Top 5 Things to Say Now With Dan Stewart

Right. So before we jump into your Top 5, we have a big picture discussion about something related to prospecting and conversation starting. Sure. So I have been on this kind of kick the last probably month or two talking about how agents tend to overcomplicate prospecting. And I think like you mentioned a minute ago, it's a by-product of the training that we receive. Right. But ultimately at the end of the day, all we were wanting is to start a conversation. Like you can ask anything. And as long as somebody replies, now you have permission to keep talking. Right. Do you like a job? Like my God, man, you get it. That's so freaking great to hear.

We've been just trying to get that point across. Like you don't have to overthink this. Just say, hey, what's up? If they start talking back to you, congratulations, you've prospected successfully. So, yeah. All right. So the question is, and the question we're going to talk about today is what to say when you reach out. So the Top 5 things that we can talk about when we're reaching out and talk to our sphere, let's hit number one. Well, no, man, we're not going to do that. You opened a can of worms here that I can't leave untouched. I've got to circle back here because I love prospecting. Like I love the idea that I can walk into a room in the morning and not have an idea where my next transaction is coming from. And that I have the power through reaching out to people who don't know me yet to create opportunity for myself and for them. Like, wow, that's a massive sense of freedom when you have that. And there are some very, very simple things that I'd share for anybody to do. Like when you are trained to be a cold caller and make those prospecting calls, it seems really almost combative.

Like, you know, the language that we use to describe it. If you're a salesperson and you're successful, what are you doing? You're killing it. You know, it's like, yeah, right. Oh yeah. And, oh, that person was a, you know, they're busy, right? If they hang up on you, you've got no shortage of like bad things to say and feel about that person for a period of time. So here's what I've discovered is incredibly helpful when you're reaching out to strangers. So let's do a little prospecting role play. Would that be okay? Works for me. Let's go. Okay. So can you be a homeowner and I'll give you a call? So ring, ring, ring. Hello. Hi, my name's Dan Stewart. I was hoping you might have a couple of minutes. I just really need some help. Sure. Okay. Thank you so much. So here's the situation. I'm a local real estate professional and I've got to find a home for people who live in your area. Do you know anyone who's thinking of moving? Actually, you know, we were just talking with some of our neighbors about it the other day. So you're being nice, right? You're not hanging up on me right away and you're actually buying into my line of reasoning here. Right. But whether it's a prospecting call, whether it's an email, whether you're door knocking, if we can even do that in 2020, that kind of approach is great because people generally are wired to want to help other people.

Correct. Right. So if you ask for help, you're generally going to get it in other words. Yep. So now we can move on to the Top 5. All right. There we go. Yeah. But yeah, so it's funny. I, when I posted the other day that I was going to be interviewing you and how excited I was into our little internal Facebook group at our brokerage. Yeah. I mentioned at the bottom the, how enlightening this process of starting the show up has been because I've just been like randomly emailing people and asking like, Hey, you want to come on this show that no one's ever heard of? And you know, seven people are going to watch. Uh, and everybody's like, yeah, sure. This is awesome. Let's do it. Sometimes if you just ask for the shit that you want, the people will say ask for help, you freaking get it. It's kind of magical. Right. And this goes right back to making it simple. Right. Cause you know, if you expect to help people and you should as a real estate professional, why not ask for some help when you need it? Why not? Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Perfect.

All right. So jumping into our Top 5 things of what we're going to talk about when we reach out to the contacts in our, in our database and our sphere, whatever that looks like. Yeah. So first thing that you've got to consider when you're reaching out to people, uh, because there's really only kind of, there's two kinds of people in your database. Did you know that? I did not. Yeah. There's just two. So you might think you've got buyers in this search range and buyers in that zip code. You don't, man. You've got two kinds of people. There are people who know you like your past clients in sphere. And there are people who don't like all your leads. Right. So, you know, we know each other. It would be weird if the only time you ever heard from me was because I was sending you marketing crap. Like that would be strange. That would be a party foul for our friendship. That would be a bad thing. My friends call that robot chance. Yeah. Thank you, robot.

I'll call. But when they get a marketing piece from our CRM, they're like, Oh, finally got to hear from robot chance. It's been a while. Nice. Yeah. Well, at least it makes them think of you. Right. Exactly. At least, at least there's that. And yet there's so much more that's possible when you just show up as a human. So that the first like overarching rules, you're thinking of these five reasons to reach out and what to say when you do is to consider the audience that's consuming the message. Right. Because the message that works for a lead is way different than the message that works for someone who knows you. Right. Right. Right. So the first one we'll talk about is something that's always taking place. It's always happening in every market around the country. And that's change. Right. So what name a change that's happening for you right now.

In our marketplace, we are out of inventory. We need people to sell their homes. Okay. What other changes? When nobody's going back to school. Okay. Yeah. I mean, there's always change. There's always flux. It could be rates are up or rates are down. It could be there's a new COVID addendum or no, we rejected the addendum. It could be anything under the sun and it doesn't matter what the issue is if you follow the right framework. Right. So something is happening. Your job is to raise awareness of that thing, but not to teach them all about it in your content. Right. You want to make them curious about it so that then they reach out to you for more explanation. Okay. So the don't, don't give away for free that which you can sell.

Oh yeah. I guess you can think of it that way. I like to think of it as the information gap. Okay. So, you know, uh, for example, um, thinking of a client we have that does a lot of, uh, Exxon mobile corporate relocation stuff. Right. So, uh, from that lead source, what do we know about the person who's going to receive the messaging? We know that they work at Exxon mobile. They're likely an oil or gas engineer or corporate executive that's high enough up the ladder to where they're part of the corporate reload program. Right. So rather than just have a general, you know, I'm Susie Q, I sell real estate. I really care about my clients and I'm a great negotiator. Like rather than send that same sort of stuff, we can talk about our knowledge, but leave out the details.

Right. So if I'm writing to that group of people, I might say things like, um, um, when it comes to real estate, uh, the data surrounding your transaction is very critical to your success, right? They agree with a statement like that because they're likely engineers or executives. These are people who value data. So the mistake would be then giving them the data because then they don't need you. Right. Um, so you say now I have data and I'd love to share that data with you because, uh, it's really going to make all the difference in your transaction. So we have it. It's important. We agree on that. And then with a call to conversation at the end of that message, you can pull those people in. Okay. So, so let's kind of recap here quickly on just this point.

Number one, which is a change that's taking place in your market. So whatever that is, bananas are falling from the sky, right? We'll use that as an example. So a message that says something like, Hey Chance, uh, I'm sure you're aware that bananas have been falling from the sky. This is going to make a huge difference for people in our area. And I want to make sure that, you know, I'm here for you. Uh, please call me. Let's talk about this. It's important, right? You're going to get a reply to that message from people, you know, at a much greater rate than strangers who might be in your database that don't know you. Right. Right. But the strangers in your database who don't know you, those leads that aren't going anywhere, those people that raise their hand to have that conversation, you now have a chance to really lock them down as your client because you're providing valuable information. Okay. So you're the resource, you're the expert. Yeah, exactly. It's about positioning. You need to position yourself appropriately. Okay. Awesome. So that's point number one. Point number two. Uh, and I don't know when this happens in your area. Have tax assessments gone out yet?

Not yet. That's usually for Houston. It's usually late October. Well, let me rephrase that. The notice of values. Yes. About like in March, the bills go out October, November. Gotcha. Okay. So yeah, that's going to vary a little bit dependent on markets, but it's always like a reason that you should be reaching out both to people who know you, your past clients and sphere and people who don't hear leads. Right. And then the way you reach out, isn't just to inform them or teach them about millage rates or any of that sort of stuff. Right. It's to have a message that's really on point for what's happening now. So, uh, I'm going to pull up a message here for you guys and I'll actually share it with you this way. Your audience can just grab it. All right. So what I'm sharing here with you is a doc that I use with my writing team. They create content and then I tweak it and adjust it before it gets loaded into our system for our members to share it. So here's my rewrite of this message. Subject line is don't freak out chance. Okay. Like if you get that kind of message, do you think you're likely to open it? Yes, probably. Right. And then it says, Hey chance, did you get your property tax assessment yet? That's an easy question that they know the answer to. There's a lot that goes into the calculation of property valuations and it makes a big difference in the taxes you'll pay.

Let's have a quick chat and I'll figure out if yours is correct. Your phone number, right? You don't want to pay too much exclamation point. Talk soon. Signed Dan. Right. Right. So that is a very simple, straightforward sort of message. I'll leave it up here just a moment longer and then I'll stop the screen share. If you're watching this, just go ahead and screenshot that, pop it in your system and send it out. You're going to get replies from people who have questions about that. Now, the temptation is to tell them exactly what is going on with their tax assessment. You don't want to do that. You want to raise curiosity and leave it unresolved. That's what's really effective. So I hope that makes sense. That's the engagement creation, right? Yeah, that is. That's exactly right.

So point number three. Okay. This is a big one. This is a huge reason that you should reach out to everybody who knows you. And that's because it's been three weeks since they last heard from you. Okay. So this is kind of a tricky point here, but you know, we're almost 10 years old at this point and we send hundreds of millions of messages each year. And what we're seeing is that we get the highest open rates and the lowest unsubscribe rates when we send once every 21 days for people who know who you are. Okay. If we wait longer than that, we get a lower open rate. If we send more frequently than that, we get a higher unsubscribe rate. So, you know, having success in life is a function of being consistent. It, you know, you don't have to be a genius to move weights every day, right? But guess what happens if you do? Like it makes a difference in your physical health, in your physique. So you need to get in that rhythm of making sure that everyone who knows you hears from you once every 21 days. And whether that's an email, a text, whether you're calling them, whether it's a voicemail drop, it can be a combination of those things, but it absolutely has to happen.

So do you think that there's one right or wrong, or is there an over reliance on one tool versus another? Um, you know, you hear people talk about how email doesn't get that great of open rates, but texts, because no one's ever more than two feet away from their phone these days, get more engagement or videos better, or do you, do you have a feel for what you think really creates that response? I do. Yeah. So the, the number one thing that creates response is the relationship, right? So I imagine, you know, my buddy, Bob Hale, right? And if Bob sends you an email, it doesn't matter what the subject line is. You're going to pay attention to it because it's from Bob Hale, right? Yeah. So the relationship makes the difference there. The time of day you send, whether it's an email, a text or video, none of that matters in comparison to the relationship.

Okay. So what that means is that your first priority as a professional is to make sure you focus on the relationship first. Like that's the important thing. Uh, your relationship will carry you over a dry spell and sending your relationship will carry you over a poorly chosen subject line, right? You don't want to have to depend on hacks and tricks. You want to depend on relationships because when everything else falls apart, those are the things that remain, right? I told you it was brilliant, right? Please, please. I've just been alive long enough. You may have noticed some of my hair is turning gray. Just a few of them. It's all falling out. Just a few, not very many, but a few are getting gray. Yeah. Um, yeah. So once every three weeks is the right sequence and, uh, the means that you reach out in, it's important to me, uh, that you, you don't just rely on one thing. Uh, that's the reason our system sends email, text messages, and voicemail drops.

Uh, I think you need a combination of things. And, um, you know, I've said once every three weeks for people who know you, that's really an email based metric that I shared with you for text and voicemails. They need six to 12 of each of those from you per year. So let's just write the complete recipe here. Right. Right. So, I mean, if you've got people in your database who know you and you do this, you will have more transactions period. Okay. So one email once every three weeks, that's 17 touches per year. None of those emails should be selling real estate. They shall be relationship focused. Yeah. Okay. So, Ooh, here's something interesting. I think it's this, what do you think? Right. That kind of format works really well. Uh, something topical is happening. You can observe it together. You can start a conversation about that thing. You know, uh, for our members, we write that content for you and it's, it's loaded. It's, it's easy, but whether you do it with me or, or not, just do it 17 times per year, get those messages out. And then, uh, for your text and your voicemail drops, this is where we've got two that are absolutely carved in stone. The first is their birthday. The second is their transaction anniversary. Right. So you can load those things into our system. You may be able to do it from a system you've already got. That's fine. Just make sure that you're getting a message out there. That's not salesy. Right. So a birthday greeting should, you know, just be that right. It shouldn't also be, by the way, uh, here's a link where you can search for houses on my website.

Now, just a birthday greeting, right? Just a transaction anniversary. The idea is that they need to become a huge fan of you so that they talk about you. And, uh, it's, it's so strange, but when you sell less, you sell more. Right. It's true. It's true. Awesome. So to complete that prescription for the texts, uh, you've got two that I mentioned, right. Birthday transaction anniversary. Then you've got four that are quarterly keep in touch messages. And that's something like, uh, you know, Hey, chance was just out your way last week. And I'm thinking about you. How have you been right? That's an easy message for someone to get me a text and go, Oh, cool. Yeah. It's good to hear from you. Blah, blah, blah. You have a nice little exchange, uh, that's great. Uh, you're always doing that call to the conversation right at the end. It's never just, Hey, I was out your way and thinking about you. It was, Hey, I've been out your way thinking about you and ask the question. Yeah. Yeah. How are you? We call those calls to conversation. You nailed it. That's exactly right. Uh, so once a quarter, they should get that kind of message.

And then we've got holiday messaging. Okay. Now there's like, I don't know, 16, 18, 20 federal holidays per year. You don't need to send for every one of those, but you should send for ones that matter to you. Like, let's be congruent with who you actually are. Like if you don't celebrate flag day, uh, don't send the message about flag day, right? Um, pretty simple. Uh, so that gets you to six to 12. And the reason for that variance would be which of the holidays you actually choose to message about. Right now with voicemail drops, uh, what we like to do is have our members record these once. Like you do one quick recording session and then the system should just fire these out for you. So, uh, like, let's say it's Thanksgiving, right? Wouldn't it be great if you got a message for me that said something like, uh, Hey, it's me, Dan. Just wanted to reach out and tell you guys, I'm grateful for you. Happy Thanksgiving. I really hope you're doing great. And, you know, as you know, um, I appreciate you. I just would love to catch up when time allows. Take care. Bye.

Like you could send that to everybody just the way I recorded it. I didn't use your name. Right. I didn't make it too personal where I could only send it to one person. And yet it was really conversational. Okay. Definitely. So, uh, one more tip there for voicemail drops. Um, these are far more effective with people who know you than with people who don't. Right. So if you're using voicemail drops, say again, I said, they're going to sit there and be like, who the heck is Dan? Yeah. Right. You can't send that to a Zillow lead. They're going to be really confused. Like who's this guy? Why did I get that message? Uh, but you know, if we're buddies and I send you that, you go, Oh, wow, man, he's taking time out of his day to do that. Or you're going, Oh, wow. He's using something like slide broadcast. That's really cool that he set that up to keep in touch with me.

Um, so it's kind of a no lose thing when it's for people who know you. Right. Uh, where you can lose is to grab a list from like Cole information and try to circle prospect with, um, with voicemail drops. People generally get that kind of stuff and are irritated by it, especially if your message is something like, Hey, it's Dan Stewart, your area is listing specialist. And I'm calling because it's time to get your, uh, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's like, Oh no. Click. You hate it. Oh, you can't complain fast enough. If it sounds like a sales pitch, it's an instant block on my phone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I kind of, I leaked into number four there, right? So the fourth reason to reach out to people is because it's a holiday, it's their birthday or it's their transaction anniversary.

Right. Okay. Now regarding birthdays, uh, I have a pro tip here. Um, how many friends do you have on Facebook? Do you know? Probably more than me. 2200, something like that. Okay. So when it's your birthday, you're probably slightly irritated by the number of times you have to like, and say thank you to people for wishing you a happy birthday. Like that's a first world problem. Let's be right. It is. Yeah. But yeah, it feels good, but yeah. Right. So if you're, you don't want to miss one person and then they're like, are you mad at me? Like, right. Yeah, exactly. And, um, I mean, how great does that feel to have the pressure of needing to do that on your special day? Like, yes. So rather than send the birthday message on their birthday, I like to send it early and I like it to be something like, Hey, I hope I get to be the first person to wish you a happy birthday. Would love to catch up with you. You know, hope everything's great. Just give me a call. Like that can be a voicemail drop, for example, could be a text message. Um, one thing we do for our clients, we have this really cool handwritten card service. So we have robots that hold pens and they can actually like handwrite a card.

from you to drop that sort of stuff on people. That's cool. Um, yeah, it's neat. So, I mean, these, these occasions where everybody is greeting you, like the dentist, your veterinarian, you're getting thank you messages from them. You don't want to be in that mix on that day where it's just another, eh, when you can just think ahead a little bit, be a few days ahead and it feels great. Right. Awesome. All right. So final, final tip here, right? Final reason to reach out and what to say, uh, when you do are these quarterly touches. Now I touch base on this a little bit, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper for you. So, uh, a quarterly touch, uh, let's, let's just use you as an example here. Right. So, uh, how many old cold dead leads do you think you have in your database today? Probably hundreds. Okay. I'm surprised it's, it's that few. Like, um, I mean, they tend to stack up. They do. And I, I, that actually could be the problem is that I don't know how many.

Ah, okay. Uh, I'm guessing hundreds, but yeah, I got in there and actually looked at all of the dead ones. It's probably more. Okay. Well, um, I mean, for, for anybody who's listening, whether it's, you know, 10 or 10,000, it doesn't matter. Like you need a plan to communicate with these people on a regular basis. Uh, and yet, you know, if you're a lead in someone's database, think of the sort of stuff you're getting all the time. Like, is there an agent today who's not using some kind of IDX system? I don't know. Uh, so if I'm, if I'm shopping for real estate, I'm probably getting property search alerts, price change alerts, search update stuff, uh, from multiple agents. And, uh, I'm getting pretty much the same info just from different faces. So it gets pretty quick to ignore, particularly when, uh, the real estate search today often starts more than 12 months before they're ready to talk to an agent. Right. So, you know, you've, you've got to balance two competing priorities. Uh, the first is deliverability. Like if you send everybody tons of messaging, they're going to unsubscribe, right? If you send everybody tons of messaging and enough people unsubscribe, you're going to have trouble getting anything delivered. Right. Carriers that deliver email are going to block your sins. Right. So you don't want that to happen. So I recommend that you send frequently when the lead is new for the first week, and then you, you break it out to once every three weeks. Right. And then if you're not getting any engagement, it's a once a quarter. And that once a quarter message is a very specific re-engagement message for leads. Okay. So, uh, I'm going to pull up another message here. I'll just read this to you to give you an example. So, uh, subject line is let's chat and it reads, hi, Dan, markets move in full steam ahead. Some amazing opportunities are now available. If you've been thinking about pursuing a real estate goal, now may be the time to act.

Let me know if you're interested in an overview of the current market trends and how to best position yourself. Right. So does that sound like rocket science? It does not. Nope. This is not Shakespeare, right? Uh, the reason this kind of message works is because the database is segmented properly and the message is actually being sent. I mean, I cannot tell you how many times we've discovered closings for agents that they would never have found themselves just because they stopped following up. Like it's nuts. And I love my man, Brent Dally here, but I'm going to call him out a little bit because he had 10,000 dead leads and he wasn't sending anything to them. Right. So we found 17 transactions in those 10,000 dead leads. And what is this message? Okay. So again, if you're watching this, just steal it, just grab it, rip it right off the screen and stick it in your system and get it sent out. Uh, everybody needs a place to live. And if they're in your database, shame on you for letting them work with anybody else. Right. That's right. I mean, that's the, you know, one of the things that we struggle a lot with when we're talking to agents about follow up and about asking for referrals and training referrals to how to refer is the other option is they might have a terrible experience with a, with a, with an awful agent. Yeah. So do you want somebody to do that?

No, of course not. Yeah. So the only person you're hurting by not reaching out to someone is yourself first, because you've got to put bread on the table, but you're also giving them the likelihood that they're going to have a terrible experience. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's a couple things that I'd like to unpack if you don't mind. Go for it. Um, the first one is like, you know, our industry has an exit door and a lot of people walk through it every year. Right. So please, if you're not committed to doing a fantastic job for every person you serve, do us all a favor and use that exit door, please get out, right? Just get out of the industry. Right. Yes. So your default state should be, I'm a fantastic freaking agent. It doesn't mean as I'm as good today as I'm going to be tomorrow because I always want to improve, but I can hold my own with anybody out there and I'm going to go and get the business. Like that's the mindset that I'd love for people to adopt. Yep.

And you know, if, if you feel like your ethics aren't there, if you feel like you're going to have difficulty being a true fiduciary, this isn't for you. Like it's just not. No. Yeah. Correct. Awesome. I hope half your staff doesn't leave. Cause I said that. No, no, no, no. We're really, uh, I know the funny thing, the funny thing about that is, and I'll be, and I've spoken about this publicly before when we first opened the brokerage and, you know, I went from sitting in my underwear on my couch, working with a laptop to Holy crap, I've got 5,000 square feet of space and a staff person to pay. And we have four agents and that's not, that's not going to cover all of this. Yeah. It really was a, do you have a heartbeat? Come on and join us type of mentality. Right. Uh, and I got about six months into that and I came home one day and I told my wife, I said, I'm just miserable. This is not what I wanted. When I said I wanted to open a brokerage, this is awful. And fortunately she's far more level headed than me. Cause I was just like, let's shut it down. Um, go, just go back to being a regular individual producer and I'll be fine. Um, and she said, okay, well, where's the, where's the pain point? And I was like, well, I don't like any of these people. Like half the people that work for us right now, I don't really like. Uh, and she goes, I'm too sure to work with people you don't like. She goes, okay, then stop working with them. And I said, oh yeah, you know what? That's pretty smart. And so literally came in one day and we just, we let go of a lot of agents and kind of reset. And now, you know, we have a very, very simple, um, core value set that we want people to abide by. We have two rules for working here. Um, number one is you can't be an asshole. And number two is if somebody needs help, we help them. And if you fit that, you're going to fit into our culture. And you know, that's, that's kind of what we've driven everything towards now. Uh, and the result is, you know, now we're at 310 agents and I'm super, super happy coming to work every day when at 40, I was miserable.

How fantastic is it though? Like I feel so fantastic knowing that you said, Hey, wait a minute, this isn't working. You were at a point where you were about to give up. And then what happened through a relationship, like a super important relationship for you, you got a little piece of advice that changed everything. Yeah. Like, I mean, that little story right there is proof of the power of relationships. Absolutely. No matter what happens with COVID, no matter what happens with the economy, no matter what happens, uh, it's our relationships that are going to get us through. I really, truly believe that the path to whatever it is we want to achieve is, is lit by the lights of other people. So that's a great line. Like I got goosebumps. That was good. I got some goosebumps there. Anything you want to tell folks about happy grasshopper before we get off? Oh gosh. Um, yeah, I think I do actually go for it. So happy grasshopper is my labor of love. Uh, I started this company after selling my CRM company 10 years ago. Uh, I could not feel more blessed, uh, more just overjoyed to get to wake up every day and do what I do. And, uh, we are working on some super, super exciting new stuff. So, uh, in the coming weeks, we're going to be really changing the game for a lot of people. So I'll encourage everybody to stay tuned. Uh, if you would like, uh, to make sure you're in the loop on this, please join our Facebook group. Just go to facebook.com slash groups slash what to say now. That's the place where myself and my staff of copywriters will answer any sort of communication question you have. If you've got a letter that needs written and it's really important, just ask us. We'll give you help. They're free. Uh, we bring people on, uh, for a weekly web show every Tuesday at 2 PM Eastern. And, uh, it would just be a privilege to, to be able to be that voice in your ear, helping make sure that you're putting words out there that help you achieve your goals. So thank you so much for having me. No, thanks for being here, Dan. It really, this is great content. I really appreciate it. Uh, so thanks to Dan Stewart from happy grasshopper.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to watch the Top 5 show and we will see you on the next episode. Have a great one.