Kevin Ray Ward argues real estate agents build backwards by chasing buyers instead of sellers. A single listing generates multiple deals through marketing, buyer inquiries, and double-ending transactions. Ward says listings give agents free neighborhood exposure and control over inventory, while buyers can't be marketed to the same way.
Chapters
Most real estate agents are building their business completely backwards, and it's the reason that they struggle and stay stuck. They're taught to chase buyers, and in this video clip from a recent masterclass I did, I am going to lay out specifically how any agent can flip that model and become a powerhouse listing agent in your market by making one simple but profound mental shift. And once you make it, everything changes. Enjoy the video. Listings are leverage. Here's the reason, and here's what I call the listing leverage math. This is the math. When you get one listing, you have one seller, it doesn't equal one deal. It equals one or more deals. And the reason is because I can leverage a listing to get more business because it gives me a marketing opportunity. I can market a listing. Can you market a buyer? I mean, how many of you can market a buyer to get more buyers or to get more? You can't. It's like, how do I market a buyer? You can't market a buyer. But when you market a listing, you market what everybody wants, which is the house, right? So it gives me marketing opportunities. It also gives you marketing opportunities to other sellers. When you list a house and sell it, it's like, hey, I just listed this house and sold it. You want to sell yours? Talk to me, right? It gives you leverage because it gives you marketing opportunities. It gives you the opportunity to generate buyers, right? To generate other business— multiple buyer inquiries, signed calls. You can do open house events where people come in, and it gives you the opportunity to double end. When you don't have the listing, you can't ever double-end a deal, right? When I have the listing, I have the opportunity to get both buyers and sellers. And the guys, the magic of this is, is more and more, especially after the, uh, the big, the big class action lawsuit on buyer commissions and all that, more and more buyers are going directly to the listing agent. Have you guys noticed this? More and more they're going directly to the listing agent, and that's going to be the way it's going to be. So if I want the chance to double-end a deal, which doubles the commission most of the time, I want listings because it gives you leverage. It also gives me neighborhood exposure. I get to put a billboard marketing my services in the neighborhood for free, hold a for sale sign. And when that for sale sign in a couple of weeks has a sold sign on it, guess what? I've just marketed to the entire neighborhood, to every homeowner in the neighborhood that says, you want to sell your house, talk to me because I know how to sell homes, right? So it's the best marketing on the planet. It's free. And it proves success to every homeowner in the neighborhood. If you take an overpriced listing and you put a sign in the yard that sits there for 6 months, what are you marketing to the neighborhood? Hey, if you want to sell your house, don't talk to me because I have no clue what I'm doing. You guys know what I'm talking about, right? We can't— it doesn't— it does— you don't want to do that, right? And the other piece that's so great about a listing is every time I took a listing, I put a sign in the yard when I took the listing. I was like, you know what I just did? I just hired thousands of agents to work for me 7 days a week. All them with all their buyers and out there, what are they doing? They're bringing my— they're bringing buyers to see my listing to sell my house. They're doing the heavy lifting. All I've got to do is put the listing out there, put it in the market appropriately, properly, and they're going to do the work, bring buyers. And even better, if buyer comes to me directly, I'm all happy with that because now I have something I can market to what buyers want. Which is the listing. You guys feel this, how much leverage? If you feel this, give me a head nod. Give me some— like, type in the chat yes. Give me a thumbs up. You guys feel this? Betty, you feel this? Like, this, guys, this is the game changer, okay? My business was— over the years, my business was over 70% listings sold. And I'm telling you, it would— like, I didn't even work on weekends most time. My buyers— my buyer's agent did my open house events. I just— I, I had leverage. And so it not only to give me leverage in the market, it also gave me leverage in my time. It's super, super powerful. So here are some of the false beliefs that most agents have to deal with. One is this idea that listings are too hard. Oh, sellers are so demanding, they're stubborn, they're unrealistic, and they want you to jump through all kinds of hoops to sell their house. And it's just like, I just don't like working with sellers because it's too demanding and it's impossible to keep them happy. Well, the reason that happens is not because sellers are that way, it's because you don't know how to deal with sellers and how to get their listings sold. For top dollar, right? If you have the process, you— it's totally a different experience with sellers. I love sellers, and guess what? Sellers love me. And the reason is because I knew what I was doing. I mastered the process. And that's what— that's what we're going to help you do today. And so what happens whenever we get this idea that sellers are too hard, you know, and today it's like, ah, so hard to get a listing, right? Because they got a 3% interest rate, they don't want to give that up. So it's gotten really, really tough. So what's happened is we get sucked into the buyer trap. And so what happens with buyers, they take massive amounts of our time, they require us constantly chasing them, showing them houses 7 days a week, countless hours, and then they cancel or disappear so easily, or they ghost us. And it just drains our emotional energy because I don't have certainty that I'm gonna actually get a deal closed. So when you take a listing, guys, they sign an exclusive right to sell agreement with you. What are they telling you? I am committing that I'm going to sell my house with you and you're going to get paid. All you got to do is now deliver the result and you're going to get paid. With a buyer, they can say, I'll, I'll pay you, I'll work with you, and they sign a buyer broker agreement and they still disappear. And it's like almost impossible when that happens to go out to actually get paid for it, right? And so the reason is, is because most agents build their business backwards. This is what I was talking about, proper programming. And that is that we, we get sucked into focusing on buyers, which is the completely backwards way to do your business. We focus on buyers and hope for listings. Okay, how many of you've heard the saying, the saying, hope is not a strategy? Like, hope's not a strategy, guys. Hope is not the strategy. Okay, here's the magic shift. Focus on sellers. Program my mind. All my lead generation, all of my effort, all of my focus is I'm gonna find sellers every day. I'm going after sellers. And here's the reason that works. That's building your business forward. Because when I get listings, guess what comes to me for free? Buyers, right? So if you want buyers, get sellers. It's not like if you want buyers, go after buyers, because buyers don't want you. What buyers want is a house. And when I have a listing, guess what I have? I have what the buyer wants. So they come to me because I have what they want. They don't come to me because I look great. And because I have a great glamor shot on my website, right? They don't come to me for that. They come to me because I have what they want. And this is just understanding psychology of buyers and sellers is understanding what do they want. So we build our business backwards by getting sucked into becoming a buyer's agent by default. But listing agents, on the other hand, when they understand their program for sellers, they control the inventory, which means they control the conversations, they control their time. And bottom line is you control your income. So you've got to have this belief shift, and the belief shift is I don't just— I don't need more leads. What I need is better leverage. Give me better leverage. How do I get better leverage? Get listings. How do I get listings? Focus on sellers. And if you like this video clip from my recent masterclass, make sure you subscribe to this channel and turn on the notification bell so you get notification when I upload my next video clip, which is going to be coming here in a couple of days. Got 4 clips coming for you in total. And you can click right here to watch another great video on dominating listings in your market today.
