How to Adjust Prospecting During A Crisis

Summary

Prospecting during this corona crisis can be a scary thought to most agents.

Fact is, this is a great time to talk to people because they’re home. Not everyone will be friendly, but that doesn’t matter. Because crisis or no crisis, there will always be people who wouldn’t want to talk to you.

How do you prospect when everything’s shut down in the coronavirus crisis? Here are 3 things to help you:

1. Focus on motivated leads (e.g. FSBO’s). Look for people who want to buy or sell. They’re still out there.
2. Embrace the NO’s. Each NO you get takes you one step closer to the YES.
3. Always expect YES. Be a pro and expect to win even if you know that you’ll get NO’s. When you take a shot at prospecting, focus on the YES.

Don’t listen to fear…listen to your dreams. If you want to win & help people, prospect RELENTLESSLY. You can still get more YES, even in the middle of a crisis.

Full transcript

Right now is a great time to be talking to people. They’re home, they’ll talk.

Hey there, it’s Kevin Ward, the founder of YesMasters Real Estate Success Training, helping you get more YES and more successes in your business and your life. You can get more YES even in the middle of a crisis.

So we are continuing in the middle of this crisis. I am seeing over and over, and we’ve been seeing it now for weeks, is agents are asking, “How do you prospect when everything’s shut down, when everything’s like this, and I feel weird prospecting? What should I do? Is it okay to prospect and so forth?”

So here I’m just going to give you a straightforward answer to how do you prospect during the coronavirus crisis, and then I’m going to share with you three detailed answers. But my first answer is how do you do it? The answer is you do it relentlessly. That’s the answer.

My friend, right now is a great time to be talking to people. They’re home, they’ll talk. Now I’m not saying everybody’s going to be happy and everybody’s going to be friendly, but I’m going to share with you why that does not matter, okay? But if you want to win, if you want to win for yourself, for your family, for your career, for your income, relentless. If you want to help other people, relentless, because not everybody’s going to need your help, and they’ll tell you so. So I’m okay with that.

But here’s the deal. I’ve got to learn how to think and how to approach what I’m doing if I’m going to prospect during the coronavirus crisis. So I’m going to share with you three things that will help you respond to this question that I get all the time, and that is what if people get upset?

I had two people ask me that this week. “Well, what if people get upset when I call them?” and I’m like, “Okay, I’ve been in real estate for over 20 years. They got upset at me 20 years ago when there was no crisis. I was friendly and they were happy. I still had people get upset at me when everything was going perfect because they just didn’t want to talk to me.”

So that’s nothing new, my friend. If you’re going to help people, you’re going to also sometimes upset people. So you’ve got to stop being attached to it. I’m going to share with you how to help make that happen. So, first, I’m going to give you three things.

So number one, focus on motivated leads. I’m looking for people that actually want to buy or sell. So when I don’t find that and I find somebody who doesn’t want to buy or sell, they don’t want to talk about it, I’m totally cool with that, because right now they’re out there. There are motivated buyers and sellers out there in the market right now. I’ll give you one example.

I’ve got a brand new coaching member. He’s been in coaching for less than a month. As I’m recording this, we’re just past the first week of April. Austin Harrison, he’s in North Carolina, brand new agent, he started prospecting For Sale By Owners. Oh my goodness. Prospecting For Sale By Owners.

Right in the middle of this, in the first week of April, he’s taken three FSBO listings in one week, right in the middle of all of this where lots of agents are curled up in a corner, sucking their thumbs, terrified of what’s happening, and waiting for everything to pass. He’s out there talking to people and helping people who want to move. I can give you example after example after example of people who’ve done it, not just For Sale By Owners, but also Expireds, people in their Personal Circle, people that they know. Focus on finding people who want to do something now and who need your help. Not everybody’s going to need it.

Now here’s the thing. To get that, as I’m focusing on finding the motivated leads, I’ve got to understand number two. So number one, focus on motivated leads.

Number two, embrace the NO’s, which means you’re going to get NO’s.

My friends, I’ve made millions and millions of dollars selling real estate, and I have taken thousands and thousands and thousands of NO’s. That’s how I built my business. I built it prospecting. I’ve taken so many NO’s. I mean no way to even count them. But I want you to embrace the NO’s. Here’s how you embrace the NO’s. I want to just give you a perspective that I think will help you.

Let’s just say how many people do you think you need to talk to in order to get one listing? How many people? So I’m going to give a very big number that, let’s say, you have to talk to 200 people to get one listing. 200 conversations, you get one listing.

Now what’s going to happen with that? That means when I talk to 200 people, I am going to get 199 big fat NO’s. Now some of the NO’s are going to be nice NO’s, some of the NO’s are going to be maybe later NO’s, some of them are going to vomit NO’s. They’re going to be just like, “Roar!” Some of them are going to be swearing NO’s. You’re going to get a little bit of everything. So there are going to be a little, “No, no, no,” and there are going to be sweet NO’s, but you’re going to get a lot of them.

All right, now I get 99 NO’s just to get one YES. So the question is, how much is the YES worth? So let’s just say the average commission check in America is a little less than $10,000, just for round numbers. I’m going to just say that once you get this listing that that check is going to be $10,000 for you. That’s $10,000 okay? So the one yes was worth $10,000. That’s not the way I look at it.

Here’s the way I look at it. I look at it as 199 NO’s equal $10,000. That’s how I look at it. So when I divide $10,000 by 199, for round numbers we’ll divide $10,000 by 200, that means I got $50 for every no that I took. Can you see that? $50 per no. Every time somebody hung up on me, they think they showed me, and I’m like, “Cha-ching! $50 right there, baby.” Every time somebody tells you no, it just gets you one step closer to the yes.

I figured this out years ago when I’d be prospecting and prospecting and be like, “Oh, what’s going to happen?” But I knew if I kept prospecting that I was eventually going to get the yes. And so, one day I finally just figured this out. I think it was some sales training or something, it wasn’t even real estate related, where somebody gave me this epiphany. They go like, “Do you realize that if it takes you 100,” and I think the number they were working with was 100 NO’s to get one yes, how much will you make every time you get a no?

In that day, it was like I got $20 a no. But even then, I’m like every time I talked to somebody and they tell me no, I just made $20. Every time they hang up on me, I just made $20. Every time they yell at me, I just made $20. Today it’s a little bit more. It’s probably closer to $40 or $50, in some of your markets, $60, $70, $80 every time you take a no. If you’re good, you may not have to talk to 200 people to get a yes.

The whole point is every single no is leading me closer to a yes, and boom! If I could just keep in my mind that every no is worth $50, it just keeps me going. Keeps me going, keeps me going. Now the thing is, you’ve got to do enough of them that the accumulation effect goes into play so that you actually reap the yes. If you just get one no, it’s not like they’re going to write you a $50 check. You’ve got to get enough NO’s, but if you do enough and you do it over and over and over again, the accumulation effect, the snowball effect, it works, and boom! Then you get a paycheck.

Now it may take you 400 or 500 conversations to get your first one, but there’s going to be another time. It’s just going to take you 20 conversations and you’re going to get a listing. The key is just knowing that every single no is leading me closer to a yes.

So I embraced the NO’s because I know they’re on the path to yes. Then when I embraced them, I get it and then I hang up and then I release it. I embraced it, go like, “Yeah, got a no,” and then I release it. I let it go. I just hold onto it for a second, going, “Thank you for the $50. Bye bye.” Then it just magically disappears.

Then number three. So number one, focus on motivated sellers. Don’t try to make people motivated. I know they’re out there, I just got to find them. Focus on those. So number one, focus on motivated leads. Number two, embrace the NO’s. And then number three, always expect a yes every single time.

When I make that conversation, every single person, I’m not expecting another no. I know they’re going to come, but I’m not expecting. It’s just like if you’re playing basketball, every time you take a shot, if you’re a professional, every time that a professional shoots the basketball, every time LeBron James takes a shot, or Steph Curry takes a shot, or Kevin Duran takes a shot, what are they expecting? They’re expecting yes. They’re expecting it to go in the hoop. Now they know it’s not going to go into hoop every time, but every single time they expect it to go in the hoop.

And so, even though you know the NO’s are coming, the NO’s are getting you towards the yes. The one thing I want is the yes, so that’s what I focus on, and I always expect YES.

So right now do not listen to the fear. Don’t listen to the negative agent over there that ain’t making any money, that’s telling you, “What are you doing? Are you crazy?” Don’t listen to that. Listen to your dreams, listen to reality, and know that if you want a yes, it’s waiting for you.

If the video is helpful, give it a thumbs up. You’ve got questions or comments, post them down below. It helps me know what my next videos need to be on. Play to win and always expect YES.