S1 E9: Mastering Mindset & Perseverance in Real Estate Prospecting

Noel (00:01):
Hi, I’m Noel with Today’s Brew, where top producing real estate agents share their tips on taking more listings, making more money, and having fun doing it. On today’s episode, we welcome Tom Benvenuto from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Hi Tom.

Tom (00:24):
Hey, Noel. How are you?

Noel (00:26):
I’m good. How are you doing today?

Tom (00:28):
Doing very well, thanks.

Noel (00:30):
I think we should hop right in and talk about some real estate and a fun fact for our viewers. We are both in Virginia Beach, so we’re in the same market. We love real estate, and Tom’s going to tell us all about his business and how he’s gotten so far.

Tom (00:47):
Okay. Well started and got licensed in 2010, so I was more or less running into the burning building when everyone was going the other way. This was after the big crash that afforded me some advantages because there was less competition. That said, there were a lot of challenges at that time and a lot of short sales, r e o. Luckily I worked with some investors and did some of that, but just went out there and just grinded and got through that and things improved a little bit thereafter, and it’s been a great ride. It’s been challenging. I’m on my 13th year, so I’ve seen a lot of changes. I’ve chased a lot of shiny objects like a lot of US realtors do and learned.

Noel (01:46):
What are you doing to find business and get listings? Do you prospect? Tell us, walk us through your day.

Tom (01:54):
Sure, sure. So I’m up around 6-6:30 and I subscribe to Expresso Agent. So I use this platform and I look at my stats in the morning, and then I have a system set up with Espresso Agent where I see what comes in, mark, the leads that I’m going to be calling. So the short answer would be outbound sales calls in the morning. If I don’t set an appointment for that afternoon, I’ll usually continue to prospect in the afternoon. And in between there, I’ll reach out to sphere, call Sphere, I’ll follow up with clients and do some of my admin stuff because I don’t have an admin, I do my own admin, so it keeps me busy. And then a little bit of me time there around lunch usually and grab a little lunch or whatever and and then again, if I don’t, yeah, yeah. And if I don’t have an appointment, like I said that afternoon, then I try to catch folks with the calls when they’re home having dinner and whatnot.

Noel (03:16):
So when you’re making your calls, are you following a script? Do you have some kind of mentor or mastermind group, somebody coaching you through the way? Are you roleplaying beforehand?

Tom (03:30):
Absolutely. I roleplay four days, four mornings a week. I come to the Espresso Agent Masterminds, which in my opinion are really, really good. Jim and Jackie provide a lot of wonderful information, and it’s a really good community. I’ve really kind of found a real estate second home almost, and that’s no kid. And I tell some of the other agents that some of ’em will contact me and I tell ’em it’s worth the price of admission. Just some of the training is, it’s just been so valuable. And to answer your other question, I use currently, I’ve done outbound calls in the past and I think I’ve leaned more into Mike Ferry’s scripts, which are fine, but as of late I’m leaning more into Jackie Kravitz’s scripts.

Noel (04:32):
Who is your preferred source? Who’s your favorite type to call? Expireds, fsbo. What are you most comfortable with? Where do you find yourself excelling and closing the deals with them and getting that listing appointment?

Tom (04:47):
Yeah, I’m doing better with for sale by owners, and I don’t, it’s tough because it’s so challenging. I’m seeing those numbers grow and so far I’ve actually closed some business with FSBOs.

Noel (05:04):
What objections do you get? Are you comfortable calling everybody and doing your listing presentation and getting in front of them?

Tom (05:13):
Absolutely. Yeah, I call ’em all. And of course, in our market is very unique, and I’ve had this conversation with some of the trainers, the EA trainers in our market. Withdrawns and expireds are fair game, whereas other markets they have, I think they call ’em canceled or withdrawn, canceled. So to answer your question, I call ’em all. And I think as far as conversations with expired, that’s really not an issue.

Noel (05:45):
The other day when we were speaking persistence, get on the call, you have to get past your mindset and let’s talk about mindset. How do you keep a healthy mindset? What do you do? What you do in the morning to get you ready for your calls? Avoid call reluctance. What healthy things? What’s your routine? Do you have some motivational speeches? Do you have affirmations or what do you like to do to keep you going

Tom (06:15):
In the morning? When I first wake up, actually, I’ll read some scripture, some biblical scripture, and that kind of sets the tone and gives me the perspective. It’s humbling and it really grounds me and puts things into perspective as far as where I’m at in all of this. And so I literally asked God for guidance to guide my words, my path, my actions, and then maybe I’ll watch a couple YouTube things as far as motivational things or maybe a trainer or something like that. If I have time, I love quotes, I’ll read some motivational quotes, and I’m a pretty big fan of that. So yeah, I try to, mindset is everything. That’s the bottom line. You have to stay positive. And it’s a battle as you know, it’s a battle to stay positive sometimes. Not all the time, but

Noel (07:23):
Someone has to get the listing. So there’s going to be people’s flip side that are getting rejected, like you said, but that’s okay. Yeah. So let me think about this. As far as your daily goal on these calls, when you get on in the morning, what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to take one listing every day or are you trying to set one listing every week? And when you do get these people on the phone and they say, not today, follow up later, what does your follow-up consist of

Tom (07:56):
The follow-up? That old saying, the fortune is in the follow-up, and that’s key. Most of the business that I have gotten really in my whole real estate career has been dogged determination and following up with people. And that doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten appointments and gone out and after talking to people, but that same day or the next day or whatever. And that happens too. But life happens to people. And for instance, I have one that I just met yesterday, and he’s got to go out of town to see some folks and he’ll be back. And I’ve already confirmed, I’ll make sure that I reach out to that person and I’m not trying to stalk ’em or whatever. But I mean, I follow up on what I’m going to say. And then if it’s a situation where someone says, well, I’m not quite ready. If it’s a for sale by owner, I’m not quite ready, call me in a week. I usually cut that time in about half or maybe even a little less than that, maybe just a couple days because

Noel (09:06):
Someone else is calling them.

Tom (09:08):
Yeah, absolutely. Every day. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, you got to be on it. You got to be on it, and you got to be diligent.

Noel (09:22):
How many contacts does it take for you to pretty much get a listing appointment? So you having to make, talk to 10 people a day, you talk to 20 people a day. How many calls are you making on a daily basis before you get that? Yes.

Tom (09:35):
Sometimes I’m calling as many as 70 to 100. And it just varies. It just varies. I would say probably my daily goal is to actually somewhere between five and seven convos and maybe as high as 10. But I try to have those conversations. And as you know, in our market, again, you have to do that first and then I go in and hit the old expireds or withdrawns and it’s a different conversation obviously, but I’ve gotten some good leads from doing that.

Noel (10:13):
How about circle prospecting? Do you do anything with that? Do you call around your just solds or your just listeds, and what do you say to them when you call? I know you said you follow a script, but have you had success making these calls versus door knocking?

Tom (10:30):
Right, right, right. Yeah, I do call, I’d circle prospect on my new listings and the solds before and after, and even if it’s, I’ll do two or three rounds and let people know that, Hey, do you have any friends, family or coworkers that are interested in moving into the area? I have a new listing over here at 1 2 3 Main Street and just wanted to touch base with you and let you know, and by the way, have you thought about maybe putting your house on market? And if so, would you like me to do a property evaluation for you? And no strings? No strings, and you go right into it. And that’s kind of the overall tone of the call.

Noel (11:16):
And then you want that why? Yes, Tom, I do need that. Yeah,

Tom (11:21):
Yeah, yeah. And when you talk to people, you never know what the situation is. I’ve had one where he was an investor and was actually saying, well, I have a partner and it’d be nice if you could send me some multifamily stuff. And so I’ve been sending him stuff, and so who knows where that’s going to go, but it’s a lead, and that’s what we’re in the business of, is to talk to people. And I tell other agents, if you’re not talking to people about real estate every day, you’re going to have problems. And that’s what this platform allows you to do. And I’m grateful for it because I can see it’s going to be something that’s going to impact my business in a positive way.

Noel (12:12):
Well, it sounds like it already has, just from you talking about being able to sign on and talk to other agents. I know that you participate in Launch Monday and Wednesdays and you can relate with other agents and you can hear what they’re going through, maybe get some advice from each other, figure out how to handle those objections. Is that working for you? What are the objections that you are hearing right now?

Tom (12:40):
It’s funny, for the most part, you do get a red herring or kind of an outlier objection, but for the most part are the 20th caller. If it’s an expired, Hey, you’re the 20th caller I’ve had today. And sort of like you’ve got to let ’em blow off their steam and repeat and affirm. And then the other one is, well, I’m going to, I’m take it off the market and we will see what’s going to happen or we haven’t decided what we’re going to do. I mean, let’s talk

Noel (13:17):
About that. I’m curious how you get past that particular objection when people say they’re frustrated, they’re taking off the market, Tom, I’m not selling it. I had a horrible experience. We were staying, no way am I selling. How do you get past that?

Tom (13:35):
Got it. I understand. It sounds like you’re taking a break now, Noel, and you sound pretty frustrated, and I get that 100%. Let me ask you, Noelle, when do you think you might consider going back on the market?

Noel (13:51):
Well, I don’t know. It was a horrible experience and I think we’re really just going to stay. I don’t know where we were going to go. I really think we’re just going to stay in this house.

Tom (14:02):
Hey, I understand that completely. It looks like you were on market just recently, Noelle, if you had sold the house and gotten the net that you were going to was going to allow you to move forward, where were you guys moving?

Noel (14:18):
Well, I’ve always wanted to live at the north end, I mean close to the beach.

Tom (14:22):
That’s exciting. And yes, the North end is wonderful. And so let me just put this out there hypothetically, Noelle, if I could show you a way that I could get you home sold within the next 30, 45 days and get you on your way, get you financially to where you could move on, would that be something you’d want to look at?

Noel (14:45):
Well, yeah, that sounds nice. I really did want that beach house.

Tom (14:50):
Outstanding. Well, what I’m going to do is I’m going to put together a comparative market analysis for you, Newell, and I’m going to email it over to you. I’ll get you an email before we hang up, and I’m going to follow up with you and have a conversation about what your value is and where you’re at. And really what I’d like to do is stop by and see the house. That would be really the best case scenario would be, give me 20 minutes, let me sit down with you and show you what I can do differently to get home sold.

Noel (15:22):
I guess we could do that. That sounds good to me.

Tom (15:25):
Excellent. So yeah, I would out of character now, I would do something. Yeah, something similar. Close

Noel (15:33):
The deal.

Tom (15:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really get the appointment, but at the very least let ’em know that I’m willing to show them what’s going on and other things probably got off a little bit on the script, but that’s the general gist of how I would handle that. Objection.

Noel (15:55):
No, that was fun. So for newer agents watching today, what would be some good advice you would like to offer them to keep them motivated and help them out?

Tom (16:07):
Wow, that’s a great question. I’ll try to answer that from the perspective of what I wish that I knew when I started and what I’ll say is first and foremost, don’t fall into the shiny object situation where you’re chasing every different pillar of business, trying it for 20, 30 days and then saying, oh, that doesn’t work. And then moving on to something else. My advice would be to pick two, maybe three pillars of prospecting and stick with ’em and don’t give up so quickly. If you’re going to door knock, then do it with all the gusto you can go use and go out there and be consistent. Consistency is the key. Having dogged determination and whatever pillar of business, stick with it, stay with it. Don’t try to do everything because if you try to do everything, you’re going to end up doing nothing. And that’s, yeah, you

Noel (17:15):
Won’t do it. Well, you won’t, won’t.

Tom (17:17):
Well do anything. Well find what works for you, find out what kind of matches your you, and then do it with a vengeance.

Noel (17:33):
Great advice. And it’s pretty simple. Everybody that’s watching this, be persistent. Know your skills, constantly work on your skills and hold yourself accountable. And if you can’t hold yourself accountable, get in a group that will keep you focused. Okay, Tom. Well, I really enjoyed today, and I know everyone got a ton of useful information, and it’s a nice halfway mark of the year to get people motivated and keep trucking along. Tell us how we can reach out to you and send you referrals. We all know that you’re in Virginia Beach and that swell, but give us your social media, email, whatever you would like for girls.

Tom (18:12):
Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, you can go to our Facebook page, which is the Ben Benvenuto team, just put in the Ben Benvenuto team, and you can even just Google Tom Ben Benvenuto, Virginia Beach. And I come up in the first 2, 3, 4, so you can find me that way. On the Swell Real Estate Company, that’s the company that I proudly hang my license with. Swell Real Estate Company. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention them. They’re phenomenal. Yeah, SMOs is the broker over there and wonderful guy, and it’s been really good over there. But yeah, yeah, the Ben Benvenuto team on Facebook. And then email is thebenvenutoteam@gmail.com. So you can contact me there. And then my phone numbers and all that stuff is there, so Sure. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah, that’d be awesome if any agents out there that have incoming referrals, of course, Noelle, we’re in a military area, and so we get a big influx of people from other areas coming in. So if any of you need

Noel (19:21):
A agent or two,

Tom (19:23):
Yeah, yeah, I was just going to say either call me or call Noelle and yeah. Yeah, there you go. Oh,

Noel (19:30):
This is all about you today, Tom. So welcome, Tom. Well, it really was a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on.

Tom (19:39):
Well, thank you, and I appreciate that, and thank you for having me on the show. I’m humbled and I hope at least one little nugget might help someone out there and.