KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The First Five Seconds: Mastering Lead Response in Today’s Market

Starting point is 00:00:00 You don't need more sales, you need more connections, you need more relationships. They're not having the intentional conversations that are strategic and focused on who they need to focus on. You're circled by a moat nowadays. Caller ID. You've got do not disturb. You got no solicitation on your door. All this is because we're being bombarding with this stuff. This is KGCI Real Estate on air live. Your weekly deep dive into the strategies, trends, and tools, shaping the real estate industry from market updates to actionable strategies and exclusive interviews with top agents. We are here to unlock your full potential and help you thrive. Thousands of agents trust KGCI every week.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Now it's your turn. Let's go live. Here's Ian Wheatley. Hey, good morning. If the first five seconds of your lead follow-up sounds anything like, hey, this is thus and such from that brokerage. Is now a good time? You probably lost it.

Starting point is 00:00:54 But Ian, I'm really good once I get him talking. I'm sure you are, I bet, but how often do you get that lead? customer that prospect passed the word hello. Well, in this market, attention spans are shorter than contract timelines. Most agents are losing that lead before they've even gotten their name out the mouth. And add in some shifting compensation rules, affordability pressures, and MLS changes flying under the radar, it is no wonder that conversion feels like chaos. So today on Real Estate on Air Live, we're breaking it all down. The one year after the NAR settlement went into place and what Asians still need to be doing and thinking about why affordability's tight, but there's

Starting point is 00:01:32 real opportunity, and how to master that first five seconds of a lead response, because that is where conversion actually begins. Plus, your weekly doge of the top five takeaways, a Friday focus, you're not going to want to miss. And of course, the ever popular real estate confessions, because this industry stays unhinged. Time to go live. I'm Ian Wheatling. This is Real Estate on Air Live. Let's go to housing headlines. All right, this one shouldn't have shocked me, but it does. did. Can you believe that it has been a year since the NAR settlement went into effect? Now, I had hosted EXP Realty's big agent meeting last week. You did hear it streaming right here on

Starting point is 00:02:07 KGCI Real Estate on air on Friday just ahead of the Friday focus. And one of their brokerage leaders, Holly Mayberry, gave a great synopsis of what's happened since and looking ahead to where things are going. You can watch the full show, Commission Clarity, VA dominance, and branding power on EXP Realty's YouTube channel. I've got that linked up in the show notes as well. But I had five takeaways from what she had to say. And I thought that right here would probably be a good place to share those because it's all about what agents still need to be doing and why the NAR settlement matters now more than ever. All right. Number one, buyer agreements, they're non-negotiable, right? We knew this already, but you got to have that sign buyer agreement before showing any

Starting point is 00:02:51 property, including virtual showings. It's not optional. It's not flexible. It's the rule. It's at least created in my practice a stronger client experience and is something honestly, I wish I had started five years ago. All right. Number two, you're still being watched. Okay. All right. You have my attention, Holly. The plaintiffs in the Sitzer Burnett case. Yeah, the Sitzr-Bernet case are now filing to MLSs and associations asking how those rules are being enforced. Okay. Brokridges and even individual agents could be next, right? You've got seven years to get this right, okay? Start with one consistent workflow and stick to it. Number three, compensation isn't dead. It's just different, right? Sellers are still paying buyer agent comp and

Starting point is 00:03:44 concessions. And now the FHA, the VA, and Fannie and Freddie have confirmed that seller paid compensation, doesn't count against concessions. So agents have the green light to negotiate hard and document everything. Number four, state laws are catching up, right? Example of this is out of Virginia. That state of Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia, excuse me, now requires fee for service agreements for all licenses, including commercial. Expect more states to follow suit. And at number five, MLS rules are changing by September 30th, right? There's a new deluxe. delayed marketing status that's coming to many MLSs, right? This sets seller limit syndication, but agents must fully explain the risks of reduce exposure, right? So, ex-be realty agents,

Starting point is 00:04:34 y'all got a forum for that. Agents not with EXB Realty? Make sure you're talking to your broker. So all in all, this isn't about compliance for compliance's sake. It's about positioning yourself as the pro who explains, the pro who negotiates, and the pro that delivers clarity when the rest of the industry is still adapting. Because a year later, then our settlement hasn't gone away. And neither should your systems standardize, document, educate, because that's how agents stay out of court and remain in control. And real quick, because this is housing headlines here on Real Estate on Air Live,

Starting point is 00:05:10 affordability is stretched, but it is not collapsing. According to Ivy Zellman, she was talking on CNBC Squawk Box last week about housing affordability, now being. the most stretch that it has been since the early 1980s between sky high prices and still elevated rates. The situation for today's buyers that they're navigating, it's one of the toughest entry points in decades. But, and it is a big but, it's not a collapse. Correction, yes, rebouncing, yes, stress tests for the industry, absolutely. But here's what we know, right? July's mortgage applications for new homes jumped 6.8% according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Starting point is 00:05:48 Delinquencies dropped to nearly 4%, 3.93% in Q2, and that's below the historical average, and the average 30-year mortgage rate just hit its lowest level of the year, according to multiple sources, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, amongst others. So, yes, affordability under pressure, absolutely. But buyers are still finding ways to act. They're using buy-downs, they're chasing builder incentives, and they're watching the market very, very, very close. closely. So agents, now is not the time to be pulling back on lead response at all. It's a time to

Starting point is 00:06:25 get more precise. Your buyers may be on edge, but they're not off the table. And the ones who do act, they're acting fast. And the ones that don't, they're still watching. And that's check of your housing headlines here on real estate on air live. I'm you Wheatley. All right. So lifted behind the curtain here. You know it's summertime when. We usually do an interview in this part of the show, but today we're going to do something a little bit different. Something hit me a little sideways while prepping up for this episode. I was reading this article from Leeds at Scale. It's titled the first seven seconds, opening lines that prevent immediate rejection on cold calls. Not clickbait. It was all hard truth. And their claim,

Starting point is 00:07:09 more or less, is you got seven seconds. At best to make your prospect trust you, care enough to stay on the line and not instinctively hang up. And as I read it, This one line stopped me. If you don't have a reason for the call that benefits the prospect, you've already lost. Intuitively, I knew this, but my brain still lit up anyway, because I thought about a bunch of the past conversations that we've had right here on Real Estate on Air Live, not the sound bites, not the big interviews, but those moments that stuck with me way after the mic turned off.

Starting point is 00:07:44 And it all kind of clicked together. The best agents aren't selling in the first five seconds, they're serving. They're leading with clarity. They're leading with confidence. They're leading with relevance. They're intentional. And they show up with something that actually matters. So this week, doing something a little different. I've pulled five moments from past shows that perfectly capture how real agents win in those first five seconds and earn the next five minutes. And I want to start with Carrie Sovey. She said something a little while back about prospecting that flips the whole idea of follow-up on its head. You don't need more scripts. What you need are better reasons to call.

Starting point is 00:08:24 So my favorite tasks that I'm getting realtors to schedule right now that's actually giving the biggest return to kind of tied into what you asked me would have to be they're uploading. You've heard of this. You know, you don't need more sales. You need more connections. You need more relationships, right? That's where it was going well. They're not having the conversations. having the intentional conversations that are strategic and focused on who they need to focus on. So I'm getting them to write a list of like 100 people that would send them business, you know, or would be repeat customers. They're uploading it to chat GPT and asking it every week to give them a list of 20 people

Starting point is 00:09:08 from that list who to reach out to with 20 reasons to reach out to them as well. So now they're having intentional conversations. And then on Friday, check in with me and ask me how my relationships advanced and never, ever give me the same names back to back. So this is actually generating money for agents. I think that's making the biggest impact. That's not lead gen. Okay.

Starting point is 00:09:42 That is relationship curation. And that's how you earn, not to. just the next five minutes, but you earn the next conversation. Next, we head over to coach Randy Bird. I go back to this clip often when I'm talking with new agents because the biggest mistake I see is trying to talk to everyone with the same damn message. The problem is agents try to assume and talk to the whole market. The conversation to a seller is completely different than a buyer. And it's not that it's out of integrity. It's just a different conversation. So it really depends who they are. And so the first thing I do is teach them to have.

Starting point is 00:10:17 those kind of dialogue understandings so they can really talk to the client specifically to their needs and then secondly find out be a master of the market you know one of the things i say is you know business intelligence you really want to understand what's going on in the market because what i just said could have been said in any market if i say ian it's interesting you ask you know as a seller um the valuations are up 7.8 percent last year in 2024 and they're already up 1% this year. So we're seeing even a bigger trend towards increasing valuations. Now, the issue for you as a seller is we have low sales.

Starting point is 00:10:58 We only had 386 sales in the MLS last year or in January as opposed to 450 last year, which is 27% lower. So I'm given specifics. I'm an industry expert in this moment. So I'm speaking with business intelligence to that particular category. that's when you'll set yourself apart, then the agent just goes, oh, yeah, the business is great. I'm so busy right now. And, you know, it's just crazy what's going on.

Starting point is 00:11:26 Ever since Trump was elected, it's just been busy, busy, busy. You know, that's just general terms of maybe their impression of the market. That is not a tactical position of you becoming the expert in the conversation. When you're speaking to everyone, you're relevant to no one. Tailoring your opening line isn't flawed. it's conversion. And staying with Randy for a moment, he also dropped a masterclass in what I now call the value forward voicemail, okay?

Starting point is 00:11:55 This is how you start strong without sounding like a salesperson. You're circled by a moat nowadays, caller ID, you got do not disturb, you got no solicitation on your door. All this is because we're being bombarded with this stuff. Right. Now, when you come from an act of contribution or a place of contribution, you're without an attachment, it sounds like this. Hey, ring, ring. Hey, Ian. Hello. Hey, Ian, Randy Bird over EXP Realty here. And listen, you didn't ask me to call, but I have something I've

Starting point is 00:12:28 prepared for your home. And it's called a comparative market analysis, a CMA. And I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, because we're doing it as part of a bigger CMA in the neighborhood. So, you know, 1, 2, 3 Banana Street recently sold. So we were doing a CMA on that property. And we included yours, which is normal. We take, you know, the 100 or 200 homes around it. But I've got this report done already. I was just curious. Would you like a copy or would you like me to throw it away? I'll take it. Sure. Okay. So that little script changes the dialogue and changes the dynamic of it from asking for something from them to having something for them and you're unattached. That's why I say, I could throw it away. It's no big deal. It's already done. Yeah. Now, have I done it? No.

Starting point is 00:13:16 How do I stay in integrity with this? Right. How do I stay integrity? Right. I stay integrity by doing a CMA in that 500 or a thousand home area. Just take a recent closed, do a true CMA, see if it valued out, which you think it was. And now you've included all the homes within a mile or two or 10 mile radius of that. And then you're in integrity with this.

Starting point is 00:13:39 It takes you three minutes to do a cloud CMA. Right. So if somebody like you, Ian, says, hey, I'd love it. I go, okay, great. What's the best email? I'll send it over. And it's 45 pages of color photos, all the homes that have sold in the neighborhood. And I'll just do one thing.

Starting point is 00:13:54 I'll call tomorrow just to make sure you received it, answer any questions. And then you won't hear from me unless you ask. Would that be fair? That's fair. Okay, cool. What's the best email? Blam, blam, blam. What's the best number to reach out to you tomorrow?

Starting point is 00:14:09 Right. If they give resistance to that, I could still continue on. I get their email. I'm shooting. There's information. but I'm trying to add this to my database. So that would be a great example of a database ad, right? I talk to Ian.

Starting point is 00:14:24 He lives at 1, 2, 3 Banana Street. The CMA is about 474. Now he's in my web of everything from neighborhood reports to my podcast that I might do with the principal of the school in your area, to the fire chief, to the whatever. So I become that household name for you when it comes to real estate. and that's a process that's very successful right now. All right. There's no pressure there at all.

Starting point is 00:14:50 There's just relevance. And that's how you bypass resistance and stay in the conversation. Now, let's talk foundation for a minute. The way you show up before the call matters just as much as what you say on it. Tina Belvo put it best here. I am a huge believer in having a CRM from day one and getting everyone you know in there and then leveraging some kind of high quality email marketing, good email marketing. That's been a whole journey for me too.

Starting point is 00:15:19 So that's like the cornerstone of my email marketing strategy is I send this really awesome newsletter every month that people actually enjoy reading. They like text me and be like, include this next month. And it took me a long time to crack the code on email people actually want to read or at least don't unsubscribe from. So you've got to have a CRM, you've got to grow your database. you need to get people in there, and then having a thriving social media presence,

Starting point is 00:15:44 figuring out whatever your flavor is of how you're going to do that and where, and then start, first you need to build that a bit and then start to use that as a net. You can't win with the first five seconds if you're not even recognized when the call comes in. Familiarity creates a conversion space. And finally, back again to Tina,

Starting point is 00:16:06 because I think this is the mindset agents need to close. In my mind, I always say it's like layers of the cake, right? There's like the cake is the database and the CRM. And then in my opinion, the next layer is almost always email. And then social media, your one channel, your one place. And it doesn't even need to be all of Facebook. It could just be a group. That might actually be enough to have a thriving 20 or 30 unit a year solo agent business. Like you don't need more in a lot of cases. You might need more people in your database. And then it's like, okay, like, what am I going to do about that? So I think just moving in a logical order, it's so easy to like buy shiny objects and want to like buy like internet leads and

Starting point is 00:16:47 then like AI to convert and like all of that. And like all of that is so cool. But generally, that requires this like level of discipline and financial investment that is a little bit more like being like a machine, which I've had phases like that in my business. But at my core, I'm like a relationship person. So it's like how do I express that in my business? And I think it's those three things. Database, email, social media, repeat. It's boring. Stay bored. Stay bored. Stay bored and save your energy and your money. When your system's right, your calls aren't desperate. They're extensions of your value. You're not begging. You're building. So what's the thread that runs through all of this? It's not better tech. It's not clever lines. It's intentionality. It's preparation.

Starting point is 00:17:33 It's offering value before you ask for time. If you want to win those first five seconds, you don't start with bitch. You start with purpose. All right. Segment's over, but the conversation continues. If you missed any of those clips and you want to steal them, feel free to check the show notes. I've linked up to that article that kind of started it all. And the full segments of the full conversations are right there.

Starting point is 00:17:56 In the show notes, always available on the always free real estate on-air mobile app for iPhone and Android. Just search KGCI in the Apple App Store or Google Play and be sure to subscribe. If you're listening to this on Demandas podcast, be sure to subscribe to KGCI Real Estate on air wherever you're listening. So you're probably still sitting here thinking, cool segmentian, but what do I actually do with my life now? Well, first off, chill, just relax. Second, I got you. Let's turn those aha moments into action. Here are the top five takeaways from the first five seconds so that way you can stop losing leads before you even finish saying your name.

Starting point is 00:18:31 At number one, it's personalization over persuasion, courtesy a Carrie Sovey, okay? Don't blast, just connect. Use targeted outreach to build real conversations with people most likely to work with you. And number two, stop talking to everyone, all right, courtesy of Randy Bird. If you're using the same script for buyers and sellers and investors and everyone under the real estate sun, you're not building trust. You're just blending in, right? Taylor the message to the moment. Number three, lead with.

Starting point is 00:19:01 The give, also courtesy of Coach Randy Bird. Flip your intro from Can I to, here's what I already did for you. When you offer value first, people stay on the line. At number four, warm leads come from warm systems courtesy of Tina Belvo. When you're CRM and email game and that's dialed in, your follow-up isn't called.

Starting point is 00:19:23 It's expected. That's when people take your calls. And at number five, also from Tina, boring wins, show up in their inbox, show up in their feed, and you live in their head every week. Then when you call,

Starting point is 00:19:38 they already know who you are. And if those takeaways, have you rethinking your openers, your scripts, or just let's be real, your entire approach to follow up, make sure you're with KGCI Real Estate on air on Friday for our weekly Friday focus.

Starting point is 00:19:56 Coming up, it's the first five seconds, how to master the lead response game, all right? We are breaking down exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to make those first five seconds actually lead to five figures. Text calls, videos, follow up, no fluff, just strategy. But first, before we get there, before we wrap the show, we want to lighten it up a little bit because even when you say all the right things,

Starting point is 00:20:20 this business does still find a way to humble you. It's time for real estate confessions where your wildest client stories take center stage, But before we dive in, we want to get one thing straight. real estate confessions because in real estate truth is stranger than fiction. I opened what I thought was a hallway closet to show my buyers the storage and instead revealed a man sitting in complete silence in the dark eating cereal. He didn't flinch. My buyer whispered, do, do we leave? I said, we never speak of this again. And then we bought the house.

Starting point is 00:21:24 I meant to text my seller. Let's prep the home for staging. Auto correct changed it to. Let's prep the home for sacrifice. They responded, do you need candles or just the goat? I said both. We laughed, but the home sold in three days. Coincidence? My buyer walked into the kitchen,

Starting point is 00:21:43 looked around and said, this is the one. I can feel it. Five minutes later, she opened the fridge, saw almond milk, and said, never mind, I don't trust these people. She was dead serious.

Starting point is 00:21:55 We left. She never looked back. Have a real estate confession of your own. Be sure to find. KGCI Real Estate on Air on Facebook and Instagram. Drop us a follow and be sure to DM us your confession and who knows. It'll probably be on the air next week. All right, that is a wrap on this week's Real Estate on air live.

Starting point is 00:22:13 We've covered a lot a year into our settlement and you're still being watched. So make sure your systems are tight. Affordability is stretched, but the market's not collapsing yet. And if you're fumbling the first five seconds, you're not just losing leads. You're losing some real momentum. But this is what you're here for. Clear strategy, real examples, no fluff breakdowns from agents who aren't in the game. And if today's show sparks something in you, be sure to share it, send it to your team.

Starting point is 00:22:40 Post your takeaways everywhere on social media and you feel free to tag KGCI Real Estate on air. And don't forget to catch this week's Friday focus, the first five seconds, how to master the lead response game. We'll show you how to go from maybe next time to let's book an appointment in under 10 seconds flat. Till then, I'm Ian Wheatley. This is Real Estate on air live. Be sharp, be consistent, be the pro that they remember. And hey, don't forget, be good.

KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The First Five Seconds: Mastering Lead Response in Today’s Market

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