Ever listed a home with just a few phone calls?
Last month, I did exactly that – three calls and tons of follow-up. The home was under contract within days, all without ever meeting the sellers in person. This same property had been sitting on the market for months with another agent, but a fresh approach changed everything.
In this breakdown, I’ll walk you through each step, day by day, so you can sharpen your appointment-setting skills, know exactly what to say, and become more efficient at landing listings.
Nothing Up My Sleeve
Let me start with a few spoiler alerts:
- I knew what to say.
- I knew how to deliver my message.
- I had massive tonality.
- I followed up when I said I would with deliverables that show people how much I want to earn their business.
In other words, this listing didn’t just fall into my lap. And that’s good news! It means you can get results by using the strategy described here.
As with most real estate deals, it started with picking up the phone.
Phone Call #1
On September 16th, the home in question expired from the market. That’s when I called the owners, got the seller on the line, and went through the expired script.
You might’ve heard of this before.
“Hey Nick, when do you plan on interviewing the right agent for the job of selling your home?”
They told me they planned on renting it out, but then they said they didn’t want to rent it out. I asked them to tell me more about that.
I kept the conversation going by following the script and asking the right questions.
“How did you select the agent that you hired? What did that agent do that you liked the best?”
They said nothing. I said, “Wow, that’s tough!”
After I asked them, “Just out of curiosity, what do you think stopped the home from selling?” they asked me why I thought the home didn’t sell. Legitimately, it was bad marketing. I was able to identify that by having the listing up when I was on the phone.
I could see there were no room dimensions given. The only visuals were a handful of iPhone photos. It was not marketed properly at all. And I was able to verbalize that over the phone.
Then, what I learned was this wasn’t the agent’s main focus. They hired a property manager to sell the home.
Here’s what I said:
“I’m really glad you brought that up because property managers are great at property management. We only focus on listing and selling properties so that way we can help you by doing what we’re best at.”
The conversation lasted eight and a half minutes. I want everyone to understand that timeframe: seven to eight minutes is the sweet spot for appointment setting based on a lot of data that’s out there. Obviously it can go longer. It can also be shorter. But if your average is in that range, that tells me you’re having good conversations and actually talking to people.
The first conversation was very helpful, and I was able to find out that the owners didn’t want to sell; they wanted to get a renter in there because it was vacant. They had renovated the whole place, and it showed really well. None of those were the issues.
It was all about the marketing. So, I left the call with these words:
“Here’s what’s going to happen next. I’m going to email you some information, and then why don’t we set up a time to talk a little more?”
I arranged to talk later because there was another party involved; the seller owned this with a sibling. We got a call on the books for the following morning.
Follow-Up After Call #1
So, what did I do after the call?
- I logged everything I’d learned in the CRM.
- I sent a BombBomb video with a link to our 680+ reviews and the resume for our team.
- I sent a personal message to this particular seller sharing that we’ve helped a lot of people sell their homes after another agent was unable to.
I did all this right after the call. Then I called when I told them I would—the next morning, right on time.
The third-party validation, along with the personalized video and following up when I said I would, is critical here because you can’t just assume people know about you and your team.
Put the evidence right in front of them. It saves them the trouble of looking you up, and it reassures them that you’ve helped people like them get the outcome they wanted—or something even better.
Phone Call #2
The next morning we had a deeper conversation, which included this response from the owners:
“Hey, everything you said made sense. Would you be open-minded to a 30-day contract?”
My response:
“Hey, we’re here to help you sell it. So if I’m not selling the property in 30 days, I don’t know that I’m doing my job here.”
Then, I pulled up the data for sales in the neighborhood.
I was able to find out some of the pain points—why they didn’t want to rent it and wanted to sell.
Based on what I learned, I was able to go a little deeper into what they thought the property was worth. I reviewed comparables over the phone with one of the sellers and was able to show her that the average time on the market was between five and 12 days for this particular community.
What surprised her was that the pricing was right around the same number they listed it for with the other agent. So, she asked me, point blank, “Hey, where should we list?” And I said, “I don’t see prices being the issue. It’s all about the marketing.”
I gave her the marketing pitch on this call—from memory. We set up the follow-up with the sibling. I was able to deliver the listing pitch on a phone call in a succinct way to get them interested.
Phone Call #3
The next day, we had the listing appointment set up over the phone with both siblings. I then sent the normal pre-listing email that our team sends out with the marketing plan: the paperwork, and everything they need to review that beforehand.
I also emailed the sales data over because I wasn’t meeting them in person. If you’re meeting the seller in person, don’t send the market analysis. You want to present that. I sent it over as a point of reference.
The appointment focused on the specifics of a relaunch plan. I told them exactly when things would happen. I also told them things we could do differently, like some virtual staging, because the property was vacant when the photography and video would happen.
I had an agent on our team on the call with me so they could be the owners’ person on the ground.
We went through all the details, including the paperwork and how to move ahead, because I sent them all the documents in advance. On that third call, they said, “Great, let’s move ahead. We feel good about this.” And we got the listing signed three days later.
It’s now under contract at the price we told them we could sell it for—and the same price where it was listed with the previous agent.
So when you look at this here, this all happened in about 48 hours. I followed the process that works. This is a documented process:
- Call
- Log notes into your CRM
- Send follow-up information
- Call back at the promised time
- Send a pre-appointment email
- Get more information with additional discovery questions
- Deliver the listing pitch in a way that works for the seller
I’m not big on the phone, so I wanted to meet with them. They suggested the phone call, and I said yes because that’s what worked best for them. I was able to navigate everything appropriately, and it ended with a signed listing.
Follow the Process
So, you’re probably wondering, “How did this all happen?” It happened because I followed the process.
By following that, we were able to get a listing signed over the phone, never having to visit the property. And that’s because—
- I know my scripts.
- I followed the process.
- I sent a video.
- I know the marketing plan.
- I know the listing appointment backwards and forwards.
When you have that kind of deep knowledge, you can get incredible results just like this.
