Focusing on your Profit Activators starts with knowing exactly who you want to serve.
Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers Podcast, I talked with Michelle Miramontez, who has been in business for over 20 years and works primarily with coaches, consultants, and other service providers.
We started by talking about how she attracts clients and the types of offers she leads with. Then we walked through Profit Activator 1 and discussed narrowing her audience to create a more compelling “who,” particularly for her full-service automation packages. We also explored the difference between front-end lead generation and how that relates to long-term relationship building.
As the conversation progressed, we looked at ways Michelle could create compelling “cheese” for each segment of her audience, particularly the distinction between business owners who are already aware of automation versus those who don’t even know they need it yet. We also talked about using The Book Strategy to start more meaningful conversations.
This is a great example of applying the 8 Profit Activators in a consulting context where the service is both strategic and technical. You’ll see how the right positioning can completely change how people engage with your offers.
Key Takeaways:
I delve into Michelle's transformative journey from a real estate agent to a life coach, highlighting how her extensive industry experience and empathetic coaching style merge to empower agents.
We explore Michelle's innovative techniques aimed at reducing high dropout rates among new and struggling real estate agents, with a focus on mastering open house strategies for lead generation.
Michelle shares insights into her latest venture—a global community of agents launched on July 15—designed to provide continuous support and foster growth in the real estate industry.
During our conversation, Michelle reveals her unique conversational framework for open houses, which flips the script on traditional methods, focusing on meaningful interactions rather than just handing out flyers.
We discuss the effectiveness of Michelle's system in securing clients through open houses, with her clients seeing success within a short period of applying her methods.
Michelle outlines her membership model for agents, offering them resources and support to implement her proven strategies in their real estate practices.
Throughout the episode, Michelle and I reflect on the importance of building trust and rapport with potential clients, emphasizing the role of open houses as a powerful tool in the real estate toolkit.
Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 264
Dean: Michelle.
Michelle: Hi Dean, Can you hear me?
Dean: I can hear you. Can you hear me?
Michelle: Yes, I can Perfect.
Dean: Sorry, we are in the middle of allergy season here in Florida, so I'm my throat is getting too cold, but I'll just keep drinking water. Where are you calling from?
Michelle: So I'm calling from Southern California.
Dean: Okay.
Michelle: What part I am in near the LA area. I always tell people I'm about 20 to 30 minutes closer to Disneyland. People seem to know that.
Dean: Okay, yeah, yeah, very good. I spent a lot of time in Southern California, so very familiar.
Michelle: That's awesome.
Dean: I'm excited that you're here. I'm sure you've seen how the podcast works, so we've got the whole hour we can talk about whatever's going to be the most useful for you, okay.
Michelle: I'm honored to be here as well.
Dean: Oh great, I was left to start and just have you kind of introduce yourself and tell a little bit about the story of how we got here and then what we're going to focus on.
Michelle: Yes, so I've been a real estate agent for going on 13 years now, and so that's kind of how I found you. You know, several years into real estate I'd say about five years ago I was like there's something else, there's got to be something else. And I found life coaching and from there it's like, yeah, this was amazing. So I got certified as a life coach and then agents just started coming to me for advice and I just loved that part of it part lit me up. So I'm focusing more on coaching new agents and that's where I'm at right now oh, that's so fantastic.
So you like working with new agents specifically, kind of getting specifically yes, and maybe struggling agents as well, but you know that the dropout rate is still pretty huge.
Dean: Yeah, or first you hear all these stats. I don't know how much they're true, but I think last year I heard that something like 70 plus percent of people single transaction yes you know, pretty, uh pretty sad state of affairs right there.
Michelle: It is sad, and it's kind of my mission to be like the one to keep them in the game.
Dean: Okay, very cool. And how do you? Are you still a practicing realtor as well, Like, do you still do production yourself?
Michelle: I do, I still do production. I kind of started. I was like was like, okay, let me do like 50 50 and then let me do like 80 20. And I find that once I do a transaction, though a couple transactions, it really takes me away from the marketing and, you know, trying to reach new agents for the coaching side. Yeah, excuse me so how?
Dean: how is it going so far with the coaching side? Yeah, Excuse me. So how? How is it going so far with the coaching side of it?
Michelle: So I I started a podcast and I would say that would be my top of funnel right now, and I've gotten a few pretty cold leads from the podcast. But the container that I had I wasn't too happy with. So I'm actually introducing a brand new way of doing things. My like, my vision, is that I have this community which I just I opened up. We launched July 15. So I'm so excited and because I was going to do it like in cohorts, you know, I tried it six weeks. It's like I tried a six week cohort getting people great results, but it was too short. I feel like six weeks wasn't long enough. And yeah, and then I decided I want to build a community of agents all over the world. I want anyone to be able to come and what I teach is specifically how to master your open houses. So I niche way down and I focus specifically on lead generation using open houses.
Dean: Oh that's fantastic, okay, and that's. You know, as a new agent, that's one of the accessible things that they can do, because even if they don't have listings, they can somebody in their office would appreciate having somebody do an open house for them. I love the focus of that. So what kind of? What are some success stories or what would you expect using your protocol or your? Have you systemized the process of?
Michelle: I have systemized it of I have systemized it. I found that, you know, I was doing them for a while because I was, first of all, I was doing all the things right that everybody told me to do. So I did the door knocking, the cold calling. I did it all and it just none of it felt right and I decided I need to just pick one thing and go all in. You know, I even bought leads and got nowhere, spent $500 plus a month and got nothing. And I did that for like six months with no, no real leads or transactions at all.
And then I was like you know, open houses are the one thing that I can do, that for one are free, and that people are coming to me versus me, feeling like I'm chasing them, and did that for a while, but I was like I'm still not really getting anywhere. You know, there's something I need to do different. So then I decided you know what? It's not about just how many people can I get through the door or how can I market this right, it's about the conversations I'm having. So my system is all based on conversation at the open house. So my system is all based on conversation at the open house and it kind of like flips the script on the traditional way of hosting open houses. You know the sitting there passing out flyers Don't make people sign in.
Dean: Don't make people sign in and hope people.
Michelle: Exactly Smile and hope they call me from the flyer.
Dean: Right, right, right. So how have you done it? What's kind of the highlights of your so?
Michelle: when I finally like yeah, when I finally ditched the flyers and I thought I am not handing out a flyer ever again. I you know, because once they get a flyer, they just there's no reason for them to talk to you anymore. Everything is on there. If you try to ask, do you have any questions, they look at the flyer and they say nope. And then they right, right, right, yeah. And then you go outside and you see your flyers on the floor. So so I decided I'm going to just talk to somebody.
My greatest success story was when I I decided I was going to host these open houses every weekend. Once I found one that was staged and vacant, I thought, you know, let me just ask if I can host this open house every weekend until it sells. And that's what I did. So I just sat there, sat there and I had this couple come in, only one. It was only one couple that came into my open house and some people would say, wow, that was a. That was not a successful open house.
You know, if you just had one couple come in, they signed in. They thought, no, well, I ended up talking to them and building the rapport, building trust, and I found something that we both um had in common, and this couple didn't want to speak to me at all, like they were walking through the house. Nope, nope, you have any questions? No, no. But when I broke the ice and I found something that we had in common by using this, I use a conversational framework, I have a conversational. I call it the conversational framework because it's it's not really a script, it's a conversation that you're having with somebody.
You end up poor and the late. And finally the lady started talking to me, her husband started talking to me and they said, well, we're looking to downsize and we live around the corner and would you be interested in coming to look at our house? And I was like, sure, when she goes, well, I'm available now. And I shut my open house down and went like, yeah, two blocks away. I spent two hours at her house and I ended up listing her house. It was a $1.5 million home. I had never sold anything over a million and downsized her into a $900,000 home, and so I got two transactions out of that. One couple that would have just signed in and walked away had I handed him a flyer.
Dean: Oh, that's fantastic, and so do you do anything special to get people to the open house? Have you got a whole pre-launch kind of open house system, or are you really how people just pick up from the moment somebody walks in?
Michelle: Yeah, so my main focus is picking from the moment somebody walks in. Yeah, so my main focus is picking up from when somebody walks in. That's the main focus that I teach agents, because it doesn't matter how many people come in if you don't know how to convert.
Dean: So it. So the main thing if somebody, if I were a new agent, you would equip me with what to say, how to have that conversation and then just say you know, pick a house and go and people will come. You're not doing anything specific to get people there. It's not about the marketing of that, it's more Right, Exactly it's not about the marketing.
Michelle: I it's more Exactly. It's not about the marketing. I do touch on that, especially if somebody brand new has no idea what to do. But you know, it is the traditional I say the more signs, the better. I think that is huge to put out as many signs as you can. So you put it in the MLS and then it syndicates to you know, zillow, redfin and homescom. It syndicates everywhere. So that's pretty much. I like to ask people where they found, how they found the open house, and I like to know are you finding it just from my signs on the street or did you find it online? Most of the time, majority of the time, they just they find it online. So I'm like okay's, it's syndicating and that's where they're finding. People are always online. I do like to market on Instagram or you know Instagram reels, because it's free, I'm all about, you know. I know that new agents are on a budget, so I don't right exactly how can they do?
Dean: like the thing is you don't have to spend any. If I'm hearing you right, you're like you don't necessarily have to spend any money on marketing it per se. You just put do you do the? Does the listing agent allow you to like schedule the open house on zillow on? Like to be able to say that like put the open house announcement kind of thing on?
Michelle: it, yes, yes. So once the agent um enters the open house into the mls system, the multiple service, yeah, it automatically syndicates. And so once it does that, yeah, then you know we're allowed to market it. And then obviously you say listing courtesy of you, you know. And then you, you know, say who the listings from. But from there you know it's, it's a win-win and it's funny, I kind of you know, once you're in the business for a while you kind of start to this is probably not good but assume that people know things. So you kind of assume like, oh yeah, these agents know other agents will let you host their open houses. But I found by talking to a lot of agents they have no idea sometimes that you can do that.
Dean: And it's not not in every state and not in every, you know MLS board maybe may allow you to do that, so you will have to check if you can do that Within your own office. Somebody would be able to do that. So I like this idea because it's accessible for people and I've always had. I bought one of the homes that I had in Toronto. I bought through an open house and walked in and knew it the minute I walked in that I wanted the house and I've sold several homes from open house. I've always been a big fan of it.
Most people look at it as kind of like unpredictable waste of time. You look at the raw numbers. If you look in terms of if you have, over a period of time, a hundred people come into an open house over whatever several weeks, there's high probability that you're. If you know what to say and how to connect exactly that, you're going to find somebody because you look at that. That's's a pretty big, bigger commitment than just shopping on Zillow and clicking you know, send more info or you know whatever filling out a form.
You're physically moving your body to a location at a specific time. Location at a specific time and right in, that's not you know, that that's. There's a lot of intent in that. Nobody's. Not many people do that just for uh, just for fun, you know right, I tell.
Michelle: I tell agents that, yeah, all the time, if somebody is walking to your into your open house, most likely they are a warm, sometimes hot buyer and and, like you said, I'm glad you shared that you walked into your open house most likely they are a warm, sometimes hot buyer and, like you said, I'm glad you shared that you walked into an open house and purchase that home. You know, yeah, it happens?
Dean: How many of the stats have you have? You, you know, as an open house master practitioner? Do you have any data that shows you know? Does I know? The NAR surveys come up, but is there anything of what percentage of time people find their house through an open house?
Michelle: You know I don't have that, I don't know. Yeah, I did create, like I did create a spreadsheet just recently so the agents could kind of track their own success.
You know, okay, I don't have those numbers, but I would love to look that up, like on NAR, to find out. I know there is. There is also a huge percentage, gosh, what is it? Let's like 70. Some percent of people find their first agent on the very first time they meet an agent. So you know that's huge, because if they're walking into an open house and they're ready to buy, you're it.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, I'm just looking there that, I'm looking at the latest survey right now of it and, yeah, there's typical for sale by owner. How do people find I'm curious to see if there's any insight into that of where they find it Characteristic of the home search process? 21%. Yeah, 43% first step was to look for properties on the internet. Yeah, 43% first step was to look for properties on the internet. 21% of buyers reached out to a real estate agent. Buyers spent a median of 10 weeks searching for a home in 2024. 10 weeks.
Michelle: Yeah, home buying. That's another great stat for me to know.
Dean: Yeah, that.
Michelle: Good yeah, there's this little fun exercise that I do inside of my program. It's called. I call it the buyer manifesting exercise.
Dean: Uh-huh.
Michelle: And it's really cool because once you do, once secure the buyer, people are like now what?
Dean: You know it's funny. You mentioned that they only speak to one real estate agent, and that's true, for, you know, 67% instead of people only speak to one.
Michelle: Oh, is that what it says?
Dean: 67% of buyers. Yeah, 10% of the market. So there's a lot of. There's really good stuff and imagine if you choose your, you choose the home price right to do the open house. That it's kind of. If it's a move-up home, there's likely that you might get a listing opportunity there, or if it's appealing to first-time buyers that there's that opportunity. Selecting the right home what do you look for in kind of the checklist of selecting the right house, the open house what do you look for? You mentioned a couple of things vacant stage.
Michelle: Yes, that's what I look for. I like it to be vacant and I like it to be beautifully staged, so that is the first thing I look for. I found when I when I started doing this, this process yeah, I found one exactly that met that in the neighborhood that I wanted to which met all the the boxes, checked all the boxes, and that's when I asked him.
I said, um, can I host this every weekend, you know, instead of every week trying to find an open house to host, which I was doing for a while. I was like, well, I built a rapport with this agent. Already he was an investor, he had flipped the home and he was like, not a problem, you know, it's a win-win. Go for it and market it for me for free. And yeah, and that's what I did. And one of the things too, I found is cause there's a lot of like, like I said, complaints about open houses. You know they they're a waste of time. Nosy neighbors come in, nobody shows up, and so what I always say is there's always an opportunity in everything that happens. So if no one shows up, it's not a waste of time. If you're in a beautifully staged home and no one shows up, I'm sure you're dressed to the T, you've got your makeup on and you're looking really good. There's so much content you can record there by yourself.
Dean: Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense, right, use batch the times. How long do you typically spend at the open house? What have you found are the best times for doing open houses?
Michelle: For me. I like two to three hours, that's it, just two to three hours, saturday and Sunday. I do have a student that she started because she came from a nine to five and she just felt that if she wasn't working eight hours a day in this new venture of real estate she wasn't doing it. So she she, you know was doing open houses for a minute before she found my system, but she was doing them Monday. She was doing every day of the week.
She was doing Monday through Friday, like five to seven and then on the weekends, because, you know, she just thought that that's what she had to do. Now I think you only have to do them. Once she learned my system, she's like okay, I'm only doing them on the weekends now. And she.
Dean: You know, what have you found in terms of? Have you got any data? You're in a unique situation in that you've got your own data plus the people that you're doing this with, now that you can really create some kind of standardized you know expectation around. You're getting some data on how many people will come in, you know, to an open house what would be a typical scenario. You get a nice vacant house that's staged nicely in a nice neighborhood. I imagine some visibility would help more on a or at least an offshoot of a busier road, maybe not on a busy road, but where you could put signs on a main road more than something that's kind of hidden away where there's not a lot of traffic, especially if you're depending on the signs and stuff for people to find it.
What would you, what do you typically expect if you're? You know, if you're doing an open house for two or three hours on a Saturday or Sunday, is one day better than the other typically? Or and how many people would you, in that range, be expecting to come by?
Michelle: Yeah, it usually depends. You know, sometimes Saturdays are better than Sundays, but you never know. Sometimes I, you know, I do them only on Sundays because I have obligations on Saturdays or vice versa. But again, I tend to like it when there's not 30 families coming through. That's, I think, against the norms of what people think. You know they think that the more people that come through the better. But if you have 30 people come through your home you're not able to talk to hardly anybody because usually they come it seems like they come all at once, and so 30 people coming through the home is a lot right. I've seen people celebrate. I had 30 people come to the home. Usually that's because the home is priced under, you know, underpriced, and you'll have people come through. I would rather have three people come versus 30, because out of those three I can actually have a conversation with each one of them and I can get two buyer clients and one listing.
Dean: Yes, yeah, I like it, so that's kind of a good thing. Less is more you can go deeper with with people. Yes, because I think yeah, traditional.
Michelle: You know ways of thinking about it and I mean, I know that a lot of people have built their businesses on open houses. You know there's a lot of top producers that have built their business on open houses. But traditional ways are just like fill your pipeline, you know, fill your, get everybody to sign in and then on, you know, monday morning we're gonna follow up with everybody, we're gonna call everybody And're going to have this huge pipeline and all of these clients. But what happens is you don't build any kind of trust or rapport.
They don't remember you because you're just doing what every other agent is doing out there and they're going from open house to open house up to open house, right, so you're just doing what everyone else is doing. They're like, yeah, yeah, gonna sign in. Well, half the time they don't even give you the right numbers because you're asking them to do something right. When they walk in the door, a lot of times I hear them say because I do a lot of research, I go to a lot of open houses, I did a lot of research before I, I said I'm going to do this program and they say, oh, the seller is requiring us to have you sign in. Well, that that's not always true. I mean, let's be honest, that's not always true. It's something that they've told agents to say to get them to sign in. Because people are always like what do I say to get people to sign in? And I'm like you don't want to build your first impression on a little fib.
So, I have them sign in after. If I need them to sign in after I've had the conversation with them, is what I do. So I'd rather have them remember me, because I've built this rapport with them so much so that, um, I've had somebody call me back. Instead of me calling them, they were like remember you?
Dean: you were the one that and we talked about this, this and that, and yeah, so that's fantastic and how much certainty, like, how have you gotten any indication of kind of you know I'll call them directional metrics, like that, if you have a hundred people come through, that you know how many how long does it take you to get your first transaction? If you're coaching somebody, how many people have you taken through this process? Like how many other agents?
Michelle: I've taken like a handful and that's why that's why I'm here, because I need the help on that part of it. I'm, like you know, actually reaching the agents that I think that may not know they even need this because it seems simple. You know it's kind of common sense yeah, connect with them. But I don't really think it is. I really think that agents think that they're really more focused on the marketing and then, you know, let me just sit back, count out a flyer and I'm sure I'll get somebody. So I need help with that. But as far as the results I get, I like to tell people this too People, people say that sales is a marketing game. You know, the more people right and like and I do want to get these stats down. But I think with open houses and I and it's to get to, to answer your question I have results with my clients where they're getting clients and transactions with within one or two open houses right this isn't, yeah, this isn't after 100 people come through, through.
So what I the one student I have with within 30 days she was under contract from. So she listened to my system. She went and changed because she said I didn't know what to say. She goes. I knew open houses were my thing because I didn't like cold calling. She's like. So open houses were my thing, but I was doing them and doing them, she's like, and I didn't know what to say. She was like I felt awkward. I just kind of sat there and I opened up the house and then when she learned my system, she was the next person who came in. She literally got them pre-approved on Monday, they were looking at houses on Wednesday and they were in contract within the next couple of days. So, with you know, 30 days. So it's literally it can be as as fast as go host an open house this weekend. You can secure a client.
Dean: So and part of that like there's, you know when you look at it how much certainty there is around something is going to be what the value of that is in you know, in sharing it with other people, because when we look at it, that what you have there, there's four levels of something. So we start out with a proposition and the proposition is open houses are great. I've done them and if you get, if you do this, you know you'll have a good outcome. That's kind of a proposition. Get a result from it. Now you've got proof that your proposition is a good idea. So you have proof that, because you've seen it happen and you've seen this go, but where the next level of that is to create a protocol that ensures that proof that the protocol is if you can show somebody else how to do what you've done successfully and they can predictably follow those steps and get that outcome.
Now you've got something that is packageable and protectable and patentable. You know all of those things that you've got a system that if people follow those steps because sometimes what we have, especially when there's low numbers in something like you've done it and people get a result, it's sort of randomized in a way and I think that we put it. I talk about those things as a slot machine versus a vending machine. Right and a slot machine is a vending machine. Right and a slot machine is that you put money in or time units, you put time into something and you pull the lever and sometimes something happens. A vending machine is more predictable, in a way that you put money in and you push the button and out comes your Coca-Cola, right that you know what, with certainty, what that's going to take.
Now when the only way to really sort of standardized random outcomes is to observe repeatedly what happens, right, the more volume. If you're able to say and it's really taking the scientific method approach to it that you're documenting what you're doing, that, if you look at it, that if you did a three-hour open house every week for 50 weeks, you're going to have invested 150 hours in something, and if you get three or four people per open house to come through, you're going to have seen 500 people over that period of time. Right Now, if you look at it, part of the thing is how certain are you of somebody being able to get an outcome, because that's going to be a. That's going to determine how much people are willing to pay you for this coaching. How do you charge right now?
Michelle: Right now I am opening up the membership, so it's $97 a month or $970 for the year. So they get two free months.
Dean: And what's included. What do they get for that?
Michelle: So for that they get a one hour live coaching with me per week, and then I have a few workshops in there, have the buyer manifestation exercise, and then, yeah, the like the coaching program is in there as well. I'm doing it live this time, though, so that we can role play.
Dean: We can role play the conversational framework that I teach and then so it's, and a community, I'm sure.
Michelle: Yes, and a community.
Dean: Facebook group or online, yeah.
Michelle: I actually just started on with Mighty Networks, yeah, and I really love it. I'm so excited about it Because with that, with the members that are going to be joining, everyone can see where everybody's from and really connect and network. And so another one of my visions is that we all learn this, like you know, nationwide, and everybody can connect and referrals can be from. Their referrals can be, you know, nurtured and given. So I think that's pretty cool because we have a lot of people moving out of California right, exactly, yeah, I think that's.
Another huge piece is to have that referral network.
Dean: That would be really great have you done um uh, how many members do you have so far?
Michelle: well, I've just opened. I literally it's so funny that the timing of our call and because you know, I literally just opened it on july 1st, I I announced it. I'm sorry, I just announced it, okay.
Dean: So yeah, very nice, okay. So how have you you were charging how much for your six-week program?
Michelle: Before I was charging. I was charging $9.97 for the six weeks and I found a few of those found me from my podcast and a few summits that I've done. So online panels that I've done.
Dean: This is. It's a very interesting thing, like the when you look at it. If we were to say because people could say, well, I'm not Michelle or you're, you're a. You may be an outlier in your communication abilities, your appearance, the way that you can easily kind of bond with people that there's certainly an element of that. People who are better with people are going to have a better outcome or more naturally able to connect with people than people who may not have those same, those same intangibles kind of thing you know. But there's equally, there are people who have all the intangibles. They just don't know what to say, and that's a problem. That's a bigger problem too. If you were to say, of the people that went through your six-week program, how many of them got a result?
Michelle: I'd probably say half of them or a quarter, I'd say a quarter of them.
Dean: Okay.
Michelle: Yeah.
Dean: And what would be the reasons why three quarters of them didn't get a result? Let's think about that for a second.
Michelle: Yeah Well, they didn't show up to the calls.
Dean: Okay, yeah.
Michelle: Yeah, so it's funny because I have you know the course is recorded modules.
Dean: Yeah, and.
Michelle: I found that people don't listen to them, so maybe they'll listen to one or two. That people don't listen to them, so maybe they'll listen to one or two. And then I brought in the live element because I thought, well, let's, you know, let's walk through everything. You have questions, and it's really simple. It's something that you can binge, like a Netflix show on a weekend. It's really simple. You know, watch it, go out and do it and I really feel they can get results. But for one they didn't. I don't think they fully listened to them and then they didn't show up to the calls. So the ones that really got the results were at every single call.
And we role played.
Dean: And yeah, that seems like so. How many calls? How many calls do you do over the six weeks? Is it weekly?
Michelle: I was doing, yes, I was doing them once a week.
Dean: One hour once a week? Yes, so they're investing six hours. Part of the thing about a live cohort is that it's kind of synchronous consumption, that they are there and they're physically present, and it's easier to consume them while they're sitting and could be watching Netflix. You know what I mean. That's always going to be more. It's easier when things are synchronous and scheduled to actually get them done right. Then, even with the best of intentions, to get yourself to self-directedly take that kind of action, you know, yeah, so you look at it and especially in. Are you finding that the agents that you're working with are typically in california right now, because that's where your kind of world is?
Michelle: No, actually they're all over. I have, let's see, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, yeah, so no, not all of them are in.
Dean: California questions that I always ask is, you know, just as a guidance for you is to start thinking to yourself that what would you do if you only got paid if they get a result? It's an interesting question, right, like what would you do if they only you only got paid if they get a result from this? You only got paid if they get a result from this?
Oh, I like that question. Yeah, it's a very interesting way to frame it, right, because I imagine that for new agents I mean, there's so many things going on that number one they have to believe you, they have to believe that they can get the result. Believe you, they have to believe that they can get the result and they have to be willing to bet on that with their $970, you know, or their 997 for the six weeks. Right? And even if they do believe you and they want to do it, they might not have the 997 if they're a brand new agent who's, you know, burdened with paying all their fees and everything to get going in real estate trying to get some fraction.
And I think what you're saying is that part of the reason that open houses are such a great thing is that you can literally pick up today, I mean this weekend, you could do that and somebody might walk through that's going to fall in love with that house or fall in love with you. Yeah, that's either way, right? That's what you're trying to do, just to find out who are. You know, we call them five-star prospects, right, that they're willing to engage in the dialogue, they're friendly and cooperative, they know what they want, they know when they want it and they'd like us to help them. That's the order that we have to go through and often what you were just saying.
I look at those parameters as they have to fire in that order too that you can. You know, it's like I was like the staged lighting at the drag races. I refer to it as where the first light has to come on, that they have to be willing to engage. They showed up at your open house. They showed up at your open house. They're there and you know, whatever you say to them first, you're going to be able to observe is the reception that you're getting? Is it friendly and cooperative, or are they arm's length? Are they dismissive? Are they resentful that you're even asking or daring to engage with them, or they're trying to protect themselves from you? They're guarded.
All of that is one thing, and if they, you're going to know that in the first 30 seconds somebody walking into your open house, right, and then, instead of at the bottom, you know, starting with having them sign in or having them, you know, and I'm sure what you want to know is do they know what they want and do they have batteries included? That's what I always look at right is that I'm looking for people that have a self directed plan that they're willing to share. Yeah, if you ask somebody, what are you thinking of doing, what are you thinking of doing is a natural, you know, curiosity question, but it's neutral. There's no way you're not saying are you looking for a home or are you thinking about downsizing? Are you thinking of whatever it is? You're not putting, you're not leading the witness. You're saying to them what are you thinking of doing?
Like that friendly and whatever comes back, is going to indicate to you whether they have a plan, because there's no way to deflect from that, there's no way to resist, there's no way to say no, no, we're not, we're just looking, we're, whatever those things are. You know that having that initial engagement with people tell you so much more. You know, because you're not going to make a prescription, which is really what that last step is Would they, they'd like to work with us, They'd like us to help them? We're not going to propose the ways that we can help them until we diagnose what the situation is right. So I imagine in your whether you're consciously doing it or unconsciously doing it you're kind of going through that progression of figuring out do they know what they want?
And then only after they know what they want, does it even make sense to talk about Right, right?
Michelle: You nailed it. I am unconsciously doing this, right? Yeah, that is the whole point of the conversational framework. Is that to find out what their plan is? And I didn't consciously know I was doing it and I'm basically looking for five star prospects.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, so that's. I think that that's where, when you're going to like transfer this to other people, that you're a sense that you're at the stage of really like. You've heard the terms unconscious competence, oh yes. That you know you kind of are, you know you can do it. How long have you been doing it with the open house model?
About six years now you know it works intuitively. But now it's about creating the protocol. Like you've got the. Even if you were to overlay, like going back now, if you were to say in the last you know five years, if you've been doing it for five or six years or whatever you you've probably had, how many would you guess open houses that you've had? Do you do them every week?
Michelle: Now I don't do them every week and I just did one a couple of weeks ago because I do like to stay on top of it and I like to be. I am an active realtor, I want to be a realtor, so I did one a couple of weeks ago. But another point that I try to get across is that you don't have to do open houses the rest of your career. So I have a lot of moms and single moms that that come to me and I think that that maybe they get nervous that every weekend I'm going to be away from my family and and here's the thing you do it for a solid year. You can gain so much in your pipeline and when you're posting on social, your sphere of influence sees you working. Now you're going to get referrals. So now 95, 90 of my business is all referral based. I'll do an open house here and there just to um, you know, just to keep my game game up and practice when I'm there and just to show that it is, it does still work.
A lot of times when I'm posting about my open houses is when I get a lead from my you know sphere of influence that sees me working and said oh, I forgot, I want, we wanted a buyer, we wanted to sell, we need to sell just for watching me do it so. I don't really have those numbers, me do it. So I don't really have those numbers. What?
Dean: would be the best thing for you is to is to retroactively kind of look at it. If you say, like in a in, even if you look in the last 12 months that how many open houses did you do you know, if you do you record each week, like you're almost like you need to be as the you know purveyor of this scientific system for turning open houses into into transactions, that it would be wise for you to have like a you know a notebook, that you're kind of keeping your field notes on right, that every, every open house you do, you kind of date it and you write your recordings on that, so that you can document your journey, document what you did, and in analyzing that you can recognize patterns right that you can recognize that of this.
You know, if you look at it, that of people who came in, you know how many of them were. You know you don't. I'd almost look. If I were doing this for a notebook for you, I would almost have a space for the number of people. I would just put a, whether you got their name or not, just whatever you know. Man number three, uh, came in, or woman number three, or couple number two came through and just kind of document. Were they a smiley face or a frowny face?
or you know or do you find sometimes people are, are rude or mean to you? Do you ever find that they're just dismissive?
Michelle: I I do find that, yes, but even that one couple was very dismissive that I ended up getting those two transactions from, but so I feel like I have the way to get them to speak to me. I don't talk about the house right away. I don't talk about what do you want to buy. Have you been pre-approved? Are you working with an agent? I don't talk about any of that. Know, what do you want to buy? Have you been pre-approved? Are you working with an agent?
Dean: I don't talk about any of that stuff, right? Which are all? Those are all questions that are loaded Like you're qualifying. Those are qualifying questions. They're not inquiries. They're not like just conversational, right, right?
Michelle: Yes, and what I like to do also is, even if somebody comes in, I have a lot of people that come in and they say they have agents and that's fine, you know, we don't step on any toes, but I still, I still have a conversation with them as if they don't have an agent, just for practice and just for practice, and I I won't ask them anything, you know, for appointments, for anything, because if they have an age, say they have an agent, they have an agent, but I practice the same as if they didn't and I can get them to talk to me, I find out all of their needs and their plans and it's just fun, it's a fun way to practice, it's so much you know and there's, I'll give you.
Dean: So you're in California, so you're familiar with Jennifer Leathers, the furniture store there. Another friend and I went into Jennifer Leathers and because we had heard about their dialogue approach to greeting people at the door right approach to greeting people at the door right, and when you go into most furniture stores, the thing that people say is you know, can I help you? And of course, we're all trained to say no, thanks, I'm just looking right. Yeah, but they never finished that thought with. I'm just looking for a red leather love seat I can take home today. That's the reality of what's really going on in their mind. So instead of asking people, can I help you, they ask people or welcome people. When they come in, they just say that welcome to jennifer liz, have you been here before? Have you been here before? And people will say, no, we haven't. Well, welcome. Let me explain how it all works. All of the sofas you see are available in any of the leathers on the back wall and they're all in stock and available for immediate delivery and they're guaranteed for life. My name is Dean. Take a look around If you have any questions. I'll be right over here Now, in the 12 seconds that it took to say those words.
What they've done is they've overcome the three biggest reasons that somebody might leave without buying a sofa today. Right, they know what they want. They want a red leather loveseat, but they want it today. They don't want to wait for six weeks for a special order or whatever. So they've got five furniture stores on their list today and they're going to go through and if they see a red leather loveseat, they'll look at it and see if that's the one for them and if not, they'll just go to the next store.
Right, but as soon as you say to them all of the sofas are available in any of the leathers on the back wall, you see that there's, you know, five shades of red there for you, so you can relax and they're all, all the combinations, are in stock and available for immediate delivery.
So now you can just relax and know that all I have to do is find the shape and the size and the comfort that I want, knowing that I can get it in any of those leathers and I can get it right away. So you answer, you address what's going on in their mind, because you know that they know what they're looking for, and I imagine that the same thing is true with anybody walking into an open house. And a good question, if you're hosting the open house, is you know, when you say to somebody, welcome, have you seen the house before? Have you been through before? It's a reasonable question and that is something that most of the time they're not going to have seen it, but it starts the ball rolling. Now you're moving in a direction, you know something about them that they haven't seen the house and that gives you the permission, or platform them, to tell them your two or three biggest things about the, the house that you want to convey you know.
Michelle: Yeah, that's um.
Dean: It's interesting, you do something similar to that I do unconsciously right I do, yeah, I, I do almost very similar.
Michelle: I stand by the front door. I'm like we are not sitting behind our computer over in the kitchen, and you know, sometimes you walk in and you're like, is anybody even here? So it's like, no, we stand by the front door. When people come in, we welcome them, we introduce ourselves and then the first thing I ask is are you familiar? Are you familiar with the neighborhood? And from there I can determine if they're a neighbor and they'll usually tell me right away.
Dean: Or we live around the corner, yeah.
Michelle: So I determine that, and or they're a buyer, and then, either way, I say well, hi, welcome. My name is Michelle, take a look around and when you're done I'll be right here. If you have any questions, so let them walk around. Questions, so let them, you know, walk around. Yeah, so you're not taking them on the tour.
This is the kitchen and this is the closet. Yeah, yeah, they get to do their own thing and then I will maybe point out a few things that are interesting or unique about the home and then when they come back, now I know I can put my buyer hat on or my seller hat on, you know, because you talk to a potential listing different than you would talk to buyers. So from there I talked to them. But again, it's not about you know what are you looking for in a home? It's literally I can. From there we just get into a relationship building conversation.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, those are kind of that's great. And then when they walk through, then what will typically happen? You're just kind of you're staying in the living room. Are you kind of following them through kind of thing, or accompanying them, or are you.
Michelle: I usually yeah, never accompanied them, unless it's a home that maybe it's not vacant and maybe there's valuables there and they've said you know. But that's why I don't really like to do homes that are occupied. I will follow them if they are, but if not I kind of let them do their own thing. If they're asking me questions as they're walking around, then I'll go and kind of answer them, but never like the salesperson that when you walk into a department store you know and they're just following you everywhere, never like that Right exactly so I will stay by the front door so that when they're about to leave is when I have the opportunity to have that conversation before they walk out the door.
I'm not blocking them, but I am standing by the front door.
Dean: Yeah, right, and is that, when you ask them, do you get them then to sign in, or how do you? Or sometimes you do, sometimes you don't I, I like to have them.
Michelle: Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. If I have them sign in, it's after I've had a conversation with them, after I've built rapport with them. Then they're really likely to like oh sure, sure, not a problem, because I've built that rapport. I didn't ask them right away. What I do like to do is I get my phone out and I hand them my phone and they will put their number in directly into my phone, like I have that down now where it's, like I would rather have them in my phone and because I don't hand out a fly flyer. So what I also say is um, if you would like any information about this home or some that are, you know, available in the area, I can text that to you right away here. Do you mind putting your number? In this way we get it correct and you can call your name correctly and I hand them my phone ready to go, and then they enter their contact you use the iphone thing now, where you can just touch the end.
Oh yes. Isn't that cool.
Dean: It is pretty cool, right yeah?
Michelle: Yeah, and then that way I shoot them a text right away, like right when they leave, I shoot them a text. It was great meeting you. Here's a copy of the info in this home, or here's a couple homes that are around the corner. Sometimes you can even get people to say, well, can we go look at those homes? If you have nobody in your open house, there's no reason why you can't stop your open house and go start. You know, because that's the whole point of you having that.
Dean: Especially if you're not you know you're not the listing agent who's accountable to your seller kind of thing that they've given up their Saturday for you to do there and then you leave because somebody came in and go sell somebody else's. That's not as exciting for a seller to explain that to them, yeah.
Michelle: And that's if you're not the listing agent. Yeah, let's make sure we, like you said, point that out.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, I just think you know you, you've got such a great thing. I would almost you know, love to, you know see you frame this as something even more expensive, but in a way that you work like they work, that they can pay you, even if it's $2,500 or 5% of their first commission that they get from the open house. That would be an irresistible offer if you give them. You know you've already valued it. It's $970, let's call it $1,000 for somebody to be part of your membership for a year. You know the odds are. I think you could make way more if you were to, you know, to take on this outcome. Split the outcome. It's irresistible. The only reason people pay real estate agents such high amounts to sell their homes is because they only pay when the house sells.
If you had to go into a million dollar listing and tell somebody that it's $60,000 and so you need to get your checkbook out right now. Commissions would not be $60,000, right. But they're willing to pay $60,000 because they're getting a check for a million on a house that maybe they paid $400,000 for, and so it's not real money, it's future money, right, right. And that's the kind of thing that agents would be. They pay Zillow all day 40% of a transaction to give them leads. Certainly, they would pay you 10% to coach them how to do this.
Michelle: I've never thought of it that way.
Dean: Yeah.
Michelle: That's very interesting Because I know, yeah, I mean, I think that this is an incredible value. I really do, because I have the results, I see the results and what they pay versus what they will make on one transaction. You know if they do.
Dean: Like anywhere in the country. The average is a is 400,000 is the median house price in the country right now. So you know that's at least $10,000 of for one side of a transaction right so surely they would be happy to pay you. Yes, and there'd be zero friction.
Michelle: Yes, I really like that idea. I would have to really play with that in my mind on how that would work, but I think that's an excellent idea.
Dean: Yeah, like I think that's the kind of thing if you just quietly put together in the. That's the kind of thing if you just quietly put together in in the. How many prospects do you have for your coaching business right now? How many realtors are you in communication with? Do you have a list of real estate agents that you're that you've generated leads from your podcast or?
Michelle: I have a list of 500, an email list of 500.
Dean: So even if you did that for them and just said, doing a summer pilot project and I'm gonna, I'm looking for some very specific people and you put your parameters of what your what you know are they need to be to be successful, and just see who would rise to the top and lean forward saying, oh, I would love to be a case study. Because that's the thing when you say I'm putting together a pilot program, I want to create some case studies for our community in the fall. And you know it would be a really neat thing if you could take a cohort of 10 people through this thing, you know yes, oh my gosh, that is dean.
That's such a great idea, of course because your overhead on it is so low. It doesn't. It's just you know you, your confidence is what you're doing. It doesn't cost you anything to take somebody through the process, you know.
Michelle: Right, and would that be just kind of like a referral fee?
Dean: Basically, you could look at it as you could set it up like that, you could do it up, you could do it any way you want. Yeah, yeah, wow.
Michelle: That is such an amazing idea. I love it. And then, like you said, now I have some data, I have some like I'll show you everything.
Dean: I'll coach you, I'll take you through, I'll teach you everything I know and you just give me a referral on the first transaction that you do. Even if you said 20% is now, you're going to get at least $2,000. You're getting double what you're going to have to do to convince people to give you the money you know. And I always say that sometimes you know it's less expensive to get somebody a result than it is to convince them to give you money to get the result.
Michelle: Yes.
Dean: Right as long as you stack the deck and look for exactly the right people.
Michelle: Yeah, I love that, I really love that idea. Okay, I have, my wheels are turning, oh good.
Dean: Yeah, that's exciting, so let's, that went fast, but kind of, how did it land for you? What's the highlights or what did you do you take away from that?
Michelle: Oh, my goodness. Well, that last one, I think, just kind of blew me away. I never even thought to do that and, like you said, it's the way we get paid in real estate. So that was a huge takeaway. Also, that I've heard you talk about the five kind of star prospects and I'm like, wow, this really relates to what I'm doing again, unconsciously, you know, and I think that I need that's what I've been trying to kind of relay, or the messaging I'm trying to get out to agents, you know, versus, I guess, like that shift, belief shifting is what I'm I don't like I don't like to call it convincing, but it's kind of a belief shifting.
Yeah, they need to find that out, cause some people think I think like, why are they ghosting me? Why, you know, we had a great conversation, this, that. Why are they ghosting me? Well, they're ghosting you because they're not ready to buy you and you didn't find that out, right?
Dean: Exactly, yeah, I think this. I think you've got something there and I can't wait to see it all unfold. So you know, please keep me posted on how it all plays out.
Michelle: Definitely Well, I really appreciate your time, Dean. This was so amazing.
Dean: Awesome. Thanks, Michelle.
Michelle: Thank you.
Dean: I'll talk to you soon, okay.
Michelle: Bye-bye.