Top 10 Lead Gen Strategies for 2025... Without Cold Calling!

We've all heard the expression you need to list to last in real estate, but in today's market it is super challenging to get listings. There just aren't many of them out there. So how do you go about building a listing inventory where there's just not many listings to be had? By mastering the listing side of the business, I was able to scale my listing inventory to 92 active listings with a single administrator. And that allowed me to stop working evenings and weekends and also generate multiple transactions out out of every listing. I took the expression listings make babies. Those babies are buyers. So there's multiple transactions available from a single listing. And most sellers aren't going to require that you work on evenings or weekends. Right. There's massive opportunity by shifting over to the listing side of the business. But in today's market there is a challenge. We just don't have a lot of listings available most every market in a supply demand mismatch, meaning there is not enough supply for the amount of demand that's out there. And most listings are still getting multiple offers if they're a good home and they're priced right. So if you want to scale up your listing inventory in today's video, I'm going to go through the top 10 listing lead generation strategies. Here's the cool thing. None of these listing lead gen strategies involve cold calling. Yes, cold calling works, but I briefly tried to cold call expireds and I had a guy just rip into me, he was not nice at all. And I just decided that I was going to become a really good marketer and have expires and fizbos and people that knew me and liked me and trusted me to send me business business. So everything that I've built in my business and we've helped over 2,000 agents at this point build inbound, organic, high quality, mostly seller leads that just come in like clockwork without you harassing expireds and FSBOs or even begging your friends for referrals. So this is all attraction based marketing. My business was always marketing based and prospecting enhanced, meaning that I would generate leads and I would follow up with those leads. So if an expired called in, they were calling on something that I sent them. And if a for sale by owner called me, they were calling on something I had mailed them. Right. So very different conversation when they're calling me and they're asking me for information versus me trying to bang them over the head with a phone and like knock in their front door for a listing appointment. So before I get into the top 10 listing lead generation strategies. I want to give a little bit of context how this list came to be. This was back maybe a few years ago where I was just having one of those days with our top mastermind group. These are agents doing, you know, 25, 50, a hundred, even 200 deals per year. And everyone was just complaining about like hey, tell us where the next best lead gen source is specifically for listings. Because this group knew that listings have massive leverage. And I just had one of those moments and we made it a process. Every six months I basically get my top members together. Those are that are doing massive amounts of business and it's listing focused. I get them together and I said, all right, give me all the ways that is even possible for you to generate listing opportunities and I'll just open up a Google Doc. And I was just writing down every possible way that you could generate new business. And there's only so many ways. When agents come into our world, they are always looking for leads. It's like leads, leads, leads, leads. What do you need help with? I need leads. What do you need help with? I need leads. What's your biggest challenge? I don't have enough leads. You know what's getting in between you going from where you are today to where you want to get in the future? Leads. And so it's this chronic issue in our industry that there just is not enough leads to go around. If you want a copy of all 30 of these listing lead gen strategies, there's a link in the description. You can just grab a copy and get all of them. I would argue though that they're not all worth doing. This was a list of all the ways that you could possibly generate new business. And on the list is something that I would never do, I would never cold call, but it works anywhere from 65 to 85 contacts. Before you set a listing console you got to go through a lot of no's, a lot of hang ups, a lot of people saying nasty things to you before you generate a listing consultation opportunity doing any kind of cold calling. So that is nothing I would want to personally do everything I recommend this is to our members in our million dollar agent method build out as well. I want you to build a business that's based on systems, true marketing systems that are attraction based. Right. We want people reaching out to us and it puts us in a position of authority versus begging for business or just trying to come up with the right word tracks to conv them to allow us into their home for a listing consultation. So let's get into it. And these are in no particular order. So they're not ranked in, you know, first is best or 10th is, you know, better or worse or whatnot. I will say though, stick around for the 9th and 10th method that I go through are definitely things that you're going to want to integrate into your business. All right, number one are open houses. And you're probably thinking like, open houses are not something I want to do to generate listing opportunities. I would beg to differ. We do open houses way differently. Our open house system is specifically designed to generate listing opportunities. So basically we're going to use this open house as an opportunity to invite neighbors over to help pick their new neighbor. Right. Nosy neighbors. They want to come in and see that home. Like, how did they get it ready for sale? You know, why are they asking that price? So you're going to door knock 25, 25, 50, 25 doors to the left, 25 doors to the right, and 50 across the street. And you're basically, this isn't a typical cold door knock where you're just sort of mind numbing, you know, going into a, a neighborhood where nobody knows you and just trying to find that potential next seller. Every one of these neighbors that you talk to are going to want to come to the open house and they're just going to get to know you, they're going to like you and they're going to start to trust you. So you're going to build that relationship with them. So do open houses with the intention to get sellers. The only other word of advice here is that I would circle prospect around that open house. And it's not a cold call per se. Basically you're just inviting the entire neighborhood. Let's say there's 500 homes in the neighborhood and you door knock a hundred. The Thursday before Saturday open house, you would basically call the entire neighborhood, introduce yourself and just say, hey, listen, I'm holding an Open House Saturday, 2pm at 123 Main St. If you know anyone looking to live in the neighborhood, definitely tell them about the open house. But why don't you stop by as well? You know, you can check out the house and maybe you can help me pick your new neighbor. That's the entire script. So door knock 100 doors, circle prospect the entire neighborhood and do open houses with the intention to get sellers. You can do a video walkthrough on social as well. You could do so many things with open houses. Number two is to take the 30 day video challenge. I want to Challenge you to go live on Facebook or Instagram every day for 30 days. We had a member go live for 90 days, and she took 30 listings in 90 days. Simply by doing Facebook lives. Essentially, you're going to offer some information about the market, some quirk about your business, some difficult situation that you worked through with a seller or a buyer. You're going to maybe interview your local coffee shop owner or your local dry cleaner. You can even just talk about a book that you're reading. A word of caution here. Do not overthink this. Simply grab this thing right here, pull up the app, and just hit record, right? The only way you can fail this challenge is by not doing it. And by doing it, you'll see how bad you are and how little engagement you get. And you can only learn by doing it. It's one of the things that you cannot study how to do video marketing without actually doing it. And you'll get better, you know, you'll lear exactly. You know, do a house walkthrough and say, you know, I don't know, you're walking through the house. I don't know what they were thinking, you know, with that picture or that light back there or whatever, right? Just do something every day for at least the next 30 days, if not 66. There is science around 66 days. When you do something for 66 days in a row, you will develop a new habit around it. So take the video challenge and you will generate listing opportunities. Number three are for sale by owners, specifically a direct response campaign followed by phone calls. So again, this is not a cold call. This is you're sending out. We've got a series of value added mailers. Hey, Mr. FSBO, I sent you some information in the mail. Our FSBO toolkit. I just wanted to make sure that you got the information, see if you had any questions. That call is a very easy call to make. It's not. No, there is no for sale by owner that's gonna, you know, snap at you. When you're following up on a valuable piece of information you sent them. The next week, you're going to answer any questions the first week. The next week you're going to send them another direct mail piece with some valuable information, you know, challenges that any seller has. And you're going to follow up and say, hey, listen, did you get that, you know, top 10 questions document that I sent out? Okay, what'd you think? Do you have any questions? You know, and basically you're ending those calls with like, hey, if you Ever decide to interview an agent for, you know, the job of marketing your home? I just want to be included in that conversation. Right. So eventually you're going to build a database of for sale by owners. You may even match a buyer with one of those for sale by owners and maybe not list the property, but you will generate one to two plus closings per month just by building that database for sale by owners, sending them valuable information and following up and making sure they got it. And just to see if they have any questions, just be a resource to for sale by owners. Number four, expired listings. Specifically sending them stuff in the mail and having them call you for more information. We use a series of postcards of letters, sort of type letters and handwritten letters, a series of 12 over about eight weeks. This strategy is very similar to for sale by owners except we don't call them. Expireds are pissed. They're gonna bite your head off when you call them. We only send direct mail. I remember in one year we did 750,000 GCI total. It's about 75 transactions for our market. Average $10,000 commission check from for sale by owners and expires and FSBOs calling into us and it was split about 2/3, 1/3. So about 250,000 were for sale by owners in that year. I just think it's irresponsible as an agent to not work expires and FSBOs. So a little bit of tech involved here you need to get. Red X is probably the service I would recommend and then you need a way to organize all the mailers. We use Top producer for years. It's not the greatest system, but it worked really well for this specific application we've used. We've built this system out for our clients in follow up boss and it manages all the different mailers. There's a little bit of sweat equity involved here, but it works wonders and you'll get probably a 20-25x ROI return on investment. There's a little bit of cost involved as well, but not a whole lot relative to what you'll make on commissions. Number five is working your database regularly. If you watched my last video, I recommend you go back and watch it. I offered a strategy around database where every other month you're either going to invite them to a community event or you're going to offer them some kind of giveaway that's sponsored by a vendor, a lender. At the end of each of these calls you're basically, this is your know, like and trust database. You're going to call every one of them every month, invite them to a community event or tell them about a giveaway. You're going to end those calls with something as simple as like, hey Lars, before I let you go. Right now the market is really, really tight. We just don't have enough inventory for all the buyers out there. Who do you know specifically that might be looking to sell their home in the next 30, 60, 90 days or so? And just wait. If you ask that question 10 times a day, every day to everyone you know, let alone just your database, I promise you'll have a ridiculous amount of listings. So work the database, offer value, but end all those conversations with a specific ask. Who do you know that might be looking to sell? Maybe there's a neighbor you want to get rid or someone at church that you don't like. You know, you overheard that they might be looking to move, right? Or you want to help them move. Just keep it top of mind. The more you ask, the more you get. Number six is social proof. Specifically using your Google Business profile to generate new business. Now there's a very specific way you need to go about setting up your Google Business profile. This is something that we dive very deep into in our million dollar agent method program. And it's probably outside of the scope of this video here, but essentially you want to get at least 100, if not multiple hundred five star Google review. Make sure your profile is filled out, your hours are in there, the zip codes that you service and you want to treat your Google Business profile as a social profile. You want to post everything you post on Facebook on your Google Business Profile. When you take a new listing, when you get a client testimonial, everything needs to go on the Google Business profile. That's going to make it sticky. That's going to make Google show it to consumers that don't know you right now. They're going to be able to see your Google Business profile just through organic search. We've got a member that does a deal per month, month passively just people reaching out via her Google Business profile. So do not overlook this very simple no cost method to generate listing opportunities. Number seven is new construction. And I'm talking about getting to know the on site agents at let's say 10 to 12 new home subdivisions in your market. And just time block every Wednesday and Thursday they don't have anything going on. You know, I think Mondays or Tuesdays they may have some sales meetings Friday, Saturday, Sundays when all the buyers come through. But they're just Sitting there on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon. So make it a point to visit one or two of these new home subdivisions, you know, every Wednesday and Thursday and just rotate twice a month, you're going to visit each one of them, get to know the inventory, but most importantly, get to know that on site sales agent and when it comes time, when a buyer comes through looking for maybe a purchase, a new home purchase, they may not have an agent to help sell their existing home. So that new home agent can pair you as a resale agent so the two of you can work together to help that buyer have an awesome experience on the purchase, but also have a smooth transaction on the sale of their existing property. Number eight is buyer sold signs. So when you close a deal for a buyer, so you're not the listing agent, you close a deal for a buyer, get that buyer to agree in advance that for two weeks after closing that you can put your sign on the property with a sold rider. And you're saying, yeah, but you didn't sell the listing. Listing. You absolutely sold the listing. As far as I know, there's not a rule where the buyer you represented can't allow you to put your sign on their property post closing. It's their property at that point and you're going to put up your sign with a sold rider. Here's the perception. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that the other real estate company sign was up for probably a long time. And all of a sudden your sold sign goes up and a new buyer is moving in. So they probably think that the other agent didn't get the job done. That agent probably didn't put under contract or a sold rider on the property. They're probably just too lazy. And you get to put your sold sign on the property and you will get neighbors calling and saying, hey, listen, I saw that you, you were the one that got that deal done. You just say, yep, we got it done. You know, buyers moved in on December 1st and everything went awesome. Right? Are you looking to potentially purchase a home or are you looking to sell your existing home so you're not being dishonest at that point, you're just saying that, yeah, you sold that home. Home. You actually sold that home. They're not going to ask you, like, were you the listing agent of the home? Like, no, I sold the home. So let's say you sell a buyer every month. I would venture to guess that you probably could sell at least half as many listings with zero marketing dollars involved. A little bit of effort to get your sold sign in the yard, post closing and then to pick it up. Even then you probably should have a courier or a sign installer doing those activities. And you could totally automate it if you have a sign installer. But these are different ways that you could think out of the box that are no cost will have a perception of you being a top listing agent and generate listing leads as a result. Number nine is prospecting your affiliates. And here's what I mean by that. We send so much business to lenders, we send business to insurance companies, we send business to handymen and women, we send business to. Just think of all the people that benefit attorneys, all the people that benefit from us doing production. Very rarely are those vendors, those affiliates sending us business. And I think the reason is, is that we're not training them to do so. So make a list of all the vendors in the last 12 or 24 months that you sent business to give them a call and say, hey, listen, you know, I'm looking to expand my business going into next year. How can you help me generate more listing opportunities? You know, you work with mortgage lenders, work with buyers all the time. Are they asking the question, do you have a home to sell? You do have a home to sell. Let me pair you with an agent that I know really well that does great work that you'll be really happy with and you'll get a, you'll get a smooth experience with, right? So if you train your vendors to do that and your handymen, you know, painters, they're probably in homes in advance doing that type of work, right? So just train your lenders and your vendors to position themselves as an authority. They're already positioned that way. So what could it look like? If you train your vendors, these are folks that appreciate hopefully the amount of business that you send them, what could it look like for them to actually send business to you? Number 10 is social media giveaways. This is another tactic where it doesn't cost a lot of money. You can have vendors pay for it, but basically you're going crazy on social media, you know, with different giveaways. Every other month, you're doing different giveaways. And in the process of these giveaways, typically it's in a raffle type format where like basically call me up or go to this website and you follow up with them and you're going to just qualify the entry into the raffle and ending that conversation, you're going to end it with, with the same thing I said earlier. Mr. Lars, who do you know that might be looking to sell their home. Do you have a colleague that you work with that you heard talking about real estate? Is there a neighbor that you might want to get rid of? Hahaha. We have to train ourselves as real estate professionals to ask for what we want and you need to start asking more and more for listing opportunities. It's the name of the game. Like I said earlier, if you want a list of the entire 30 listing lead generation strategies, just go in the description and request it there. And I'll end with this thought. It's a hundred percent percent worth it to make the pivot over to more of a dominant listing agent type focus. The leverage in listings allows you to not work evenings, to not work weekends. You work half the amount of hours. Let's say you put 25, 30 hours working with a buyer. You'll be lucky if you put in 10 to 12 hours working with a seller and most of the process outside of earning the business, you know, getting into the home and giving your listing presentation, getting the right asking price or listing price strategy, you know, maybe helping prepare the home for sale. Outside of those handful of things, all of the other work involved in successfully selling a listing is administrative in nature. So getting pictures, taking or getting a pre inspection or getting MLS photos done or you know, MLS remarks, getting brochures done, that's all administrative in nature. You could pretty easily outsource that closings. You can outsource pretty easily. So you can have a massive business and I'm talking a million dollar business just by taking one listing every week. The buyers that are generated from these listings, you can even have junior agents come into your world and take over all of the buyer business. And that's how we build a million dollar agent business. If you want help doing that or you want to even just have a conversation about what it would look like to build a million dollar business, you may only be at a hundred thousand now. What would it look like to 10x your business while working a whole lot less hours and having less stress altogether? Just go to million dollaragentmethod. Com, that's million dollar Agent method. Method. Com and we'll see you over there.