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

Episode Date: September 13, 2025

Friday Focus is your weekly mini-series from KGCI Real Estate On Air—a deep dive into one theme, broken into tactical, easy-to-implement episodes. Every Friday and Saturday, we unpack the strategies, scripts, and systems agents use to win more business—without the fluff.Catch every episode in the series to get the full picture, and put these moves into play by Monday.SummaryThis episode provides a masterclass on the tools and strategies that go beyond a simple "hustle." Featured guest Knolly Williams, a top-producing real estate broker and coach, reveals his blueprint for building a scalable and repeatable listing business. The discussion delves into three "secret tools" that can fundamentally transform your approach, allowing you to move from an agent who chases leads to a true business owner who consistently attracts them.Key TakeawaysTool #1: A Mastered Mindset: Understand that the most powerful tool is between your ears. Knolly emphasizes that success is 80% mindset and 20% mechanics. The episode highlights the importance of cultivating a resilient and proactive mentality, which gives you the confidence to overcome rejection and the discipline to consistently implement the other tools.Tool #2: A Simple, Scalable System: Discover why a complex business is a fragile business. The episode provides a blueprint for creating a simple, repeatable system for lead generation, follow-up, and client communication. By having a predictable system, you can reduce stress, save time, and ensure that your business runs smoothly, even when you're not there.Tool #3: Leveraging Technology and People: Learn how to multiply your efforts by leveraging the right resources. The discussion highlights the use of a simple CRM for lead management and the strategic use of people—such as an assistant or a team member—to handle tasks that don't require your license.Bonus Tool: The Power of a Listing: Knolly argues that a listing is a "business asset" that provides leverage. The episode emphasizes that by consistently focusing on securing listings, you can create a ripple effect that attracts more buyers, more sellers, and a consistent flow of referrals, building a self-sustaining business.Topics:Knolly WilliamsReal estate listing agentListing agent toolsReal estate mindsetBusiness systemsCall-to-ActionReady to unlock the secrets to a top listing agent's success? Listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and start building your legacy today! Ready for more? Subscribe to KGCI Real Estate On Air and grab the Always Free Real Estate On Air Mobile App for iPhone and Android. Inside, you’ll find our complete archive, 24/7 stream, and every Friday Focus mini-series—ready when you are.

Real estate strategy without the spin. Here's what you missed from this week's Friday Focus on KGCI, Real Estate on Air. Hey there, welcome back to the podcast once again. Now, you're going to really love today's episode. In this episode, I'm taking you back to a special seminar that I did in Austin, Texas, and we were talking about everything listing related. This one's going to talk about the top three tools of a successful listing agent. That's right. If you want to be top of your game, you want to be top of your class, you want to be top in your city, you've got to start using the tools that the big boys use.

And I'm going to share with you exactly what those tools are. And what I want you to do is not just listen to the tools, but start implementing these tools in your practice and watch the results skyrocket your listing business. Stay tuned. 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 listening. Let's go. I want you guys to leave here better than when you came in.

Now, here's the thing. Some of you guys have lousy tools, right? And let's say, for example, you are a master, you're great at flooring, right? But you've been doing carpet for, who knows, since Shag came in, right? And now everybody's wanting tile. But you show up with tools to lay in carpet, you know? Dude, I told you I wanted some nice tile up in here. I want an 18-inch.

I want porcelain. I want it laid this way. Well, I know how to do it, but I don't have the tools, right? Am I going to get the job? Absolutely not. And some of you guys have some lousy tools. I just wish I could see. And that's one-on-one stuff that I do.

I don't do much of that, but here's the thing. I wouldn't put it up here like, look at this lousy tool, right? I'm not going to show you some bad examples. But I'm going to show you how to instantly get the right kind of tools in your business. Gary asked this question in the one thing, and it's what is the one thing I can do, and he asks it around a lot of things, but have you ever thought about it to get more listings? What's the one thing I could do to get more listings, such that by doing it, everything else would be either easier or unnecessary. What is the one thing you could do to get more listings? Let's hear some answers. Make calls, network. Who else? Write some letters. If you could do only one thing and nothing else, knock on doors. Meet your neighbors. Meet your neighbors.

Right? Who else? Call some FISBos. There's a FISBow man right here. Right? Now, I'm kind of crazy. Y'all know that. And this was a couple years ago.

I was laying in bed and I said, I got to catch this riddle. What's the one thing I could do? If I could only do one thing to make everything else, knocking on doors, calling FISBos, calling my sphere of influence, farming,

to make everything else. easier. What's the one thing I could do? Y'all know what I came up with? It ain't the cowboy hat now. Become famous. Is that crazy? You should be well known. People should not be able to like, man, who's that? Nali, William. No. People should know who you are. Why are you hiding your secrets? You're high, we have some secret agents up in here? You know, you guys need to be well known, right? How does Gordon Ramsey charge what he charges for hamburgers? Y'all ever been to Ramsey Burger in Vegas? Man, $15 for a burger? I told the guy, I said, now, what kind of, hey, what kind of fries come with this? He said, sir, the fries are on the back

page. What? We're $20 now. And it comes with a free drink, right? I get a second plate or something. Well, sir, the drinks are on page three. Golly, $27 for a burger and fries? Now, I don't know, in Austin, I happen to know we got a place called Jack in the Box, right? And I happen to know this for a fact. $5.99, sometimes $6.99, depending on how they're doing it. I can get a burger, cheeseburger, with cheese on it, fries, a drink, right? And two tacos for $6.99.

And you're talking about $27? Man, I just got it. You see what I'm saying? But how can he get away with that? Because he's famous. And the burger was good, y'all. It was real good. I hope you're not hungry right now.

But here's the thing. When you become famous, everything else that you do becomes easier. Now, I'm talking about in your sphere of influence, you should be famous. So I started thinking, I said, well, what does a famous person have? Right? Number one, here's the three secret tools. Famous person has what? A book. Right? A book. You know, I wrote this book for my sellers just so that it could leverage my time, right?

And I encourage you, if you've got a book in you, write it. This is an easy book to write. It allows me to connect with sellers. It took me about 13,000 words. And I can't tell you how many listings I've gotten just by having a book. You go to be on Oprah Winfrey Show that, like, you got a book? No, I don't have a book yet. Well, call us back when your book is out, right?

But here's the thing, you can look famous before you are, right? And when you hand somebody something that makes you look famous, they automatically think that you're famous already, right? So it's a little bit of kind of, is it fake it until you make it? Huh? When I first got my real estate license, you know what my title was? Very first title I put in my business card? Realtor, somebody said.

Who else? Listing specialist. Never work with a buyer, never work with a seller. I'm a listing specialist, baby, right? And I didn't say I was a top listing, right? I just said that that's what I specialize in. I haven't done one yet, but that's my specialty, right? Let me practice on you, right?

But just having that on there gave people the confident, they didn't even question, how long you've been in the business? Nobody asked me that question. I'm a listing specialist. Why would they ask me that, right? So when I came up with my book, I said, you know, I got to have a book, something that I can leverage my time because I'm tired to say in the same thing to the same people, right? And plus, people don't, the last thing a seller wants to do is sit down and talk to Nali Williams.

Or you. They don't want to talk to you, right, until they're really ready to list because they don't want to be sold. People still want to buy, but they don't want to be sold. That's the reason why we don't like salespeople, right? So if now your name again is Cindy. Cindy. Cindy's talking about, you know, I'm thinking about selling my house. Oh, Cindy, you're thinking about selling it. You know what? I'm going to go. go ahead and leave you my guide. It's a complete guide to selling your house. I sell a lot of houses, by the way. And then I just back away. Cindy, I'm going to go ahead and call you. Now, I just gave her an item of value. I earned her trust, and I backed off. I didn't try to close her, right? So now I've earned the right to call Cindy in three or four days. Cindy, how's the

book coming along? You know, have you read the chapter on deciding to sell? What do you think? Are you ready to make that move, right? Then you have a chapter on marketing, your home for sale, pricing your home, how to get it ready for the market. So now, Cindy says, you know what, I'd like to go ahead and meet with you. Sit down, Cindy and I meet. And I say, Cindy, we just listed your house. We just signed the paperwork. And now I want you to read the chapter on getting your home ready for the market, right?

Go ahead and follow. It's got checklists and everything. And then when you're ready to go ahead and, you know, put it on the market, give me a call. We'll come back. We already had the paperwork, right? So then now what happens? We get it on the market? How do we handle showings?

You think that sellers remember all the stuff you regard, you tell them? I was going to say regurgent. But you tell them, they don't remember anything you say. And God forbid, you're not talking to both decision makers. Now she's telling them the husband or the partner, and nobody knows what you said, right? The book, just go back to the source. Now we get an offer on the house, right? What happens?

I send the offer to Cindy, and I say, Cindy, make sure you go back and read chapter 7. It's going to step you through the offer and then call me with any questions you have. right this little gym right here has duplicated myself and allowed me to save at least two hours on every listing i take okay so if you think if you take 50 you want to do 50 listings a year that's a hundred hours how much is your time worth right and plus it makes you look famous now we go to close on cindy's house you know cindy did i do everything that i promised i was going to do to get your house sold i did didn't i see how i'm leading with the head like that she's like absolutely well cindy here's what i want to do for you i'm going to go ahead and give you five copies of

my book so that anybody you come across, go ahead and just hand them a copy. Just put them at your cubicle, right? Now somebody's talking about selling their house at the water cooler. Cindy runs to her cubicle. She gets my book. This is my realtor. That's not your realtor. My realtor wrote a book. They're bragging on you, right? You teach them how to go out and get you business. Now, I give Cindy five of my business cards. What's she going to do with them? She may not throw them away, right? Because they got that nice looking picture on them. But they're going to go right in her glove box. She's not going to go get my card and give it to anybody.

She will give an item of value. Now I can call Cindy, hey, Cindy, you already sent me several people. Are you low on books? Can I send you some more? And your books are, I mean, that book that I wrote is only $2.50 to print them, right? And you only have to print as few as 50, right? I used to teach my students all the time, write your book. Here's the chapters.

Do it. And I call them up and what happened? Cindy, have you written your book yet? What'd she say? No, not. I'm about to start on it. Three months later, what's Cindy say? Still working on it.

I had one coaching student. He said, Nali, can I just use your book? What? That's my book. Get your own book. Right? But then I started thinking about it. I said, you know, there's a way that I could do this where you pop your picture on here.

You get your sponsors that completely cover the cost of the book so you don't have to pay any, it's nothing out of your pocket. you get your handyman, home inspector, cleaning service, carpet, cleaner, moving service, and painter. They each pay you $100 to be on the back of your book. So every listing you go to, you say, here are the people that I recommend to get your house ready. And now you're marketing, if there's a tag along, you're marketing them, they're marketing you. So that's something that I do offer. I'll tell you a little bit about that later if you guys don't want to reinvent the wheel.

You've got to get a book. When you're talking about becoming famous, famous people have them. The other thing that famous people have is a press kit. And if you went for a job interview and you didn't send your resume in, would you get that? I mean, you wouldn't even get called, right? Nowadays, you have to win the listing before you ever sit down and meet with a seller. Right? You've got to win the listing before they ever meet you.

You want them to do all the research. Don't force your sellers to go through all kinds of Google and trying to find out about you. Give them the information up front, right? So I'm going to show you the ingredients of a winning. a pre-listing packet. We'll have some over here if you just want to thumb through mine, take my ideas, take pictures, whatever. So first we have the seller's kit that's on the outside. Now, why do I put it in a gaudy yellow envelope? If it's mailed to you, you can't miss it, and if it's on your front porch,

you want to get it off of there as soon as possible because it looks bad, right? What's this stuff on my front porch, right? So you, so it's in a, by the way, when they get this in the mail, because some people are like, we either drop this off, our runner will drop it off, or we just mail it to them, right? It's like $2.54 to mail it. When they get this in the mail, they definitely, and the book and everything is in there, right? My hope, they definitely want to open it. They say, what is this?

All right, they open it right away. It's got the big, you get those on U-L-I-N-E.com. They're real cheap. They're pennies. I don't know how much. Hmm? Yeah, get the envelopes on U-Line. Yeah.

They have all colors, right? I'm a yellow guy, so I do that kind of thing right there. I go for the craziest color like that, you know. So then, let me just show you how you use your pre-listing packet. Most agents don't have one, but you need to have one. You need to put one together. Number one, your marketing plan, right? That's the first page.

Second page is your results. I call it real results. It's really testimonials, right? I call it real results. then I have a big marketing for the book. You know, hey, look how famous I am. I wrote a book. By the way, when I go to a listing appointment,

I don't have to tell them anything about me. That's embarrassing, right? You're sitting there for 20 minutes, telling them how good you are. They already read all that. They're just ready to do the price. Like, when I, hey, you read all the marketing, everything. Oh, yeah, Nali, I know everything you do.

Great. Let's talk about how we're going to price your home so we can get it sold. Fast. Right? Then I put the top 10, remember people like the top 10 list, so I have the top 10 reasons to trust the sale of your house with Nolly Williams. People are trusting you with their most valuable asset. You can't just trust, they wouldn't even trust their children with what they're giving you. This is their life savings.

Their whole life savings is wrapped up into one bundle and I'm giving it to Mike to handle for me. right do you realize if you take a 350,000 listing what's your commission on that? I should have gone around numbers. $400,000 listing. What's your? $12,000. I'm not hearing the right number.

You took a $400,000 listing. What's your commission at 6%? 48,000? 6%. So you guys are doing 3%. Like, oh, that's my commission. Do you know when I take a listing, I'm 6%? If it's at 6%,

that's all that's my commission. I'm just agreeing to give half of my commission to whoever brings a buyer. That's my commission. I can do whatever I want with it. Is that true or not? You can, you know, and so we just, we have that practice of doing that. But let's say 400,000 times 3%. It's 48,000 because I'm going to sell them.

Oh, look at it. He's making 48 grand. Well, he's on that trigonometry. I skipped that class now. That's another class I skipped. But that's good, Mike. I like that because you're thinking ahead, and that's how we should be thinking. What that seller is paying you,

though is $24,000. Did you realize that 40% of Americans do not make more than 20,000 a year? Did y'all know that? On one transaction, you're asking that person to make to give you what more, what less than, what 40% of Americans don't make in a year, right? And, you know, it may not be a big thing to us, right, because of how we live or our expenses, but it's a big thing to them, right? And you're asking them to trust you, so you've got to give them reasons to trust you. The other thing I like to do is the four reasons homes don't sell. Here are the four reasons. Who haven't I picked on right here? Your name, sir? Jason. Jason, I know Jason. Jason, so I'm asking Jason, I say, Jason, do you realize that there are only four reasons why homes don't sell? Did you know that?

It's either poor marketing, bad photos, you had a lousy agent or price. Jason, which of these do you think affected you on the sale of your house when it didn't sell last time? What do you think? You didn't have good photos, right? Anything else? Lazy agent. Exactly, right? Jason, with me, I'm not going to let that happen. You're going to have a great agent, and we're going to get you professional photos, right? So what I just explained to them is that there are reasons why houses don't sell.

I know what they are, and I'm not going to let that happen to them. Does that make sense? Guys, does that make sense? You should have something like this, and this works really good with expires, by the way. Now, Jason has his house on the market, right? we've been on the market for, let's say, 30 days. And I sit down with Jason, or Linda sits down with them and says, now remember, Jason, there's only four reasons why houses don't sell.

Now, we got the slick, Nali marketing plan, you know, that's not a problem. We already know that, right? Bad photos, we got that professional photo package. The photos are good, aren't they, Jason? Jason, what do you think about your real estate agent? Thumbs up. I wonder what the problem is. Jason, what do you think the problem could be?

See how I did that? I just trained them Now how is it price is always a problem in it It's always a price But if you go tell a seller oh it's price What do they think? You're trying to get an easy paycheck So I just showed you I earned my paycheck You're not doing your job

You know your job is to you know Price is what they tell us that they That they give you permission right And there's ways that you do that right Top 10 questions you must ask any agent Before you list your house This is money It's a money piece.

And so I give my sellers, like Jason, his home failed to sell. And so he calls me up, and he talks like this. I'm interviewing agents. Now, whenever you hear that, what's that mean? They're acting, you know, they, well, Jason, how many agents are you considering interviewing for the job of getting your household? Two or three, right? It's always three guys, you know, sometimes they're doing it down to two.

Well, Jason, I think that's a great strategy. Let me ask you a question, Jason. what specific criteria are you using to decide who you're going to go with the next time around? So you'll have success. What criteria are you using? Like, do you have any interview questions or anything like that? What are you looking for? I mean, what's your strategy?

How do you do showing? See, he don't even know what his strategy is. No seller does. I'm interviewing agents. Well, what's your criteria? They don't have any. Well, Jason, I understand what you just told me is that's a great strategy in how to do it. But Jason, I know the top 10 questions that you should ask any agent before you even invite them into your house.

And what I did, Jason, was I put that together on a PDF. I mean, I can email it to you. All you have to do is asking these questions over the phone. Jason, is that something that sounds like it might be helpful to you to use when you're going through this interview process? Absolutely, right? I'm going to go ahead and send that to you by PDF. And just use it. Don't have all these people tracing through your home.

Interview them over the phone and then decide who you're going to actually sit down with. Does that make sense, Jason? Absolutely. And here's the thing, Jason. I work with realtors every day, so I know the top ten questions to ask. Now, what did I do? I just gave him an item of value. I made his top list.

I made his job easier, and I gave him a system for doing the interview process. And by the way, when you go through the questions, it's the question, Nollie's answer, the other agent's answer, the correct answer. See how I'll put that? Did agent answer with the correct answer? Yes or no? Now, how many of these did I get right? 100%

it's my test do you wear a cowboy hat yes or no you see what I'm saying it's your test can you rap right did you go watch this movie last week right I'm just kidding but I mean you come up with your question are you a dog lover

I mean whatever right you come up with your questions and then you win the quiz the rest of this is my top top tips on preparing the home and then my top tips on showing the house. I'm going to answer some questions in a minute, but I want to show you another money piece real quick, and that is the seller's homework packet.

Make sure you have this in your pre-listing package, the seller's homework packet. And this is home features that we really enjoy. The type of person I think would love my house. How would you describe your house to a buyer? What are the features you like the best about the neighborhood? Now, they fill all this out. They use their adjectives, their nouns, their verbs,

and then I write the ad copy, right? And I send it back and I say, Diane, what did you think of how I articulated? Wow, you nailed it. How did you get it so accurate? Right? See what I'm saying? I just used what they gave me, right? I'm not going to tell Diane that, you know?

Diane says, how did you get it so good, so accurate, Nolly? Diane, I'm so glad you hired me. I really appreciate that you said that I'm going to get your household, right? I just reaffirmed to her that she made the right decision. Now go tell five friends, right? How good I am. So don't keep it to yourself. Now, the second sheet is my home's upgrades.

I want to know everything that they did to that house, right? I want to know all the interior features, interior, exterior features, lands anything. And if they did it themselves, I want to know not maybe how much they paid for it, but the value. So it's cost or value. If you did it yourself, put the value. If somebody else did it, how much did it cost? Because there is a lot of things that people do to their houses over the 8, 9, 10, 10, 20 years. that they don't even think of until they start filling out the sheet.

Right? And then Ken calls me up and says, man, Nollie, you know that house down the street? It went for about 12,000 less than years, man. You think the seller's flexible on price? Ken, I'm guessing you didn't download the upgrades list, huh? Let me go ahead and send that over to you. We got like 18,000 upgrades up in this baby, right? Now, the appraiser comes talking funny, right?

Now I send this to the appraiser, right? Hey, buddy, some things are easily overlooked, guys, Even you'll overlook them. So you want to make sure you capture those and you pop that out on MLS. The other two sheets, I'm getting to the money part in a minute, pay attention. The other two sheets are the most important criteria that we kind of put together for MLS. Right? For MLS.

And it's just checkboxes. All the features. Now this goes to Barbara. She just fills it in. She just goes on the MLS and inputs the listing. Now who fills this out? Me or the seller? The seller.

Why does the seller fill it out? They have the most knowledge and what other reason? That's the number one reason. Liability, what else? It saves me time. Didn't I say I was going to save you all time and money? Right? You go to your doctor, your dentist, and they say, fill out the PDF before you get here.

Right? Bring it with you. Right? Now, Barbara calls them up and says, now you got the homework packet, right? Your name? Charmila. Charmila? Charmila.

Charmila. you got the pre-listing packet from Nali, right? And you got the homework, right? Charmila? Yeah, I got the homework. Now, what Nali needs, Charmila, is he needs you to go ahead and fill out that homework and have two keys ready when he arrives. Would that be okay, Sharmaela?

Oh, yeah, I'll get that done. Now, she calls to confirm the listing appointment, right? Sharmila, is your homework done? Oh, yeah, I'll get it done right away. Now, make sure you have that ready for Mr. Williams when he comes out and have two keys ready. I walk in the house. I see the homework packet on the table with two keys. What's that mean?

I got the listing. I'm not going to, man, I'm not even, my list of this stuff, I don't even need to go through that. Let's talk. You know what, Cindy? This is, oh, this is not always acknowledge it now. Cindy, this is amazing. We're going to get top dollar for you. Oh, oh, I love this.

Wow, this is great. Spent about 30 seconds just telling them how great they are, right? Take the key, look at it, go check the front door. Cindy, let's go ahead and talk about price, you know. That's, that's, all the whole funny, that just cuts you like 30. You don't have to tell them anything about how good. great you are or any of that kind of stuff. Does that make sense, guys? This is the power of having a pre-listing packet. Let me pick up my toys. Having a pre-listing packet up front because sellers

appreciate it, you save them time and you save yourself time. Okay. The third tool that you want to have is video. Okay. Every one of you should have a pre-listing video. Right? We have a pre-listing video that we send out to all our sellers. We make sure that they watch our pre-listing video before they sit down with us. And it's, that's a 10-minute video, right? It's a long video, but guess what? This is their most valuable asset. They should spend 10 minutes listening to what Nollie Williams has to say about how he's going to get their household, or what you have to say, what Jana has to say, what Cindy has to say. They should spend that, and it could be five minutes, three minutes, whatever. What I've done is I've partnered with video people all across the country where I go. Here in

Austin, it's Austin Pro Video. That's who we use. If you want a great video, Austin Pro Video, they're the people that can get it done. I believe that this one, there's a place for like the YouTube quality videos and there's a place for your professional videos for like for famous people, you know. This is your movie, right? You got your book. Look at this. You got your book.

You got your press kit and you got your movie. You're famous, right? Those are the ingredients of a famous person and that's what you want to have in your arsenal whenever you're working with your sellers. It's going to help you get more listings before you ever meet with them. Does that make sense? So far. Okay.

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. podcast and check out Successwithlistings.com to get

your copy of my free book. Hey, I'll see you on the next one.