KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The 3 Lead Sources of a Top Listing Agent with Knolly Williams

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Welcome to the Success with Listings podcast, where we help you get success in the real estate game, the easy way. Now you can get off the roller coaster of Feast and Famine and out of the rat race of competing with every other agent in town. Hi, I'm Nollie Williams. I took over a thousand listings during my first 10 years from the real estate game, and in this podcast, I show you how to have success with listings. Let's go. Did you guys know this? There are three buckets where all the leads, that you ever need will come from.

Three buckets, right? And I'm not going to ask you to guess them. I'm going to tell them to you. Now, my man over here, y'all know my man here? Huh? That's my man Pedro, y'all. What Pedro says, and I consulted Pedro, he says, if you focus on these three buckets,

all of your wildest dreams will come true. Huh? Y'all got some wild listing dreams? Huh? All right. I'm going to show you how to focus on these buckets. It's going to make it real easy for you. It's sphere of influence, number one, your farm and your niche.

Your sphere of influence, your farm, and your niche. Right? How many of y'all know you should be doing this already? By the way, when you think about the three buckets, think about a tripod stool. You know, a three-legged stool, this is four-legged. I can't use as an example. but a three-legged stool that's perfectly balanced and you step on top of it, will it support you?

Absolutely. It's a balanced stool. It's a tripod. Now, you take one of those legs out, what happens? You fall. Or if you take two of those legs out, what happens? Cirque de Salee, right? You're doing all this kind of stuff.

Most of you have a one-legged stool, and that one leg that you have is busted and in disrepair. Right? That's why you're not getting listings. And the one leg that most of you guys have is the sphere of influence. Most of you are not farming and most of you don't know what a niche is and don't have one, right? We're going to cover that today. All famous people, by the way, have a sphere of influence, a farm, and a niche. Do you all know that? They have a sphere of influence. And by the way, the more famous you become, the bigger your sphere of influence grows, right? Some of you guys that have never even heard. met me face to face but might have heard of me, you feel like you already know me because you've heard me, you know, you see me around, if you will. So, and that's what being famous would do for you. And I, and I would say that don't think of it like being haughty or proud or big headed. Being famous does not require any of those traits. Okay. Jesus was a very famous person and he didn't have any of those characteristics. Right. He's still famous today. Now, your sphere

of influence because retaining a current client is more important than generating a new one. Did y'all know that? You're doing like this, like yes, you know, but you don't treat it this way in your business, right? If you abandon your clients, your competitors are waiting in line to orphan them. So here's your sphere of influence. These are people that are your past clients, people you know, and people who you've met. That's your sphere of influence. Seven out of ten, ten, seven out of ten, sellers, seven out of 10 sellers, right? How do they pick the listing agent they go with? Seven out of 10, right? This is based on NAR, right? Seven out of 10 chose an agent based on

referral by a friend, neighbor or relative, or they use the previous agent. 70%. Is that, is that right? 70%. So why are you spending the majority of your money on new stuff? Oh, I got this new leads program or I'm buying, that you're going after the 30%. You are spending money to attract strangers and abandoning the people that love you. That's dumb. D. Dumb with a capital D. D. Dumb.

Isn't that dumb? You're spending all your time and energy and money on strangers when you got 70% of the people that already say they love you and they want to do business with you. That's your SOI. 84% of people say they would use you again. What percentage actually do use you again? 20%? Anyone else? It's between 9 and 13%. Yeah, 11.

Yeah. 11 is a good one, right? So let me ask you this. Anybody like to use Yelp when you decide to eat somewhere or something like that? Some of y'all use that? So let's say you pull up a steak restaurant and they have a 4.5 star rating, 4.5. Are you eating there tonight? I mean, they have 236 reviews, 4.5.

You're going to eat there. right now you pull up another one they got 238 reviews they got one star are you going to eat steak there right do you realize that by abandoning your your past clients by abandoning them you go from a 4.5 star rating to a one star rating did you all realize that 11% say actually do use you again but it's actually about 9% right but 86% say they will that's that's 4.5 out of 5 so if you're going to make $100,000 this year, 70,000 of it will come from these people, this sphere of influence. If you don't keep in touch with them, how much does that $70,000 bucket dwindle down to? It's about $10,000.

Right? Why are y'all leaving so much money on the table? Why are you refusing to stay in touch with your sphere of influence? Raise your hand if you have a database already. Keep it raised if it's up-to-date and current, fresh. Right? Some of y'all lying? You're lying up in here.

Some of y'all do have it up to date? I just did it. Right. High five. Who else just did it? High five over there, right? Some of y'all have a jacked-up database, right? You're trying to pretend.

Most agents, I teach you guys all the time, so I know, right, how you guys are. Most of y'all have a bad, really bad database right now. You've got people on there that fire you. Come get your sign in lockbox. I'm done. They're stealing your database. You know what I'm saying? You haven't cleaned it up. So you got to do that. Now I'm going to give you the reason why most of you aren't doing this is because you lack an easy to implement plan. That's what I'm going to give you right now. It's going to be super simple, right? I use what I call the kiss method. You ever heard of the kiss method? Who you call it stupid? Who you call it stupid? You call me stupid? Huh? Keep it simple stupid. Keep it simple. Sweetheart or keep it super stupid.

simple. That's my favorite. I call it two glasses of wine simple. I just have my second glass and I still understand what he's saying. Why do I have, why does it have to be so simple for you guys? You won't do it otherwise. If it ain't easy, y'all won't do it. That's the bottom line, right? They say if you want something done right, do it yourself. Well, for realtors, that's what I say. If you want something done at all, don't do it. Hire somebody. Because if I leave you, it with you to do, it won't get done. Right? Is that right? This means right. This is yes. Uh-huh. Right? I don't want to beat you guys up, but I want to tell you, you don't have to be, you don't necessarily have to be better than you are at, you know, the paperwork and all the

other stuff that you shouldn't be doing anyway. Just hire somebody else to do it. And then you instantly become good, right? Here's an 18-touch plan. This is what we use at the Nali team, right? we do 12 newsletters that comes out every month once a month we have an e-newsletter

that goes out we send four postcards a year right it's the same postcard guys we don't try to get creative and make a fall card

and a spring card because if I taught you to do that you won't do it at the beginning of the year you've got 250 people in your database print a thousand cards send the same one out

every quarter right by the way do you have to farming is different But do you have to really, really sell your past clients in sphere of influence? No. You just got to remind him that you're still in business.

Oh, yeah, he does sell real estate. I forgot. You know what I'm saying? Right? Otherwise, you find out they bought a sold a house without you. Right? Every three months you do that. And then twice a year, you're on the phone with a personal phone call.

This plan takes you a couple hours a week to implement at most. The newsletter is set it and forget it, right? We use Moore Solds database. It's one that I created, and I now make it free to agents to sign up and use. As far as the postcard, that's super simple, right? Give them to Barbara. She sends them out every quarter. Done, right?

Or give them to your niece, your children or whoever, somebody down the street, you know, a neighbor friend. And the two phone calls, you make those. You can throw in a new year card once a year if you want to. This simple plan will keep you in touch with the history of influence, right? Now, this is more souls on the back of the book. You'll see that. If you guys want to try that, it's a free CRM that we created for our team, because we couldn't find one that was easy enough for Barbara and her owls to use, right?

So we created one, and we just made it free to everybody else. Now, the second bucket that we're going to talk about, the second big bucket is farming. Anybody have any questions about sphere of influence? Y'all all get that, right? Makes sense. And it's an easy to implement plan. By the way, did you know that you don't, going back to Sphere of Influence, you don't have to touch your sphere of influence 33 times? Did y'all know that?

Oh, hey, there, there, okay. You know why Gary, and some of y'all know this? You know how Gary came up with 33 touch when he was doing a research for millionaire real estate agent? Do y'all remember that how he came up with the number 33? They just guessed. There was no data because y'all suck at keeping in touch, right? So he just came up with a number that was crazy. The reality is most of you don't do a three touch, right?

And I guarantee you if you touch your sphere of influence 18 times a year, they're going to hear from you pretty sufficiently, right? Now, if you're doing 33 touch, that's even better, right? But then, like, Mike, I just saw you at church last week, dude, why are you sending me these e-mail? How are you doing today? Man, I just saw you last week. It can be too much sometimes.

You see what I'm saying? So the point is, get it done, do something, snap into something, right? But when they came up with that, and Millionaire Real Estate Agent 2 is about to come out, I'll be real eager to hear what the data is now on that whole thing. The point what Gary was trying to get us into was action of doing something. Farming. How many of y'all are doing farming?

Some of y'all are. Everyone should be. A farm is a territorial region that you basically go out, you choose, in order to build your business and build your brand there. That's what a farm is. I'm going to show you how to set one up today. It's an easy formula. Y'all get this?

500 plus homes. It has to have a steady turnover at least 7%. Okay? Average sale prices is enough to support your goals, and it should be nearby. Okay? Now, farming is one of those ways that you could actually increase your average sale price. Anybody want to increase their average sale price?

Some of us have seen our average sale price go up just by staying in the business. Remember back in the day, Diane, when we were listening to House for, 92,000, 98,000, and now that same house is 250 or 350 or whatever, right? We just stayed in business long enough and saw, but there's another way to do it too, right, farming, because it costs the same amount to market to the hood, as it costs to market over here. Same amount, right? You could market to the hood or the good, same price, right?

So you market in places where you want to live. I want to live there one day, so I'm going to start marketing there. You may not live there now, right, but you can choose, you can market, you can farm anywhere you want. It's up to you. I'm just saying it costs the same amount of money, right? Now, how do you go about doing it? You know, you can doorknock about 50 to 100 homes in an afternoon, right? Not me, I doorknock about 12, right?

Because we'll be talking about the pets and what they have for dinner. I like to make friends and all that. Don't do that. Don't do the Nali method. But you can do it 50 to 100. Go out there once a month and do that. Have an item of value, that's a kicker. Okay, and what I like to see is like a calendar of events,

things that are going on, places where kids can eat free, right, and the days they can eat free, things like, you know, the best happy hours in Austin, maybe that's not a good one for everybody. Not everybody should get that one, maybe. But think about a good item of value. Brand yourself, okay? This is non-negotiable. 30% of your marketing piece should be your photo and your logo.

Anybody have a problem with that? I got no problem with it. It's like 30%, 50%. But you should brand yourself because that's what farming is about. It's about getting out there. It really is about running for mayor of that farm. Here's some farming examples. I like this.

It's a monthly calendar. You can get together with a great title company or a great lender like Kays. and they will help you to put together the count, like what's hot in Austin, and you send that out, or you hand that to the neighborhood. Here's another example. How much is your home worth in today's hot market? Find out free all over Austin.com. People want to know what their home is worth, and usually they might be thinking about selling,

or you give them an offer to a free copy of your book. By the way, you can make that an e-book. People can just download it that way as well, right? farming. It's about getting involved. It's about running for realtor. That's what you're doing. Carrie Thompson for your realtor, right? She's serious about getting the job of being your realtor, right? And that's how you guys should be. Open house a lot. Now, some of you guys don't like to do open houses, but open houses are great, especially if you do the level seven open house that Gary teaches in shift, where you have directional signage, balloons and all this, and you turn that open house into an event. It can be a wine tasting. You've got three wineries there.

I mean, it's an event. It's like a neighborhood event. You can't do that with every house. You can't do it with that house, right? Maybe that house, you're like, no, I'm not going to do it. But you make them more of an event, and you make it something that people want to come out to. And really, it may not be about selling that house because we know that the house itself may not sell through the open house. But it's about you being visible in the neighborhood, the communities that you serve.

right every door direct mail that's that's another big one by the way let me go back to this slide right here getting involved as realtor running for realtor you're talking about city council HOA PTA neighborhood watch church let me ask you this if you were running for mayor what would that look like god help you you're running for the office of mayor of austin what does that look like farming should look the same way does that make sense Right? Now, don't go picking out a church because they got, oh, yeah, I'm going to go to this church, boy, I like these cars up in here, boy. This is a nice one right here. Huh? You walk into church, you got your Bible and everything, and then your business cards falling on the floor. People picking them up, oh, you can keep, though. You can keep that one. That's all right. That's not what I'm talking about. Don't pick the church you go to for farming opportunities, right? Nali doesn't teach that. I'm just saying, we're going to team up and do a class together. I love that. You know, this is what I'm talking about. about and you've been in the business 40 years. I really appreciate that. And especially for agents that are quote unquote new to the business, this really is a gift, right? Someone that's

teaching. Yeah. Right, right, right. Woo. 36 great grandchildren. Wow. You're famous. Yeah. This stuff works. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I did not pay her, God. Let's Let's give a round of a call. I have that, that is the reason why I do what I do. That's the paycheck that I will never spend, right? I mean, I used to have a guy would pay me $5,000 to come in and teach for one hour, sometimes two hours, and y'all know I can run my mouth for one or two hours, right? I can't tell you what I did with those $5,000 paychecks, honorary fees,

but I can tell you what I'm going to do with what you just gave me. I'm going to treasure that for the rest of my life. That's the paycheck that I will never spend, and I really appreciate you. Thank you. another gal came to my class and she said she'd been a realtor for 30 years and it was the best class she had ever been to. I'm like, you don't go to a lot of classes, do you? Just kidding. Or you haven't been to a lot. But it is, it's, it's, thank you. I appreciate that. I do receive that from you as well. It's a gift for me. Thank you. So the third thing I want to talk about, guys,

well, let's talk about EDDM and then we'll get to the third one. I was going to ask you a question. Yeah. So the question is, so the question is can you do, can you have like, they used to be Pitney Bowes type printer and go through that. With EDDM, they do have a process where you have to bundle them in 50s, and they're not addressed or anything, so you just take them to the... I don't know that they have a system where you can do it from your office or from your home office. I think you actually have to take them down with the paperwork filled out a certain way, and then they'll do it that way.

But once you get log into EDDM, every door direct mail, and you set up an account, it's pretty easy to... Once you have your route picked, right? These are less than 20 cents each. Now, let me give you an example. If you were to farm 500 houses and you were to spend, even if it was 20 cents, how much is that? $100. Okay.

Now, let's say you had to print those and you use got print, G-O-T-P-R-I-N-T, Got print, the game that I've been using for almost 10 years, you'll pay like, let's say you pay $40, right, for those five. not even that much. So it's way cheaper than that. So you're at a hundred, let's just say you're at $120, right? Now all of a sudden you go to four sponsors, you know, it could be a handyman, it could be a lawnmower service, whatever, and you split that in four, right? So you charge each of them $30. How much did you spend for that 500 postcard mail out? Four times, zero, right? Because each of them paid you 30, how many handymen would like to tag along on your marketing piece to 500 houses in that neighborhood? You know, probably everyone you come across. So all of the marketing that you do

like this should be sponsored. Does that make sense? It's called sponsored marketing, right? I told you I'm going to teach you low to no cost, make more money and save time, right? So EDDM is a great tool. Now the third thing that I want to get into that you guys need to be a part of is a niche, a niche market. So here's a question. What do you offer that most of the agents in the room do not? Why should a client use you versus the person sitting next to you? This is the answer that a niche market, or this is the question that a niche answers. Okay. Why have a specialty? So let's take the industry, right? A specialist makes about 100,000 more a year than a general practitioner, right? And general physicians have about 30% more annual visits, and they're twice as likely to work nights

and weekends for 100,000 less. Why is that? They're buyers agents. They're buyers agents. Hey, we got some buyers agents in here. We love y'all. Come on and sell one of my listings. Just kidding. They have the one thing that we can refer it, yeah. They're sought out, they're in demand, and they're relevant. Every one of you should have a niche. I'm not saying that it has to be your entire business, right? It's a division of your business.

It doesn't have to be everything you do. Most of y'all thought I only did short sales, right? But the ones that did the accounting at our office knew that short sales were really only about 40, 50% of my business. I just made it look like to all of you guys that that's all I did, right? Because it was a niche. And any niche that you have, it should look like to the person that people you're marketing to, like that's all you do, right? Any niche that you have. But it's really a division.

So what will you specialize in? This is your third bucket. It's not your only bucket. You've got your sphere of influence rocking. You've got your farm in place, and now you've got your niche. It could be luxury, right? It could be homes on one acre plus. It could be for sale by owners, as Ken does.

It could be builder properties that you list builder properties. You could specialize in divorce sales, listing homes with divorce and have a lot of divorce attorneys that are in your coffer. Give them a copy of your book, put the divorce attorney on the back, and then have them pass out the book to their clients when they're coming in for divorce. And divorce is like a three-for-one. Did y'all know that? It's kind of sad, but you've got a house to sell, and then, you've got a house to sell,

then they both got to buy. You got three deals. I'm not saying it's a good niche. I'm just saying it's not bad, right? Probate is another niche. I have some friends of mine. I got a buddy of mine, Stuart Sutton here in town. He owns One AcrePlus.com. He sells houses on one acre or more. If you have a house on one acre or more, call me. Why would you call that guy that does cookie cutter houses? Now, is he better at selling houses on one acre or more? No. But it looks that way when people look at it. He's like, He's got One Acreplus.com, right? So he must be better, right? We know a lady, my wife and I just had dinner with Deidre,

and she has what they call the church ladies. Guess what they specialize in selling? They sell churches. You know there's people that sell islands? Did you all know that? There's realtors that sell islands. Like, that's what they do. Well, this lady sells churches.

And guess what? Churches ain't cheap. Huh? I looked into it. Then I looked out of it. quick. We have a client right now that's about to, we're working on a $1.7 million church project, and it's not a fancy church. And that's what they call it, the Atlantachurch lady.com. If you need a church in Atlanta, you call her. She does churches, right?

A specialty can be anything. I've got, you could have a hundred, but just pick one, right? That's going to be the one that you do, blow up in that, you put a realtor over that, and then you blow up in another one. Then you put somebody over that. Diane and Melanie know when I was doing short sales, I still do them, but the last probably 500 houses we listed, I never saw any of those houses. I had one guy ran that division. You know, I was never here, but I blew up the division and I let them run it, right? So the bigger your business becomes, by the way, the easier it is to run. Just want you to know that.

Now, here are the three buckets. Your sphere of influence, your farm, and your niche, your specialty. From these three buckets, you'll be able to generate all the listing leads that you ever need. Right? Let me show you how that works. How many of you want to do six listings a month? At least six listings a month? Nobody?

Okay, right? Let's say you want to do, let's just pretend you want to do six a month. Is that low? Yes. Is that too low? Okay. Well, look at it. Man, you've got to go a lot higher than that.

Right? But I'm going to give you the example. So what you'll do from your sphere of influence, you're going to get three, two from your farm, and one from your niche. If that makes sense? That's what you do every month. A lot of you guys are like, oh, you're trying to get all your listing leads from one bucket. It doesn't work that way. You spread it out.

How do big businesses get big? They have a lot of little businesses in there, right? Every big business that you look at, if you really unfold them, it's a lot of little businesses that make up a business. business. Now, if you want to do 10 listings a month, you just change your numbers. You can do five in your sphere, three in your farm, and two in your niche. Does that make sense? Six to 10 listings a month, and this is kind of the formula that you want to follow in order to do that. Any questions, right? The three lead, but don't I make it so simple? I make it real easy, right? I try to do that for you guys and for me. Well, thanks so much for tuning in to this

episode of the Success With Listings podcast. If you are serious about taking your real estate career to the highest heights, making more money and helping more clients while working less hours and spending more time with your family, be sure to get your copy of my free book, triple my listing. Absolutely free at Successwithlistings.com. Now you want to be sure that you subscribe to the podcast and check out Successwithlistings.com to get your copy of my free book. Hey, I'll see you on the next one.

Thank you.