Chris Prefontaine and Mike break down cold-calling routines for real estate agents: start with 15-minute blocks aiming for 10-15 dials, build up to 50-minute sessions, and target 25-50 calls weekly. They emphasize prep work, accountability check-ins, and mental resets between blocks to keep the calling muscle strong.
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Seeing a pattern of, of time blocking. I guess we can call them mishaps, right? Or misusing the time blocks, right? Uh, not using the full potential of what they could be, right? So I used to start off with maybe just like a 15-minute time block so I don't get overwhelmed with seeing a big time block in my calendar. Uh, then you kind of get that in that mental space of of, uh, doubt, right, for the day and getting things done. I would split the 15-minute increments throughout the day, you know, to equal an hour, and then I would knock it all out. But solely focus on what I'm doing in that 15 minutes and just hammer out, uh, seller calls during that time frame. Now, 15 minutes, you should get a pretty decent amount of dials, right? I mean, you're not going to get 100% live call action on, on your dials, so Uh, you should get, I would say, probably what, what do you think, Chris? 10 dials, at least 15 dials in 15 minutes. And then, yeah, around there.
Depending if you're getting a live, of course you luck out.
And you get a live, it'll take 5 minutes. So anywhere from 10 to 15 dials, I would say, right? In a week you should be hitting, if you're hitting it multiple times, you should be hitting that multiple times a day, right? So 10 dials a day. 5 days a week, $50 a week. We should be trying to hit at least half of that, right? $25 a week, uh, to get a few leads. Um, I mean, if we're only doing a handful a week, then you're really not gonna be making any headway and building any type of funnel that's meaningful, right? Uh, any thoughts you wanna add there, Chris?
Yeah. What, uh, a couple things came to mind. What did you have when you were working? Is that sort of what you had? 15 in the morning, 15 at night? Is that all you had? Way back.
Oh no, I would do more than one 15 or more than 2 15-minute sessions. It'd be like at least 4.
Got it.
To equal an hour.
Yeah.
But I would spread it out through the day. Right.
Well, you had to spread it out, right? 'Cause your schedule, plus you were just getting used to it.
Yeah.
So the way Mike said that just remind, like, reminds me what I said to you this morning, Paul. You're sort of building a muscle, right? Um, Paul and I had a, a one-on-one and we were just talking about a number of things, but one of 'em was just building that muscle. 'Cause how you do anything is how you do everything. And if, If you're already at 15-minute sessions and you're good with it, great, then build upon that with more 15s. Um, but we got to build that muscle and build it up. I remember like yesterday when I first started in real estate, uh, I'm going way back now, but, uh, my coach told me to do like, I think it was 20-something dials a day. I was a realtor, I was like petrified, I literally was sweating. But so I remember doing like 12, and then I built it up, and then soon I was doing 100-something cold calls with a double headset. You know, it was just totally different because I built the muscle.
Mhmm.
It's an old example, but accurate. So you guys can all build that muscle too. And I guess the other thing, Mike, would be like, Deb's coming in tomorrow to do calls. It would be insane for us to sit there and have Deb watch me take, like, incoming calls and do all this stuff. Right? That's kinda— it equates to you doing a 15 or 50 or whatever minute session and not doing just outgoing calls, like, getting distracted with, I gotta get a coffee, I gotta check email, I gotta get a text, I gotta take an incoming. None of that. Outgoing only when you're focused on this. That's how you're gonna get good, and that's how you're gonna be focused for your day. That makes sense, you guys?
Yeah.
Any questions on that?
No, I like the idea because my schedule is so hectic right now that that actually is probably gonna fit better than what I'm doing right now.
Just be prepared, right? So you have all your numbers ready to go, or if you have a dialer that you're using, I mean, just have it set up ready to go. That way when that 15 minutes or 30-minute time block hits, Uh, you hit the ground running, um, and then you can go back to handling whatever else you were doing, you know. Um, so just keep it, uh, keep, keep focused. I think it's the main thing, right, Chris? You don't want any outside distraction. I remember you used to say you lock yourself in a closet when you were doing the initial calls.
I only had a closet.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, you guys mentally— like, one other thing on this, if you mentally want to get your head wrapped around it, like, for How do your goals and your why— your sessions, number one, have to match your goals or you're just out of sync and you're gonna be frustrated. Number two, Ken, I said that to you actually recently. And number two, um, you wanna make sure— Mike hit prep. So prep, make sure they match your goals. Um, I, I would also say keep this as a mental reminder, like just by adding one 15-minute, like Mike was saying, if you're adding 10 calls and you're getting, I don't know, 3 live and 1 lead, If you did that just 2 extra times a week, think about that. You got another 2 leads a week coming more times at bat. That could be 100 leads for the year. That could be 2 sold deals just by adding 2 15-minute stupid extra sessions. You just gotta equate this to the math here, guys. You're talking a lot of money, and sometimes we just lose track of that. The only other piece I'd add is what Paul and I spoke to about this morning, which was please add the accountability piece if you're not already doing it. You guys, most of you guys are pretty good at posting on the High 6 channel. If you want to up the bar and get some one-on-one accountability, and if you have a challenge in the session, say, I have a challenge with A, B, and C. Help me with this. That's what accountability is for. Food for thought.
Good stuff.
I think too, sometimes you find yourself in a funk, like you're making dials, but something doesn't feel right. Sometimes it's good to just get up and walk around for a second. Just to kind of do a reset because you feel like you're going down the wrong path. I don't know, for me anyways, like mentally I have to, um, you know, like something doesn't feel right, and if it doesn't feel right, then I'm probably not coming across the way I want to.
That's sort of the reason for the 15 that Mike just mentioned, and when you build it up eventually to 50, remember the whole idea was 50, 10-minute break, 50, 10-minute break. In Mike's case, you could do 15, break, 50, you know. Yeah, that's the whole purpose, reset.
Breathe, reset.
Yep. Maybe read a few goals, maybe read a few affirmations, maybe look at something, um, maybe listen to something. It just takes a little bit of a reset.
