The Agent Who Still Makes His Own 200 Calls a Week - James Tostevin #140

James Tostevin makes 200 prospecting calls a week and has never once let his team make them for him. His database runs to about 3,000 people, and he says the qualifying period before any of it pays is roughly five years.

James Tostevin has sold Melbourne property for about 40 years at Marshall White, a network of nine offices and around 350 people. He says he has personally called more than 4,000 auctions.

What you will learn:

- Why he thinks 1,000 contacts is the minimum viable database, and how he spaces the calls

- The five year qualifying period, and where agents typically fall away at year one and year two

- Why he says most agents practise on real clients, and the three person drill he uses instead

- The auction that passed in at 2.47 million, and the 130,000 he negotiated afterwards

- Why he tells young agents to spend their Saturday afternoons at a competitor's open home

Chapters

00:00 Calls from nine until half four, and why the blocks matter

01:26 Where a new agent should actually start on the phone

05:25 Do they think of you when they think real estate

10:32 The fear of what it will cost, and what he offers instead

13:54 A database of 1,000, and why his is three times that

18:29 The divorce at ten, and where the competitiveness came from

20:02 Six kids, and the things he did not have growing up

22:00 Why most agents practise on real clients

27:40 Go and stand in your competitor's open home

30:03 Learning quickly instead of learning slowly

31:49 What a world class week actually looks like

34:51 Is the next generation soft, or just differently trained

39:27 Compartments, and how he switches it off

42:27 Being number one, and being surpassed

47:11 What actually separates the very top

50:28 Underquoting in Melbourne, and why agents keep doing it

53:45 Put the offer in even when you think it is too high

56:58 Working the buyer, and the 130,000 after it passed in

1:00:13 The training most offices never bother to do

James Tostevin has made his own 200 calls a week for 30 years and the database pays him back. Property should work the same way.

Most properties only make money if the market does. The ones that pay for themselves from the day you settle are bought differently, and it comes down to four points.

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General information only. Not financial, tax, legal or credit advice. Bothsides is not a mortgage broker or credit provider.