Prospecting tips every real estate agent should know with Tom Panos

Popular real estate coach and trainer, Tom Panos, joins the Relab team to take us through the importance of including prospecting in your daily schedule, how to get started with prospecting if you don’t currently prospect, and how to take your prospecting to the next level and create your unique competitive advantage.

There are plenty of gold nuggets to take away to implement into your prospecting strategy and improve your success!

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Transcript

Stacey: 0:56

Kia Ora and welcome to the property collective podcast. Brought to you by Relab. I'm your host, Stacey Fairclough content manager here at Relab. And today i'll be joined by my co-host Jake Cameron, sales specialist here at Relab. And today's episode, we are speaking to popular real estate coach and trainer. Tom Panos this is now our second podcast with Tom. And today we are talking all about real estate prospecting. How to start if you're a brand new real estate agent, how you should be incorporating prospecting into your schedule and some script examples that will help you to be more successful. So let's get started. Tom, can you take us through why it's so important for real estate agents to be prospecting?

Tom: 2:02

So, the death of a real estate agent is the death of the pipeline. It's actually not a law that's specific to real estate. It's actually a universal law in all of sales. And that is that the minute you stop prospect, Your pipeline shrinks when your pipeline shrinks. Opportunities shrink. And then before you know it, when you've sold your listings, you've got no stock. And that's the beginning of beginning to feel anxious. Where am I gonna get my next listing? So prospecting to me is the lifeblood of our business. The reason I'm still employed after 35 years in this industry is I tell people to do things they already know they should be doing, but they don't do, and that's prospecting. So prospecting's an interesting subject because there's actually, it's not that scientific, it's not that highly skilled. The value of it is the implementation. Agents struggle implementing prospecting. And the main reason they struggle with it is that they have this fear of rejection. Um, because if you think about it, when you are prospecting, you are gently interrupting people who probably don't wanna talk to you. And if you personalize that rejection, you actually. Find that, hey, it's getting predictable. Nothing's gonna come of it. They don't want me to call'em. You don't call'em. And then before you know it, you've created this new habit of not chasing. Um, so avoiding personization and learning to make rejection your best friend. Is probably one of the most important mindsets that you can have in prospecting. But I will just say this, please brain tattoo the word 30 day rule in your head. Have it up on your cubicle in your car. On your screen saver on your home screen. The 30 day rule is the most important rule in prospecting. What it basically says, what I do in this 30 days affects the next 90 days, so the ability to manage the lag is super critical. Um, because with prospecting, I do things today, so let's assume I'm having conversations with Jake, right. Hey, Jake, it's Tom Panos here from the real estate. I'm just giving you a call to let you know that a property has just been listed in your street, very similar to yours. I'd love to give you the heads up on what it sells for. That's a call. Nothing comes out of it four weeks later. Hey Jake, it's Tom Panos here from the real estate. I'm calling you because I promised I would. That property now has been sold. It's sold for eight 50 and I just wanted to let you know. Great. By the way, Jake, how has the changing market impacted your real estate plans, or Jake, would you like to know what the new value of your home is? Now that we've got a new reference point in the area? He might say yes, he might say no. He might say, no, it's all good. Not thinking of selling now. And then I'll just say, Hey, if it's okay with you, if I've ever got any news that's useful, is it okay if I just keep up to date? Yep, no problems. You might be doing this for a whole year. and you get nothing for it. And this is where I think a lot of real estate agents struggle. They struggle with delayed gratification. They struggle with the fact that they're gonna do something now. And they won't get rewarded for it later, right? It's learning to manage the lag. So I think it's critical. I think agents struggle with it, but I think if you can nail it, it can actually change your real estate life. And I'll tell you what, if you change your real estate life to change your whole life,

Jake: 6:31

Awesome. Yeah, good morning Tom and, and Stacey and, and the team. And sorry, sorry Tom. I'll just jump in. Thanks for, for those first few tips and I think with all of them there's a really clear call to action, which is enabling you to either get back in contact with them or get something in front of them, which is just gonna be continuing to build that relationship. Um, and earlier time you mentioned about the 30 day. What or 30 day rule? How? If I'm a brand new agent, how would my first 30 days look? Ideally?

Tom: 7:02

Okay, so you're a brand new real estate agent. The number one thing that you should be doing if you're a brand new real estate agent is to collect data because you won't be able to make calls cuz you've got no one to call. So what do you do? You door, knock, knock, knock. Hi, it's Tom here from the Real Estate. I know you're not selling, and I'm gonna be very brief. The reason I've stopped by is our team's doing an appraisal down the road here today. And whilst we're doing that appraisal on a property, I wanted to see how open minded you'd be for us to flick you a report. You gotta go out and meet people and collect data. You might actually use some other methods. There's a lot of intelligent ways now that you can ethically bribe people to give you data, right? Whether it's a letter box drop, whether it's some social media hook, right? But step one is to collect data. For my first 30 days I'd be doing it, but before that, Jake, I would make sure that if I'm a new agent, in my first 30 days, I would make 100% sure that I became a product knowledge king. I would become the Google of the market. If you can't beat people on experience, you beat'em on product knowledge. There is platforms that you can go online and you can study the market inside out and know exactly what values of properties are. You should be a registered valuer within 30 days and know what's going on. I'd even be walking into other agents' properties that open for inspections, looking at'em, sussing out, what are they like inside? I would just try to become v I. Best in the world in product knowledge in that 30 days. Um, that's what I'd be doing, Jake, but you know, you make a very valid point before you said whenever you actually make a call, you've got a call to action. Let's be very clear team. There are three reasons why we prospect, and let's talk about phone prospecting for a moment, you prospect number one, either to get an appointment. The second reason why we prospect. Is because we are qualifying the database, we're going through the database to find out are they hot, medium, cold, should they even be in the database? I mean, there are so many fat databases out there that need to be qualified. I mean, there are people in databases that are dead, right? So what I'm saying, I probably would be doing that as part of my activities in my first 30 days, and that is to go into orphan data or the database that the office has got that may have not have been touched for a while and start ringing people up and clean the data. Often the, um, the diamonds are underneath our noses, so, um, so, so reason one we call is to get an appointment. Reason two is to qualify. Reason three is a touchpoint. It's a frequency touch point, and frequency builds trust with people. They're the three main reasons why we prospect and don't have, you know, take the pressure off your team. Sometimes people think they've got to prospect. Just to sign a listing up. Man, no. We're nurturing. Prospecting is all about nurturing stuff. So one day when they're ready to do business, we are on the shopping list because we've earned the right for it. Make sense. Write this down. What gets schedule gets done? Schedule it. Schedule it. If you're prepared to make an appointment in your diary to do a listing presentation, if you're prepared to make an appointment to go see a buyer, if you're prepared to make an appointment to show up to your auction, let me tell you, be prepared to make, uh, your, your prospecting a non-negotiable appointment. Schedule it rule two on prospecting. AM/PM. Real estate agents and I work with some. I work, listen, I probably work with the best real estate agents in Australia and New Zealand, the ones that write all the money. Are either a one-on-one client or they're in the real estate gym, or I present at their conferences, or they're on monthly webinars with me. And I've gotta tell you, you get a great helicopter view of the operating rhythm of guys and girls in our industry that are doing more than a hundred sales a year, writing more than$2 million a year. And what I noticed about'em is this, they've got this AMPM operating pattern. AM. They're prospecting, they're reaching out, they're looking business development, higher levels of energy. In the afternoon, they go to their appointments, right? It's got lower levels of energy. You go through the motions, you're going to your appointments. So AM, we find our business pm we attend our business. So I think great prospectors schedule it. What would that look like? Probably nine to 11 every day, two hours. Um, and then try and aim to do three appointments in the afternoon. That's a really good operating pattern. A couple of other things that I think you should be very mindful of prospecting is when you call people, you call people with a reason. You call people with a purpose. I'm gonna read something out of my Instagram. I posted a video on prospecting the night before last, and the bottom line is the person that commented on my Instagram said I get called by real estate agents all the time. What's interesting is they're not giving me any information that makes me smarter. They're calling generally to ask things like I'm calling to check in. Who gets checked in on team? People that are on parole. Real estate agents don't call people to check in, right? He goes on to further say, and when they do give you some information, I notice that information is often not relevant to me. They'll talk to me about a home that is in a different area or a home that is at a different price point. What this person is saying is, call me, but surprise me. Give me something I don't know. Gimme some information that's gonna make me smarter. So what does that mean team become very good at being a value added provider. Show more. Do more, give more value. Value, value. So what does that look like? Just listed calls on properties that surround that home. If it's all right, what I might do, Jake, can I role pay this with you? Let's do. So let's, so I just wanna show you a good phone call. You're on my database, Jake. A property has just been listed and I'm gonna give you a call. And I'm gonna give you some information and I want everyone to watch the flow of this. Hi, can I speak to Jake?

Jake: 14:53

Yes, speaking.

Tom: 14:55

Jake, it's Tom Panos here from the real estate. Firstly, I wanna let you know, I know you're not selling, and I'm gonna be very brief. The reason I'm calling is because across the road from you, a home has just come onto the market and I wanted to let you know very similar to yours, and it would be a very good property to keep an eye on because it's gonna give you an idea on what values are doing in this changing market. By the way, Jake, Would it be okay for me to call you once it sells to give you the new sale price?

Jake: 15:29

Sure. Tom. Oh, I wanna wanna know what my neighbors are doing, please let me know.

Tom: 15:33

Okay. By the way, Jake, how has the changing market impacted your real estate plans?

Jake: 15:41

Look, we were thinking of selling. We recently did our, did our bathroom to get ready to go to market. But we understand the market dipped a bit now, so I think we're gonna hold on for another year or two. Let prices bounce back.

Tom: 15:53

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Doesn't sound like a bad idea. One of the things that we offer all our local community is health updates yearly on the value of their asset. That then gives you a baseline of what it's now. So in a year's time you can see what it's gonna be like. Um, I'm in your area all the time because of this property that we've just listed. How openminded would you be for me to pop in for seven minutes, give you a health update, and um, just leave that with you?

Jake: 16:22

Sounds good to me.

Tom: 16:24

Yeah, great. I'll give you a buzz maybe, uh, Thursday or Friday and we'll organize a quick pop in when I'm around. That's it, team. Now he was being very nice, very complimentary, right and there, but the bottom line is I want you to analyze this phone call. Look at what I said. Just look at what I said. Hi, it's Tom Panos here from the real estate, and then I said, I know you're not selling, and I'm gonna be brief. I've just got rid of the two most common excuses people give you on the phone. Oh, I'm not selling. Oh, I'm busy. I've actually brought that up myself. So I eliminate him and then I move straight into him because I said I'm gonna be brief and then I move straight in and I say a new property has just been listed. That's the information. Now, team, let me tell you what the average real estate agent does when they're prospecting. Hi, yes. Can I speak to Jake? Yeah, Jake, it's Tom here from the real estate. I'm just calling. Yeah, just, uh, calling to check in and touch base. What's that? What's check in touch base with you? Like what gives you the authority to be checking in on people? And by the way, vendors are not stupid. They can smell the commission breath a mile away. There's no need to be deceptive. Right? They know you are calling because you wanna see if they wanna sell or buy. So team. Very important rule. Within five seconds of making the phone call, you've got to use the words, because I'm calling because, and everyone, let me tell you, the three or four most common calls at the moment that you gotta be making are just listed, just sold anniversary calls. They're great calls to make. Hey, Stacey, it's Tom Panos here from the Real estate. Happy birthday. It is three years since you've moved into your home. Would you like to know the new value of your home? That's what I mean by the anniversary call. But team, there's one very important call you've gotta be doing right now, and I call it the November, December end of year summary calls. Don't forget it. Christmas starts on the 25th of December, not the 25th of November. One of the most important things you've gotta do now is not click off in real estate and prospecting. We have this metaphor acronym called ON FM. October, November, February, March ON FM, they are the four most important months of the year people are making decisions, so what it means is one of the most important things that you can be doing right now as an ON FM agent. Is picking up the damn phone and calling people. Hi, it's Tom Panos here from the real estate. This is the time of year that we give all our vendors an update on what happened in the market in 2022. It's also the time that we give our vendors a forecast on what we think's gonna happen in 2020. So here goes, spend five minutes, go through your pipeline. It's a touchpoint, it's qualifying. Some people are gonna say, come over. And then some people that are actually thinking of selling are gonna say this to you. Yeah. Look, um, we're probably, we're probably thinking we're gonna wait till next year. You know, things haven't been great. This is what I'd be saying. Yeah. Mr. And Mrs. Vendor I wanna let you know that a lot of our smart vendors now are using a method called Pocket Listings. What I do is I list your property now, but I don't launch it. I just put it into my top pocket, and if I come across a buyer over the holiday period, because there's no other properties on the market. I can sell yours at a high price because if I've got your property in my top pocket, you are on the market in isolation, not in competition. By the end of January, property has a big influx in New Zealand. And that's when you're selling in competition. How open minded would you be for me to come around and talk to you about our list now, launch later strategy that many smart vendors are using. That's what you gotta be doing team right now. You gotta make sure that when you leave for Christmas, that you leave for Christmas and you have your car parked on the top of the hill. What I mean by that is, You park it on the top of the hill, hand break on, and when you come back in the new year, you let go of the hand break and you just flow and you can only do it if you sign up stock before you go onto your break. So I think, you know, they're probably to me the most important calls you've gotta be doing at the moment in this market. And please, please, please, please understand. No one loves prospecting. Of course, I'd rather be doing something else. Of course, I'd rather be putting a sold by sticker up. Of course, I'd rather be celebrating with champagne with buyers that we've just sold a home. But I've gotta tell you, if you don't prospect, you won't be getting listing presentations. You don't get listing presentations. You don't get listings. You don't get listings, you don't make sales. It all starts with prospecting. If you don't love. Get used to it. It ain't going away.

Stacey: 22:30

I haven't heard of that tactic before and I love the sound of it. We also are quite a big follow of your Instagram page. But one of the posts, I don't know if this is a post that you were talking about, but you said, it's not about the door knocks it's about the impact, which I really liked. I thought, can you talk to that a bit more? I think you kind of briefly, but I think it's a really, really important concept

Tom: 22:55

Yeah. Stacey, it's an interesting one because there's a bunch of real estate agents that are say, that say to themselves, okay, I'm gonna go do 30 door knocks today, and I'm gonna do 30 phone calls. So they basically become like a checklist agent. tick. I've done it. Tick, I've done it. There's no passion, there's no energy in it. Right? You can tell that they don't wanna be doing it. They're just going through the checklists. That's what I mean. Are you prospecting because you have to, or are you prospecting with impact? Impact is when someone speaks to you, they actually feel an energy field, a bit like wind. You can't see it, but it's there. They can feel it. They can see that you are energized, that you're pumped, you're excited that you've gotta look in your eye, that shows that you care. And that's what I mean. But there's just too many real estate agents out there that when they're going out there, The best way to describe it is they have commissioned breath, right? People can tell they don't care. They're not making an impact. They just trying to get something out of it. Big tip Stacey. Big tip. Start treating people like students, not like prospects. It changes the game when you start looking at people as students. You start educating, you start giving information. You're assisting them. You're helping them get better on a subject. When you look at people as prospects, you're trying to flog things to them. So change the way that you look at people.

Jake: 24:48

That's a really, really insightful Tom and I think that education piece is, is so crucial that, we don't see enough of. Um, and sort of continuing on from that, a really big and common objection that agents get is, I'm already working with someone in the area, they have their local expert, I'm fine thanks. What's the best way to, to combat that?

Tom: 25:11

Yeah. So, Um, I'd probably say, sounds like you don't need another real estate agent. And then I'd go on to say, but may I ask you one day when you might need another real estate agent? Could I be on your list? You'll be fascinated to see how many people are gonna say, yeah, sure. And at that point, what you say is great. If you gimme your email, I'll send you my details, and then you've got'em on file. And that's the beginning of a permission based relationship with a person. So they might have another agent, they work with, they may not. It might be a shrug off or it might be the truth. The point I'm making is this, if you start being very valuable to that person, you start providing just listed information. Just sold. If you are, if you're really educating them, all of a sudden they're gonna start thinking, why isn't my other agent ever in contact with? Right. And um, so I'd probably say that that's a really good approach to have the door open. But even if that weren't to work with a specific client, I've got great news, everyone. There's thousands and thousands of people move on to the next one. You know what I mean? Don't get caught up, right? Like, in fact, I, you know, I've got it in my car. I've got this little plaque. It says, next n e x t, something happens bad next, move on, next person. Right? More people, more conversations equals more listings. End of story. There's a changing market. They're hearing interest rate rises, they're hearing inflation, war, Ukraine, Russia. You've got an election there next year. They're trying to work out what's going. Be the thought leader in your market, right? Be seen as the educator in your market. And please, please, please, always remember, always remember that when you are prospecting, have the list of people that you are gonna be approaching before you start prospect. Because sometimes you can get overwhelmed because you say, oh, I'm gonna example. I said to a guy the other day, do 10 calls before 10:00 AM at 11 o'clock. I asked him, how'd you go? He said, I did one. I said, why is that? He goes, I seemed to have spent most of the time trying to work out who I was gonna call. I was looking up names. I said, rule number one, powerful list, equal powerful results. Don't ever forget it. Have a list of people already articulated on who you're gonna be contacting,

Stacey: 28:13

And Tom, how do you go about someone not being willing to give up their phone number for you?

Tom: 28:19

Listen, if you can't get a phone number, just casually ask for an email because emails are something that are more likely to be given to you than a mobile. Right. Then earn the right from there. Right. And if they don't wanna give you either move on, don't be pushy. I mean, that's why they hate real estate people because you're not reading the play, you know?

Stacey: 28:44

There might be agents out there thinking I'm quite well set up. I've got my processes. They're still getting, people get in touch with them. What's your advice for encouraging people to prospect even though they think they might not have to?

Tom: 29:01

So when I've analyzed. Real estate gym members, which is my training platform, and I look at my real estate gym plus members and I get into conversations with them. I come up with an interesting statistic and that is these are people that are the elite. We're not talking about people that are new or, or in growth phase. These are people that are doing over a hundred sales a year, writing over$2 million in gross commission. They indicate that they get about 70% of their business coming to them through attraction attract, and they're getting 30% where they're reaching out. So if you are the sort of person that is saying, Hey, I'm getting all this work, come to me, just understand you are leaving money on the table because the best models have got a combination. Reaching out and attract 70 30 appears to be the number. So if all your business is just coming in, you're simply not reaching out to as many people as what you should be. And that's fine, because if you are happy making the money that you're making, listen, there's no dramas. But if you wanna make more, you're going to have to prioritize prospecting, business development, reaching out in 2023.

Stacey: 30:32

How do you see attending events within your area being important, fundraisers, markets? What are your thoughts on that?

Tom: 30:41

Well, the community agent is normally the best agent. It's the agent that brings a community together, becomes the eco-centre of the community. They're the best agents, right? Because they look like they're giving back to their community. People know us in real estate as always, taking away, taking commissions and buying nice cars, buying nice homes, having nice holidays. Good real estate agents are seen giving back to the community. Whether it's a fundraiser, whether it's a sponsorship of a soccer club, a rugby club, whether it's attending their markets, whether it's putting on a movie, v i p night, whatever it is, raising money for a charity, be seen as being a community based. It's not a cost, it's an investment, and it'll make you feel good anyway. So, um, I think every person should have at least one organization. They become an ambassador and, um, they support. It could be the rugby club. They're there giving trophies out. They're there on the sidelines. They're there on presentation nights. I've gotta tell you, you're tapping into a whole community. These kids have got parents. These parents have got houses. At some point, they need a real estate agent. If you are there visible, you're on the shopping list. So 100%.

Stacey: 32:08

And when you are doing prospecting calls after introducing yourself, do you say, how are you or directly say the reason I'm calling?

Tom: 32:18

Yeah. I don't think you say, how are you? I don't think you say, how are you? I think, I think, I think around the major calling someone asking'em how they. Is not the best use of time. I think it's a lot better saying, Hey Harry, it's Tom Panos from the real estate. I know you're not selling right now. I'm gonna be very brief. Here's the reason I'm calling back straight into it.

Jake: 32:40

I was wondering what's one thing that everyone on this call can do tomorrow or this afternoon to get a kickstart on, on their prospecting?

Tom: 32:52

Set a target of minimum call connections per week. So turn around and say, I'm setting a goal. I'm gonna do a minimum of 20 a day. That's a hundred a week. We've now got, let's look at my diary, 17th of November. We've got about four weeks. My goal is to do 400 connections in those four weeks. That would be it. And then step number two, just start, 80% of winning is just beginning. Get that first domino down. Once you get the first domino down, you're in the game. That's what I do.

Stacey: 33:34

Awesome. That's a great tip to finish us off. Well, thank you so much, Tom, for joining us. I think everyone found that very, very insightful and yeah, I think all the agents on here can, can go away and act, actually put that into practice now, which is awesome. And that's a wrap. Thanks to my guest today, Tom Panos and my cohost Jake Cameron. This was such a great chat with a lot of information that real estate agents can take away with them. If you enjoyed this episode, we highly recommend popping over to listen to our first podcast with Tom. For more real estate tips. Thanks so much for tuning in. Mā te wā.