Listing Streams for Success: How to Choose Your Listings, Not Chase Them with Tristan Rowland

We unpack the power of layered listing streams to create consistent future business and choice, not chase.

• build multiple listing streams so you can select listings, not beg for them
• track exactly where every listing comes from to measure ROI
• use sponsored social media ads as a primary, long-term listing engine
• combine digital marketing with high-quality direct mail for layered impact
• leverage handwritten cards to drive high-response, relationship-based leads
• engage in local Facebook community pages by genuinely helping people
• use strata and body corporate meetings to become the agent before they need one

A practical guide to creating sustainable listing momentum through layered marketing, community connection, and strategic positioning.

Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

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Transcript

Lee Woodward: 0:07

Hello and welcome to the podcast We Are Selling, brought to you by Realtair. Today we are discussing one of the most essential topics of your real estate career, and that is how you keep business flowing into the future. Listing streams is going to be done by one of our top agents in the country, riding in excess of four million in fees, no matter which brand he is with. Please welcome to our audio, Tristan Rowland from Stone Real Estate in Queensland. Tristan, welcome aboard.

Tristan Rowland: 0:38

Thanks for having me, Lee. What an intro.

Lee Woodward: 0:42

Well, what a great year last year was for you in results. How was the year?

Tristan Rowland: 0:48

Uh yeah, it was a challenging one, I guess, at a personal business point of view. We our office got destroyed by the flood. Um I ended up tearing all my tendons and both my elbows at one point, uh, thanks to um trying to say well saving a house from flooding because the um water nearly came in there as well, filling up. Uh so Queensland, right? Sunny one day, apocalypse the next. Um, and um uh one of them's caught got a staph infection, my old man nearly died, so usual stuff, you know. But I think we kept it off with a third-degree burn, which stopped me from flying down for the Stoner Woods in Sydney, which was a bit frustrating. But you know, things always happen, you know, and the great, great, great advice I got from the boss once was crap's always going to hit you, it's just how you handle it that really defines you from everybody else. Uh, but you know, there every time I hear someone get angry at um uh Coles about paying 15 cents for a shopping bag, I always joke to them, just go down to the um Queensland Children's Hospital and tell the little kid in the cancer ward that your day's ruined because you've got a 15 cent shopping bag. Uh, I'm pretty sure they'll swap seats. So someone's always got it worse than you. But you know, it as it as I think you said just me before Christmas, you know, it makes your match fit. If you can survive a year like that and do what we did with all that hitting us, uh we've had a pretty good run of luck before that. Yeah, well, got that out of the way now. We um we don't have a sign in our office at the moment, you know, 30 days without incident. Because it feels like it matters like the start of the Simpsons, you know. Um but you know, it if it what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Um so I feel a bit like the Hulk after last year, but we're just really focused now on getting back into things and yeah, is what it is.

Lee Woodward: 2:14

Well, you were definitely protected by your incredible career to date and a challenging year that you went through. But take us into listing streams. What have you prepared for us today where people listening to this could go, I understand what a listing stream, but more important, what you've done with the layering. Because I think a lot of people, Tristan, think, just give me one quick hit and I I I want to get a result out of that, or I tried it once and it didn't work. That's not things work, it's can you get it to work? What are your listing streams? How are they layered?

Tristan Rowland: 2:48

It's something I'm very passionate about. And if I can ever explain one thing to people about listing streams, it's that the number one thing that's the best about it is when you get a good, consistent run of listings, you'll be able to choose your listings, not chase them. And that is the single biggest thing on a drum into someone's head, because it means you gave it the right fee, the right tools, the right marketing. And you know, I saw you really put up last night, and it's so true where I've actually walked away from 20 listings in the 10 weeks leading into Christmas. And here's the interesting thing: all 19 have not sold. Uh 19 have not sold, one is sold, and it went very, very cheap. So 19 from 20, we walked away from, but here's the interesting thing, we've now listed three of those. So that second time around, they've gone, yeah, okay, you're right. And so I think people are so afraid to walk away from the listing if they're not getting in the right tools and the right terms. But a great agent wants that around me, I'd rather turn you down than let you down. So having that stream means you can be able to pick and choose what you take on on the right tools, but also the wrong listing becomes a liability, you know. So there signs an opportunity for the first two weeks and a liability for the next ten. Yeah, that's one of the big parts. And also, with everything that happened to us last year, I wouldn't be going as well as we're going if I didn't have that constant stream of listings, whether it's past clients or whatever. Because I always joke, imagine if someone tied you up with your hands behind your back and muted you for 10 weeks, so you couldn't go out and prospect. What would you do? And the reality is if you do get sick or if your office gets destroyed by flood or all the above, what's going to keep that stuff rolling in? So I I think that's a really important thing to look at. So we've done a lot with our layering, and you know, as we talk about that one hit, it didn't work. Everything that you do, you need to be able to quantify the return on investment on it, right? So having worked in advertising consulting before I worked in real estate, every time we did something, we had to sit in front of a client and go, okay, you spent 10 grand, but it yielded back X amount of leads, but it yielded back 350 grand or 348. It was very dollar precise. Um coach are incredible to work with. You know, they they worked out that literally their sales dropped off a cliff at 32.4 degrees, so they bought Mount Franklin to get all the water sales because they're real, and when they realized they were losing sales to Red Bull for caffeine, they went and got V. So you go look at that return investment. But what I find is funny, and I hear it all the time, you say to agents, where do you get your listings from? And they'll go, profile, which is a very, very broad and compassing word for I don't really ask. Right. And yes, profile is maybe the overarching thing, but where was your profile seen? What prompted them to call you, or at the same time, referrals. I get referrals. Every time I hear an agent go, I'm a referral-based agent, I hear you debug a roll. Uh yes, I might get a lot of referrals myself, but there's other things that go in with that, right? Or I'm a very lazy prospector. You need to have these things in the background. But when someone calls you up, and I think it was Howard Brinton maybe that said this once, he said, you know, it's going, Hey, can I ask which one of my clients referred me to you? Now, the reality is probably six and ten times there. Oh, it was X, right. I just want to make sure I send them something. And on that, every time someone refers you, whether you get it or not, I hate agents that only give something to a client when they list a property, send them over X voucher. It is the best gift in the world. Everyone loves a knife for cooking. Right? Hey, thank you so much for putting me in the door, Janine. Really appreciate it. Have a night off the cooking for me. And you know what that person thinks, man, if I send five of these to Tristan a week, I'll never cook it. The kids can live whenever they want. I have one client send me 14 presentations in one month. Right? Like, you know, the calls are probably going, why have you got no grocery bill? But the point is that look after them when they send something through. Not just forget it, you can't figure yourself extra, right? Because it's not their job to make sure you're good with stuff, but every time I do it, send it through. But the reason you ask that question about, hey, you know, can I ask you which one of my clients? The person goes, Wow, the guy does a lot of repeat business. Clearly he's doing something right. Okay. But also the ones that go, oh no, I didn't, my one of your clients didn't refer me. How did you hear about me? Bus sign, letterbox job, social media, whatever it is. Now, there's a couple of reasons why it's really important. One is that over the last 17 years, I've seen some things go up like that, I've seen other things go down like that. Sometimes at different times of the year they work differently. Something you might have put out as a promo just didn't resonate with the market. You've got to be able to quantify what's working and what's not working. And if you put it down to I'm a big deal and people ring me because I'm a big deal, you're an idiot. But also at the same time, you're going to lose the ability to really quantify when something works and when it doesn't. We changed one promo style up from A4 to fold to A5 over and it dropped the return on it by 85%. I couldn't believe it. So they're like, oh, that something that simple broke the effectiveness. We went from getting it over 30 listings to less than half a dozen. So yeah, it's simple but effective. So that layering factor is very very very big, but you've got to know when it comes in how to catch it.

Lee Woodward: 7:23

So give me some specific streams that you're using. Like if I said what's your top five off the top of your top of your head, what's your top five?

Tristan Rowland: 7:32

Social media for us. And what I mean by that is not posting to your page where your friends and your family follow you and all that kind of stuff. We do a lot of sponsored ads. Uh not just for our properties. We have a huge amount of amazing deals and amazing prices come off social media for us when we do sponsored and targeted ads. But also we do a lot with our social campaign. When we do a seller property, we do a just sold, effectively letter, um, via social. And uh I found no one's got this right. Most agencies or brands are actually outsourcing it, which is insane in itself, because it then your outsourcing person can use your pixel or your data to retarget for someone else, which is crazy. Um, but the longer you do it, the more it works. We've been doing this for seven years, right? And I joke, it's not like my smoker, it gets better seasoning as time goes on. We've got seven years of back data where someone goes, but come sell my house. Why? I've been watching results for seven years because Facebook will target that person as a priority when they've clicked and interacted with that app, right? And you can keep hitting that same audience over and over. What's fascinating is you're getting people who don't have phone numbers available, people who do not call, do not knock, do not letterbox, do not do not talk to me. Facebook doesn't care because it goes bang, and I have to go, yeah, but you won't get the older people with that. The second most active generation in the country on Facebook is baby boomers. The people that control 48.5% of the wealth. They're actually the most likely, this is from Nick from Facebook Club, is the most likely to interact with a Facebook ad because they think it's vetted by the bloody Courier Mail editors. They click through everything thinking it's a fully a vetted article, they click baited, right? So it is very, very big. But what I like about particularly is when we sell something, because we're so busy and we've got so much going on, a lot of agents will try and hotspot our results, which I always joke about because I used to do that to Andrew Dean Paddington, and Andrew nearly put a hit out on me at one point. So I was just quicker off the market for calls because he was so busy with 30 listings, he didn't have time to do 100 calls to the street, but I'd be like all over it. And if you did make that phone call, I go, Oh, your Tristan's already told me. So, you know, what I like about Facebook is you can go black and have 5,000 people see it in two days, and not not even us, all of us out there prospecting it, we couldn't get it out there that quickly.

Lee Woodward: 9:30

So social media has been a strong one. What's number two?

Tristan Rowland: 9:34

Huge. But what what I find is that it layers very well. So when you're doing things like your um uh hard stuff like DLs, for example, right? Like just sold deals, still work. We haven't done direct mail for a while, and I've got to say it works in ebbs and flows, right? If you invest the stuff and whatnot, it's very expensive these days. I feel for anybody getting back in now. I remember it's like 55 cents an envelope. Now you gotta take out a mortgage to send out a thousand, right? But the thing is, you can do your site social media stuff to interstate as well, people forget that, right? So you can target it. But the hard copy stuff is not dead. Anybody that says it's dead has either done it very inconsistently, people still have analog. It's actually funny in the millennials, very analog, which is quite funny. People keep this stuff, right? So sending out you just sold DLs, but it must be good quality, none of this in-house printed crap. The cost of printing is so low comparatively to everything else. Still, I think we have 430 bucks, we get three and a half thousand of it. Like stupidly cheap. Um, so just sold DLs, just listed not so much, but OFI invites, so getting people in from open home point of view. You know, it's funny, people still come in and wave, like, hello, can you come? Can I come and have a look at the property? This is my ticket. If that's not definitive qualifying RFI R R O I, I don't know what is, right? Like literally, thank you for letting me know. And yes, you may come in and I'll have the form six on the table press hard three times. So, you know, it's it's a really big one. But what I find is that this and everything else, people might get your DL, they see it great, and then they forget to call you, something comes up, they run out of the house, kids sick. But then when they see it on social, it's a really good direct point to get them to actually call to action because they might have lost your DL, but that just keeps appearing in their feed. Uh Jerry Harvey, when I was doing advertising and sold it, I got to meet him once and he was at this talk. And someone said, What's the best like marketing medium? And he went, All of them. And everyone went, What? And he went, All of them. And then everyone, oh, what do you mean? So they go, think of it like a symphony, right? He said, You might have the drums and the piano, and you might have the violins and the trumpets. He said, If I had to pick one, he goes, TV, it does everything. Colour, sound, bang, boom, very hype, it's extremely expensive. He said, But what I found is that if you have an ad on the TV, you know, new Apple iPad coming out, thousand bucks, blah, blah, blah. It tells them back to what it does, what it is, and that we've got it. But then they see it in the paper, and it's guess what? Special on Apple iPad this week, and they see the catalog, and you might get some headphones thrown in. There's those two mediums, again, quite expensive, but they all work together. And he said, But tells them what it is, and they get the car and they're driving and all of a sudden you're anything, half your dollar in sale this weekend, don't forget, five to the and they go, yep, that's right. And that's a call to action, which a lot of agents never even heard the term call to action, right? And he said, What I found is if I do it by itself, I might get three customers from a television ad. If I do it with the catalogues in the paper, I might get seven. If I do it with the radio all combined, I might get 15. But he said, but if I did them all individually, then I get two or three each. He said, so it's about layering to get it to that critical mass. So hard copy DL, very important. Handwritten cards are a third one, which I think are really important. And people say to me, What do you mean a handwritten card? So many levels, whether it's an on-the-market property that is listed. And one thing I'll say with on-the-markets, I think a lot of agents get wrong. They get really bitchy, they get really snarky. And a great sales manager Aaron Bongiorno, hello Aaron, if you've watched this, um, said to me, Criticizing someone's current agent is a bit like criticizing the vendor because you're actually criticizing their judgment ability. Right? You employed this Muppet, you're an idiot. Well, no, they probably just got something seriously, right? Like, what kind of idiot would employ them? Uh me. Thank you. Doors there, goodbye. Right? So, you know, and and I highlight people fiercely loyal, right? People aren't really driven by the agent. Like I always joke, oh, well, this property's people who I absolutely inherently believe do not like me at a personal level. We wouldn't go down and have beer together, but they love me when I get them a great outcome. Right? But if the outcome's not happening, our our relationships can resolve very quick uh dissolve very quickly, right? So for me, it the biggest question we ask is can I help you? Hey, would you like a hand? You know, uh and most people just want a situation where the light is there, they can get out of the darkness. You know, hey, I think I've got a plan where we can get your place back on the rails again. Can you give me a call? Right? And then help them if you can help them. At the same time, you know, whether it's just, hey, I drove past your house today, it is the sexiest house on Facluse Street. If you're ever thinking of selling it, I'd love to have a call. But even if I can just have a look, give you an idea of what it's worth without stalking you. You know, when neighbors come through our open homes, what we write in our register, and I've got to say, at open homes, it's a huge source of leads still. We don't use phones at open homes because people think you're playing on Instagram, right? Seriously. Many people go, You're the only agent in our area that doesn't use a phone, right? Because no matter what you're doing, you just look like you're playing around, right? When you're on the register, we write DNS. We go, okay, DNS, because do not stalk. And they laugh. And they go, well, we're not gonna have to. If you want to have an idea what your house is worth, that's cool, but we're not just gonna go nuts after you because you came through an open home. People go, wow, this person, I might actually get them in, so they're not gonna ring every five minutes going, want to list, want to list, want to list, one a list. So those little simple cards like, hey, I'm not gonna stalk you, but I'd love to come and have a look at someone someday. You'd be amazed how many people will meet you. But your hit rate on your handwritten cards goes through the room. Hey, I just wanted to let you know we sold this property. I I will never understand the logic of doing 10,000 VLs and maybe getting four leads, but so you're on a hundred cards, I guarantee you'd be busier than you can ever imagine. It's so simple that it works very well. So the analogue stuff does work. Plus, you can put your card in it as well. I think a lot of people forget you put your business card in it and they will keep it. And uh we've got on our the cards on the desk at the moment, we've got a QR code in our business cards, someone can scan it and add you straight into their phone. Amount of people do that, blow my mind. And it's done then.

Lee Woodward: 14:59

Take us into another listing stream.

Tristan Rowland: 15:01

One of the big ones for me, which I've only really got the hang of in the last year and a bit, has been um uh Facebook community pages for the areas that you sell in. Now, most people who know me really well know money doesn't drive me, right? Because it'll be good on you as the four million dollar worth of fees, but it doesn't, like truly. I I came from nothing as a kid. So for me, as long as you know I've got something on the smoker and the Broncos are on the TV, not that really helps me much at the moment, it's been a pretty hard few years, but uh that and the kids are happy, that's all that really matters to me. So I'd but I'd love to be able to give back to the community. Like it was a case just the other day where um these people and I know who they are because they sent this child to one of my kids' schools, but they've picked up a girl, fostered her, that was one of their relatives, um, sent her to the primary school, she's now going to high school, and they put a post up, um what would you go, laptop or iPad? Either way, we're really gagging at the idea of the price on it. We weren't expecting this because she's just started year seven. And you know, so we're not sure what we're gonna do, maybe get a second hand one or stuff like that. And we just reached out and said, we'll pay for it.

Lee Woodward: 15:58

Wow. Awesome.

Tristan Rowland: 16:00

Somebody had nothing and would have been that kid that did miss out, right? Like it's $1,200, but we actually got a $1,700 one for $1,200, right? For that kid who is probably just getting by at the moment, starts school with a really shiny bright laptop, you know, and they're off and running, they're set now for the next six years, but people go, Oh, it's a lot of money to spend. You think? I had nine people message me from that area going, man, none of the other agents ever do this stuff. You know, I will only ever sell through you. You always get back to the community, you don't even think twice. You know, most of these properties are 1.5 houses that these people own, right? I um I just by chance I was looking at the community Facebook in Aspel over Christmas, and this lady put a post up saying, Hey, um, anybody know where to get ham? Well, the hams are right out at Kohl's. And uh I was on holidays at this point, and I had a spray, sorry, I sent a message to the guys that were already meets, hello guys, and they said, just grab me a ham. And Mitch, who works there to IC, said, You've literally got the last one, it's a big one, you know. Do you want to get done? And said a messing message saying, Hey, I've already got it, it's paid for, like, it's yours. Merry Christmas, right? She works as a paramedic at the ambulance house. Now I have a little girl's life to paramedics, right? And she said to me, You will get to sell every one of these people's houses because I took the whole leg of ham in and shared it with everybody and the ambulance house. I can't believe you did that. And you've had people go, wow, I can't believe you did that. Well, it's 150 bucks here, it's 1200 bucks there, but the difference in fees and the biggest thing I like about it, and excuse the language warning here, it gives you a chance to show you're not an inherent shithead like 90% of the industry. Seriously, most of them are selfish and they don't do anything and they wouldn't shout up a shark for them, and while they're all doing boom, hashtag, million dollar agent, and trying to look the part online, which by the way, no one likes, you know, they're never giving back because they can't. They're either living skin or they're just too selfish. You know, no one cares about your 50 grand watch. I could not fathom buying a 50 grand watch. Like I'm literally not going to watch it. I watched it on charge. Yeah, right? Yeah, exactly. But I I only have it so I can get emergencies on my phone. Uh but the biggest thing is that you know, just give back. And it doesn't have to be big. We we have one with this lovely um young lad at his bloody scooter stolen at the whale part, and while I'm looking at it, it looked up like 80 bucks and we're done, bang, boom. That lady came into our office to get it, took a photo, went back on the page, so we didn't post it, and posted it. I can create six listings to that one bloody scooter. Like, forget the L. I just want to be like Santa Claus all day. And the best thing is people actually go, You're a nice guy. Yeah, I'm trying to do the right thing by people. I love being able to help out like that. So if you aren't giving to your community pages, uh Isaac put an office chair together for someone. And it was really funny. She was a tenant, but she put us in touch with the landlord and said, if you ever sell it, I want you to sell through these guys, I'll give them my cooperation. I mean, it's so simple, but those those pages are amazing. Just be helpful, and you can display your knowledge too. Hey, I'm looking for a building inspector, hey, I'm looking for a painter, hey, what would you do in this scenario? I need a solicitor for a will. This I'd recommend. Tell them I sent you. You know, it's just little stuff.

Lee Woodward: 18:49

Tristan, tell us what you've done with Strata, because that's always been an interesting listing stream for you. What do you do there?

Tristan Rowland: 18:56

Yeah, it's um it's a very interesting one. It's funny, I'm crash coursing a couple of our newer agents on this at the moment. Um, strata is the single most amazing chance to display your finesse and skill as an agent before you have to do your job. And it's also probably the most underworked area, and it's also something that it constantly creates opportunity. So if you learn a bit of technical skill in this and find a good lawyer to learn off, I've got to say, I was very lucky. Uh, Paul Seaman, who wrote the curriculum for UQ law, trained me in my first year. One of my friends got a job with him and said, Do you want to learn with this guy? Yes, please. And so I run rings around a lot of lawyers in this space. Um, but the biggest thing with strata is that most owners are not aware of what goes on in AGM because they're not there or they're pro an even with Zoom. Like I'm amazed how many people don't get zoomed into their own AGMs, it makes my head spin. So say to everybody, not just absentee owners, but owners alike, whether it's a handwritten card or whatever, hey, if you ever want me to be a proxy at the meeting, just let me know. Like you could literally zoom nine owners in on your phone. It's crazy now. Like this wasn't around when I was doing this. So there were blocks when I started Interpilly Twong, Tringa, St. Lucia. You could not touch me. Because I had half the body corporate on side with me, I was their proxy votes. I'd roll into a meeting and there'd be me and Giuseppe and he'd go one vote for the painting levy and I'd go, bang, all aces. No thanks. Um eight of us saying no. And you'd go, oh, especially if it didn't need a painting levy. But the thing is that you can do multiple things. You can go I used to go and just vote down the um the sinking fund contributions because it wasn't necessary. And then I'd get all these emails going, Well, I just saw you voted this because you're on the minutes, right? Like attendees, Tristan from Stone, right? And with your phone number. It's crazy. And people would go, hey, mate, you just put $300 a quarter back in my pocket. Like that just balanced out all these interest rate rises we've just had. You're a legend. And it takes 20 minutes to turn off to these meetings. You can get pets approved, you can get it future you will love past you, but you can set yourself up for success on your sales of these when they come on down the track, right? Plus, you know, everybody in the body corporate, they'll normally appoint you as their agent when they're going to manage it. Like for my first year as a real estate, I just think I did 11 sales in my first year. I lived on rental referrals. I was bringing 15 to 20 on a month just to get the rentals across. So it's something as simple as, you know, one, understanding that AGMs can be a big source of business. Two, um, EGMs are really important. A lot of agents don't realize that you can call it EGMs, so an extraordinary general meeting, which might be called emergency general meeting, in my opinion. But you can call an EGM to knock a big problem on the head or sort something out. Like I've had units over the years where I've gone, man, this place reeks. Like, obviously, you know, the dumpsters aren't being cleared out or whatever. This is going to kill me in two months' time when it comes to the market. 28 days, though, just call an EGM. I guarantee you no one turns up. In all my time in doing the body, one one meeting and probably 200 to an EGM, someone's actually turned up to it. Right? And you just it's insane, right? And put it like two o'clock on a Tuesday, see who turns up. You put them at school pickup time, you'll get no one but you. Because you win by default. But you can put anything through you wanted, but like, I don't want to deal with this bloody smell of these dumpster bins, so you'd go and do it and make a call to move them out of the way, or change over whoever's doing the maintenance of the block. Get the gardens cleaned up, just this basic stuff. It's really important. Like I just had a case over the last week where there is an actual um uh major defect on a building that they're gonna rip out the ensuite on my property. If the owner did not know, we were not aware, the body corporate hadn't given any details on, right? Now, we've been able to navigate around it, we're just gonna replace the ensuite. But the point is, I said to the owner, did it come up at the AGM? He said, mate, I didn't go. And I sit there and I go, far out. You know, but the body corporate dropped the ball, don't get me wrong. But the point is that if you went, you'd be able to say, is there anything here? Or we can I see this cost for an engineers report, what's that for? Oh, a major defect. Well, that would have been good to know. Um but I've got to say, particularly, you'd be able to get pet approvals through. You just may not go, and you become someone's agent before you are their agent. And that's probably the best saying I heard at the start of real estate is that be their agent before they need an agent. They're not going to go anywhere else.

Lee Woodward: 22:48

Well, Tristan Rowland, absolutely incredible information. And I was really looking forward to this segment on listing streams. And I'm very, very fortunate that you're joining us on next week's program as we discuss the words for price alignment. But Tristan, thank you for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you next week.

Tristan Rowland: 23:08

Thank you, mate.