KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Why You Should Focus Your Real Estate Career on Listings

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Morning Primer is your weekday boost from Mindset & Motivation Monday—quick, focused, and made for agents by KGCI Real Estate On Air. Give yourself a daily mindset reset for the daily direction you need to show up sharp and ready to win.Start your morning ahead of the market and ahead of your competition every day with KGCI Real Estate On Air. SummaryDiscover why a real estate career focused on listings, rather than buyers, is the key to building a more predictable and scalable business. This episode breaks down the leverage, freedom, and lead generation opportunities that come from representing sellers. Learn how securing listings can create a self-sustaining business model and lead to greater financial and time freedom.Key TakeawaysListings Create Leverage: A single listing can generate multiple buyer leads for you without any extra cost, effectively working as a marketing funnel.More Freedom and Flexibility: Working with sellers offers a more predictable schedule and less "on-call" time, allowing you to manage your time and business more efficiently.Higher Income Potential: The ability to generate leads for both a listing and potential buyers for that property, or others, means listings can lead to a more consistent and higher income.Builds a Sustainable Business: By focusing on listings, you can build a business that relies on consistent lead generation and is less dependent on constantly chasing new clients.Keywords/PhrasesReal Estate Career, Listings, Listing Agent, Seller Leads, Real Estate Business, Real Estate MarketingCall-to-ActionReady to take control of your real estate business and build lasting success? Listen to the full episode now to learn why listings are the ultimate foundation for your career! Ready for more? Subscribe now and tap into our Always Free Real Estate On Air Mobile App for iPhone and Android, where you’ll find our complete archive and 24/7 stream of proven real estate business-building strategies and tactics. 

Built by KGCI, Real Estate on air, power by the mindset and motivation Monday. Here's your morning primer. Hey, Nollie Williams here. Welcome back to the podcast. Now, in today's episode of the podcast, I am going to teach you how to succeed at a higher level with listings. Now, listings are the name of the game, okay? If you are in the real estate game, I know you are, you want to start focusing on listings.

If you haven't already started focusing on listings or you want to start focusing more on listings, this episode is for you. In this episode, I'm going to share with you the top 10 reasons why you should be focusing on listings and you should make listings the thing that you do for the rest of your career. You'll definitely want to take notes. You'll want to open your mind, expand your mind, be open-minded because this is the kind of information that your subconscious needs to. hear in order to build your belief around listings. Listings is the name of the game. In an up market, listings. In a down market, listings.

And in the market that we're coming into right now, where you're going to need more skills, listings is the name of the game. It's what's going to differentiate you from every other agent in town. All right. Enjoy the podcast. 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. Now, why listings? What percentage of your business do you think should be focused on listings? Anybody ever read the millionaire real estate agent? What's in here?

Is this water? coconut water? I want my coconut water. Anybody like coconut water? I used to hate it. Depends on the brand, really? What's the best brand? I just drink it. I used to hate coconut water.

Hate it, hate it, hate it. My dad grew up in Trinidad. He was Caribbean. So he liked all this stuff. Crap, I was going to say. Coconut water, mangoes, all that. But now I love it. Now I love it. This is what Gary Keller. See, I was brainwashed when I got in the real estate. I was completely brainwashed.

I was told that I needed to focus on listings, and I needed to make it my, all this stuff. And I just, I didn't know any better. Nobody taught me anything different, so I just did that. So here's what Gary says. He says, there are so many great reasons to devote, how much? All of your time and effort to take into marketing listings, make listings your primary focus.

So I read that guys, and I just believed it. And I just went out and getting it. That's, so I focused 96% of my, my business has been listings. So, reason number one, we're going to get into 10 reasons. Seller listings mean more opportunities, more marketing, and more branding. So what that means is you get to put your sign in the yard, and you get to market the listing through direct mail and all that.

So all that is, is every time that you, and you guys know all this stuff already, but I'm going to remind you, every single time you get a listing, you get to market yourself. When you get a new buyer, do you market yourself because you have a new buyer? Do you have a sign somewhere that says I have a new buyer? No. When you get, see, that sign in the yard, you know what it says? It says that the smiths are trusting me with the sell of their house.

Maybe you should too. Just a hint, right? So it's a big hint when you put that sign in the yard. I remember when I did my very first sign, and I've been into graphic design for a long time, and I had my record label. I was into doing graphic art for the, you know, stuff like that. And so when I did my first sign, I wanted the big cowboy hat on it. You know, I wanted that big, you know, if you've seen my stuff, my pictures everywhere,

people are like, man, are you big head? I'm like, no, but I like to have that cowboy on there, you know? And so, like, I treat myself almost like an alter ego. Like sometimes I even talk to my, talk about myself in the third person. You ever met anybody like that? The weird people, you know, I'm kind of weird that way. So when they did my sign, he had my picture kind of small on there. I said, no, we got to bump that up.

So he bumped it up. He says, is that good? I said, no, no, no, we need to make bigger. Because when you're looking at your proofs on the computer screen, you know how sometimes it's so small. So it didn't look like, it looked like a business card on the thing. Well, finally he got to where my chin was at the bottom of the sign, and my hat was at the very, you know, the very top of the sign. And I was wearing my big cowboy hat. I don't have that on the day.

and I said, there we go. He was like, and this is God's honest truth. The word for sale was not even on the sign. It didn't fit, right? People call me up, is this a rental? Like, no, no, no, it's for sale. It's for sale. We just didn't have any room.

He said, Nolly, what about the phone number? I said, make it tiny print. I want the picture big. So that's what he did. So when I got the signs in, I got him in and I look, ooh, it scared me. I got shocked. Because the big old head.

I'm talking about big-headed. You talk about big-headed. And because the way they had, anyway, it was sad. So I would, the last thing I did when I went to a listing, this honest truth, the last thing I did was I would put the sign in. Because they said, nah, are we going to put the sign out? No, no, no, no, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. And it was the last thing I did when I was on my way out. I put the sign in and then drive off.

And then, who's this big old sign in my yard? You think you're running for mail around here? What's this thing? Get this thing out of my yard. You know? It was crazy. But I finally got used to them. They looked real good from about two blocks away.

they look real nice, real nice. But that's the thing, guys. And even to this day, that's what I do. I have my, and you guys should use your picture more. Anybody afraid to use your picture? Don't raise your hand. And I'm just saying, use your picture more. And also get into video.

You know, a lot of times when I see your picture on a card or your picture or your picture, you know what I think in my mind? I could trust that person. Why do we do that? It's just something we do as human beings. It's just part of being human, right? Now, reason number two, you get more control of your time. How many of y'all know you get more control of your time when you're working with sellers?

Sellers are very respectful. Most of the time, they won't call you nights and weekends unless you set up the precedent that it's okay for them to do that. A lot of times, when a seller calls me after five, you know what the first thing they do, they apologize. When's the last time a buyer called you, you know, nights and weekends and it's not going to happen. Reason number three, seller listings maximize your per hour. compensation, your per hour compensation. And I learned this, that you can actually work 20, 25 sellers, not that you would want to, but it, you know, what your goals are, your goals. Okay, I'm going to help you reach your goals. You don't have to want to do 100 deals a year.

You might say, man, I don't ever want to do that. That's fine. Whatever you want to do, you should be doing that. You should be reaching your goals. But you can work three times as many sellers in the same span of time as buyers. Now, reason number of volume. Okay. Kind of what we just talked about. This one is more your per hour compensation. Because here's what I found, guys. This is real important for you to understand this. I use a 46-step listing system. Okay? 46-step listing system. What I've found is that I only personally have to do between three and five of those steps. If you look in my book, I put all the steps in there. There's only three-

to five of those steps, all the other steps are delegatable. Because the truth is, a listing is very administrative intensive. So 91.3% of all the duties that go into every listing you take can be delegated. Now, whether you'll delegate them or not is up to you. Okay. And some of you guys don't delegate nothing. Right? You want to do everything. And that's a way of being. And maybe you don't need to delegate because you don't have your volume up to the point where it's necessary. Does that make sense? So it's kind of your choice. Four volume, we talked about that.

Five, increased market awareness. Every single time that you do a listing, you've got to study the market to do that listing, right? You've got to look at the cops. Now, you do that some with buyers, but if you're doing a lot of listings, you are real market aware. And you start to understand things before they occur.

Like, you start to know things like, hey, this neighborhood is trending up, or this neighborhood's trending down, or I think this is what's going to happen. You start intuitively knowing things like that. Reason number six, is that listings will bring you in more business. How many of y'all want more buyers?

You want more buyers? Nothing wrong with it. If you want more buyers, what's the number one way to get more buyers? Get more listings. If you have more listings, you would generate more buyers. Now, reason number seven, if a deal falls, you just simply pop it back active. I work buyers. I still work buyers. I was out this week showing property to buyers.

Okay, during the 700,000 range, thank you. What's the average sale price here, by the way? More or less. 350? Okay, so pretty good, pretty good. Does anybody know how many transactions were done at the local level last year? Any idea? How many were sold? Yeah, how many were closed, like closed transaction?

We can come back to that. Just a curiosity. Sometimes I like to run statistics just so I know the market is. But 175? Where are y'all from? Oh, nice. Okay. So it's 191?

Yeah. Okay. Hey, I mean, in Austin, well, I mean, everything years ago, right, was, because I remember back, I would, I would list a house anywhere. It didn't matter to me. If it was a, if it was $40,000 house, in fact, when I first got in the business, that they, I was the joke of the office. They would just throw stuff at me because they knew I would do it. They're like, oh, in fact, I was on, I overheard this. It was a true story. An agent, a friend of mine. He was on a call and he was talking it up, man. He was, he was, he was reeling this guy in, seller. And he says, what's the price? How much again? What are you asking? Could you repeat that one more time? He says, oh, he says, you know what? We've got a guy in our office that works really good in that price range. His name's Nollie Williams. Well, you know it was something under 30,000. Because where I started, it was a, we actually moved south, a smaller town. I had a lot of listings on for $39,900. The scripture says don't despise small beginnings. Because the work that you do, how many of you know that you'll put more work, into a deal this $200,000, then you will a $700,000 deal. You will.

You will put in more work. And I know because I've gotten both of those under contract this week. I got a $200,000, and I got a $700,000 was just frankly easy. I can communicate with the sellers better. They understand what I'm saying. I don't have to pull my language back. You see what I mean?

And if a deal falls, you simply pop it back active. Now, if your buyer deal falls, what happens? You got to hit the pavement. You got to get you got to hit you but but when a salary deal falls you just it's a key stroke right you just stroke the key an MLS is back on the market who's next right now that's reason seven reason eight you can run your business from anywhere run your business from anywhere and this is what my wife and I have done I still do listings and I still do buyers I just don't really advertise them because I say I call myself retired in 2015 when I paid off everything

I'm like, I'm done. I don't have no ball and chain. Nobody's telling me what to do. But you find that real estate is something that, in my understanding, is something that you'll want to do forever, really, because you'll always want to have, I've been a broker for 10 years. I'm always going to want to have my real estate license. Because it's fun when you're working with people you like. Like when you get to pick the kind of clients you want to be around, that's when it's fun again. Make sense? So, and my clients understand me. They know I like to travel. So I tell them right up front, and it's no problem. You can access, you can do your business from anywhere in the world. You know, I recently joined EXP. I don't know if anybody here's heard of them, but it's been 30 days I've been with EXP, and I love it because of the virtualness of it. It's the way I've always worked anyway. I can work from anywhere in the world. So when you do listings, it's easier to do that than with buyers.

With buyers, it's hard to work from anywhere in the way. There's a way to do it, but it's more difficult. Reason nine, you can adopt the buyer. You get to adopt the buyer. A lot of people don't like this, this, slide. Do y'all know what I mean by Dr. Buyer?

All right. And a lot of people have a uncomfortableness with this, but we talked about it, you know, Michael talked about it this morning that most of the buyers will forget, I mean, most of your clients will forget you if you don't stay

in touch with them. 87% is what they say. And so I always knew, I would always get calls and people would say, hey, could you list my house? And I'm looking up, I'm like, who is this guy? You know, or my assistant would say, hey, such and such called you. Derek George or whatever called you. And I'd have to look, it was a buyer that bought one of my

listings. You know that's the easiest sale in the world, by the way? A buyer that bought one of your listings? It's a three-question close. Three questions. Like, for example, Derek George called me up. A guy that I had sold in my house, I looked up his name in the computer. So many people have done this. They say, so I called him back. I said, now Derek, you call me about selling your house didn't you yeah I'm thinking about selling my house now you know I

sold that house before didn't you yeah I know you sold my house before well Derek you know I can sell it again don't you yeah I think you can sell it again well great well all we have to do I've already seen your house it's not like I have to come out and look at it you know I sold it before all but we did a lot of upgrades okay great well let me come look at you you you don't have to sell there's no selling involved that makes sense and then reason number 10 is that the seller listings are highly leveraged what I want you guys to be doing and I want you to be thinking about this. Back in the old days, just like it, and I heard this from Kevin Cooper, a friend of mine, and he gave this analogy, and I really like it. So back in the old days when we used to fly,

he used to travel, the first person that you would see when you got on the plane was the captain, right? He would greet you. Some of us don't even remember those days, but the captain would greet you before you got on, and then he would go in the cockpit. They don't do that anymore, right? And then the last person you saw before you got out of the plane was who, the captain? He would greet you. Hey, thank you for flying with us. Thank you, so on like that. Well, did you see the captain during the flight?

Nowadays, do you see the captain during the flight, right? And so all I do is I educate my client to say, I'm the captain of the ship. We're flying your bird to sold. That's our destination, right? That's what we're going? We're going to sold, right? That's what we want to be. Okay, go.

Sold, great. Well, I'm going to be in the cockpit. There's a lot of stuff that I have to do to get this bird to sold. Make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. Well, guess what? You're not going to see me.

during the journey because if you see the captain during the flight we got a problem it's some it's a big problem if we see the captain during the flight walking around handing your peanuts and a glass of water getting you a cocktail maybe beverage a wine or something like that we got a big handing you a blanket the captain no captain named this stuff and so and they say so so so so so so and they understand the team concept i've got a person that's going to take care of all your needs i but don't get it twisted because captain was there the whole time, even if you didn't see him, the captain was there. And they get used to not seeing you around.

Don't they get, and they get used to not seeing you around. And then actually when I call my clients now, they're like, Nali, is there a problem? What's wrong? No, no, no, no, no, I just want to check in on you. You know, no, no, no, no. Oh, yeah, that thing. Yeah, yeah, no, no, we're good, we're good. So, but you actually train the client on how to relate with you.

Does that make sense? And they actually appreciate it. So they actually will say things like, well, could you just have Barbara call me about it? You know, this is God's honest truth. And I say this jokingly, but it's true. When I had a team, when I had my team rocking, I tell people all the time, I'm the dumbest one on the team. Because they always would want to call me to get things.

And a lot of you guys make yourself, you make yourself very available, but you also make it to where people rely on you. If you have a team, and a team could just be you and an assistant. Okay. Some of you are at the point where you should have an assistant already, you probably just don't, right? Because you just don't want to go to that step. But the reality is I was always the dumbest one on the team.

So when they called me about, hey, like, I didn't even know what listings I had. Because I was running my team at such a high level. We would take, you know, five, six listings that week. I didn't know what all of them were. I had team members doing all that stuff. So people would call me like, hey, you know, you got a new listing on one-on-one Hickory Street. I said, oh, a new listing there? Tell me about it.

And he said, yeah, it's your listing. I said, well, tell me about it. How many bedrooms does they have? And I start having them tell me about that listing, you know? They're like, man, we aren't calling you no more. Who knows about this? Oh, my assistant knows all about that one. I don't know anything about it.

But I would make myself the dumbest one of the team because the reality is when you run a team and when you guys get to the point, how many of y'all have a team now? Not many. How many of you have an assistant? Like somebody that helps you. Okay.

So we'll get more into this if y'all have Q&A around this. But most of you should have an assistant. The personality profile of most real estate agents is not the same personality profile of an administrative assistant. This is a completely different personality profile. And so what you're going to find is that you're doing stuff that you absolutely hate to do. And that's what makes the business not fun. Here's what I did.

I was two years in the business and I said there's some things about this business that are just not fun. And I've got to tell you guys. Okay. And some of y'all are older than others and some of y'all are younger than others. Okay. You know, and some of y'all are right in the middle. It doesn't matter. There's going to be some things that you like to do, and there's going to be some things that you don't like to do.

Why do the stuff that you don't like to do? What's the point? Why do it? A lot of you guys are doing $12 an hour work, and I don't understand it. You need to give yourself a raise. So here's what I did. Just a thought. Two years in the business, I said, you know, there's a lot of stuff that I'm doing that I don't like to do.

And I just wrote it all out. What do I do on a listing? Okay. Pick up the phone and talk to the seller that calls in. Don't like that. I don't like talking on the phone. So I'm going to delegate that out. Well, actually I didn't I didn't come about it this way. Here's what I did I wrote it down from one to five every single step that I do like Everything you write down everything like call clients back when they call you put up signs I didn't like putting signs in the arts I didn't like putting up lockboxes I didn't like taking photos on my list

So I made all this list of everything not just the stuff I didn't like I made a list of everything that I do and And I rated it for one to five. Five was like I love it. One was I hate it. And I decided I'm only going to do fours and fives. How many of y'all know that you can create your own reality? Do y'all know that? Do you all know that?

You can. And so I said, I'm only going to do fours and fives. And if it's a one to three, I'm not going to do it, period. And that's how, I mean, I did that two years in the business. And that's how I've always done it. As soon as something gets to the point where, now I do like the learn things to the point where I know them because I don't like to have an assistant do something that I don't know how to do, but I like to learn it to the point that I know it. But once I know it

enough and it's not something that's in my skill set, see, some real estate agents love doing paperwork because they have a person. How many of y'all know about the disc personality profile? So some of y'all do, some don't. You should study it, learn more about who you are so you can kind of gravitate to do what you like more than what you don't like. Some people like doing paperwork and honestly I know I've got some friends of mine that they have listing agents that go list they don't even like meeting people like it's not their personality profile does that make sense well thanks so much for tuning into 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 success with Listings.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.