Well, good morning. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first session of the day. It's Wednesday. We are halfway through our second week of the spring marathon. I hope it's going really well. Pop into the chat. How's it going for you? Are you winning? Tell me about some good things. I wanna hear good things this morning. Lots of people joining us this morning. Wow. Look at look at wow. Okay. Tell me your good news. What closed too yesterday, Lynn? Congratulations. Tracy, you can do it. You can stay on track. I believe in you. Did you know that it's proven that when you do things that you don't wanna do, your brain actually grows? So maybe we should do more things that we don't wanna do or don't feel like doing. Sasha, six hundred thousand in contract last week. That's amazing. Way to go. Awesome, Jill. Jill was at a career fair. It went really well. Amazing. Hey, Catherine from Houston. I'm not too far from you. I'm in Austin. Staying positive. That's right, Lonnie. I love that. Scheduled two open houses. Patricia, you are in the right class. You might have just came at the right time to the right class to learn how you can win at those open houses. I'm sure you're already amazing at them. Prepping for two open houses. Second closing for this month tomorrow. That's amazing. I am so excited to hear all about your wins and all of the success that you're having. The whole goal of this marathon is to help you get your production on track to hit your goals, to do what you wanna do this year. None of this is worth it if we're not gonna actually do what we don't wanna do and get where we wanna go. Right? Not really. Well, today, we are gonna talk about open houses. My name is Shana Moats. I am the VP of corporate operations implementation here at LPT. That is a mouthful, and you might be wondering why is someone from operations here to talk about open houses. I've been licensed for just over thirteen years. And my very first year in the business, using only open houses as my main lead gen, I sold fifty five homes. So that may that may be like, oh, you know, maybe she had this giant sphere. Maybe she already had, a lot of things going for her. Nope. Nothing. I literally had my daughter in December. I was licensed by June one, and we had just moved to Austin, Texas. I didn't really know a lot of people. My husband had some family here, but I was too scared to ask them for business. And so I saw other agents doing open houses, and I thought, well, that's what I'm gonna go do too. Luckily, I got to shadow a couple of agents on how they did open houses, and I started doing that every weekend, Saturday and Sunday from one to four. Okay? So this was thirteen years ago back in let's see. Isabelle was born in twenty twelve. So it would have been twenty thirteen when I started doing this. Okay? It's been a while, but it still works. And in the beginning, I was really terrible at it. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to talk to people. I didn't know how to get the results that I was looking for. I was really frustrated. I was spending time away from my family. It actually took me thirty seven thirty seven open houses to get my first appointment for someone to actually agree to sit down and meet with me to talk about buying a home. Okay? Thirty seven. That's about six months of open houses before I saw any results. Now after that, because of all of the work that I've been doing, everything kind of snowballed after that. Right? I had built up a pipeline, and it just exploded. And those next since six months of my first year in the business were just this snowball effect of all of that hard work and effort that I had put in. I spent about two years only doing open houses, Saturday and Sunday, one to four. I missed graduations. I did open houses on Mother's Day. I did open houses, I would say, fifty fifty weeks a year. If for some reason I couldn't do them Saturday and Sunday from one to four, I would replace that with a weekday open house. Okay? But it took a lot for me to miss one. And the reason is because my entire business, my entire database was built off of that pipeline, that lead generation source. Now once my business started going, I took really great care of my clients. I built relationships with them. I did a lot of events and pop bys. And from that, I began getting repeat and referral business. Right? And so my business transitioned into having different methods of those leads coming into me. And, yes, this will be recorded, and it will be available in Connect for you. And, Eddie, I in the beginning, all I was generating was buyer leads. Right? Because most of the people walking into open houses are gonna be buyers. Yet, my first year, I probably sold I would say maybe ten of those were listings. Okay? So the the buyer versus listings, the the percentage was much higher buyers. But as my business went on, it evened out to about forty five, fifty five percent. Right? So I was pretty even once my business got going and once I started getting those repeat and referral clients. And, like, we're gonna talk about today, once I really started building my brand in my open house farm. So let's go ahead and jump in. I'm gonna share my screen. Now listen. I want this to be interactive today. Okay? So put your questions in the comments. I will do my best to answer them as we go along. And if I miss something, feel free to connect with me on, connect, and I would be happy to answer any of the questions that you have. Alright. So can y'all see my screen? Can I get a thumbs up or a yes? Perfect. Okay. Perfect. Awesome. Here we go. So let's jump right in. First, I wanna cover why open houses. Why why am I encouraging you to do open houses? Why am I so passionate about them? There's several reasons. Okay? But first, I wanna talk about lead generation levers. You have a buffet of options of lead generation levers that you can choose to build your business with depending on what you enjoy, what you have access to, and your resources. Okay? So we have prospecting. Prospecting open houses are gonna fall in that category. They're active. They're low or no cost. This was by far one of the biggest positives of open houses is how low cost they are. Now they are more time. That's okay. In the beginning, especially when we're just starting our business and building our database, what do we have a lot of? Time. What do we not have very much of? Money. It's the perfect lead generation, whether you're just starting in the business or you're a seasoned agent getting their business going. And prospecting is gonna be one to one. Marketing, on the other hand, is more passive. It typically is more expensive. Right? You're going to spend more dollars. However, it is less time. So that exchanges, you're spending more money, but you're spending less time generating that lead. And it's one to many instead of one to one. Now when we think about your business, we think about it like a table or a stool. We want it to be very, very firm. Right? It's not wiggly. When you sit down on it, you're not going, woah. Right? You have those four different, pegs that you sit on that keep that stool nice and firm so that when you sit on it, there's no wiggle. It's the same for your business. We don't want our business going like this. Right? We want it to be nice and firm and settled. So when we think about building out our stool for from a lead generation business, this was one of the mistakes I made. Like I said, I only did open houses. And so anytime there was any sort of, you know, football game, holiday, summer, bad weather, my lead generation opportunity was affected. So I highly encourage you to make sure that your stool is fully built out. Number one is always gonna be your database. These are the people that you already know. You have done business business with them in the past. Maybe they're a friend or a family member. Matt Miali yesterday was talking about how on his team, agents are not allowed to join his team until they have four hundred full contacts in their database. Now how many of you have four hundred full contacts in your database right now? Do you know how many contacts you have in your database? Tracy says you have more. That's amazing. Love it. Fourteen hundred. I do. Amazing. I'm so excited to hear. Now when I say contacts and database, I'm not talking about Internet leads. I'm talking about people that you know, that know you, and you could stop on the street and have a conversation with. Right? You have a relationship with them. That's your real database that we know is going to refer us business because they trust us and they know that we do a good job. We're going to have two prospecting choices. So this could be open houses. This could be, for sale by owners. Maybe we would like to go after for sale by owners and expireds. Or maybe this is networking of some sort. You're gonna choose those two items and then marketing. This could be, you know, many different opportunities. There are a a huge list of opportunities for you to choose from. When we think about the market that we're in right now, our very first action of the day should be looking for right now business. And so what are those right now levers that we can pull to go and get that business to fill our pipeline right now? Because as we all know, the market's a little tough. It's extraordinarily tough in Austin, Texas right now. We have the lowest sales that we've had since, I think, even prior to two thousand and eight. Okay? So how can we go out and get those right now buyers or sellers? We're going to find them where? Open houses, expired listings, and FSBOs. They've already raised their hand to say, hey. I'm interested in selling. And then referrals, VIP, meaning people who are in your database, who are your referral partners, or maybe other agents. So let's specifically talk about open houses. What is the goal of an open house? Is it to sell the house that you're standing in? Are we working to sell that? You can answer the chat. No. Thank you. No. We are not. We want to be educated on the house. We want to be able to represent it really well. We wanna be able to talk about it. We wanna present ourselves professionally. Yet our goal as we're sitting there is not to actually sell that house that we're in. The goal is to add contacts to your database, okay, to uncover nurtures, or as Robert would say, Mickey's. We'll talk about that a little bit later. Most importantly, to set appointments and to build your brand awareness. We'll talk about how we do that in a little bit. The positives, as we've already discussed, it's inexpensive, and I found it to have a very high conversion rate. I knew that for every open house that I did, I would have on average six groups through. I would get three contacts, and I would set one appointment. Now I knew that three appointments equaled one closing. So I could very easily come through and say, I need to do this number of open houses every year to hit this closing goal. Right? If I wanna close twenty units this year, this is how many open houses I need to schedule in my calendar right now as I prepare for the year. The cons, because there are some. Time. I spent every Saturday and Sunday away from my kids, away from my family. They were at the park. They were going to parties, doing fun things. I wasn't a part of it. That kinda stinks. That's okay. I just was very intentional about the time that I was spending with them during the week and when I wasn't doing those open houses. And then, you know, another con, it can be kind of intensive. It it is, you know, belly to belly. You're right up there. You're on. You're, you know, not performing, but you wanna make a good impression. And for some of us, that can be a lot of energy to spend. Mike is asking, how did you schedule the buyer tours with leads on weekends? That's a great question, Mike. Number one, I wouldn't schedule more than three or four houses at a time, so I would preset that expectation with my buyers. Hey. When we go out, I have found in my experience that after we see four homes, it gets stressful and overwhelming. And so we're gonna limit anytime that we go out to four homes. I'm available at four thirty PM on Saturday. Does that work for you? Or I'm available at ten AM on Saturday. Does that work for you? And I knew that as long as I had about two hours, I could get through those four homes unless I was not going from, you know, this side of Austin to the other side of Austin to this side of Austin. But, again, we're gonna talk about our open house house farm and why that helped me build my business and be very, very strategic in the people that I worked with. Tracy, I do have some help with conversations with how to set the appointment. We'll get there in a minute. And did I doorknob before my open house? I'm gonna be really honest. The answer is no. And why is that? I just I was scared. I was scared too. Okay? I also didn't have the resources that made it really easy and simple for me to go to that door and start that conversation. We have those today here at LPT. It's amazing. It makes it it makes it really easy, and I wish I would have had it thin because it would have made my rope my open house traffic more robust than just depending on signs and the Internet. Right? Okay. Honestly, the open house lead generation method, it's a game changer for agents. You can find right now business. It's in inexpensive and powerful, and it builds brand awareness in a geographic area so that you are known as that agent that is the expert in that area to those neighbors. And when it comes time to buy or sell, you're gonna be the one that they think of. This is our open house power pack. This is what I wish I would have had back then when I was really in the thick of doing open houses. It would have saved me so much time, and it would have made my open houses more robust by getting more people in the door because I I would have had all these resources to market my open houses and then to make myself look really good as I was in that open house. Let's talk about my specific open house process. Okay? This is the exact way that I did open houses to sell those fifty five homes. Now in the beginning, I hadn't figured this out. I literally would do an open house, fail, go back home, talk about it with Bobby, and be like, what do I do better next time? And literally, since six months just tinkering, focusing on this one thing, how do I win at open houses so that I can replace my income from the job that I left to get my real estate license? How do I do that? So the five step process. Number one, we're going to pick the right neighborhood. This is something that you do one time, and then you don't really revisit after that. Then once we have our our neighborhood chosen, we're gonna choose the best open house in that in that neighborhood, in that farm that you've chosen. We're going to market the open house. We're gonna hold it open, and then we're gonna complete our follow-up with our contacts that we made. So let's talk about picking the right neighborhood. I call this my open house farm. It should be near where you live. It should have a good turnover rate. So of all of the homes available in that area, how many homes sell every year? What is that percentage? Back in, you know, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, I would say I wanted to see somewhere between a five to seven percent turnover rate. Right now, it's probably a little bit lower than that. So if you're seeing a three percent turnover rate of four percent, that's probably a good area to start. You wanna choose one that is close to major roads. Okay? This helps with sign placement and getting more traffic into your open house. The area that I chose was in, Southwest Austin. It had, highly rated schools. It was close to downtown Austin. Most importantly, it was within five minutes of where I lived, and there was a large enough area to where I knew I would have room to kind of move around. There was a high density of housing in that area with a lot of, you know, there was a movie theater and a grocery store and gas station and restaurants. I knew I could learn that area really good in that high density area and still have a lot of opportunity. And so that was how I chose my open house farm. Once you choose it, you do not move from it. And the most important thing is that you do all of your research upfront on that open house. It really does help if you live there because you're going to know things that you would only know if you lived there. Right? So, I knew the PTA president at the elementary. I knew that you don't wanna live on this street because the traffic gets really bad when school lets out. I knew that, you know, if you're gonna go eat at this restaurant, here's what you should try on the menu. I knew how long it took you to get from this place to this place. I knew all of the agents that worked in that area, and I built relationships with them so that I could hear about their listings that were coming up in that neighborhood. That's an amazing value to potential buyers. Alright. And I'm just gonna stop and check. Alright. Yes. Susanna, you do need to get the okay from the listing agent to host an open house. I can talk through how I did that. Okay. Okay. That is true. Some brokerages will not allow agents who are not in their brokerage to host open houses. That's okay. No big deal. You just go to the next one. Okay. So let's talk about choosing the best open house. I now have my neighborhood. I am not going to stray from that area because that is the place that I know. When we start talking about conversations, you'll see why knowing the area is incredibly important. So you wanna choose a house that is fairly new to market. I do not want to host an open house on a brand new house to market. If it comes on the market on a Thursday, I don't I don't wanna be hosting it on Saturday. Why is that? Why would I say that? Put it in the chat. Why do you think I would say don't host a new open house? Too busy? Yeah? Needs time to get out to the public? Yeah? Plan? Not enough time? Time to get out? Okay. Here's what I want you to think about. We are attracting potential clients to our open house via many different methods. Right? We know that, they're gonna come from signs. They're going to hopefully come from all of the marketing that you've done with the open house pack. They're going to come from, you know, seeing the open house maybe on a third party website like a Zillow or a realtor dot com. When they come in on the first weekend and they've come in because their agent has sent them or they're looking at it on Zillow, they're typically too far down in that pipeline. They already represented. They're so serious. They've already been prequalified by a lender. They've they're already working with an agent, and now they're just looking for the right house. So I'm gonna get a lot of those people the first weekend on the market. I wanna go second weekend, a month later, sixty days later, because I wanna get the people that are coming in off the signs, that are coming in just because they heard about it. You know? Oh, we happen to see this on Zillow, and we thought we kinda like that neighborhood. We maybe we'll pop in, because they're at the top of the funnel. They're not so far down that they already have an agent. Right? I wanna catch them up here. It's most importantly, I cannot cannot say this enough. It needs to be in your neighborhood, in your farm. Okay? We want it to be in good condition. This matters because the general public does not know or really care that you are not the listing agent. Okay? You might be the listing agent. That's fairly rare, but they don't know or care if that you're not the listing agent. However, that house is still a reflection of you. So if there's bugs on the ground, if there's a dog pee smell, if it's in really rough condition, it is not going to reflect good on you as a real estate agent, right, as a professional. And then lastly, we want it close to major roads so that we can get those signs. Okay. So let's market the open house. And this is what I wish I would have had ten years ago. Okay? So ten to fourteen days out, I'm starting to use those business cards. Right? I might even give that to the owner of the home to begin using. Like, hey. I'm gonna host an open house at your home. Here's some business cards that you can use to advertise the open house. Door hangers. I'm going ten to the left and right, ten across the street. I'm gonna hand all of those out, and then I'm gonna follow-up a little bit later with some flyers. I also am going to look at maybe some homes that have expired or were withdrawn in that neighborhood, and I'm going to send the postcards to those people and invite them to the open house. Right? I want to start introducing myself to them as the expert in that neighborhood. I'm gonna put my sign rider out so that it, starts advertising for people that are driving by. Three to seven days out, I'm gonna keep using those postcards I'm sorry, the business cards. And then I'm also going to be using those small flyers, again, going either to coffee shops, to doctors' appointments. Wherever I'm headed, I'm gonna start passing those out and saying, hey. I've got a listing. I've got an open house this weekend. Come see me. Come visit me. Right before the open house, the day of, I'm making sure, number one, that the open house is actually showing up online. So for us in our MLS, it needs to be scheduled in the MLS for it to show up on those third party websites. So I'm making sure that the listing agent has done that. And then I'm putting out my open house signs. It's really important that we are putting out twenty five minimum open house signs, and you wanna take them from a major road all the way to the house. Make sure that you are putting signs that make sense. You don't want to put them three hundred yards apart. You wanna put them about a hundred yards apart. You want a lot of signs so that you're not losing any people along the way. Add important turns. I will even put two, like, next to each other. Turn here. Right? And in the yard, I'm probably putting two. Open house right here. That way, your your potential clients can't miss it. Okay. I'm seeing some questions about what if the house goes under contract after you schedule it. That's okay. It happens a lot. That happened to me a lot. I would have a conversation with the listing agent and say, when do you plan on marking it pending, in the MLS? So if it's, you know, Friday night and it goes pending and I'm supposed to host one Saturday morning, I would probably we would probably negotiate, can you wait twenty four hours to make it pending? I will still hold it open. I will let them know it's under contract and that you're looking for backup offers. If it's a Tuesday and they went under contract, I would find a different open house. Okay. And Tracy is asking I'm going back to host an open house at the same time. Absolutely. Would you recommend that I use the same property? I one of my best months in business was when I hosted the same house open four weeks in a row. Okay? I got a lot of traffic because it was an in it inexpensive price point for that farm. That's kinda something you wanna think about too is when you're looking at a house to host open. If you choose the most expensive, the highest in the in the neighborhood, your buyer pool is gonna be so small that the people that are attracted to attending that open house is gonna be a pretty small percentage of that total buyer pool. When you choose an average priced home or a below average priced home, that's when you're gonna get the most traffic and interest on that house because you have the largest percentage of buyer pool to pull from. So I highly recommend it's it makes it super easy to host it over and over again if you're getting good traffic on it. I I can remember the house. I remember the clients I met there. I picked up an investor at that open house who ended up buying four homes with me that first year. So I highly recommend if you can make it work and it's a good open house, do it over and over again. You already know where to put the signs. You don't have to think about it. You're not learning a new house. You know, it it's a little bit easier to step into. Okay. Let's talk about holding the house open. This is the most important part of the open house process. And this might be a little bit controversial, but I'm just gonna say it. We are not doing sign ins. Okay? There is nothing worse for me than walking into an open house and being accosted at the door, either with a sign in that says, you know, for security reasons, the seller needs you to sign in. Well, that makes me feel kind of icky. Honestly, as a as a potential buyer, that makes me feel a little icky, right as I'm walking in. Right? Or I just want you to sign in because I want your info because I'm gonna blow you up after this is done. I'm gonna call you and text you and email you and bother you. I'm gonna lie on that. I'm not gonna give my correct contact information. Okay? And Lynn is asking, how do you capture their info? We're getting there. It's called the RBA method, rapport value appointment. Okay? Well, I'm gonna go in-depth on that, and that is the model that I used to pick up clients at open houses. We want to focus on getting belly to belly, one to one with with people as opposed to a massive quantity. If you're holding a house open and you're expecting more than ten groups of people through that open house in that three hour window, you're gonna wanna bring a partner. Okay? You you're not gonna be able to talk to all of them one to one. You're not gonna be able to have those valuable conversations, which is how you actually get to that appointment setting and those contacts. If you're gonna have ten or more, go ahead and grab a partner or find a different open house. And then lastly, you wanna set up for success. I like to set up in the kitchen. So when they walk in the door, I'm in the kitchen or the dining room. I have my computer. I have my phone. I have my notebook that I write in and a pen, and then I have my flyers from my power pack on on in front of me. Okay? I'll grab a flyer. I'll run I'll say, you know, they I hear the door open, and I'll say, hey. Come on in. K? They walk in. They shut the door. I slowly walk out. Hey. My name is Shaina. That This house is listed at five hundred thousand. It is a four bath, three bed home, and it's just under two thousand five hundred square feet. Here's a flyer. Let me know if you have any questions. And I walk away. Okay? I'm just welcoming them. I'm giving them a good first impression. I'm gonna I'm showing them this is a no pressure situation. Okay? I'm simply here to help you if you need me. And I walk away, and I go back to my post, and I'll type on my computer. I might be getting a little work done. I'm not ignoring them. I know exactly where they are, but I'm not ignoring them. And so let's jump into how I have this conversation with them. So the goal of an open house is to set an appointment. K? I want you to think to yourself, I am never leaving an open house again without setting an appointment. I would get nervous. Right? Or I'd get into conversation with them, and I would think, oh, I don't wanna bother them. It's gonna be awkward if I ask. And then I would think in my head, no. I I said to myself, I'm not leaving this open house without an appointment, and they could be my last shot. You know? It's it's three o'clock. I may not have anyone else come through. I'm asking for the appointment because if I don't, I've spent this time and energy here away from my family, away from a beautiful day on a Saturday to get zero results, and that is unacceptable. So even though it's painful, even though it doesn't feel great, it gets easier. I am going to ask for the dang appointment. Okay? Can we all commit to that? Great. So effective appointment setting, RVA, build rapport, show your value, ask for the appointment, ask for the audition. How do we build rapport? So forward is super easy. Right? They're walking by, and I might say something like, oh, I you know, your daughter is adorable. I see she's wearing an a and m hat. Are y'all Aggies? Oh, my husband and I went there too. We're big fans. That's awesome. Right? Or do you live in the neighborhood? How'd you hear about the open house? Even as simple as, what do you think about the house so far? Right? Tell me your thoughts. Another thing to think about is you want to mirror and match them. If they're a little, you know, standoffish, you're not gonna come at them with all this energy. Right? You'll scare them off. So if they're a little bit if they're talking quieter, you want to talk a little bit quieter. You want to talk a little bit slower. If they're coming at you with lots of energy, you wanna come at them with lots of energy too. You wanna mirror and match the way that they are, appearing to you. You want to listen actively. What does this mean? I'll say something like, so what do you think about the house so far? And they'll say, oh, you know, we really like it. I was like, well, is it something that you're looking for? And they'll say, well, you know, it has three bedrooms. We are really looking for four bedrooms. And I'd say, okay. So you're looking for a four bedroom home. That so this house doesn't match what you're looking for. What do you think about the style of the home? So I repeated back what they said to me, and then I asked another question. And as I'm doing that, I'm, most importantly, I have my notebook, and I'm writing down what they say. Writing down what they say is going to tie them to me. They're not gonna just walk away if I'm taking notes on our conversation. I am not taking notes on my computer. I am not taking notes on my phone. I'm not going like this because it looks like I'm not paying attention to them, like I'm multitasking. When I take out my notebook and I write, they know I'm taking notes on the conversation. They're not gonna just walk away from that. And I'm asking open ended questions. Okay? So what does that look like? Once you kind of uncover more about who they are and what they're doing and why they're in the open house, you can ask things like, you know, I understand you're wanting to move to this area because you wanna be close to your family. What would that do for you? How how would that help you if you were able to see them more often? Or, you know, I know that you're leasing right now. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have predictable monthly payments? What how would that impact your financial situation? Or, you know, I know it's really important for you to have that fourth bedroom. How would that impact your family if each of your children had their own bedroom? And when we think about active listening, we want to use the acronym here. So hear attentively, you empathize with that emotion, ask open ended questions like we just talked about, and then reflect and summarize what they said. K? Once we build rapport, we're going to move into value. How do we show them value? The thing I want to encourage you on is for some of my high i's out there, you can get into the me too conversation, like, oh, you went to a and m? Me too. Oh, you have a dog. Me too. You can stay in that, like, rapport conversation too long because you're you start getting nervous to move towards the appointment. And so it's important to identify when it's time to cut off that rapport conversation. You really should not be asking more than two, maximum three questions that are in that rapport category before we start moving into value. So how do we show our value? Number one is by knowing the local market. Right? You want to show them that you are the local market expert and educate them just conversationally about the market. You know, they could say, you know, Shana, we we kind of like this house. We like the style. We like the location. This is the neighborhood and the school we wanna be in, yet we're really looking for that fourth bedroom. I understand. So you're really looking for that fourth bedroom. You know, I know that this house doesn't fit the bill, but there are two houses down the street that have a fourth bedroom. One needs a little bit of work. If you like this style, I would guess you would want to update that one. The other one is a little bit more expensive, but has the fourth bedroom and is already updated. Would you be curious in seeing those? Right? So I'm showing my value by knowing about these other houses, or, you know, maybe they're concerned about the local market. Maybe they say, you know, we're just not sure if we're really ready to buy. We think that prices might continue going down. That's when you're talking about pricing trends for this specific neighborhood. This is when you're talking about ten year trends and what the local market is doing. You wanna be authentic. One of the things that I love about open houses is that you attract people that are similar to you, that you naturally get along with, and then you get to work with them. Like, it makes really, really fun and interesting relationships when you get to enjoy your clients that you're working with. I'm sure all of us have had some challenging clients that we've worked with and served, and it feels different than when we're working with someone that we really enjoy working with. And lastly, we want to use, and understand our client's motivation. So what is motivation? Why are they moving? Why are they thinking about making a real estate decision? Right? What is that? And what is your value to the client? And for some reason, y'all can't see my words, but what problem do you solve? When you think about matching, what you can provide to the client with value to the client. What problem are you solving on their behalf, and why do you solve it? And and, really, it's a value exchange. Right? You are offering a service to the client in exchange for commission. Right? You want to offer more value to them than what you're receiving because that's just going to continue building your business. And then we want to ask for the audition. You match the ask to their motivation. Okay? We don't just ask, hey. You know, I'd love to, meet with you to talk about buying a house. Why? You you don't know anything about me or, you know, I I I we're still six months down the road. I'm not really we're not really there yet. We're not ready to sit down. If someone says that to you, you haven't gotten their trust, and you haven't shown your value, and you haven't matched the ask to their motivation. You're using their motivation to provide value in order to get the appointment. Okay? And you wanna ask confidently. You don't wanna say, well, you know, I could if you'd like, you know, I could sit down and, you know, we could just look at some things. It's unclear. They're not gonna feel like you're going to confidently support them and represent them. You want to show them that you're a professional, so ask confidently. Let's talk about matching our motivation to value. And we'll spend a little bit of time on this because this is like your cheat sheet for how to ask for the appointment and get them to agree to meet with you. So let's say their motivation is they're a first time home buyer. They've been renting. They're super excited to buy their first house. What is the value that you can provide them? An amazing one is a home buyer workbook. K? You know what? I'm so excited for you that you are going to be buying your first home. It can feel a little overwhelming that first time, and so my goal is to be your guide as we walk through this process. The way that that works is the first step is to sit down with my lender and me so that we can walk you through what it looks like to buy a home. That way there are no surprises. I have an amazing workbook for you that's gonna be your resource throughout this process. And, that that appointment normally takes about forty five minutes. Would you have time? Let's see. Tuesday at three thirty PM. I'm free at that time. Does that work for you? Maybe they're renting, and they're ready to buy a house. Well, it's the same thing. Right? Let's meet with a lender. Maybe here's where you use the seven home buyer strategies. You're matching their motivation to value that you can offer. If they're relocating because they're looking for schools or they wanna be in a specific area, I go into logistics. Right? I'll say something like, okay. So let's talk more about this move. So what I've heard is that you're looking for a four bedroom, three bath home, ideally around three thousand square feet, that feeds to these schools. Is that accurate? Great. Well, what I can tell you is that every year, about fifty homes that match that criteria come available. How do I know that? Because I know the area really well. Right? So about fifty homes come available. I'd love to send you a list, and maybe we should go look at a couple together. That way, I can get a better idea of what you're looking for. And when new opportunities come up or I hear of them coming up, I can let you know before they hit the market. Do you have time Tuesday at three thirty? Or maybe they're looking for different amenities. It's the same thing. You know what? We're right there at the open house. Right? I am I am going through a short needs analysis with them so I can understand exactly what they're looking for. Okay, mister buyer, miss Seller. I understand that you are looking for a three bed, two bath home. The house that we're in right now, it's a little bit above your price range. You're looking for something a little bit lower. You know, there are two homes down the street that meet that criteria. I could meet you there at four thirty after I lock up here. Would that work for you? Or maybe they're looking for their dream house. Okay? We know that a dream house is probably gonna be more expensive than what they're in right now. You know what? I love that, and I'm so excited for this time in your life where you're ready to go find that dream house. You're ready to go for it. That can be a giant financial investment for you. And one of my favorite things to do is help a family analyze their budgets, understand the costs associated with that dream home, and make sure that we're making a wise financial decision for you and your future. Would you have time to go through that four four thirty on Tuesday? Maybe they're looking to downsize. Maybe they're going the opposite way. You know what? We're ready to move into a little bit smaller home. We want less maintenance, less to take care of. Well, I know that one of the key components is going to be selling their existing home. Right? So that's where I'm bringing in the nine critical questions or the active marketing plan to show them what I can do on the listing side. I want to caution you. As you are talking to people at your open house, and they mention, yeah, you know, we live in the neighborhood now, but we've decided that we wanna move into a larger home. You do not go, oh, well, do you know what your house is worth? Can I come can I come give you a, an appraisal on your house? Can I come see your house? Those potential clients have already disconnected from that house emotionally. They've decided that they wanna sell it. It is no longer what they're looking for. They are not excited about it. They are thinking, oh, gosh. What what pain am I gonna have to go through to get this ready to go on market and sell? They're in the dreaming phase. They are out looking at open houses. They're super excited about their next phase. They're dreaming. You want to grab onto that emotion and that motivation and set your request for your appointment on that. You do not want to go after the listing. It will come. Okay? Don't worry. That conversation will come up, and it's important that it comes up in a logistical, okay. So you'd like to buy a house. Do you need to sell your home first? Right? Great. We can talk about that at a later date. Because, again, you're getting your foot in the door based on their existing high emotional motivation, which is the new house, not the one that they currently own. And then relocation. Maybe they're moving from out of state. This is what I call a reverse funnel. So I'm saying, that's wonderful. I'm so excited that you're moving to the area. Congratulations. That sounds like an incredible move for you. You know, you start work on July first. So let's walk backwards for for what that means for you. If you start work July first, I would imagine you'd like to be in your new home prior to that and kind of settled in. So let's just give you a week to do that. So we're talking about June twenty fifth or so. If we're if you want to be in your home closed, key in hand, and moving in your house June twenty fifth, that means that we need to be under contract on a house by May twenty fifth at the very, very latest, and that's with a uncomplicated thirty day close, you know, straightforward. From if we work backwards from that, it you know, mostly, right now, on average, my clients are seeing about five to six homes before they choose the one that they wanna purchase. Again, I'm setting that expectation that we are not going to be looking at thirty homes. K? We're going to look at your top five to six homes that match all of your criteria. We're not gonna go on a on a hunt for thirty. Most of my clients on average look for five to six homes before they choose one. That normally takes two to three weeks based on your timeline. So, mister and missus Bayer, if we look at that timeline right now, that means that we really need to get prequalified within the next week and begin hunting for homes in about two weeks. Do you have time Tuesday at four thirty for me to walk you through that process, Help I help us identify homes so that I can start looking for the right five to six for you. And then lastly, we know I know that not every person that comes into my open house is going to end in setting an appointment. Maybe they really are just starting their journey. Maybe they're just a neighbor. Right? That's okay. I am also looking to build my database. So I know, of course, from every open house, I typically, on average, would get one appointment. However, I was also getting three to four Mickey's. Right? Maybe not quite Mickey's, but at least contacts that would go into my database. I had their full name. I had their email address and their phone number. And sometimes I would have their address too. Okay? It's important that you ask for their phone number first. So, mister Bayer, I would love to send you a resource that I have available on your neighborhood. It keeps you up to date on all of the stats. Can I get your phone number, and I'll text you the link? K? And I write down their phone number. I'm taking notes. I write down their phone number. And then I say, okay. And great. Just in case I don't get it from you, what's your email address? And then I ask for their email address. If I ask for their email address first and then their phone number, they're going to say, oh, no. You don't need my phone number. Just email me. Right? Okay. So we're gonna be strategic in the data that we ask for. When the open house is over at four o'clock, I lock the door, I turn off the lights, I sit at the kitchen counter, and I go through my notes, and I put every single person that I wrote down into my database with their contact information. I send them an email or a text, and I say, thank you so much for coming to my open house. It was great to meet you. I might tell them I have another open house coming up next weekend with the address, or I might just leave it at that. And then I'm putting everyone into my CRM with all of the notes that I took down from my conversation with them. That is how I built up a pipeline that blossomed into fifty five sales my first year. Because I took the time to build up that database and build up that pipeline, and I continued to contact them and follow-up with them by sending them value. Right? Hey. I saw this house. I thought of you. Or I just wanted to check-in. I have another resource for you. Here is my home buyer workbook or whatever it is that you would like to offer them. We're consistently adding value to them. But most importantly, we wanna pay attention to our Mickeys. What is a Mickey? This is Robert's term for a motivated individual with correct contact inform information. These are the people that you absolutely wanna stay in touch with. Even if they're six months out, we're communicating with them on a weekly basis after we meet them. Why? If they're six months out, we're just gonna contact them, you know, like, a month before they're ready to buy. Right? No. Because their motivation change. Right? I can't tell you how many times I would reach out to a Mickey, and they would say, oh, Shaina, it's great to hear from you. We love talking to you at that open house. We actually just closed on a home. Well, anytime someone tells me their timeline, I cut it in half, and that is what I work off of. It could change very easily. I wanna make sure I'm staying in contact with them. And so excuse me. As we wrap up today, I just wanted to give a reminder about why building your database is important. Open houses are an incredible way to meet new people and build your database. This is how we build that foundation of our business that keeps us going with repeat, referral, and a good pipeline of production without us constantly worrying about where the next deal is coming from. So at your business is as strong as your databases. Okay? So remember that as you are continuing to build your business, I am so excited that I got to spend this time with y'all. This is being recorded. I know that we're out of time right now, and I'm sorry that I didn't get to all of your questions. But I would love for you to message me on connect or in the chat. Happy to connect with you and answer your questions. This will be recorded in connect, and we will see you again at three PM. I hope you have a wonderful day, and I hope you're killing it in this marathon. Go get that production on. Bye.