In this episode of the Student of the Game podcast, host Brad Noll speaks with Melissa Little, realtor and broker at Noll Team Real Estate, to explore the critical importance of having a specialized listing agent when selling a home. Melissa shares her extensive background in real estate and the skillset that helps realtors produce significantly better outcomes for clients. Brad and Melissa dive into the fundamentals of pricing, condition, and location, and how these elements affect a home's sale. They also discuss the strategies behind effective marketing and the importance of open communication with clients to minimize stress during the selling process. 

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(00:47)  Melissa's Background and Experience

(00:28) The Value of a Listing Agent

(04:44) Melissa's Successful Track Record

(09:09) Understanding Pricing Strategies

(20:23) Marketing Strategies for Selling Homes

(34:50) Interactive Open House Strategies

(38:24) Winning at the Game of Life

Noll Team Real Estate

SINCE 2003, Noll Team Real Estate HAS BEEN HELPING PEOPLE IN THE FORT WAYNE AREA FIND THE FREEDOM TO LIVE THE LIFESTYLE THEY WANT.

DESPITE CHANGING MARKETS AND BUSINESS TACTICS, WE HAVE REMAINED TRUE TO THIS BETTER AND IMPROVED BUSINESS MODEL BY FOCUSING ON BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS AND SERVING OTHERS IN EVERYTHING WE DO.

WHATEVER STAGE OF LIFE YOU ARE IN, OUR GOAL IS TO PROVIDE YOU WITH THE WISDOM AND TOOLS NECESSARY WHEN BUYING OR SELLING A HOME. WE PUT YOU FIRST TO ENSURE AN ENJOYABLE AND PROFITABLE EXPERIENCE.

Welcome to Student of the Game podcast, where we help you master the fundamentals, fall in love with practice, and win at the game of life.

I'm your host, Brad Knoll.

Welcome to the classroom.

Welcome back to another episode of Student of the Game podcast.

I'm excited.

Today my guest is the one and only Melissa Little, team listing specialist.

Melissa helps me a lot with my listings.

Melissa, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

We're going to dive in today to pretty much talk to homeowners on why having a listing agent matters and why they can benefit.

But I think a lot of small business owners is going to see, they are going to see how having a team approach really creates the best positive outcomes for clients.

So before we get started, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit, tell us a little bit, tell the listeners why your background has gotten you to hear.

Great.

First of all, thanks for having me.

And I think my background plays really well into what I'm doing now because I do have a very, very varied background.

I spent a lot of time in corporate America, a lot of time in customer service, sales, marketing.

I actually have an MBA in marketing.

So when we moved around a lot with our family, I had a lot of personal experience with working with real estate agents as we bought and sold homes every time we moved and never really had a great experience.

So my first thought was, how hard can this be?

You return phone calls, you say what you're going to do, and you deliver what you say you're going to deliver.

So when we made the move to Fort Wayne, we decided, well, why don't we try it and see what happens?

And took all of my experience, all my background, and parlayed it into this one position of a real estate agent.

And I was doing all of it for a while, the buyers, the sellers, everybody.

But then when I joined the null team and became a listing specialist, I was able to really focus and specialize on the listing side of things.

And I think you take all of that experience and put that there.

And I think it really benefits our clients.

Absolutely.

And just to, just to make sure that the listeners and our team for our team is listening.

So Melissa helps me with my listings.

She's not necessarily the listing specialist for our entire team.

We've got a lot of great independent agents on our team.

But as you build your business, the only reason to start a team, in my opinion, is because there's an abundance of leads.

Like when you have more people who want to work with you than what you have time for the.

The word we use a lot on our team is capacity.

Like, how is your capacity?

How do you manage your capacity?

How do you grow your capacity?

And as my business was growing, you know, after 21 years of doing this, you know, my business is just in a different place.

I mean, if you're, if you're just starting off, your business is different than five years from now, than ten years from now.

And it's important to kind of see and plan, like, what is success look like down the road?

And for me, I hired a buyer's agent first, and it's somebody that kind of helped leverage my time, where I could stay in contact with my best clients, and I could deliver the relational component that people were expecting and the transactional service.

And do you remember how we met, Melissa?

I wasn't going to bring this up, but I think we're at an open house, and you had some clients walk by.

You want to tell that story?

No, it was great, because I was doing the open house with my previous firm, and a couple had come in, and I was giving them a lot of details about the house.

Turned out that house wasn't for them.

But then I talked to them about showing them other homes, and I remember you walking by and saying, she's great.

She's great.

You're in great hands.

And I'm like, he doesn't really know me that well, other than he sat on the other side of a table a couple times when I had the seller and he had the buyer, or vice versa.

And that's the story I'm remembering.

Is that what you're thinking?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And it's one of the, it's just, it's rare when you find a business where people kind of celebrate each other.

You know, our core values here are a little unique to the real estate industry.

But let's get into this conversation.

Cause I wanna help people right now.

I wanna help people understand how can you grow your business, but not just how you grow your business, how do you serve your clients really well?

Your business will grow when you serve people really well.

It doesn't grow because you want it to grow.

Like, how many times have you written a goal down where it's like, I wanna double my business or I wanna increase my business?

You actually have to increase the number of people you serve before your business grows.

And so I brought on a buyer's agent first, then I brought on the listing specialist.

And I know why I did that, but I want to share with you guys, the listeners, a little bit about how our clients are benefiting.

So Melissa has a great background.

It's perfect for doing market analysis.

It's perfect for understanding data, it's perfect for understanding how to market a property.

But let's let the facts, facts tell you something here.

So here's some of Melissa's stats.

Over the last three years, Melissa has helped 95 families sell their home.

Okay.

And these are clients of mine.

So 95 of my sellers, Melissa and I both represented and worked on together.

So that's 95 clients for over $36 million worth of sales volume.

I'm going to break this down for you.

So that's an average of about ten to 12 million per year just on the listing side.

I will tell you, most realtors don't do $12 million in business by themselves.

And Melissa specializes in $12 million just on the listing side, which makes her unique, which gives her a really unique, I guess, position in the market to really be an authority figure.

When I think of who knows how to list a home, I think of Melissa little in our market.

And it's because of the amount of work that you do in helping families.

So you've done 95 transactions for $36 million in sales.

Now, here's what we want.

Okay.

And before I go into this, I want to make sure everybody understands our mission, vision and values here.

And I don't want to get too wordy, but I think it's important to connect these dots.

So at Nolteam real Estate, our mission is to eradicate mediocre real estate experiences.

There's nothing average about what we do.

We want to eradicate mediocrity, and there's a lot of mediocre real estate transactions out there.

Our vision is to build a world class team that's focused on delivering exceptional results to 300 families annually.

And we create the best possible outcomes by saving our clients time, reducing their stress, and ultimately helping them keep as much money in their pocket as possible.

Our core values serve others, earn everything, grow constantly, win together, and always rep, and always represent.

Now, why is that important?

Why is that important?

It's important because it's not just lip service.

So here's Melissa's stats.

95 transactions over the last three years, 36 million in sales.

While the market, the days on market for the average realtor is 27 days right now and median days on the market is eight.

And the sale price to list price ratio is 98.8%.

So if you put your home on the market right now, 98.8% is what you can expect to get with an average realtor.

Melissa, your stats.

You ready?

Okay.

Am I?

I wouldn't have you on here if they were bad.

Good.

Our days on market average is twelve.

Okay, remember, 27 was the.

The average time on market.

Ours is twelve median days on the market.

Eight is.

Then is the average here in our.

In our industry.

Melissa's four average sale price to list price ratio in the market is 98.8%.

Melissa, yours is 100.1%.

Now, if you're thinking right now you're running a business, you're like, these numbers are confusing.

These numbers pave the way for showing your clients the value you provide.

Let me just tell you the value Melissa provides.

Having a listing specialist.

And, Melissa, if you're getting 1.3% more, how much.

How much money do you think we're helping our clients keep?

I've actually done the math, but how much money do you think we're helping our clients keep?

If you can get 1.3% more than.

Than the average.

You're gonna make me do math on the spot like that?

No, just take a guess.

Just take a guess.

$470,000.

Wow.

You've helped our clients retain almost a half a million dollars.

So if that's our mission.

If our mission is to save people time, reduce their stress, and help them keep as much money in their pocket as possible, by helping our clients get 1.3% more than average, we are helping them with almost a half a million dollars more in their pocket than if they would have worked with somebody else.

Can you imagine that?

Wow.

Nice.

If you want a half million dollars, work with Melissa.

Yeah.

All right, enough of the stats, because I know a lot of you right now.

Your eyes are glazed over.

Mine aren't, because this is what I nerd out about, which is why this team works so well.

But on this episode, we like to talk about mastering the fundamentals, falling in love with practice, and winning at the game of life.

So, Melissa, let's get right into this conversation.

Mastering the fundamentals of being a listing agent.

What is fundamental about listing someone's home?

The fundamentals that I try to talk to them about is every home has a value, right?

And so it depends on your condition, your price, and your location that helps when you go to sell your home.

And there's a lot of information out there.

And people are confused because they can look at some of those auto valuation models online that says, what is your home worth?

And they can vary.

They can have ten, $20,000 difference or more and the prices that they're giving you.

So I really talked to them about the fundamentals of selling your house.

Let's talk about price, condition, and location.

Location.

You can't really do much about that.

Your house is where it is.

You're not going to pick it up and move it and then sell it.

So we can talk about price and condition.

Those are the two things that we can control.

And the thing I love about our team is we incorporate that.

I love the numbers.

I love doing the market analysis.

I have, I have agents from other team calling and asking about market analysis and how we do that.

So, you know, great conversations that we've had with experts in the field, appraisers, people like that that help us be more accurate.

So the more accurate we can be on price and the way we price the home really plays a factor in how successful our sellers are.

The other thing is condition.

So, you know, you take into condition into consideration the condition of a home that plays a lot into the price.

If the home is move in ready, everything's brand new.

There have been a lot of updates to the home.

We can get a little more on the price side of a home.

Someone's going to move in and they're going to need to do some work, maybe replace some appliances, some other things that need to be done to the home.

Then we have to factor that into the price.

So those are the fundamentals that we talk about with sellers and where they are.

Like, do they want to do work or do they want to sell it as it is?

Because different people have different tolerances for things like that.

So that all plays into how we price a home and then how quickly that home will sell when it's on the market.

I think it's interesting to kind of pause right here and talk about when you're running a business, you really have kind of two mindsets.

The first is how do we actually go and get these clients?

Like, how do we make ourselves known?

I just did a recent podcast talking about the best known usually beats the best.

You've got to be the best known.

You have to have a business.

You have to have a product or service that warrants people calling you.

And Melissa, when you're helping people get almost a half a million dollars more in their pocket, they're going to start calling us.

And there's a slippery slope to that.

So you've got to be the best at something here.

We have to be the best at marketing.

Two people to call that want to put their home on the market with us.

Usually people that want to put their home on the market are going through a lifestyle transition.

If you know somebody right now, just shameless.

Plug.

If you know somebody going through a lifestyle transition who needs to have a conversation with Melissa, we're happy to kind of talk you through your options.

I think, Melissa, what?

What sometimes we fail to talk about is we're experts in the process, and fundamentals will never change.

Price, condition, location will never change.

I heard somebody one time when I first got started, my mentor said, homes are like Tupperware.

There's a lid for every jar.

Sometimes you just have to find it, and sometimes you have to look a little harder.

I think if you're listening right now, you've probably been frustrated looking for what lid fits my leftovers and whatnot.

But that's like being a realtor.

There's a lid for every jar, and we got to go find that buyer.

Price, condition, location.

Have you ever sold a home underneath the power line?

Yeah, absolutely.

But you had.

But I always say two out of three has to be correct.

It's hard to get three out of three, but two out of three has to get.

If you're under a power line, your location may not be great.

If you're on the corner of a busy road, your location may not be great.

So your price and your condition better be spot on.

So I love that we talked about the fundamentals.

You know, if you're in a business outside of real estate, ask yourself, what are the fundamentals?

Not only with what I do every day, but what are the fundamentals in serving my clients?

And sometimes those answers can change.

But behind the scenes, why?

Like, people now, we're 13 minutes into this episode, Melissa, and they're like, well, why does Melissa get a half a million dollars more for her sellers than what the average realtor?

How can I work with Melissa?

That's what they're probably thinking right now.

So we talked about the fundamentals of price, condition, and location.

But falling in love with practice, that's kind of the why behind how this all works.

Right?

This is like the tour of the chef's kitchen.

Let's see how the sausage is really made.

Tell us a little bit about what is falling in love with practice look like, what do you do on a regular, regular basis to help our clients and specifically our sellers win so I.

Think, first of all, I think open communication, that's huge.

And setting expectations with our clients.

You know, sometimes I always talk to clients, I say, I would rather surprise you now than surprise you later.

So when we're talking about price and they have a price in mind that they think their home is worth, and I do the market analysis and I can't get there.

I can't get where they want to be.

Yeah, I want a million dollars for my house, too, but it's just nothing worth a million dollars.

So being realistic and setting those expectations, and I think by doing that upfront and having that difficult conversation with them upfront is huge.

But then we talk about strategy.

So there are two different types of strategy.

When we get ready to list your house, we have a pricing strategy and we have a marketing strategy.

So on pricing strategy, we've talked about, you know, we have the market value pricing.

What is your house worth?

What do we think it's going to appraise at?

Let's list it at that price.

We put it on the market and that's where we're starting.

The other is we have is the event based pricing.

So maybe we know our house has some challenges.

We know that it's under the power lines and that's going to be a turn off for a lot of people.

So what do we do to still get people in the door?

So I always tell clients, I said, we don't create the market, we manage the market, so we don't create a buyer.

We don't have some mad lab where we're creating people.

But I, how do we get people in the door and then we manage that market?

So if you have a bad location, but you have a great condition and we price it right, people will come.

They will come, they will look at your home.

And chances are, if it's priced strategically, which would be, you know, the event based pricing, where you get people in there, you have a lot of activity, you start getting offers.

That's where you open the door for multiple offers that could then drive your price up.

However, had we started too high and you have a bad location, now we're having all these objections and we end up having to lower the price and now we're chasing the market down instead of chasing the market up.

So I think that the pricing strategy, when you take those fundamentals into consideration and see where we are that can help us decide what pricing strategy are we going to use with your home, our market.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Before you go to marketing strategy.

So the first thing you heard Melissa say is like, there's actually a strategy.

I remember after sitting at hundreds of kitchen tables, maybe thousands of kitchen tables, people were like, what's your strategy?

What are you going to do?

The typical realtor is I'm going to put in the MLS.

Really funny story.

A buddy of mine in Chicago was a realtor and he called me one time, he lost the listing.

He's like, brad, you're never going to guess what happened.

Melissa, I've never shared this with you actually.

So he called me, he's like, I just lost a listing.

I'm like, what happened?

No way.

I'm like, you're the best.

Your sign is everywhere.

And he goes, get this.

I met with somebody.

I was in a rush.

I did my thing.

They knew who I was.

I'm kind of like the local realtor everybody uses.

And I didn't hear back from them.

And then the worst thing ever happened, I drove by their home and I saw a sign in their yard.

If you're a realtor, you know this feeling right now, like you haven't been a realtor long enough.

If you've never had this feeling where you didn't hear from them, you drive by, there's a sign in the yard, somebody else is representing them.

He calls him and he goes, I'm not soliciting your business.

I'm trying to get better.

Grow constantly is one of our core values.

So he knew this, so he wanted to share this so that we never messed up.

He called to me, he goes, excuse me, mister and misses Smith, whatever.

He goes, I just need some feedback.

Everybody in this neighborhood uses me.

I just want to know, why didn't you use me?

And they said, well, we thought it was great.

We were excited to use you.

But this other realtor had something called the MLS.

So for those listening that don't know real estate, the MLS is the multiple listing service which is where all the homes go to be placed for sale, all right?

All the ones that are represented by a realtor.

And what he did and what Melissa's communicating here, or the opposite of what Melissa's communicating is, we actually communicate with our clients.

He did not communicate that he's going to put the listing in the MLS because that's just what he does.

So you're a small business owner.

You're sitting there thinking to yourself, do I have to communicate everything that I do?

Yes, communicate everything that you do.

Your clients don't know what you do for a living.

They don't know how you're going to help them sell their home.

So when we meet with people, what Melissa and I do is we let them know we actually have a strategy.

There's two strategies.

There's a pricing strategy and a marketing strategy.

So I'll recap the pricing strategy, and then, Melissa, go into the marketing strategy.

The listing strategy is there's three ways we can price your home.

Okay?

There's the aspirational price that Melissa talked about, where it's like this celebrity.

There's something.

Maybe.

Maybe your home was a parade of homes before, and it has every single upgrade imaginable, and we just shoot for the moon because it does have price condition and location that are spot on.

That's aspirational price.

Very few homes, actually, if you're thinking your home qualifies for aspirational price, it probably doesn't.

Very, very few homes actually qualify for that.

Market value pricing, or fair market pricing, is where we try to figure out what we think a buyer would be willing to pay.

And it usually generates maybe an offer, maybe a couple offer, a couple offers.

But what we like to do is we like to look at the average days on the market, the median days on the market, and when you price it based on the market value, it usually falls inside of that.

Then the event based pricing Melissa was talking about.

Have you ever been to an auction?

You know, this is how a lot of auctions work.

My grandfather was an auctioneer for 55 years, and I knew the science behind it.

Let's say you're selling $100,000 house, and what happens is the auctioneer would start.

Start the auction by saying, who's gonna start me out?

Who's gonna start me out?

What's the bidding?

Let's start at 120,000.

Who give me 120,000 when everybody knows it's worth 100?

And so the auction pricing is to get that event, get, get that.

Get that excitement going.

And he starts the bid, like, kind of with what's called an anchor thought, at, like 100, 110, 120, knowing that the first bid's actually gonna come in around 50.

So event based pricing is when we actually take a home, we put it below market value, which then drives it up like an auction.

Timeout.

Student of the game is brought to you by Knoll team Real Estate.

Our mission is to eradicate mediocre real estate transactions on your largest financial purchase.

You shouldn't have to deal with average.

We do this by helping you save time, reduce your stress, and helping you keep as much money in your pocket as we can.

You can help us out by introducing us to your friends or family who want to make competent real estate decisions, whether buying, selling, building or investing.

At Noel team Real Estate, we are connected to a group of realtors who sell one in every eight homes in North America.

If you know someone moving out of your area, there's a great chance we can connect them to somebody we know, like and trust.

Remember, relationships win.

Now back to the show.

So Melissa, let's talk about our integrated marketing strategy.

This is something that I feel like, you know, most people say, I'm going to put a sign in the art, I'm going to put it in the MLS and I'm going to get some photography done.

But, but integrated marketing strategy, what is that?

Yeah, so integrated marketing strategies.

When you use multiple strategies and you work with those together and where you spend your energy and your focus kind of depends on who you think the audience is for that house also.

So we have our traditional marketing, which is listing it in the multiple listing service, our direct marketing campaigns where, you know, we can mail postcards out, reach out to people that are the prime audience for this type of home.

And then we have open house events where we host an open house.

People come in, we can do those with brokers, we can do them to the public.

However, we have sat down and decided with our clients is best going to serve them and this property.

So that's the traditional strategy.

I would add one more thing to the traditional, and this is something that you do really well, is network with other agents.

You know, talk to other agents all the time.

You know, one of the facts is that, you know, we need to communicate is 85% of homes are co brokered, meaning one person's representing the buyer, one person's representing the seller.

85% of all transactions.

This includes for sale by owners.

This includes, you know, grandma selling their home to, you know, the grandson.

85% of all home sales are co brokered.

So we have to, and we get to have great relationships with our friendly competitors in our local marketplace.

So networking with other agents is a really big deal.

And that kind of encompasses traditional marketing, because here's what Melissa's getting ready to talk about.

We have a traditional digital and social strategy.

If you're talking to somebody as you're getting ready to sell your home and they can't communicate these, there's a good chance that that entrepreneur is going to miss something, right?

So, like, if you're all techie and you're digital and a realtor's talking to you about the open houses, they're going to do.

They're like, oh, you're archaic, you know, you're a dinosaur if somebody's not techie.

And they're talking about, we're going to advertise on Facebook and social media and they're like, well, I'm not on social media.

You're going to miss some people.

So we've got digital and social media, Melissa, talk about digital.

So at digital, we have our listing website.

So where we put all of our listings, we can do email campaigns.

We have a huge database and we can send out our listings to that database.

Now, that person may be a past client that they aren't looking to buy or sell, but maybe their brother is or a friend or a neighbor.

So we want to reach out to them so that they can see what we're doing, too.

And then we also have the option of Google Ads and banner ads and, you know those annoying little things that pop up when you're doing your searches and, you know, so we can get into that arena as well.

Then we get into our social media marketing.

So that's our Instagram, our stories, our reels, our Facebook posts, our YouTube property tours that we do.

So you take all of those.

And like I said, it's a good mix of them.

And depending on the property, if it's a unique property, we're really going to push some of the digital to get it out to a further, wider audience because that's going to be an attraction to people, maybe from out of town.

So I think some of the trap that a lot of agents, especially agents that have been in the business for a long time, is it's a one size fits all.

And I don't think that's the case.

And I think we really take the time to get to know our clients, what their goals are, their property, and then we can customize these strategies to fit what's best going to serve them.

I think a lot of times, too, you get caught up when somebody asks you to come over the house, take a look at it, give them a price.

They're like, well, what do you think it's worth?

And it's like, timeout.

Like, it's, it's not fair to do this because you have to understand there's really, your value of your home is an opinion.

No matter, no matter what anybody thinks, it's just an opinion.

And we like to say there's four opinions of value.

There's your assessed value.

That's what you're going to pay your taxes off of.

There's your AVM value, which is what you know, all of the websites say that your home's worth the automated valuation model.

Then there's your fair market value, which we talk about.

That's a space that we live in most days.

And then there's your appraised value, not even to mention what a buyer thinks it's worth.

And so there's all these opinions of value.

But once we go through a home now, we can kind of take a step back and say, mister and misses seller, what's most important to you?

Let's talk about your timing.

Let's talk about your lifestyle.

Does it stress you out more to sell it quick, or does it stress you out more to have it on the market for 100 days?

So we are going to work side by side.

That's, I think the thing that's missing in a lot of businesses is small business owners want to be the hero.

They want to buy my product because you'll lose weight.

Buy my product because you'll be healthier.

Buy my product because you'll x, Y and Z.

When in reality we're just a guide.

We're here to help our sellers reduce their stress, save time, and help them keep as much money in their pocket as possible.

And the only way to do that is to collaborate with our listing price strategy and our integrated marketing strategy.

And that is custom to each person.

Melissa?

Yes.

The number one, I want you to talk a little bit about the way you work here because I studied this.

Every year the National association of Realtors puts out a homebuyers and sellers profile book and it talks about what works and what doesn't work.

And I've got data for days in my head.

I've got, I'm a vat of useless information most days.

But the number one complaint with realtors is lack of communication.

They don't listen.

They don't listen, they don't communicate.

And maybe when you're starting off in your small business, whether you're selling t shirts or you're a landscaper or whatever you do for a living, you know you're working hard.

But if you don't communicate the work that you're doing, your customers, your clients don't think you are communicating.

So I saw early on that the number one complaint was lack of communication.

So what did I need to do?

I needed to build capacity because I couldn't go from working 40 hours to 50 hours to 60 hours to 70 hours to one year.

I saw myself working 80 hours a week before I had kids.

And I knew it was at that moment that if I wanted to sell more homes, serve more people, I had to work more hours, and I just didn't have the capacity to do so.

So I knew I needed to leverage that with a team.

And so, Melissa, talk about the things that you do on a regular basis that actually is getting us.

It speaks to the communication, or lack of communication that most, uh, home sellers feel.

What do.

What are you doing to make sure nobody complains about our communication?

Yeah, I think that I'm going to go back to what you said earlier about capacity.

I think that from a lot of people, it's not that they don't want to communicate, they just don't have the time.

So they don't have the capacity to do that.

So, you know, I always tell clients, our number one goal is to how do we maximize your outcome and minimize your stress?

And talking to them about what are their stress points?

Points.

So as part of that communication, they have shared with me up front, what is the most stressful thing for them?

Is it trying to coordinate a buy and a sell at the same time?

Is it actually packing?

Is it the showings themselves when they have kids and a dog at home?

And how are they going to get everybody out to go do these showings?

So I've tried to find out what those points are and then as things.

Cause it is a stressful time.

Moving is stressful no matter how much you try to minimize it.

So how do we help with that?

So whenever something happens or I, whenever a question is asked, I always bring it back to, these are the things you told me to focus on.

These are the things that are stressful to you.

Let's, let's help with that.

This is going to help with that.

But back to the, you know, the capacity, because I'm not running around showing buyers homes.

You have a buyer specialist for that.

I'm only working with the seller, so I'm available to take their phone call.

I normally always, unless I'm on another call, I always answer the call.

And if I don't answer, I call them back immediately.

And I will say, when you look at some of our reviews, that's one of the things that come back, always returns my calls, returns my emails quickly because I have the capacity to do that.

So I think they want to feel heard.

The clients want to feel heard, and they want to know that you're in their corner and that you're constantly, there are no surprises.

You're constantly sharing with them and letting them know what's going on, because I think what we for a lot of agents forget is that most people are doing this once every five to seven to 20 years.

We're doing it every day.

So some of the things that we take for granted and think everybody knows they don't.

In fact, I had a client today that I was meeting with.

We were doing photos of his house, and I actually said, here's how I'm going to communicate with you.

And we talked about even the showing time.

If a showing doesn't work, here's what we're going to do.

You're going to call me, we're going to talk about it.

And afterwards I said, well, when you get an offer, we'll talk about that.

But my goal is to maximize your outcome, minimize your stress.

And I said, because not all of, all offers are the same.

So what we're going to focus on is the net.

We're not going to get lost in the details.

We're going to focus on the net.

I said, because the net is your outcome and we want to maximize your net.

He goes, I really like that because that is what's important to them.

Like, you talk about it all the time, all the different check boxes in a purchase agreement and a seller trying to navigate that on their own.

How do we help them to understand what that is?

Because for me, I got a little bit of teacher blood in me, too.

And so I want to make sure they are understanding.

I want them to understand what I'm telling them.

I want them to trust me, but trust but verify, right?

So I want them to understand what we're talking about and ask me questions.

I'm not, and I, again, back to capacity, because I have the capacity and I have the time to talk to them.

They can ask me all these questions and I can spend time with them and do that.

I'm not running out looking for the next client.

I'm not running around showing houses.

I'm solely focused on them.

And I think that that makes a huge difference in the outcome.

They get well, and a lot of times we talk about when somebody goes to sell their home, there's actually two stresses involved.

The first stress is the reason why they're moving.

Yes.

And the second one is the actual move itself.

You know, I think it's, it gets lost a lot that when people move, it's usually just a good thing.

Like somebody found their dream home and they moved.

And we say this all the time, like the three ds are real in real estate, death, divorce and delinquency.

And there's a lot of kitchen tables we sit at where a spouse passes away.

There's a lot of kitchen tables we sit at where, you know, the marriage is no longer working, you know, and not to mention, you know, a job loss or, you know, I can't make my payments anymore, you know, so there's all of these challenges that people have.

That's the first stress.

The second stress is the actual move itself.

And so if you're in a business that the work you do isn't the reason people are doing it, right?

Like, if you're a landscaper, if you just go and you give somebody a landscape project, here's something that's really close to home.

I know, Melissa, you've dealt with this, too, is like, we have a high school senior.

We're going to have a grad party.

Well, guess what?

Lindsey's already started thinking about landscaping and what projects are we going to do to the house?

And I'm thinking to myself, oh, goodness.

And if I'm a landscaper and I just go and give somebody a quote, but not realize the reason why I'm giving them the quote, you're missing the relational part of this.

And I think, you know, a lot of times we talk about when, when you meet somebody's transactional needs, you make a check.

When you meet their relational needs, that's when you make an advocate.

And I'm only looking for advocates in this business.

I'm only looking to serve somebody at such a high level that they want to tell their friends and family.

That's what winning looks like to us.

That's when they have great outcomes.

We meet their emotional needs in this transaction.

Now, we just made an advocate, Melissa.

I mean, I don't want to throw any punches here, but I think you've helped people make almost a half a million dollars.

I would say that there's some pretty good outcomes there, and that makes me happy.

I like, I'm happy when they're happy.

For those of you listening who just tuned in, Melissa didn't know that she's helped people make over a half a million, almost a half a million dollars more than what the market averages, by the way.

So we help our clients get 1.3% more than the market average, and it's because we believe in a specialist model.

So if you join our team, you may not be on my pipeline, you may not work directly with my clients like Melissa does, but we have independent agents on our team.

The reason they're successful is because we take the same model.

We may not take a listing agent buyer, agent model.

But we have amazing staff.

We have amazing employees that we have amazing team members that we say our realtors on our team have four job descriptions, build relationships, list homes, show homes, and negotiate deals.

And if you're on our team and you're doing something other than that, you better love doing it, because it's not what's going to grow your business.

It's not what's going to serve your clients.

It's not what's going to give them the highest outcomes possible.

And we believe we have the highest outcomes possible because we have a very clear job description.

We specialize, and we have an amazing team behind us.

Melissa, you mentioned this.

I don't keep rambling, but you mentioned the purchase agreement has about eight pages to it.

There's 492 lines and 96 checkboxes, and we've calculated it.

I know we're weird.

I know.

I love to nerd out, but those checkboxes, those 96 check boxes account for somewhere between three to 5% of the total purchase price.

That's not including the negotiation of the price.

That's not including the negotiation of repairs during inspections.

That's just the purchase agreement alone.

Knowing that somebody has the capacity to have the time to go through those check boxes, to go through to make sure that they know how representing you is.

Winning is really important.

I can't tell you and Melissa, I know you know this.

I can't tell you the number of offers we've gotten from other agents where some of those boxes aren't even checked.

Some.

Some of the purchase agreement isn't even filled out correctly.

And, you know, people are practicing real estate.

They're not professionals.

They're practicing it like they need to become pros.

So, um, I'm getting off on a tangent now.

Back, back to Melissa and.

And our listing specialist.

So, what you heard Melissa say was, we actually have strategies.

We have a pricing strategy, and we have an integrated marketing strategy.

We don't want to leave any stone unturned.

You want an open house?

I think open houses.

Melissa's like the open house queen, first of all.

So let me give you two perspectives.

The first perspective is the way open houses used to be.

The National association of Realtors says that 3% of all sales come from open houses.

Okay.

It's a very low number.

So what I used to tell my clients, because I didn't want to work on Sundays, I wanted one day off, is, I would say, well, at least there's a 97% chance we're still going to sell your home without doing an open house.

Okay.

Um, Melissa, you've had a lot of success with open houses.

Um, talk about your open house strategy and why.

Why do people just feel at home with you?

Why do people feel comfortable with you when they walk in the door?

What do you do different, and how do you hold an open house?

So I look at the open house as it's an interactive time to sell your house.

Um, one of the things I didn't mention before is there's passive selling and active selling.

And I truly believe that we take an active selling approach, and that means we're not just sticking a sign in the yard and waiting for people to call us.

We are proactively out there looking for agents with buyers and other buyers.

So I think that same approach with an open house, you go to do the open house, you're prepared, you know everything there is to know about the house.

You interact with everybody that walks in the door, find out what they're looking for, if.

And the other thing, I always get feedback.

I get feedback on the house, what they think of the house, what they liked, what they didn't like.

Is this a house that they could see themselves in?

If not, why?

Because this is good feedback for the seller.

And I think a lot of times what happens at an open house is people put an open house sign in the yard, say, come in, they serve some cookies and some soda, and people tour the house, and then they walk.

And that was it.

So I think that you have to be interactive and talk to people when they come in the door.

And maybe I have a different take on it, too, because I feel like if a seller is going to open their house and let people come in and tour it, those people, they deserve to get some feedback from those people.

So I kind of look at it at that approach.

And yes, I've had people walk in and then buy the house, whether it's through us or if they already have an agent they're working with.

But it's great because I'm there to actually actively sell the house to people, and who knows the house better than me since I've been working with the sellers.

So I just think that that's a different approach than what a lot of open houses I've been to, because we're actually, I go into it thinking I could find a buyer there that day.

Absolutely.

And so I think as somebody who wants to communicate and educate the marketplace is as of August 17, buyer agency took effect.

And so if you're somebody that a house pops up, it's on the market.

If you want to go see a house, you have to sign a contract if you want to be represented.

If you want to be represented, you have to sign a contract with a buyer's agent to go look at a house.

Well, maybe you just only want to see one house.

And so an open house is actually a really good way to get in.

So one of the things we're encouraging our sellers is there may be a lot of people out there who want to buy a home.

They're not quite ready to commit to a realtor just yet.

Not our clients, because we're highly relational and they trust us.

But there's a lot of people that maybe bought a home five, six, seven years ago.

The realtor is not in business anymore.

House comes on the market, if there's an open house, they'll go see it.

And that's where we have to use kind of a progressive approach to open houses and not just go back to the old school mentality of, like, oh, they don't work.

3% of a home.

Home sales come from open houses.

Maybe, maybe not anymore.

Right.

And so these are things that we're kind of on the cutting edge of trying to figure out.

How do we help our clients with the best possible outcomes?

And I tell my kids all the time, there's no such thing as failure.

There's only feedback.

I can't get any better if I don't have any feedback.

If Lindsey doesn't give me feedback on how I am as a husband, I can't change.

And so I ask for feedback.

How am I doing with my kids?

When we do an open house, that's actually feedback for the sellers.

Hey, you know how we talked about price?

You know, we thought it was 400.

There's, everybody walked in and thought it was overpriced.

That's not us telling you.

That's just what the market's saying.

So it's a really good time to get some feedback.

Let's start wrapping this thing up, because I could go for days talking about listings, and I could go for days talking about how our clients in the last three years have made almost half a million dollars more than the average.

Because we're eradicating mediocrity here, Melissa.

Yes, but let's talk about winning at the game of life.

So we started off with mastering the fundamentals, right?

I mean, fundamentals never change.

The strategies and tactics do.

And price, condition and location are the fundamentals.

We talked about falling in love with practice.

How are we winning?

How is our clients winning?

What do you do every single day that people don't know about?

All the unseen work that happens, that's really getting the list price strategy right, the integrated marketing strategy.

Correct.

It's about communicating all of those things.

But now we got to get to winning at the game of life.

What does winning at the game of life look like for Melissa specifically?

Well, I love this job.

I mean, it took me a while to find my calling, and I really feel like this is it.

And when I know that I have helped a client reach their goals that they told me were important to them, that's a win for me.

And I love the whole win win mentality that we have.

So I think that always doing what you say you're going to do, always being upfront and honest with people and showing up, I mean, I think that's winning.

And so a happy client makes me happy.

That's awesome.

I want to.

You didn't know I was going to do this, but when I first met you, I think it was three years ago or so.

And I say, hey, what are your goals?

And you're like, well, in three years, all my kids will be out of the house, and I want to be the listing agent for three years.

And then I want to grow my own business.

And I keep challenging on that.

Like, hey, okay.

Like, so I guess the listeners want to know, like, are you done?

Is this your last year?

Is this kind of your walk off season?

Are we going to keep, keep being listing agent specialist, and we go help people keep a lot of money?

I know.

I really like being the listing agent, you know, and I'm going to.

I should have said this sooner.

I said, you know, we talk about a team, our team, and we've said, we kept saying this over and over and over and over, and team means something different to different people.

You go to a lot of real estate agencies, and, you know, where I've worked before, too, a team is five agents in the same office, and they call themselves a team.

We are truly a team with a specialized model.

You know, we have our seller's agent, we have our buyer's agent, we have our marketing person.

We have our, we've got Lindsey doing the staging and the interior design, and then we have our office staff.

That's the behind the scenes support.

This is truly a team.

And I don't think until people work with us, I don't think they really understand what all they're getting when they hire our team, they're not getting one person wearing five hats, they're getting five people wearing one hat, and it keeps us focused, and this is why we get the outcomes that we get.

So now, after having done this for three years, I absolutely love it.

And, you know, so, no, I'm not going anywhere unless you're trying to tell me something.

Nope.

Nope.

Not at all.

Not at all.

I think.

I think what I wanted to do is give you a gift of some stats that actually shows you and the listener why this specialist model works.

I saw it with the buyer's agent four or five years ago when we started it.

I saw it play out, and I just knew if we get the right person to help with the listings, our sellers would get the same experience.

And so it's been difficult, not gonna lie.

I mean, there's a lot of days we've got to be better at our communication and the.

And as we continue to grow and as we continue to get better, it's just creating better outcomes for our clients, which is the most important thing.

So if you're running a business and you set an income goal and you think your income is the most important thing, you're going to burn out and you're not going to last very long.

If the most important thing for you is to serve your clients at a level that's exceptional and that eradicates mediocre experiences for people, you're going to be around for a long time.

So I know that's what we're doing.

The stats show it, 36 million in sales volume in three years.

That eclipses most businesses, most realtors businesses by themselves.

And you're doing it just on the listing.

So congratulations.

Last thing is, the kids say, send them their flowers, which just means accolades, right?

Like, my kids are like, oh, give this man his flowers.

Give this woman her flowers.

And Melissa.

So I got to ask you, because we believe relationships win in the game of life.

Relationships win on this podcast.

Relationships win with my finances, relationships win with my health.

Relationships win every area of my life, I believe relationships win.

So, who is somebody you want to send some virtual flowers to today?

Who's somebody you want to share some appreciation with on this podcast?

So, I know this is going to sound a bit cliche, but I have to say, brad little, my husband, because from the get go, he has always been a great support system for me.

Very encouraging.

Some of the crazy ideas I've come up with in the 23 years that we've been married, and he's there to support me through that.

He's also been my best sounding board.

And I love the fact that he will tell me when I'm wrong.

Well, of course, you know, most husbands like to do that, but in a business situation or something else, he will challenge me to see things from a different viewpoint, and he will call me out.

He doesn't just, he's not just my yes man.

He's a great sounding board, and we run a lot of scenarios past each other, and I love that.

And then he's my biggest cheerleader.

So always rooting me on.

So we always call our, we have a big family, and we always call our family team little.

And he leads up team little.

That's awesome.

Flowers to Brad little.

I can attest to that.

He's a good dude.

You may not know this, but he sent me a personal text a week or so ago just on some personal things that we had going on with the kids that was just encouraging.

And he's awesome all the way around, and I think him and I kind of see business similar.

And he does a great job for the community foundation here in Fort Wayne.

So.

Flowers.

Brad Little, you're getting some flowers today on the podcast.

Melissa, thanks for hanging out with us today.

If you like this episode, if you want to hear more from our team, screenshot this.

Tag me.

That way we know we're doing it right.

And if you don't like it, don't share it.

Don't tag it.

Don't, don't give us any feedback.

But this podcast grows when you leave a review.

This podcast grows when, when you share it with friends.

If you found this helpful, if you're a realtor and you want to talk about, you know, joining our team and why we do things different, awesome.

If you're a realtor and you don't want to join our team, but you just want to learn, I'm happy to help, so feel free to reach out.

Melissa, thank you for being a wonderful guest today.

Thank you for being a wonderful listing specialist, you're doing a great job.

I can say you're doing a good job, but the numbers tell the world you are doing an amazing job.

So keep up the good work.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

Well, this has been a fun episode.

Anytime I get to bring my team on, this is a, this is an amazing episode.

One because we get to lock this up in the vault and keep it forever, and it's awesome.

So keep up the good work, Melissa.

If you're thinking about selling your home, if you're thinking about just having a conversation at a kitchen table, you want to know what your home is worth, feel free to reach out to us.

No pressure.

We're just here to help and serve the best way we can so we know people sell their homes because they're going through a lifestyle situation.

And we definitely want to come alongside you.

So thanks for listening.

Thank you, Melissa.

Thank you.

That's a wrap.

Thanks for listening to student of the game podcast.

Whatever game you are playing, I'm cheering for you.

See you in the next class.