The First Listing I Lost to Another Agent
Summary
It was a FSBO in Hurst, Texas in 1998.
Everything went well…I got the appointment, did great on the listing presentation.
And then, the bad news…
After thinking about it and doing research, they chose Linda Peterson, the #1 agent in our office!
I was upset and felt betrayed. I did all the work but someone else got the listing.
I was crushed, but I got back up.
Here’s how I handled it:
- I got over it and got back in the game. If you want to succeed in real estate, you have to be able to take a punch and get back up. Champions are not the ones who never get knocked down. They’re the ones who refuse to stay down.
- I realized that having a track record helps. Like Linda, she got success because she had success. We all start with a zero track record. Build your track record by going out and making it happen. Make mistakes, face failures and get back up.
- It fired me up and made me determined to get better and never get beat like that again.
When you lose a listing, you can either get beat down or fired up. Decide to win and become the best, so you can always expect YES.
I’d love to hear about your experience in losing your first listing to another agent. Post it in the comments below.
If you want to be confident & unstoppable, you should get Agent Power Launch. It’s THE online training that gives you step-by-step instructions to build a profitable real estate business fast. Click here to learn more.
Full transcript
If you want to succeed in real estate, you have to be able to take a punch and get back up.
Hi 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. And recently somebody asked me about, they were talking about how it felt to lose a listing to another agent, and they asked me about the first time I ever lost a listing to another agent, and I hadn’t thought about this in years, and yet as soon as they asked a question I’m like, “I know exactly when it was, where it was, who I lost it to,” and it just brought back a lot of emotion.
And I want to talk today about what happened and how I handled it, and how I handled the first listing that I ever lost to another agent. It was in Hurst, Texas. This was back in 1998. I was a brand new agent. And I say brand new, I don’t know if I’d been in for less than six months, and it was a FSBO in Hurst, Texas. I was with Century 21, and I set the listing appointment, and it was one of those everything went perfect. I called the FSBO. They were friendly, they were nice, they’d been trying to sell it on their own for a while and for several months.
I got the appointment, I went out, I did the listing presentation, and it was perfect. I was like, “Yes, I got this one.” I knew I had it, but, of course, they wanted to think about it a little bit and they wanted to do a little more research because they had asked about how new I was and all that, and they knew I was a newer agent, and so I’m, “Okay.” And so they wanted to do a little more research and so I left and I was very confident I had it. And then BAM! on the follow-up call that I made, a day or two later, they told me that they had chosen Linda Peterson.
Now Linda Peterson, who is a friend of mine to this day, was the number one agent in our office. I was with Century 21 Mike Bowman. It was the number one Century 21 office in the world at the time, and Linda Peterson was the number one agent. She was our number one agent in our office. And she was a rock star. She was, and to this day she still actually trains, is the trainer for the company, and she beat me. They gave her the listing. And I’m like, “Why? … ?” And I was in shock and then they told me how they chose her. And this was even more heartbreaking, was when I went on my listing presentation. Because I was new, I couldn’t really brag about how great I was.
So I bragged about how great my company was, and we were number one in the market, and we were the best, and all that kind of stuff, and so when I left they decided to do their own research. And I can’t even remember, it was 1998, if Google, did they Google people back then? I don’t know how they did it, but somehow they did their research and they found out that Mike Bowman was, the company was big, and so I think they actually called the company, and they asked who is their number one agent and, of course, they said, “Linda Peterson,” and they go like, “Well we want the best. We want number one.” And so they picked Linda Peterson. She got the listing. I didn’t, I was heartbroken and I was like, “Oh. …”
Now what I want to share with you is how I handled it, and how I think you should handle it when you get beat. Because look, if you’ve ever lost a listing to another agent, you know how painful that is, how frustrating it is, and if you ever lose the listing at all, you know how painful that is. Here’s how I handled it. Number one is I got back up. It knocked me flat on my back. It was like a gut punch. It hurt. I was upset. I felt betrayed a little bit and what was really irritating was that I was the one doing the work. I was the one prospecting. I was the one putting myself out there and Linda Peterson didn’t do nothing but be number one in the office. That’s all she did. And she got the listing for free. Like, “…”
So the reality is those things happen. You’re going to get beat and you’ve got to get back up. If you want to succeed in real estate, you have to be able to take a punch, and get back up, and take a punch, and get back up, and take a punch, and get back up. That’s what champions are made of. Champions are not the ones who never get knocked down. They’re the ones who refuse to stay down.
So number one, the first thing I did is I got back up, I got back in the game, and I got over it. Number two, I learned that a track record helps. Yeah, that’s right. It helps to have a track record like Linda Peterson. She had a track record and she was able to get a listing without any effort other than the fact that she had built a track record.
She got success because she had success. And so I realized I have to push through until I have my own track record and so do you. You got to make the decision. If you’re new and you’re a brand new agent, you’re like, “But how do I beat them because they beat me. And they were, and I’m new,” and all that. Well, you have to push through, and you have to win, and push through until you win enough that you create your own track record. Because look, no matter where you are, every single one of us started at the same exact spot. With zero track record. I started with no track record. Linda Peterson started with no track record. What do you do about that? You build a track record by going out, and making it happen, and winning, and you got to be willing to make the mistakes, to face the failures, to face the fears, to get knocked down, get back up, until you build a track record.
And then the third thing about how I handled it was I can remember the determination it put in me to get unbeatable. It fired me up. It made me more determined than ever to get better because it irritated me so bad. She beat me because she had a track record of being better and I’m like, “I never want to get beat like that again. So I am determined to get better.” And you got to have that determination. Winners, champions are extremely competitive. High achievers, and this is true in all areas of human endeavor, whether it’s sports, or music, or entertainment, or business, or finance, or anything. Champions are highly competitive. The best are very, very competitive. And so when you get beat, the question is, does it get you down or does it fire you up?
And if you want to win, it had better fire you up, it better make you go like, “… Just better light that fire and go. That is not going to happen to me again. I will win, I will become unbeatable, and I will prove to myself, and to every person out there that’s ever chosen another agent, and to those other agents that beat me, I will prove to them that I am the champion, that I am the best.”
My friends that is how you handle it. You’re going to lose listings, you’re going to get beat. But when you get beat, you can either get beat down or you can get fired up. Make the decision to win. Make the decision to become the best so that you can always expect yes. So I’d love to hear about your experience of the first listing that you ever lost to another agent. Put it down below in the comments. If you have questions, post them down below as well. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel, and I’ll look forward to seeing you on the next video.