Direct Selling Techniques with Mat Steinwede

We unpack the power of direct selling and buyer matching—showing why off-market deals, relationships, and proactive buyer management outperform open houses in any market.

• finding off-market opportunities by asking “would you sell at the right price?”
• matching motivated buyers to homes through database mastery
• prioritising midweek inspections over open houses
• building a relationship market, not relying on online enquiries
• using buyer management to stay consistent in all conditions
• thinking in “what else?” to uncover hidden deal flow
• selling through connection, not just exposure

A practical guide to becoming a true buyer-matching agent and winning in any market cycle.

Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

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Transcript

Lee Woodward: 0:05

Hello and welcome to the podcast We Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward of Realtair. Realtair is the one platform of choice of real estate professionals, allowing you to pitch, sign, and sell real estate. Today's programme features Mr. Mat Steinwede, and we are discussing direct selling techniques, how you actually match people to property. It's a great tip. Mat, thank you for joining us. Thanks, Lee. Mat, your number one tip for an agent to stay consistent in their career and contribute to all times all markets, especially the market we're in now, what would it be?

Mat Steinwede: 0:46

Oh, there's so many, but I'll I'll just drill down on one of them at the moment is off-market listings. And what I mean by that is even if you're a new agent, see, everyone looks for this secret to that's going to make bring in business. It's people's motivation or it's people's emotion attached to something. So if you went around and door knocked five streets a day, so let's say you're a new agent, and you just said to the owners, would you sell at the right price? That's the only question that you ask. Would you sell at the right price? You know some will say yes? And the interesting thing at the moment is you find a buyer that really wants a house, they don't care about the market conditions. They don't care about the market's dropped five per cent. They care about their home. Do you know how many off-market deals we're putting together at the moment? Good example. We just sold a a property, an owner rings me. We want to sell our house. We want to sell our house. Cool. What do you think it's worth? I said, probably one to one one. And he's like, okay. That's fine. I said, Could I show somebody the house? And he said, Yeah, potentially. I showed the person, paid one one seven. One one seven. Needed to be fully rebuilt. Old house, forty years old, okay spot. Ray White lists a house down the road, goes to auction. The house was fully renovated, four-bedroom, beautiful, amazing, blah, blah, blah. At auction, sells for 119. Wow. 119. This is what I mean. Find the current of willingness in the market right now. You will match people. So you've got to have your buyers though, your hot buyers. Just find hot buyers. People that want to buy a house. Then go and see if people will sell at the right price. You will sell some of those houses.

Lee Woodward: 2:34

And Mat, in this current time that we're seeing now, people don't know this about you, but you've always been strong in buy management. You do speak to people. You don't say just go to the open. All the time. All the time.

Mat Steinwede: 2:45

I hate open houses. Let's be clear. Let's be clear. I hate open houses. I don't use the word hate. I hate open houses. Open houses are just the laziest way to deal with buyers in the world. I say to owners, when I list their house for auction, and I'm going off on a tangent at the moment, but it's true. I say to owners, pay no attention to the buyers that come through your open house. Pay every attention to the ones I bring through on a Tuesday, a Thursday, or a Friday, anytime they want to come, pay every attention to those.

Lee Woodward: 3:13

And how interesting that in my entire time of training trying to explain to people the importance of midweek inspections, and in the hot market, it's like, why would you bother? Just go to the open. They'll all make offers. It just saves yourself time. People wouldn't know this, but you and I are recording right now, we're middle of the month, you're you're on 20 deals for the month. Yeah. That is not due to opens, because No, none.

Mat Steinwede: 3:35

It's due to being a sales professional. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. We have this great saying, Trev and I, what else, what else, what else, what else, what else? And we sit on the phone. So there's me, Trev, and Nick and Jordan, our buyer agents. I ring Jordan at five o'clock, I ring Nick at 5.15, and Trev gets back to me whenever it may be 7.30, he's got kids and things. We sit on the phone for half an hour, I reckon, each in the mornings. What else, what else, what else, what else, what else, what else, what else? That's what we say to each other. What else? What else? And we say, Oh, this one here, this one here, this one here. What else? What else? Because I'm bringing out, and I am too. It's making us think about what other things are out there that we can match together. Because it's no different than a kid's, you know, those kids matching games where you turn the cards over and you've got to remember where they are? Same. It's like, what else where was that card? Where was this person? Where was that? That's our job. You get good at that, you will write so much business.

Lee Woodward: 4:22

I remember one of the first early audios I ever did, interviewing this seasoned professional. I said, So how do you make so many sales? He said, I make one list of all the hot buyers and I list all my properties, and I draw a line between them, and most of those come off. And it was this great illustration of I've got them and them. You'll buy that one, you'll buy that one. He said, But Lee, I physically draw a line between the two columns. Yeah. That was the first buyer match ever. And it was in analogue. Is that in Agent Box? No, no, it's not.

Mat Steinwede: 4:53

It's complete data, I mean.

Lee Woodward: 4:55

Yeah, what it anything How interesting. There's tech and technique. So the technique of saying, what else have we got? What else can we do? Yes. No piece of software is going to fix that. Yes. Never. Because it takes human feeling.

Mat Steinwede: 5:08

That's so true. People ring me all the time about your database. But I always say to them, it's what drives it. It's like it's the database is like just a big tank. But it's all totally. I love um Bill Bridges, remember him? Um and I went down in the store and his he was about back then he was about 70. You know, that was fifteen years ago. And now I said to Bill, why are you so good? So he used to put deals together everywhere. He looks at me and he taps his head, you can't see it at the moment, but he taps his head on his temple like that. I got it all in here. And that was his database. And he used to just drive his brain and he used to sell outsell everyone. But he used to just remember match, match, match, match.

Lee Woodward: 5:49

Yeah, it's not about they'll turn up and buy it. And funny enough, some of the best buyers do not understand why they should buy the home yet.

Mat Steinwede: 6:00

One hundred percent. Twenty years ago you said relationship is worth tens of thousands of dollars extra to an owner. Our job at the moment is to create the relationship market. Because once you've got that, the actual market conditions don't matter. Because you get to consult, you get to guide them. Very different energy than somebody who's just watched 60 minutes last night, comes to an open house, and you've got to like wrestle with them about no, the market's okay, the market's steady, please buy the house. Like you don't want to deal with those people so much.

Lee Woodward: 6:29

We've made my day. I've been out touring and I've been saying to my agents, just don't do the opens. And the looks I've been getting, what do you mean? Yeah. You've lost a thought. Why would you turn up when they're not turning up? Yeah. But they've never shown midweek. Yeah. And midweek's houses look better. Everyone's gone to school, everyone's gone to work, it's quiet, it's peace. It's where the magic happens is midweek.

Mat Steinwede: 6:50

You're exactly right. Our list of open houses was getting to like 30 or 25 for the weekend. And I've literally just this week, I've crossed probably 70% of them off, rang the owners. We're not opening a house anymore. I'll deal with people myself privately.

Lee Woodward: 7:04

I want to use some direct selling. I don't want to expose to the poodle for grade. Yeah. And I actually want to get your house sold. So we're going to keep it out of that and keep it fresh.

Mat Steinwede: 7:12

Yeah. I I think at the moment also the internet is not selling houses. When people put on the internet and go, oh yeah, cool, it's listed on the net. Ah, I'll just wait for the inquiries. That's not selling houses at the moment. You might get some inquiry, but they're not the best inquiry. The database is where you sell houses right now. You know, whether things are listed or not. It's like we need to be database agents. We need to go back to, and I don't know if people do it anymore. Here's a list of six houses. Come with me, spend three hours driving around looking at houses. Central locking systems. The agent that does exactly what we're talking. I don't know how many other people you got on this recordings, but this part here, right now, is how you succeed in this market.

Lee Woodward: 7:53

Mat, great information. Thank you for appearing on the program. Powerful number one tip. You could just do that and get through any marketplace because selling is a transference affirmative. Yeah. Mat, thanks for joining us. Thanks, Lee. And that concludes another edition of We Are Selling. For those of you that want to learn the platform in full, keep your eyes out for our dates of the how to pitch, sign, and sell real estate one day event. This is the boot camp that teaches you everything about the platform. It was great to have Mat on the programme today, one of our top platform users. For all your training, webinar, and live events, please visit Realtair.com. I'm Lee Woodward, thank you for listening.