KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Mastering the Market Despite 7% Interest Rates

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Hello, hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Agent Power Huddle today. I'm really excited to talk about this. I want to talk about this subject because I've noticed that a lot of agents have had a hard time with the interest rates and things being different now. And they feel like it's a little more challenging. And I want to encourage all of you that this should not impact you as much as you, as you think. think it might or as you think it does. Okay. I'm going to explain all of it because I went through this and I'm just going to share what I got going and I hope you guys will ask questions and be involved

and cameras on so that I can see your smiling faces and see that you get what I'm talking about. And we'll go from there. So let me share my screen. All right. Okay. So it's an start on the first light. So this is going to be mastering the market, a month of triumph, despite the 7% interest rates. My name is Sarah DeLancig. I am a fellow agent at EXP Realty, but I also, well, here's my background. I also own a boutique little ISA company. And in that ISA company, I mean, it's small, just so you know, it's not like massive. We work exclusively with agents who use digital marketing and video at a really high level. And so I learned how to overcome all of the issues that we're having right now in the market and the interest rates and stuff like that.

So that's what I want to share with you and how I did this and how my team is doing this and things like that. So I also want to mention that I was a, I was voted on by my peers to be a speaker at the EXP Shareholder Summit in in 2023. And I was a speaker. And that was something that I visualized and worked really hard for it as well. So I like to bring that up because what we're going to be talking about has a lot to do with, you know, belief in yourself and your mindset.

So, and that was a huge accomplishment for me. That happened. that realistically, you know, I may not have been the most qualified to be on that stage. But I do know what I'm talking about. So formerly, I ran an ISA OSA team, so inside and outside sales agents that were calling, you know, real estate agents about coaching. So we would call, hey, you know, would you like to get coaching from someone that sold twice as many homes as you, that kind of thing?

and I was really, really successful at it, started running the team after a short period of time because I was having the most success and I was the most authentic. And so we had a lot of fun doing that for several years and then I got my license and I was Linnea Carver's assistant who does the Friday Power Tips. So check her out if you haven't yet right here on Agent PowerHuddle. And so I was for assistant and essentially what happened is I found that I didn't really enjoy selling real estate. And I preferred, you know, making calls. And I found that a lot of real estate agents were flip-blocked and they hated making calls, but they love selling real estate.

So I have found ways to help others with this. I also always just put that I have a being psychology because, it was expensive. And it's good. I mean, it's good, obviously, to have a B.A. in psychology, right? Okay. This is a statistic I saw somewhere, and I kind of stole it, made it my own.

And I think it's really powerful because down there at the bottom, it says that only 10% of agents even make a third call. And I don't know if you all have heard the statistic that pretty much 10% of agents make the most sales. Like there's a very minimal amount, like 90% of agents sell one or two homes a year. And then the rest of them are all sold by big time teams or big time real estate agents. And so I think it's funny that this graphic correlates and the statistic correlates with what we're seeing with agents who are selling at a very high level are also making more than three calls. right so um i'm on most can sorry someone did someone have a question or if you guys can mute yourselves if you're not already that'd be awesome okay um unless you have a question then just let me know

raise your hand okay so uh so this tells you right like there are a lot of people that will admittedly only make one call like if you guys were on camera which i wish you were i would ask you you know, like raise your hands if you feel like this is you. And I get that that might be you only making one or two calls. And that's not where the money's at. So you're giving up far too early, right? And you're not seeing the results. It's just like if you were like lifting weights or something, right?

And you decide to just lift them once or twice. And then you think you're going to have the muscles. Not going to happen, right? You have to be consistent with it. So that's kind of what this graphic shows, because you're not really getting any kind of sales until you're looking at the 5 to 12 contact range. And so that is the key that we want to pay attention to right there.

Okay. All right. So what I wanted to do to give, I've talked about these things a lot, and we're going to get into some of the real things that I did to make it work, right? But what I decided to do is what I wrote out what I think it takes, to convert. And so like if I was going to put an ad out for an ISA on my team,

just if anybody does know what an ISA and ISA stands for inside sales agent, but technically they're usually outside of the office, but it's an old term. But they make phone calls and they set appointments. They book appointments for real estate agents, try to connect with the buyer of the seller, with the agent that's ready, you know, ready to go. So, um, so this is kind of what I think an agent needs to understand about what it takes to actually get into that range where you're actually making money and you're seeing the results, right? And this all has to do nothing with, like, the market isn't going to matter if you do these things consistently. So what I wanted

to put out there and what I came up with are almost the same things that chat GPT came up with, right? You have to have a positive mindset and believe in yourself. you have to be consistent, you have to be resilient. You do get yelled at. I got yelled at. I got tested at just the other day. It doesn't happen very often. I will tell you that.

I get bad attitudes quite often, but somebody actually, you know, was like F you and like called me some words, which didn't bother me because I knew that out of that there would be something good. And right after that, I had a great call and ended up getting an amazing seller and a buyer out of it. So like people yelling at me, I'm resilient. I know that that just means that something good is just around the corner because so, you know, I just feel like that's the way it kind of works, right? You have to be knowledgeable. You have to be in the right environment. This is one that people don't tend to think about very often, the right environment,

meaning you have the right tools, proper tools, which is the next one, to make the phone calls or to to do the things that you need to do. Like, imagine trying to write a contract without a laptop, like trying to do it on your phone. I'm sure probably some of you have probably done that before. Put it in the chat if you have because, I mean, but having the proper tools is really key. Having the proper environment,

when I, like, my phone is on me all the time, all the time. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't notice it, but when I'm sitting down to be on agent power huddle or make phone calls or anything like that, My phone is on mute and it's turned away from me so that it's not distracting me. I have music playing when I want to make phone calls that puts me in a good mood, but I have it right next to me where I can like turn it down. I have a clean environment.

I have my headset and it's charged and ready to go. My mouse, my, you know, all of that stuff, right? So that's all really important. It might be for you, your CRM, you know, just having another clean space, like no distractions, that kind of thing. Analytics and tracking is really key. And when you see my numbers, don't freak out because I've been doing this for four years, right?

But understand that you have to start somewhere and you want to track that. So if you start with just one call a day, you're like, okay, I don't make any calls right now, but I'm going to try it with one call a day. Then do two, then do four, then do eight, and so on and so forth, until you get a really steady rhythm.

Okay, you have to make the time for it. I also have on my phone every appointment I set a pop-up, a reminder. Like Americans look at their phones. Like I saw a statistic that was like thousands of times per day, right? So I have a pop-up, even though it's on mute, I will see it. And, you know, and I can tell that I have an appointment coming up in 15 minutes. So I see it within that 15-minute window because I do look at my phone like pretty often, just like everyone else. You have to be understanding.

You have to implement. You have to be patient. You have to know how to market yourself. You have to be inspiring. You need to find inspiration from somewhere. You need support. You need to be adaptable. You need to take action.

Okay. So those are the things I came up with. And just for I asked chat GPT this question. I said, what does it take to convert elite into a buyer? It pretty much says the same thing. Follow up persistence. Social, well, social proof and reviews, like knowing yourself, marketing yourself, patience and perseverance.

sales and marketing alignment. A multi-channel approach means you reach them on all levels, email, phone, text, different platforms, right? Understand your audience, create engaging content, right? So these are all the things that are pretty in alignment with what I do and what chat Sheput said you need to convert, right? So I just thought that was interesting. Okay, so this is the meat of what I'm.

really want to share. Some of you may have heard of this study. Please put in the chat if you have heard of it because I'm curious how many people know about this. This is one of the coolest thing I've seen recently and something popped up on on YouTube and it was a water study by Dr. Emoto in Japan. And basically what it said is that this doctor had gone and put done a study about putting intention into a water molecule, either prayer, and it didn't matter from what, like, just to be clear, like, it was about intention and it was prayer and it didn't really matter the religion. It was just putting something positive or negative into the water molecule. And it changed the actual structure. So as you can see here, when they would say,

thank you to the water, it would change it into this. When you said, you're, you're wise or something like that. I guess that's what it is. Whatever the intention was, right, angel, I love you, peace. Okay. So then they did it with something negative and it came up with this. You know, they took polluted water and this is what it looked like before they prayed over it. And then this is what it looked like after they prowed over it. You know, if you say you make me sick or you're evil or something like that. So this is so important and I think it's so revolutionary because what it means, like we're made up of mostly water, right? So what we think about when we are making phone calls or when we are connecting with the people that we want to, you know, work with,

then it has a direct impact on what is going to happen. And that is what happened to me in August of 2023. So I was creating the course for real estate agents because I don't work like my ISA company. We don't work with every, we can't work with every real estate each can't, right? Like, so we can only take on a few. And a lot of people want us because I have real estate, you know, we have real estate experience and we're in the United States and things like that. So what I decided to do was like, and not a lot of real estate agents can afford an ISA service either, but they, they have time to make phone calls. So I created a course called follow up foundations. And I was like, um, for this.

course, I created affirmations. And so these affirmations are just a little bit of it, but this is what I did. And it started in August, and that's where I'm going to show you the numbers of what happened with this. But these are the affirmations that I would say. And in addition to this, I will also add, I attended, Kristen Bayshore had a class, which was really, really cool, by the way. It was like a three-day challenge, I think. And she had a manifesto that she had everyone read. And if any of you are part of Krista's coaching program, you probably know what I'm talking about. And so I wrote out my own. And I read this every day. And, you know, it says, like, I am unique. I'm powerful. I attract positive people. I can do anything I set my mind to. I'm a positive influence. My energy helps others. I have

integrity. I'm 100% authentic at all times. I have healthy habits. I have more than enough money, time and energy. I am a national speaker that attracts thousands of people. I give credit where credit is due. I am humble and grounded. I have an amazing life or I have amazing life changing relationships. I am a great wife and mother. I bring a fresh perspective to everything I do. I face my fears head on. and I know that they help me to live a better life. I am extremely productive. I have a sixth sense and always listen to my intuition. I follow through with my commitments.

I am a leader that lifts others up. I have perfect balance and I am fulfilled with complete clarity and vision for my business and personal life. So this is what I wrote. And I give that to you because I think it can help. And I think that, you know, those are things that I aspire to. but also I believe. And so same with these affirmations. This is what I did.

You know, I said, I'm successful regardless of what is happening in the current market. Each call is an opportunity to build a positive connection and provide value. I am well prepared and knowledgeable about my market and the services I offer. I am persistent and resilient. I will keep going despite any challenges. I focus on solutions and benefits,

not just making a sale. That's a really big one. because when you put the focus on others, then usually, you know, like good things happen, right? We don't always want it to be on us like, oh, just, you know, like, that's kind of desperate. If you're like, oh, I need the money, I need the sale, right? You don't want that. You want to respect others. Like, you want to treat others how you want to be treated, right?

So every call brings me one step closer to achieving my goals. I'm a great communicator and convey my message effectively. my enthusiasm is contagious and it resonates with the people I'm talking to. And I know that success comes from consistent effort. So saying these, and this is just part of it, but just saying these right before I made my calls, what ended up happening is I ended up for one of my more challenging clients, I ended up getting that person a seller who, who was like, I think he was a 1.2 million seller and buyer on like, you know, selling and then

buying for about a little bit more or about the same amount. And that was huge for this person. And then the next day I did it, I had a two million dollar cash buyer. And so these things work. So I still, I keep doing them. And so this is the difference. So I also want to tell a quick story. In August, the interest rates went up. And the client that I was just talking about, I was being negative. And I called him and I said, I, you know, I'm frustrated.

Before I started doing my affirmations and everything. I was like, oh, you know, the interest rates went up and I don't even know. And he goes, he says to me, no, Sarah, this is a good thing. It doesn't matter. Like you can talk to them about assumable mortgages. You know, and whatever he said to me, I bought in in that moment. I did the affirmations. I still don't, like, I don't even know that I can properly convey what he was trying to tell me to someone about assumable mortgages, but I'll get them on the phone with him and he can handle that.

But it didn't really matter because his enthusiasm for it and his, his, you know, nonchalance about it made me believe, okay, you know what, it's not that bad. People still have to move. People still buying. And the people that understand what it was like in 2020 or even just in 2021, when the interest rates were low, if they're buyers, they understand that that was really difficult. That wasn't a fun market for a buyer. You know, waiving every inspection, waving everything is not the most fun thing for a buyer, going 50K over asking, which is what was happening here in the Seattle area. Like, not a lot of, you know, buyers want to do that. So getting them to understand without arguing or anything like that,

getting them to understand that this is actually a much more balanced market, that's something that, you know, as agents, we should understand and know how to convey without being argumentated. Okay. All right. So this is where I say to you all, don't freak out about the number of calls that I make, right? This is just, this is, you know, like this is my livelihood.

This is what I do for a living. I don't sell real estate. I don't have a desire to. So in July, I made about 1152 calls. And I had about 39 appointments slash like wins. And that was like a what, 033%, right? But in August, and it was about midway through August that I ended up doing this. And when I looked at the first half of August and the second half of August, when I had that talk with my client and he encouraged me about the interest rates, the second half of August was double with the first half. of August was. So it really was a mindset shift. And I think that that's really, really important because I know a lot of us don't want to hear mindset. We're sick of that. We're sick of being told we need to have a positive attitude and everything like that. But go back to the, to the statistics, this is the reality of it. Like there are, there are very few agents at the top that sell almost all

of the homes. And there are those of us that don't sell very much of anything. Now, I don't sell much of anything because I choose not to, but not because I couldn't. But you know what I mean? So the point is, is that being consistent, being resilient, and making the time to do it and actually doing it is what is going to get you over that hump. So I'm going to share some other, I think I have. Okay, so this is the way that I do it. I don't follow up with people the way that we've heard. for 20 plus years about incessantly calling, not leaving a voicemail, you know,

sending kind of aggressive text messages and things like that. Instead, what I do is I treat people how I want to be treated. And if I'm sitting there, you know, middle of the night scrolling through Facebook and I see something and I'm like, yeah, sure,

I want to know how much my home is worth. And so I click on it and I enter my address. And I, you know, and then all of a sudden somebody calls, me out of the blue, well, that's going to be a little surprising to me, right? If I wasn't actively trying to sell my home or something like that. So what I do is, first of all, most people don't answer the phone. So a lot of real estate agents are scared of making calls, but there's no reason to be scared. Most people don't answer the phone. And when they do answer the phone, whether they

yell at you or not, at least you did your job, right? And they can't be mad at you for that. So if they do yell at me, I say, hey, sorry, I totally, you know, like, I understand that you're upset that you're getting this phone call out of the blue. We don't want to drop the ball on our end for the people that do want to buy ourselves. So just the best thing you can do is if you click one of those ads again, just answer the phone and say, sorry, I'm not, you know, sorry, remove me from your list or write or reply stop to the text best duties. So that's how I handle that. But if they, most of the time they don't answer the phone, like only, like I said, a small amount pick up the phone. So we have to send something of value.

When they're browsing online and they're looking at homes on your website, like on IDX websites or something like that or Google pay-per-click, what I like to do is send them something about the area. So let's say that they're looking in Las Vegas. And maybe they're not from Las Vegas. You can kind of tell by area code sometimes. Sometimes you can't. But if I see that they're like a 480 area code,

I know that that's Arizona. And if they're in Las Vegas, that's not the same area. So they might be looking at moving from Arizona over to Las Vegas. So then I'm going to say, hey, what's it like to live in Las Vegas? Or is it a good place for families to live in Las Vegas? I send them a video, a YouTube video link. And the purpose of sending the YouTube video link is so that it pops up on their phone and it's not aggressive, right?

But they see it, even if they don't. don't even click on it. It's going to show your face and your name and it gives you authority. And because it's YouTube, it has some authority as well because people are not afraid to open YouTube links. Anyone like anyone here afraid of YouTube? Anyone's like think that's spam? I've never run into that. I don't know anyone that has. Especially when your iPhone will let you preview it. So with that case, you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be you. Make a video. You don't even have to necessarily be on camera. When I first started doing this, I did a video in black and white because I hated being on camera about bacon, about cooking bacon, because I heard that recipes were the

number one thing that people wanted to watch videos about. So I did a 60 second video on bacon. I got 5,000 views from it in a week. And I hashtag the Keep It Realture, which is what I was going by that at the time. But I didn't capitalize it on from there. But what I'm saying is, that you can, right? So, or maybe you want to do a neighborhood tour. And I saw one really cool, got like really awesome situation the other day where a guy hired someone to do, it was like, what is that called? Cartoon, like cartoons. So it doesn't necessarily have to be you. Maybe you can narrate it. But the point is that they see your name, they see that you have authority on a subject and that you understand, like that you know, most of us as agents have something that

we are very confident in people that we are very comfortable working with, whether it's veterans or first-time homebuyers or verbos or whatever the case may be, right? There's something like moving out of the city into the country area or into the suburbs, whatever it might be. So these are some ideas on how you can do that. And with every single contact attempt, you should be adding value of some sort. If you don't want to do video, send digital marketing materials, such as a buyer's guide, right? Your website, your Facebook, your reviews on Google, some sort of content that they will find valuable and is not invading them or being too aggressive. And this is what I have found to be working really, really well. Okay. So this is a text template that I use. And in this case,

it's sending a Facebook video. So you can you can copy this. This one's blank. So it's, be like, hi, and I change these emojis out depending on, you know, like I'm, I'm very pale. So I use the yellow emoji. It's summer still. It feels like fall. But in fall, I'll change this to a leaf, right? And depending on the area, I should also mention that depending on your area, because some areas aren't emoji friendly, right? Like it might be like a second home area.

and it's just, you know, like older, like retired couples live there. Maybe no emojis in that case. So emojis at your own discretion, right? I like to say, like in Washington, you have to let them know what brokerage you're with and things like that. So this is what the first text looks like. I say my name is, this is another one, my name is and all of that. The next one, it's less like that. It's more like, hey, it's Sarah.

just want to check in, you know, what do I say? Say something about like, did anything catch your eye? So like in this case, they're getting a list of one level homes that they requested for a certain county, no stairs, right? And so I say, hey, you should have got that list of one level homes. The first one is, did you get it okay? The second one is, did you find anything in there that you want to take a closer look at? Or did anything catch your eye, right? And I always send something of value, like I said.

So in this case, there's a video right here, downsizing 101. But if you don't have those things, you can do buyers, guides, sellers, guys. Just an intro video, you can just record one really quick. There's plenty of ways to do this, right? Okay, this is, we don't really have time to go over this, but feel free to take a screenshot of it. Seven effective follow-up techniques. Make time. Know your role means you know yourself better than anyone.

else, provide value, which we already went over. Use video. Video is a huge authority, like giving you authority. It's a huge way to get authority in your market. Be a problem solver, you know, treat others the way you want to be treated, find ways to really and always follow through. So to recap, your mindset has a direct impact on the outcome of this stuff. And what I want to mention is the InVision app and the Insight Timer apps are both free apps that will help you with this. One is visualization and one is if you're a Christian like me, you know, it has stuff like that. It's not like super new agey, but you can go whatever route you want. But it's more like there's music that puts you in the right mood. There's, there's meditations, there's,

there's all kinds of things on there. So, but I really like the Envision app because that one, is like three minutes of like start your day off right. And the other thing I will say about this is bookend your day. When I wake up in the morning, positive thoughts. Not like, oh, I don't want to get up. I don't want to do this. Positive thoughts. And when I go to bed at night, positive thoughts.

Bookend your day like that. And you will find that you will be a lot happier and a lot more at peace. Don't be the statistic. Make sure you make more than three follow calls. Get into that sweet spot between five and 12 and keep trying. Provide value with every single. contact attempt by using video and digital marketing materials strategically in your texts and emails. I would recommend YouTube over BombBong or anything like that. Be honest,

don't pressure or argue with anyone. And this is the course that I have put together, which I kind of walk you through a lot more. You basically get the text templates and it goes three deep sometimes even four deep. Really, like I give you what you should do on the first text, what you should say on the first call, what you should say and do on the second one and the third one. And then like if it's really old and things like that. So if you want to, this is a really cool tool.

You can give it to your team. You can check it out. I'm a huge football fan. So you know that's why it's claim like that goes up. And there's a promo code, EXP 25, all lowercase, if you would like to use that. All right. So any questions we have?

Nailed it in the first try? Or anybody have questions? Sarah, a question for you? Yeah. I'm Matthew Hanks. I'm out in Charlotte, North Carolina, other side of the country. But you said one thing,

you said, always lead with value or have something of value that you give. And I know you mentioned the YouTube link that you can provide, which is great because you can do that in a text message and you're putting it right there. we were trying to do the same thing. I was just talking to my team earlier about, you know,

we do something we do for Thanksgiving every year. So we're calling, inviting them to come be part of something we're doing for Thanksgiving. So we're leading with value there. But after we do that, then I'm just thinking, okay, if we do another event, we could call that. But we're looking for other ideas we have. I love what you said about the YouTube video, invite them out for an event that we're doing as a team. What other thoughts in terms of if you did this, you did this? okay, now we've already done those things.

What other things could we do? Provide value in this area. So a lot of people like to know about the area. One of my best clients, she has a YouTube channel in a small town in Casper, Wyoming. And she talks about the history of Casper, what is like to live in Casper, the things she knew before she moved to Casper. So if you're wondering about videos that you could create, it should be, whatever is about your area there, did you say South Carolina or North Carolina?

I'm in North Carolina. We're right on the border. Charlotte sits right on the border right in the middle of the Carolinas, if you look at both of them. So we're right there. I mean, I'm 10 minutes from the South Carolina line. That's a good. Okay. So I don't know.

There's also you can do mailers. A really popular one is like sending out football schedules. So like the Seahawks schedule. with the, you know, the UW schedule attached to it, or you can send out, let's see, there's all kinds of other things. You can send out buyers guys and sellers guys. You could do a class on, like, first-time home buyers, how to go from renting to buying. There's a bunch of things you could do, but people really want to know about the community. Like, so many of us are moving, like, there's big migrations happening right now, right? A bunch of people moving out of here and into there.

and so on. And so I think it's really imperative that you just lead with the community-based value that you know. So I'm not sure if that answers your question. I kind of threw a lot at you. I'll put the last slide back up. Yeah. So did that kind of answer your question?

Are you wondering more like what events you could do? Because there's also like. No, just maybe more of the concept like different categories of value. Like if like there was one time our office was located beside a bakery and we had these coupons down up and I would send them a coupon to stop by at the bakery and get a cupcake. So it was just something that we're just constantly giving. And then we had swag for our team and we had a policy. Nobody comes in the office and leaves empty handed. So we would always, you know, I want you to leave with a pen or a shirt or a mug or something that is the value. So we love

giving things away. And I was just curious as to what other ideas when you've given the YouTube link and you've given the invite like, okay, then what? How do you keep providing value? Well, I continue. So for me, I continue with, there's always other things that people need to know. So, but I think you're asking more like what else you can do. One of the cool ideas that I had come up with is similar to what you just said. And it would be, um, basically you send out mailers as like, hey, here's a gift card to a local

shop. Like Starbucks is huge in Seattle, right? But there's little coffee shops that people like and get to know your community. So you talk to the owners of the copy shop and you're like, hey, when they turn this in, you know, they get a free thing. They just have to give their email or they just have to give their phone number or something like that. And then you can also send them something of value that way, right? So there's lots of ways that you can say, you know, have a cup of coffee on the Matthew Hanks real estate team or something. Right.

But I, yeah, but I normally, normally it's just a bunch of YouTube content that is like, you know, how to, out how to get into a home, like home buyer myths, like, you know, how to sell your home for top dollar, what it's like to live there, the history of this place, right? So there's just tons of YouTube content out there. And so I'm always sending every time I follow up, which can be, you know, 15 times in a year or more. In that case, everybody gets a YouTube video, a different YouTube video and a different text message every time. So. Got it. Love it. Cool. Thank you.

Well, thank you all for being here. I hope that was super helpful information. And yeah, thank you so much. You guys have a great day. Go crush it.