a reminder at this time of the year is that this is what Ed Milit would say is separation season. And the reason why separation season is not you comparing yourself to others because people

take time off, but the perception of, you know, we're human beings. In some ways, we act as a herd. So when we see people enjoy the holidays, not that we shouldn't enjoy the holidays, that means that people are putting, lifting their foot off the gas pedal, which means we tend to want to do the same because it's the holidays. Let's be real. This market slows down. Our market is seasonal. And we should enjoy. But it doesn't necessarily mean separation in terms of activity in real estate sales. I think of separation season as well as self-education. This is time for you to catch up on the book that you bought, but you didn't read yet. Or to podcast that you bookmarked and you haven't listened to yet. Or some sort of skill that you wanted to develop, but you haven't yet. Or a hobby that you want to

play the guitar or paint something and, you know, channel your creative side of who you are, but you just haven't been able to. That separation season to me is finding joy and doing something that you've put off because you have been busy during a busier time of the year. And, you know, a lot of times it's not just business. It's how you can fill your own cup. So that's something that maybe it's not a brand new thing I learned, but it's always a reminder at this time of the year because we're so used to go, go, go. And we're also used to the seasonality of our business that we tend to forget what brings joy and fulfillment to ourselves. Love. Okay, Wilson, what events are you going to in the next 12 months, if any? In the next 12 months, I'm going to be going to KW family reunion. I will likely

go to one go-bundance event, which I think Aaron, and that's started by David Osborne, who's a part of, you know, KW as well, same company on that. Other events, you know, I have a newborn at home, so I have the intention is not to travel as much, and I've been staying at home more, but I usually go to three to four educational events in a year. And it tends to be either company-specific or Go-Bundance-specific or other educational. events. So maybe the event that you guys host. Real estate Rocksars Mastermind? Oh yeah. Because I've seen pictures. Well, it's like the best time ever. It is technically sold out. But you know, you being in go-budence and bros with Aaron and stuff, then I'm sure we could

magically find a ticket. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe there's a cancellation. Maybe there's a cancellation, true. And congratulations on your newborn. I saw that also in my stocking. It was very cool. Okay, Wilson, how can listeners help you in your business? How you can help me in my business is I have received so much from other people. Anything that I said is not a reinvention. It's just in my own words. So the best way you can help anyone such as myself or anyone that you listen to on this podcast is just to give, you know, give us your takeaways.

If you do listen to this and you found it helpful, you know, nowadays, we're so visible online. We're no secret agents. You can find me most likely on Instagram is the most convenient. Just DM me and say, this is my takeaway from what you said. And that makes me feel that's, you know, the fulfilling loop of feedback that this was worth it. Because I know it's going to be worth it. You know, I'm an observer of a lot of content myself too. And I don't always comment and I don't always like.

but when I take something away, it's almost like I try to think about how I can put in action and then I just go. And, you know, just showing appreciation if you did receive something. That's it. Dude, that's a really good one. No one has said that before. And you're totally right about the loop. Like, you know, giving value, receiving the value.

But then when people reach out and let you know that it was impactful, you're like, ah, my heart. It just exploded. Okay. And listeners, you can find him at Wilson, W. W.L.R. E.A, which is, what is that? Is that? Yeah, that stood for Wilson, Wilson Leung Real Estate Associates, which was our early team name. And I haven't changed it, although our team is more so the own team now.

So, yes, it's a legacy team name that we had. And it's an abbreviation. And it will also be in the show notes, so you can click it there. Also check him out on YouTube, same handle at Wilson, WL, R-EA. Is there anywhere else you would like direct? two direct listeners too, Wilson. You can always text me. Our business line is 650-88888, and I'm very, very responsive. So if you ever have a question about farming, I know part of this, we had a couple of things we could have talked about. If there's anything in business in general, you know, I run a 17-person team.

We have five staff members. In the past three years, we are going to sell over 500 million. You know, we've encountered a lot of different things. So if I can help in any way, feel free to text too. Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Wilson, listeners, go hit him up, show them all the love. And if you want to hang out with me and Aaron, we are the Shelby Show and Aaron Amugustagi.

Wow, a Mutech Stagie on the gram. World's easiest last name. Please hit us with feedback, stuff you like, stuff you don't like. And then also let us know when the show, you know, hits, hits in the fields. We want to know. And otherwise, guys, that is all we have for today. Wilson, again, thank you so much for coming on the show. And real estate rock stars, thanks for listening.