Battling Call Reluctance to Crush the Shift with Wally Bressler (Part I)

Welcome back to Real Estate Business Builders. Lars Hedinborg here, the founder of Real Estate B School. And if you're coming into the podcast or you've been with the podcast for a while, you know we're in the midst of sharing from an insider's perspective what goes on at Real Estate B School. We just had our business growth digital summit, eight amazing speakers and Wally Bressler brought it. He's our next speaker and it's two parts, so make sure you hang in for both parts. Wally goes back maybe a decade. He trained my real estate team and trained us how to just crush it on the phone. And there's a lot of psychology in terms of what keeps us off of the phone and out of that most dollar productive activity. It's called call reluctance and it's real. And he just lays it out like, how is it caused? How do you get past it? And he really just tells his personal story. It's really a profound session. So I'm excited for you. If you want to grow your business in the shift, grab a copy of my free book. It's called scale or how to grow your real estate business and not have regrets in the process. I grew my real estate business during the great recession years of 2008, 9, 10, 11. And if you don't know anything about my journey, I scaled my business despite the fact that our agent roster in my market went from 15,000 agents locally to 5,000 agents and I scaled from no license whatsoever to over 4, 400, in fact 453 transactions. And I don't say that in any egotistical kind of way. It was super hard, but I did it. And that was the genesis of Real Estate B school. So grab a copy@scaleordiebook.com I tell the whole story. I give you a bunch of examples of others that have done it. So ScaleOrDieBook.com and stay tuned for part one of Wally Bressler, how to crush phone reluctance and dominate during the shift.

Hey, nice to see everybody here. My name is Wally Bressler. Actually, Stacy Peterson is a former client of mine as well. So I've had the good, the good fortune of going to South Dakota before and I admit it. So cool. Listen, Lars, thank you. Stacey, thank you so much for letting me be here today. I'm excited to spend some time with you. You know, what Lars neglected to tell you is that he worked and actually Stacy, they both worked their, their butts off to become some of the top agents in their marketplace. And you know, because of the time in which they were running their business, you know, you had to get on the phone. And we're kind of at that point now where, you know, I mean, social media is great. Calling, you know, past clients is fair. You can market your butt off. But at the end of the day, at some point, you got to get on the phone and get somebody to come through the front door. Does that make sense? Right. At some point, we have to get on the phone. We've got to be good at it. And honestly, as the market shifts, you know, it's kind of a. I don't want to say it's bad news. The good news is, is that in the next 90 to 120 days, we're going to see a significant decline in the number of real estate agents that are currently in the market, which is going to be a lot more opportunity for the folks that are willing to go and get it. So a shift in the market like this is always good for people. But you've got to be able to articulate value. You've got to be able to demonstrate expertise. And at the end of the day, you can only do so much of that with an email, a text, and a video on Facebook. Does that make sense? Or Instagram. So the rest of it is really up to, you know, getting on the phone. And so, you know, today I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to talk about, you know, what it takes to. To be good on the phone. We're also going to talk about, you know, 10 strategies to help you really ramp up and. And master, you know, being successful. Phone. And we're going to talk about overcoming call reluctance. Anybody here perfectionist? Do I have any perfectionists here? Raise your hand. No perfectionists here? No procrastinators? Any procrastinators? No. Everybody's leaving.

I'm going by.

Right. No procrastinators. Perfectionists? Any. Okay. So, you know, statistically speaking, from my research, about 65% of the. Of the people in today's salesforce actually suffer from a very extreme need to be liked. Okay? They want to be liked. They want to get along with people, which is fine. But when your need to be liked supersedes your desire to a good job for somebody or to add value, that's when it tends to impact your ability to do well. So we're going to talk a little bit about also what over what sales call reluctance looks like and how to overcome it. So this is me right here. And that's a phone for those of you that are under 25, that's a phone right there. I don't know if you recognize that this one was the worst kind because if you, I don't know if you remember this, but if you missed the number, you had to hang up and go all the way to the back. So I always wonder how many people actually died like during the 60s and 50s that shouldn't have died had they been able to dial 911 without, you know, missing it. So anyway, right. So anyway, so let's, let's, let's chat a little bit here. So I'm, I'm kind of like the IRS of the real estate business. Like if you want to remain in good standing as a human being, as a citizen, you got to pay your taxes. And if you're going to be good in real estate over the long term, you got to get on the phone. Right. There's just no way around it. And so, you know, today we're going to talk about some things that are uncomfortable, not unlike the rock and the shoe. Some of it is about getting on the phone and talking with people. Some of it's about, you know, kind of where we've all come, we all have come from and, and maybe how that's impacted who we are today and what we can and can't do or we think we can and can't do. So let me just, I want to introduce you my team. So this is me. I'm the co founder of a, of a company called Phone Sales Secrets. I started about a year and a half ago. I spend time with entrepreneurs and salespeople helping them overcome, you know, call reluctance, video reluctance, self sabotage, imposter syndrome, and any other thing that keeps them from really accomplishing great things in their business. It's not just about getting on the phone. It's about, you know, what I call these hidden identities that are inside of us that tell us what we can and can't do and keep us from doing things that we probably should do to grow our business. Is that fair? This guy right here, he's been around the longest. He actually got in the business in 1998 as a real estate agent. Sold 72 houses his first 14 months in the business and then, you know, helped grow one of the biggest Coldwell Banker offices in New Hampshire. This guy's been coaching since 2001. That number is close to more than 40,000. One on one calls, group sessions, and in person training sessions. I've had the good fortune of working with, like I said, great agents like Lars And Stacey and other people around the United States and Canada. And I think that allows me to bring a really interesting and well rounded perspective to people as I talk to them about the things they need to do to be successful in today's real estate business. This guy just wrote a book and he published it. And it's kind of like half memoir, half personal development book. And it's about the things that I overcame to become successful at being on the phone and being a great real estate agent. This guy's a phone sales expert? Yes. For those of you who are looking at this, those are all my picture, by the way. This is just my funny way of telling you about me without making it a boring bio. So, Madeline, don't get too excited about it. It's just me. Yep. So anyway, specialize in prospecting. Objection. Handling, you know, progressive profiling, which is basically building relationships with people over time. Nlp, inside sales, hiring, onboarding and training. And then this last year I was nominated one of the Success125 basket. Top125 people in real estate industry that get results. So I've been really blessed, very fortunate to have a great real career in the real estate industry as an agent and also as. Hey, trainer. So this, you know, oddly enough, it's funny because when I do this live, I actually hand out barf bags. I actually bought a bunch of barf.

Bags and I give this. I give them out to people so they can have them as we go through this.

Because this scenario probably makes a lot of people very uncomfortable. So let me, let me do this. Let me make sure I get the.

Volume up here so you can hear this.

But tell me if this, this sounds like a conversation. There's. There's that.

Sorry about that. Please hold.

So tell me if this sounds like a conversation you may have encountered at some point. This is from Boiler room.

Hello?

Hi, Mr. Davis, this is Ron calling you from the Daily News. How you doing this morning?

It's Davis and I'm not interested.

Okay, I'm sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice day.

Wait a minute. Wait, that's your pitch? You consider that a sales call? Well, you know, I get a call from you guys every Saturday and it's always the same half ass attempt. If you guys want to close me, you should sell me. All right, all right, start again.

Okay.

Hi, this is Ron from the Daily News. How are you doing this morning?

What do you want?

It's not what I want, sir.

It's what you want.

Ron, now we're talking.

All Right.

What are you selling me?

I'm offering you a subscription to the Daily News at a substantially reduced price. We're trying to reach out to people that have never had home delivery before.

Right, so basically you're saying that everybody else who already has a subscription is getting on this one.

Yeah, I guess so.

All right, well, I can handle that. So tell me, why should I buy your paper? I mean, you know, I. I mean, why shouldn't I get the Times as a voice, you know?

Well, the Village Voice is free, sir, so if you want it, you should certainly pick it up. But the Daily News offers you something no other paper can. A real taste of New York. We have the best features, more photographs than any other daily in New York, and we have the most reliable delivery in the city.

Now, what do you think?

You know what I think, Ron? I think that was a sales call. Good job, buddy.

So you're going to buy a subscription?

No, I already get the Times, so.

Right, you do. Hold on a second here. Sorry about that. So you do your best job right now, Jill. You had, like, this smile on your face. Was that a nervous smile? Were you, like, nervous, like, for what was going to happen? Now you just feel like you've lived that before? Okay, I saw Diane. Diane's head. She's, like, on the side of the screen, she had her hand on her face, like. Were you hiding from this? Did it bother you? It troubled you? No. Okay. So anyway, here's the thing. It's. It's one of these things where most people don't like to get on the phone. And a lot of it has to do with that potential outcome. Right? Because, oh, my God, what's going to happen on the other end? And so let's talk about. So basically, I want to go through some numbers about the fact that the phone is still a valid means of actually helping, getting in touch with people to do business, even with that. That. That ever hard to nail down. Millennial group. So this is some interesting data here. So, by the way, everybody knows who this is right here. Again, if you're younger than 25, you probably don't. That's LL Cool J, right? Right. The very first line of Mama said knock you out was said, don't call it a comeback. I'm aging myself. I got it. So here's the thing. Phones actually have really never left the important part of doing business. And so right here, if you look at these arrows, you can see that at least a quarter of every age group, Millennials, Gen X, and then our Friends that are kind of in the baby boom generation, at least a quarter of them roughly, would prefer to talk to somebody before making a purchase. Here's the other thing, and you know this one right here, before buying a big ticket item, for example, one that costs over a thousand bucks, over half the people in general want to talk to somebody. Last time I looked, house is over a thousand bucks. If you break it down by age group. Still very, very important for people to talk to somebody. And I think, you know, take this for checking. I think we're more worried about getting on the phone to talk to people than they are about getting in talk on the phone with us, would you agree? I think we have more of an issue. We have more of a, I guess you would call it a confirmational bias, meaning we already think that people don't want to talk to us, which they do. And quite honestly, if it's way, way before they're ready, they might not to. But at some point people do want to talk to somebody when it comes.

Time to making a decision.

Now, Whoopsie. All right, so right here, okay, so 28% of calls are answered. That means that the rest of them are not. And I think that kind of gets in people's ways, right? You're only going to talk to 25% of the people for whom that you get leads for. In general, you know, you get 100 leads, you might sell one to three houses. Granted, the payoff is great, but you got to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. Here's the big one right here. 69 of buyers have accepted phone calls from new providers in the last 12 months. Right. And I think we have to take a look at what happened over the last couple years since like February 2020 until June of this year as an aberration, you know, I don't know, you can, I mean, if I know how. Folks long you folks have been in here, but Lars, do you recall a time when you were just holding outside.

With a basket, waiting for opportunities to fall in a basket prior to the last two years?

No, sir. Right now, I mean, you know, you got to, you got to, you got to do some work. You know, this is important too here, right? I mean, I'm not a big fan of voicemails. By the way, I'm going to give you a little tip today. If you call and leave anybody a voicemail that you don't know, all you should do is this. You should call and say, hey, this is Wally. Looks like I missed you. Give me a Call back and leave your number. I guarantee people will call you back if you call and say, hey, this is Wally, I'm calling from ABC Realty. And the reason I'm calling back is because you had submitted a request for, you know, they're just going to click. But if you say, hey, it's Wally, how you doing? We use your own name, of course, but it looks like I missed you. You know, give me a call back, they will call you back. You will get calls back from people. Historically, I don't like leaving voicemails for people I haven't talked to. But that I guarantee is a way to get people to call you and call you back. Okay, now this is interesting right here. 48% of people do not make follow up calls and 44% do not make a second follow up attempt. Anybody know where the, the sweet spot is? Or at least the sweet spot starts when it comes to contacting people. It's six, right? Six contact attempts, right.

Most people don't make it past two.

So if you're not calling that much, you're missing out on some opportunities and eventually they're going to work with somebody and the only way you're going to make sure you're that person is if you talk to them regularly. This one's really disconcerting for me. 44% of salespeople stop the sale after receiving negative feedback on the first call. Hey, I noticed you had submitted a request for getting some information on 123 Main Street. I'm not interested. Okay, Have a good day. That's usually what happens, you know, and unfortunately, you know, we've got to go at least four nodes deep to get business 66% of the time. Here's another good one. 40 people. Every year, 43% of people change phone numbers. So always make sure that your data, data is good. So here's the thing. I mean, this data, hopefully you look at it, you see that getting on the phone is important. Now I think there's a misconception that we see lots of people out there saying, oh, I do all my business by referrals and I get all this great business by referral, and that's fine. But I mean, if you want to, I don't know how many folks have been in the business, but Lars Stacey, I mean, how long were you in the business before you started getting good, consistent referrals from people? How many years did it take you? 5? Yeah, it takes a while, right? And even then you couldn't rely just on that business, right? You still had to continue to fill your pipeline. So please know that, you know, there is a tipping point where you'll start getting more referral business. But you have to, you really have to hop on the phone. So let's talk about this. So this, this is Wally Bressler's down and dirty lead pipe. Stone cold log. 10 ways to own the phone or 10 keys on the phone. So you should work from your financial goal backwards, right? The number of home sales you like. I want to sell 50 homes. Really? I mean, your mortgage company really only cares if you can pay your mortgage or not really. So it really comes down to the dollars for yourself. So figure out your financial goal. I mean, we're at a point now, what about 45 days? You're going to start planning for next year, right? Mid November, you're going to start putting your goals together for next year. I mean, you've probably got what, what's today? October 3rd, right. So we got 28 days left in October, another 15. I mean, you're looking at about 40, 43 days left to put a deal together to get it closed this year safely. Maybe, you know, 60 if possible. So it's probably not a bad time to think about how much money you want to make next year and break it down into how many homes you want to sell. So that's I've got my dollar goal. What does that mean for sales? What does that mean for clients? What does that mean for appointments and contacts and dials? I mean, real estate technically is a mathematical certainty, right? If you track your numbers, if you track your dials, your contacts, your appointments, how many people show up, how many clients you have, any homes you sell? You know that if you talk to so many people, you're going to get a sale, right? And I think for buyers, I think every 15 or 20 buyers you talk to, you should be able to get a sale with sellers. That's closer to 55, 60. Those are my numbers, you know, So I think if you really focus on that, you can make it so that it's, it's not just a mathematical certainty.

But that you can scale it as well.

Okay, next, put a prospecting plan together. You know, I'm a big fan of what we call the non negotiable. I know Lars is a good buddy of Cliff Freeman's, you know, as well, and you know, Cliff calls them non negotiables. Right? You have to have things in your schedule that are non negotiables.

You know, date nights with your significant other, time with Your family, exercise, you.

Know, working on your personal development.

Prospecting. Prospecting needs to be a non negotiable. Whether you're calling past clients in sphere.

Or if you're calling new people, you.

Have to continually fill that pipeline.

Right. And folks, how many people are here from exp. Which Lars? Most people, would you say?

Probably about three quarters.

Okay, so same thing happens with your recruiting efforts, right? You want to recruit people, you got to build relationships. You know, I mean a lot of people, you know, when they, when they build relationships, they send text messages and emails and all this other stuff, but at the end of the day, you know, you've got to have a relationship with somebody that, that requires some phone calls or some meetings.

And so, you know, have a plan where calling is a non negotiable strategy. Where are you going to do it, how long are you going to do.

It, from who you're going to call?

Make sure you're standing up, make sure you have scripts and dialogues, be consistent. You know, you only call once or twice a month and you get a lot of no's. It's like getting stabbed 15 times. You call three or four times a week and you're talking to people. The no's don't hurt as much. You know, I mean, it makes sense, but I don't think we sit and think about it that way. I mean, the no's don't mean as much when you get them, believe it or not, on a more consistent basis.

Okay, number three, make prosper non negotiable. I said that. Here's the thing.

This is the one thing.

Somebody has to be bleeding or dying.

Or graduating or something really important has to be happening for you to not do it. Make pretend you're on a date with somebody who's important to you. You're at your child's recital or something like that, or something that you would not, you would not, you would not miss. And you have to treat it like that. And you know, the old KW mentality is if you erase it, you must replace it.

You know, when Gary Keller wrote Shift.

Back in, was it 12, 11, 12 back then? Right. One of the things he said was, is he thought you had to do like 21 hours of prospecting to be successful. I think with dialers these days and access to information, I think you can get away with probably 12 to 16 hours a week and still have enough business coming in the door, which with, with what you need to do, especially if you layer in some nurturing of leads and also working with your Past clients in sphere. So I don't think it's an onerous amount of work. And quite honestly, you know, real estate is one of those things where you only have to do it until you can pay somebody else to do it. Does that make sense?

So don't look at it as terminal.

You know what I'm saying? It's not like having a disease that's going to kill you. I mean, it's really something where if you look at it and put it in place, you can get it to the point where you're making enough money to go ahead and have somebody else do it for you.

Okay? Use proven scripts and dialogues.

I'm sure Lars can give you 4,000 of them. I can give you another 4,000. Find one that works for you and just use it. People are like, oh, I don't want to use script because I don't want to sound like a robot.

Well, the reason you sound like a.

Robot is because you haven't internalized it, right? If you take the time to internalize it and learn it and use it, you're not going to sound like a robot. And quite honestly, you're going to be able to have better conversations with people. You'll be able to lead people to where you want them to go. I mean, it's all about having, believe it or not, it's like baseball, you know, I mean, I can get three hits out of a hundred and I'm hitting 300. Like, it's not about talking to millions of people. It's about getting better results with a smaller number of people. Okay?

And then practice like you play.

You know, repetition is another of skill. You know, you gotta role play every day until your scripts are internalized. And then you get to the point where there's nothing anybody could ever say to you that's going to impede your ability to be successful. And if you look at the things you've done so far in your business.

Think about where you're successful.

And if somebody says something to you, if you can handle it, well, then you've internalized it. And if you haven't, then you need to learn, okay, oops.

Number six, Track your efforts. Does everybody have a tracking document? Anybody need a tracking document to track the dialing contacts?

If you need one, I'll give you one. I'm sure Lars has one.

You've got to track your efforts because.

You can't make any improvements if you're not tracking them. But anybody tracking their, their, their prospecting.

Efforts right now, either for recruiting or for whatever. Yeah. I mean, you can't make any improvements if you don't know what you're not where you're going wrong. I mean, if you're making a lot of dials and not a lot of.

Contacts, you could be calling a bad data set. You could be calling at the wrong time of day.

If you're talking to a lot of.

People, but you're not getting a lot of appointments, you could be talking to a bad data set. Your scripts could be no good. If you're talking to people and they're agreeing to meet you and they're not meeting you, it could be what you're saying on the phone. They could be unmotivated. The point is, is that, you know, a lot of people go on in futility, right? They keep calling and trying all these things and nothing works. And they throw the whole baby out with the bathwater when the fact of the matter is, if they tracked everything and looked at it, they could break it down and figure out where the problem is. Okay? So I think it's important that as you're especially.

It's a great time of the year.

To really take a look at what you've done and decide what you want to make changes for.

Here's even better News.

You got 45 days, 60 days where you can now just start now, if you haven't track what you're doing and then you set your goals for next year, you get 60 days of data where you can go back and look and say, hey, every 15 people I talked to, I got an appointment. Every two people I got in front of, somebody bought a house. So I want to sell 50 houses next year. I need to, you know, I know I need to meet with a hundred people to get 50 homes sold. Is that fair?

But I think that, I mean, doesn't.

That make that more palatable for you too? Rather than just starting at the beginning of the year and hoping that you might hit your number. Does that make sense to everybody?

And listen, it's not brain surgery.

I'm, you know, I graduated last in my college class. I played college football. I'm no brain surgeon. I know that that math works though. Okay?

Finding accountability, partner.

Accountability breeds responsibility.

Account, you know, and somebody said this to me. I don't know if you agree with me at.

Accountability, in my opinion, is the demonstration of true love. When you. True love, when you love somebody and you hold them accountable and they're willing to hold you accountable, that means you really are carrying somebody for somebody at.

The highest level, you Know you folks, if you don't have an accountability, find somebody in partner. Find somebody.

Find somebody who is better at something than you are. Somebody who's not afraid to tell you the way you don't want to hear it.

Right.

Because, you know, we need to stretch ourselves. You know, what's coming down the pike here in the real estate market. Anybody here been in the business before 2013? Anybody? One person? Two people?

Three? So not many of you. Right. I see. So like three to four people have.

Been in the business part of 2013. Like 2013 is, I mean, we're like steady like this. And then 2000, February 2020 was like this, you know, so if you got.

In after 13, you know, you really.

Never experienced what's coming down the pike here. Because interest rates are going to go up again. Home prices are likely going to settle a little bit more. The number of homes sold is likely going to go down. You are going to have to cycle through a larger number of people. The days of people taking flyers to list their home and get the most of the one or buyers that's going and running around and putting in 50 offers on home.

Those, those are gone. Right?

People are going to be holding off because of interest rates because they think homes are going to decline in prices significantly. And if you're not able to articulate to people what they need to hear as an expert in the real estate marketplace, you're not going to be able to compete at the level you want to. Does that make sense? Like, I'm not trying to scare anybody unnaturally here, but unnecessarily, I'm telling you that you've got to take your, your expertise level to, you know, to gain to a much higher level. You've got to take your ability to extrapolate what's going on in the market to what somebody's situation and give them a reason to get off the fence.

Right.

Interest rates going up doesn't mean that people can't afford houses. We just got to make sure we're talking to people who are looking to move within the next 90 days that have equity in their home or that have money and the ability to get financing and have a life event, the birth, the death, getting a job, leaving a job, marriage, divorce, right? You've got to really weed through all the crud to find the people that we can help. And then those people, we've got to give them a good reason to move off the mark in a market like this. And you're not going to be able to do with text messages, you're not going to do with emails and you're not going to be able to do with videos and Instagram and Facebook alone. You have to talk to people.

Does that make sense? Right?

I'm, you know, I'm, I'm the least.

Favorite person I know of the people.

That I talk to because I, you know, I, you got to get on the phone at some point and you know, and that's kind of what we're here for today.

Next thing, know your real why and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. Okay? But your, your why, like your kids are a what, your car a what, a house, a what books, Those are all. What's your why is, you know, according.

To Simon Cynic, you've got to be able to income and income. You've got to be able to.

What's the word I'm looking for?

Influence the outcome of. Does that make sense?

So if your kids are a what.

A why, maybe, you know, I had a terrible childhood with money. I want my kids to never have.

To worry about money anymore.

Or even a car can be a why.

Like, you know, we had crappy cars growing up. I don't want to drive a crappy car. I want to drive a nice car.

I want to be able to feel comfortable with who I am.

And it's okay to feed your ego.

As long as it's not the only thing you're feeding. It's okay to want a nice car, but it's not the car.

It's what it does for you.

Does that make sense?

So, and when you know your why, when it's not just, hey, I want.

To make a million bucks, but that million bucks is going to let me set up a foundation to take care.

Of all the, all the single mothers or all the, you know, orphan children out there, this is an entirely different story than just making a million bucks. So you need to know your why. And that's part of what I do with my clients is actually help them find their why, right?

People like, oh my, what's my why? I want to know what my why is. And they never find something that makes them want to get out of bed at 4:30 in the morning to work out and want to get on the phone to talk to people because it's not powerful enough. And that's because they're focusing on things and are focusing on how can I go ahead and make something better for somebody, right? Simon Sinek's formula is easy. I go and find something that was painful in my life. I had pain in my life. And I either don't want somebody else to feel that pain or I don't want to feel that pain. And I'm willing to contribute X so that I can impact Y. I'm willing to do this so that I can impact this. That's what where your why is.

Right? So you grew up a poor kid.

You grew up your, you know, you had a terrible relationship with your parents. You didn't have something you wanted.

You lost everything.

If you're lucky enough, you've lost it four times like I have, because you've been a knucklehead. Whatever. You know, you've had something like that happen and now you don't want it to happen for you or somebody else. And you're willing to do whatever it takes to never have to feel it again.

Okay, does that make sense?

That resonate with everybody? Because that's really where your why sits. It sits in the middle of all that. I want a car, I want a house with kids. It sits right there in the middle.

Okay, the next thing, commit to nurturing your leads. Here's the problem. Like the real estate industry has create a, created a bunch of. What's the word I'm looking for? We're like, we hunt and peck, right? Turn over a stone. No deal there.

Turnover stone.

Oh, here's the deal, Rita. Turn over a stone. Let me focus on that. The problem is we should be turning over many stones and then continuing to go back to the stones where something's happening. Right? The average lead converts at a rate to 1 to 3% Internet generated buyer leads, expires, withdrawns for sale by owners. I don't care what lead source it is, other than referrals. The average lead converts at a rate to 1 to 3%.

You're going to talk to 25 of those people.

You're going to get one to three.

Of them to do business with you. However, if I talk to somebody and build a relationship with them and I continue to talk to them, and continue to talk to them and continue to talk to them and then email and text and do all this other stuff, I can create an 8% conversion rate.

Much higher, Significantly higher. Okay, but that requires managing relationships and.

Having conversations with people on a regular basis. I talk to somebody, they're moving in more than 90 days and up to a year. I say, okay, I found out the date they're going to sell or buy and then I go ahead and I, I find out and I basically cut back the Time I'm going to call them to a little bit before half. And I can shrink it and shrink it and shrink it and shrink it and build that relationship with them.

Okay?

In this, in the strategy of progressive profiling, which is basically how marketing companies know to send you things that you like when they're marketing to you, because what they find out about you, we call it an oui. Find out one unique piece of information and bring it up on every subsequent call.

Right?

I know. Let's just say that Jessica's going on vacation. I talk to her.

Hey, we're going to Hawaii. Okay, great. Next time I call Jessica. Hey, Jessica, how was Hawaii? Oh, it's great. You still planning on making a move.

For the next six months?

You are okay, super. What's going on now? Right?

We heard if you guys remember Howard Brinton, you know, going way back. Howard Britton had the Ford method. He talked about family, occupation, recreation, dreams. Grab something on each subsequent phone call and bring it up. Every time I talk to them, send them a handwritten note. Jessica, great to talk to you. I'm glad, you know, you had fun in Kauai. Sorry you hurt. You broke your leg surfboarding. Take care, Wally. And then I'm off.

Right?

And so if you do that and show people you care, they'll want to stick with you.

All right?

And then lastly, number 10, conquer your sales call. Like that.

Here's the thing.

If you can't get on the phone, you can't get in front of a video. By show of hands here, who, who likes getting on the phone and prospecting? Raise your hands. Nobody.

Oh, there we go.

Anthony, my man.

Anybody else? I notice people turning their phones off. My girl Jill. There we go. Everybody else is smiling. They get that nervous smile. Oh, my God, I want to get on the phone. Right? Most people don't like getting on the phone, okay? It's not fun.

In many cases, I am one of.

Those Tracy people that likes being on the phone.

If you hang up on me, I'll call you back and say we got disconnected. It happens, you know, but the whole.

Point is, is if you cannot get on the phone to talk to people.

You are going to have trouble growing your business. You're going to have trouble building your, your, your, your referral base.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, Lars, how much of getting on the phone would you attribute to your success as a real estate agent and then as a, as a recruiter? I mean, for sure, in the early.

Days, I mean, I, I didn't Miss a time block about 15 hours a.

Week where I was on the phone.

And if, if I, if I missed it, I moved it, I didn't delete it.

And if you're being honest with yourself, you've had to kind of reignite that with recruiting.

Right.

You'd have to get on the phone.

Call people, talk to them now that you're building your revenue.

Right? Yeah.

There's no, no part of it that I'm naturally drawn to.

No, but you're not. But you have to do it, right?

Yep.

Right. You know what I'm saying? And it's not something that people are naturally drawn to. So I actually suffered from. Thank you, Lars. I've suffered from call. I suffer from call reluctance for 10 years myself. Okay. I got out of college. In fact, I took a job.

And so let's tell you a little about myself here.

So I took a job trying to.

Sell, like, small insurance policies to poor people in college. And I sold one over the entire summer. And Mr. Willie came to me, says, you don't like this, do you? I said, no. He said, I gotta let you go. No problem. So, but it took until I was 30, just about 30, when I got my license, to get over phone call reluctant to get over my phone call reluctance.

So let's talk a little bit about that. So here's the thing. So here's the deal. I want to tell you a little about myself. I'm going to stop sharing for a second so I can share this with you. So look, here's the thing. If you have any sort of sales call reluctance, if you are afraid of getting in front of a camera, if you have afraid talking to somebody like that, it's not your fault, okay? It is not your fault. I promise you. It's not your fault. There's something that happened when you were younger that impacted you at such a level that it kept you from maybe doing the things you want to do, becoming the person you wanted to become. So I'm going to start my, my, my part with this. So here's the deal. You know, I'm 54 years old, and I'm going to start by saying this, that my mom and dad, I love them, they were good people. They just weren't good parents. I, you know, my parents did not have a good relationship with their parents. In fact, they were both treated pretty.

Poorly by their parents. And, you know, my mom and dad got married. They were very poor.

And one of my punishments when I.

Was 4, 5 and 6 years old was to be Sent to bed without dinner. That was a punishment. And so at the age of six, I, I started having a binge eating disorder. So I had trouble with eating food for, you know, not trouble with it, but I had a binging disorder from the age of 6. I was sexually abused at the age of 10. I started looking at pornography regularly at the age of 11. And by the time I was 12, I was having sex regularly. I was bullied unmercilessly until I was about 14. And so by the time I was 14, I pretty much hated myself. I did not think I was a good person. And then there was kind of a decided shift from the age of 14 on. And then I went from being hurt and horrible things to becoming a very self destructive person. I've lost about $5 million in my life. Wasted it really. I was unfaithful to my wife four times. I was involved in some real estate investing in 2005 and 2006 and my real estate partners lied at about $15 million worth of mortgages. And I spent a year in federal prison for mail fraud. You know, I ruined lots of relationships. Thank you. You're welcome. Over time and you know, I ruined my children's lives. One of my children after I got back from prison tried to take their own life. And they've all been to therapy. And then in 2000, a few years ago, I was dating somebody for four and a half years. And I found out at about four and a half years in our relationship after I asked her to marry me and she said yes. When she wouldn't move to come see me in Illinois, I found out she was married the entire time we were together. And a month later I decided I was going to take my own life. And so you know what I realized? And so I've been working on myself. And what I've realized is that there are things that happen to us when we were younger that we're not aware of when they are younger that set us on a path of self sabotage and other things that put us in a position where we make a lot of bad decisions or we're unable to make decisions because of the things that happen that we don't even realize. Does that make sense? And so, you know, if you have trouble getting on the phone or if you have trouble with being liked, if you've got, you know, there's people that have lots of strong need for approval, they have a strong need for acceptance. They don't like themselves, they can't have good relationships with people. Over time they're perfectionists, they're procrastinators. They've got imposter syndrome. And it's all because of something that happened between the ages of 0 and 12. And it doesn't have to be like a complete train wreck like my life was, you know, I'm saying I've had clients who, no word of a lie. You know, he went. He was over. Went over to one of my goddamn clients. Went to. You're welcome. Yeah, thank you so much. And so. And I'm sharing this story with you for a reason, because I know a lot of folks have had a lot of trouble in their life and they've never been able to put their finger on the fact why they're not living the life that they want. And they don't have the relationships that they want and they don't have the business that they want, and they can't for the life of them figure out their way around whatever it is. And so, you know, that's why I shared my story. Because I know there are a lot of people on here that had something happen that they just cannot figure out to get their way around. And they're just not living the life they want. They're not happy. They're not, you know, they want to have, you know, great lives and become great parents. And the thing is, we're all good enough the way we are. Every one of us is like, perfect.

Just the way we are.

God made you just the way he wanted you to be, and you're just good enough the way you are. But a lot of us just can't see that. But I had a client that literally went. Visited the kid down the street four times. On the fifth time over, the kid's older brother said, hey, you need to stop coming over. That's all he said to him. And from that day on, that guy felt like he was bothering people and he was unable to pick up the phone by that one simple comment.

Thanks for listening. Would you please take a minute to share the show with other agents who may be struggling? And if you love the podcast, please leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. And make sure you visit ScaleOrDiebook.com to get a free copy of my book. It's a no nuts and bolts guide to building a real estate business that gives you true time and money freedom so that you can live your life without regrets. Thanks again and see you on the next episode.