Celeste: hi stacy! it’s awesome to have you on thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today!
Stacey: not a problem thanks for having me on.
Celeste: i’m gonna ask you a few questions and our goal here is to give other agents out there a glimpse into a day in the life of a successful real estate agent. so tell us who you are who you work for a little bit about what you do and why you love it.
Stacey: awesome awesome well my name is stacy williams, i’m the data manager for openshaw real estate team at the keller williams and realty first here in gilbert arizona. we are one of the top sales team within our market center heather openshaw is the team owner along with jesse hertfield and they are the rainmakers so i’m excited to be part of that team. we do majority of what i do on a daily basis is i work with our inside sales agents on day-to-day prospecting so mostly outbound in our case, so usually that is the um creme de la creme of our activities and so that’s kind of a little bit what i do. i’ve been with the team since february of 2020 so pre pandemic um so a lot of what i’ve been learning is definitely during that season um so we’ve been making some things to make sure that we stay disruptive in the market and we’re excited about what we’re doing.
Celeste: excellent excellent um so you mentioned that you do the outbound prospecting um so i would imagine obviously you do that prospecting on a regular basis…
Stacey: absolutely we do it five days a week we do it anywhere from four to six hours a day so it is pretty intensive.
Celeste: that is awesome so four to six hours a day tell me what a typical day of prospecting looks like for you then.
Stacey: um a typical day of prospecting includes um two or three o fus actually myself and the other two isas on what we call a robo dialer so we do probably anywhere to 500 to 600 dials during that time which usually puts us into um having conversations around real estate probably to anywhere from 40 to 75 people. our goal is to talk to 75 people a day this is considered probably more cold calling so it is definitely a lot of um energy that needs to be in there we’re always bubbly we always make sure that we let the clients know that we’re just reaching out to let them know what’s going on in the market. so we always go from a place of contribution is kind of our model and um we do that from nine to 12 because usually those are the hours team our team model is that we should be um doing money making activities during the times that we’re not out showing or writing offers so usually between the hours of nine to 12 is what we’re looking at for a prospecting day.
Celeste: okay money-making activities i like it i like it. is there do you have a favorite way that you prospect or a combination of methods that you like to do such as you know do you do only phone calls or do you put in some texting emailing outreach as well?
Stacey: yeah i’m definitely a hybrid of the texts and the calls so i definitely um we i personally send out about 200 texts every day during our our uh we use boomtown so that’s kind of our max i wish i could do more but we do about 200 a day and usually we have like a 26 um contact rate with that most people are used to being it used to be a time where text messages were considered unprofessional or not a mode of communication for a professional industry. i think we’ve definitely taken that shift and with the pandemic a lot of people are working remotely so they are more apt to engage in a text message.
Celeste: absolutely yeah times are changing rapidly. and i know that um you know even just on a personal level you know i my mother-in-law loves to talk on the phone she will call and she will talk but i i have a just a quick question just text me your answer just let me get on to the next thing.
Stacey: yeah absolutely
Celeste: and you know hence the the lack of communication skills that are happening now
Stacey: Right.
Celeste: we went from a spelled out Okay to k right yeah i try i try really hard to just do the o and the k at least at least the okay why you know where we’re wasting characters.
Celeste: what advice would you give to someone brand new in in the real estate world that that you think would be helpful to them learn you know knowing what you know.
Stacey: you know that’s a great question. i think from my experience is just to get into some form of money-making activity. it’s different for everyone everyone’s personality but i think that that is definitely the first step or something that’s foundational for a successful career be in some kind of money if it’s going to be door knocking if it’s going to be holding an open house whatever that is is going to be up to the agent’s choice but get into that type of activity and do it consistently consistent. that’s because i could make 500 calls today but if i don’t make 200 more tomorrow or 100 more the next day you’re still gonna lose that pipeline.
Celeste: exactly
Stacey: it’ll be feast and famine.
Celeste: yep exactly exactly and no one wants to ride that roller coaster no no no because that can that can that can affect your paycheck three weeks from now two months from now.
Stacey: absolutely getting busy writing the contract you get busy dealing with the aspect of the transaction and then you forget that you didn’t do any kind of money making activity for the last three weeks right and you’re and then you look up and it’s like okay where’s my next deal or where is my next referral. yes it’s in the activity yes what you do now has big effects on how things are working out for you in the short term you know even just two three weeks up to you know two three months down the road have have big uh consequences so um consistency is big big big absolutely.
Celeste: um is there anything you wish you had known when you started
Stacey: i wish i had known about the team aspect um i when i started in the industry um the real estate world i was sink or slim i was door knocking i was in front of walmart passing out flyers i did everything i could to generate business. and i now am part of the team and i see our newer agents coming on and i’m like oh my gosh you have such an opportunity for growth that you can fast track your success and i think um if i’d known that 12 years ago i would have been a lot more further along.
Celeste: well and sometimes those struggles those you learn so much in the struggles that make you a better agent than you know having it handed to you because then you don’t know how to troubleshoot you don’t know how to overcome certain things
Stacey: absolutely
Celeste: a lot of times those struggles can really help you down the road.
Stacey: absolutely absolutely there’s some things that you definitely learn by trial and fire that you’ll never forget
Celeste: yes yes absolutely
Stacey: right you learn and you learn from the experience and trust you’ll never make those mistakes again yes.
Celeste: yes because you know you know what’ll happen if you do. so how do you manage balancing your work life in your home life?
Stacey: oh man i jesse herfel our market center owner definitely hones this in and i was um already pretty intuitively a time blocker but time blocking um and he drives home even time blocking your time off so kind of giving yourself you know if sunday is going to be your family day that you actually time block it put it on the calendar and make sure that those down times are also scheduled just as much as the time that you’re working so that when you’re working you’re 100 because you know what you can look forward to if you want to take a month off and have that vacation with your family then the remaining 11 months you know you’re gonna go hard because you have that four week vacation time to look forward to so time blocking i time blocking cooking dinner so…
Celeste: oh my gosh, i started trying the time block um my personal time i set up a time block for work and it it really helps me to stay on task because i know that you know 20 minutes from now i’m gonna have to start another thing and i try to to time block my home life and it’s been a disaster. i have three kids and and they don’t adhere to that schedule window that’s what they need when they need it. i’m sorry you can’t go potty right now i have to do this.
Stacey: exactly
Celeste: hold it for five minutes more
Stacey: yeah
Celeste: yeah time blocking at home hasn’t worked for me yet still working on it. all right so any last piece of advice for our fellow agents out there to help them along?
Stacey: i would say you know a lot of times we get in the industry and our first focus is you know we want to be the number one whatever to be number one, just be integral people work with who they know like and trust okay yes yeah just be integral and the referrals and the repeat business will come
Celeste: yeah that’s where that’s where your money can come in is those referrals and those repeats absolutely.
Stacey: absolutely outbound and prospecting is definitely an aspect of it but once you’ve actually already had an experience and you’ve already worked with your client they’re going to be your best advertisement so treat them right and make sure you’re integral throughout the transaction be upfront make sure that there’s some that you or someone that they know have their best interests at heart.
Celeste: that is good advice that was really good advice. okay so stacy give us a way to get in touch with you.
Stacey: the best way to get in touch with me is to my direct dial 480-550-8959 or you can always visit us on the openshaw real estate group on facebook or instagram.
Celeste: excellent all right so fellow agents out there now that you know how prospecting can help go take a look at prospectboss.com and then go check out stacy and we’ll see you next time.
Stacey: thanks for having me
