If You Were This Guy, What Would You Do?

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Had a nice conversation with an agent on the east coast recently who’s a world class buyer’s agent. He has his own site that sending roughly 7-8,000 leads his way each year. From those he picks the cherriest of the cherry, giving the rest to his assistant. He sells anything from a $100k place to cool houses whose price tags require a couple commas. I got the impression most of his stuff is $400k and above, though not much above, at least as an average.

Anyway, the guy’s wicked smart, knows what he’s doin’ backwards and forwards, and does very, very well. He expected to be at roughly 70 closed sides by the end of the year. Again, his website spits out leads like Grandma used to make muffins.

Talking with agents like him is a treat, mainly cuz they’re not only good, and work hard, but they get it. Big time smart.

I asked him why he’d never pursued being a dominant lister.

I asked cuz he’s such a natural, he’d kill. Agents like him can leverage the combination of their superior online skills and agent experience into a tremendous pay raise while keeping the hours level or even reducing them if preferred. For instance, my guess is Russell Shaw, who’ll probably do (my estimate, not his) 5-700 sides this year, works 30-50 hours weekly. Not sure how those sales fall into listing/buyer sides, but I’d wager more than a six pack of Dr. Pepper that 70% of ’em or more are listing sides. I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’m mistaken. 🙂

Back to the east coast guy.

He’s been at this for a decade or so with stellar results. That’s a lotta sales. A buncha homeowners who’re in their homes due to his efforts. They like him, and view him as an experienced, knowledgeable pro. Geez, I dunno, given a built-in database of roughly 500-700 satisfied homeowners, one might wonder if marketing your equally cool listing prowess might have some traction.

Just sayin’.

Let’s say it’s just 500 or so. He already ‘touches’ them with emails once or twice yearly, though it’s generic in nature. According to him, he lists about 10-15 homes yearly by accident. Hhmmm. I’m open for help on this, but I contend that if I had 500 people locally to whom I’d sold homes, who were happy with my service, I’d do everything humanly possible to ensure I was the guy they called when it was time to sell.

Yet from what I can tell, most buyer-agents appear to pass on this. When asked why he’d never gone after these satisfied clients, he said it was cuz he simply doesn’t have the time, as closing so many sides (about 70 this year) with just one assistant is pretty time consuming all by itself. True enough.

This guy, IMHO, is his area’s Russell Shaw in the making.

No hyperbole whatsoever. Think about it. About 25% of his database — 125 homeowners — bought before 2003. Given the cartoonish appreciation from which they benefitted (even after the correction), combined with some of the killer good deals available today, I gotta think maybe 10% would be at least considering a move today. That’s 12-13 listings right there — or somewhere just short of $5 Million in immediately volume — not counting the homes they bought from him after theirs sold.

Geez, Louise, Myrtle — what am I missing here?

He’s now listed about a dozen homes on purpose, plus the other 10-15 he ‘runs into’ as he says. That’s 22-27 listings — all either by happenstance, or under the radar, private database type marketing. Imagine how he could then market to the remaining 375 homeowners in his database. Think maybe a tad over 3% of ’em might be ready to make a move? That’s another 10-12 listings. We’re up to at least 30 now.

Works for me. Setting his already superb buyer lead generation track record aside, how many more or less ‘organic’ buyers are gonna emanate from 30 listings? Also, those listings will always generate other listings. That’s just the way it works.

Since he knows what it takes to be a successful buyer-agent, he can train agents under him to do most of that work now. Furthermore, he can probably pay them less than a 50% split, as all they hafta do is show up to work each day to get the leads he’s been generating for over a decade. He already generates more leads than he could possibly use. They’ll earn more workin’ for him than gettin’ higher splits elsewhere.

If he then begins to nurture his reputation as a prolific lister — the kind who, you know. sells his listings — he can begin marketing in earnest around his current and ever growing listing inventory — and elsewhere. Hell, he’s already proven he’s an expert in generating leads online. He just needs to redirect some of that knowhow to the listing side.

The main thing, is that he’s not startin’ from scratch. He’s starting with 500 satisfied clients who already respect his expertise. It’s my personal opinion that if he does these things in earnest for a year or so, he’ll end up closing more listing sides per year than he’s currently closing on the buy side. Once he exits the time-suck life of the buyer-agent, he can spend that time to list far more homes than he’s sold — and in the same work week, more or less.

In fact, by becoming a truly prolific and effective listing agent, it’s my prediction his operation will end up with more buyer sides than he’s ever experienced.

No doubt you’re thinkin’ “what the hell, Jeff, this ain’t anything new under the sun” — yep, pretty much. Then tell me, why aren’t highly successful buyer-agents doin’ this all over the country?

I realize being a lister isn’t for everyone. Not everyone wants to walk through that door, and frankly, if as a buyer-agent you’re already doin’ low to mid six figures, I get it. You’re already showin’ folks how it’s done.

But if more than doubling your income appeals to you, and you match the profile of this guy, what’re ya waitin’ for?

If you were this guy, what would you do?