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Here is the best-kept secret about finding new listing leads.

Most agents know what to do when a customer fills out a CMA request on his website (or calls to ask for one). The problem is that those are few and far between. Right? Right. Another concern is that most sellers who ask you for a home valuation also ask several other agents at the same time.

Why do you think that you always seem to be competing with other agents on listing presentations, anyway? Here’s why. We all use the same two age-old favorite and often touted sources of seller leads: FSBO (for sale by owner) sellers and expired listings.

Just like the CMA requests, the problem with both FSBOs and expireds is the fact that you’ll be competing for those listings with the hungriest and most aggressive agents in your market. Have you noticed? I sure have.

And while both FSBO’s and expireds are good sources for listings, those properties tend to be tougher to sell, either because the seller is unrealistic or because the property has been stigmatized by having been on the market since well before you get to list it. That makes typical listing leads lower quality and harder to win. Not a great combination.

I like getting my seller leads from a place where nobody else is looking: from buyer leads! What?! That’s right – from my buyer leads! Let me explain. According to the National Association of REALTORS, first-time homebuyers account for 40% of all real estate purchases.

That 40% number has held constant for years and shows no indication of changing any time soon, although last year with the government sponsored first time home buyer incentives, it did spike up to 47%, but as soon as the program ended, so did the spike. One thing is for certain: none of these first-time homebuyers are listing leads!

Another 23% of homebuyers are looking for investments, while 13% are purchasing vacation homes. Of the investment properties, some are bought to “flip,” while others are bought to hold and rent. The same is true of vacation home sales: many are bought to hold, while many others are step-up purchases, resulting in potential listings as well.

That being said, the best numbers from the NAR tell us that 52% of all buyers are also selling – some in the same markets as their new purchases and some in other markets – so more than half of the buyer leads that you get will also be sellers.

Here’s the little-known secret that will give you the first, and hopefully only, shot at those sellers: Buyer leads almost always find a replacement home before thinking of selling.

As professionals we understand that this is not in the correct order, but our clients typically get it backwards. The human psyche is hard-wired with a security need. We don’t quit our job until we line up another. We don’t sell our car until we find the new one. The same is true with real estate.

The key to generating an unending supply of fresh listing leads is to generate lots of buyer leads and then find the half who are selling too. In most of those cases, you have the opportunity to list a home without anyone else’s knowing it’s going to be on the market. What a huge advantage!

So over half of the buyers will either have a home for you to list or – better yet – have a listing lead you can refer to an agent in another market, giving you a referral fee with very little work involved! No picked-over expireds. No FSBOs that know it all. Just an endless supply of new inbound seller leads with no competition.

And having that endless supply of inbound listing leads is the key to becoming the dominant listing agent in your market. Now I’m going to share an added benefit of generating your own inbound customers.

Never worry about violating the “do not call” regulations again.

In March of 2005, the FCC imposed a $770,000 fine on a Phoenix, Arizona, mortgage company for violating the Federal Do-Not-Call Law. The FCC alleged that Dynasty Mortgage made 70 calls to 50 homes in Arizona and California between March 2, 2004, and January 20, 2005. A fine of $11,000 per incident was imposed on 70 separate counts, and the company was given only 30 days to pay the fine.

Curtis White, Dynasty’s president, said that his company had extensive systems in place to try to ensure that any do-not-call numbers were not called. However, some calls may have been made mistakenly because of a “flaw in the system,” and the company is now working to fix the problem.

If this example doesn’t make you think twice about cold calling, nothing will! I can remember many days of cold calling when I would make more than 70 calls! It would be easy to violate the DNC laws accidentally by calling homes that “showed” to be “okay” on the latest list (which may have been out of date at the time of your calls). And $11,000 is a huge marketing cost to incur accidentally.

So how can you be certain that this kind of disaster never happens to you? By making only prospecting calls to inbound leads! How can you do that? With lead capture gateway technology, every lead is permission-based. By this, I mean that the lead has first contacted you and given you his phone number and, with it, implied consent to market to him.

The Federal Do-Not-Call Law is very clear on the fact that, in such instances, there’s a three-month window of exemption from the date of inquiry. And your innocence is very easy to prove if you have a time-and-date stamped inquiry on file for each lead. Inbound Internet leads are the safest of all leads to call – period.

So how safe is your marketing? Do you have efficient lead capture on your website? If you don’t, the first step to becoming a dominant real estate agent is having too many customers. You really have to start there. Everything else is second to that.

Today, the lead vendors and national real estate companies are spending lots of money tapping the Internet, and if you’re going to compete with them, you’re going to have to have technology that places you on the same level with them.

What’s next? In the next chapter, we’ll start discussing the actual listing presentation that I used to list 114 homes in a single year – all at 8% or more! What’s the key to building your credibility as a listing agent?

How can you go up against the top agents in your market and come out with the listing? How can you be totally confident walking into every single listing presentation? How can you make your presentation different from every other agent’s in your market?

All these questions will be answered in the next chapter, so you won’t want to miss it. In the meantime, work on getting your technology and your advertising in place. There’s never going to be a better time to start than right now.

Do you frequently or periodically make essentially the “same” presentation or speech? Perhaps, as Human Resources Director in a large organization, you regularly welcome new employees. Maybe you, as a department head in your marketing firm, initiate the weekly meeting of your group. You may, as City Engineer, routinely brief the City Council at its monthly meeting. As Engineering Dean, I frequently welcomed groups of high school students and their parents who were visiting our and other colleges of engineering to help them decide what university they may want to attend.

The good news about these apparently routine presentations is that they are easy, that is, relative to some of the critical one-of-a-kind speeches we also prepare for and present and sometimes dread. The bad news about the apparently routine presentations is also that they are easy. And, therefore, we may not give them proper attention, we get careless, we lose our edge, the audience knows it, and we fall short of the intent of oour communication.

More specifically, when we give the same presentation over and over, we may inadvertently fall into these traps:

1) Verbal graffiti: “Ah,” “you know,” “um,” and “he/she goes,” are examples. This happens because we are not thinking, not focusing-we are on autopilot. Think you don’t do this? Maybe you don’t, but why not verify? The next time you make that routine presentation, unobtrusively place an audio recorder on the lectern or table and, at your leisure, listen to yourself.

2) Negative body language or distracting behavior: Examples are holding our arms across our chest as we speak, which many interpret as your being autocratic and not open to input; failing to make eye contact with all portions of the audience; and excessive fiddling with our eye glasses.

3) No enthusiasm: You used the same words and sentences so many times that you just can’t get up for it. For example, I once worked in an organization where the chief executive, whenever he spoke and whoever he spoke to, always began with an expression like “I am pleased to be here”-got a little old.

For some of us who give that frequent speech to what is always a new audience, please consider the applicability of this advice: We get only one chance to make a first impression. Let’s leverage those “one chance” speaking opportunities.

Some thoughts for improving your “stump speech”:

1) Listen to a recording of your current presentation, as suggested above, or ask a colleague or friend to critique your speech. Identify strengths and weaknesses. Build on the former and fix the latter.

2) Commit to minimizing verbal graffiti. You don’t have to give a presentation to do this. Work at eliminating meaningless word and sounds in you every day conversations.

3) Find or develop a new opening each time, such as a story, metaphor, quote, or example. Yes, this requires extra effort. One benefit of that effort: thinking deeper about your audience and what you want them to learn and/or do. Using a new opening also adds freshness to your comments.

As stated by writer and author, Patricia T. O’Connor, “An audience is a terrible thing to lose.” That is exactly what happens when your audience senses that you are simply going through the motions. Instead, make them feel special. While you have presented the message many times, for them it should be as though it is the first time.