We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
We Are Selling is a weekly podcast about real estate, business and tackling life's challenges. Hosted by renowned real estate industry coach, Lee Woodward, learn from experts in their field and maximise your life.
We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
Warming Up data - The Nurture Gap - Lucia Hatten
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Most real estate agents don’t have a lead problem. They have a silence problem. The gap between “not ready yet” and “ready to list” is where relationships leak, competitors sneak in, and great databases quietly underperform.
We sit down with Lucia Hatten from WeCall For You to unpack how consistent, Australian-based “on behalf” phone calls keep homeowners warm without sounding salesy. We get specific about what to call and when: just-listed, just-sold updates, pre-market hype, off-market results, Christmas and anniversary check-ins, past-appraisal follow-up, and those simple market-report touchpoints that build trust over the years. Lucia shares how her team onboards to match an agent’s voice, how they clean and confirm CRM details, and why a normal conversational tone beats a scripted prospecting performance.
We also role-play a real “hot result” call so you can hear the language that turns a nearby record sale into an appraisal booking. Then we go behind the scenes on call volumes, three-hour calling blocks, and how cold data can be warmed into genuine relationships over time. If you care about real estate lead nurturing, database management, and building future listings in Australia, you’ll walk away with a clearer process and sharper expectations.
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Welcome And Platform Sponsor
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome back to the podcast We Are Selling. My name is Lee Woodward, your coach and host, and the author of the Complete Salesperson course. Today's programme is brought to you by the Agency Portal, Australia's first listed to settled execution platform. This incredible digital platform allows us to use Agency Sign, Agency AML, the sale funding process, commission funder, agency supplier pay, and agency settlements. Agency Settlements is the Pixar partner that allows the real estate digital transaction to exist. Let's get started with today's podcast. And joining us now on the program is Lucia Hatton from We Call For You. Lucia, good morning.
SPEAKER_01Good morning, Lee. Thank you so much for having me.
From Law To Real Estate
SPEAKER_00Very excited to have your story today as it benefits so many agents who we work with. But before we do that, what is your background to real estate?
What WeCall For You Does
SPEAKER_01So I've actually been in the industry now for over a decade. I've had finished my degree in law and actually gone into real estate working in Ray White at 21. So actually, probably 12 to 13 years ago now, which um but I've worked in a lot of facets in the industry league. So I started, as a lot of agents do as a sales associate, working with a wonderful agent there at Ray White. Then I moved into the role of being a sales agent. And from there, I actually then went into more of a business operations side of things, working with a lot of top performing agents, as I found that more so suited my experience, my background and my skill set. Then sort of progressed into that working with a lot of top brands like McGraw and Queensland Sotherby's. And that basically led me to finding and starting WeCall.
SPEAKER_00Now We Call for You, what a brilliant name describer. Explain to us what you do with that company.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so as the name suggests, we obviously do phone calls and uh primarily for real estate agents or really only for real estate agents or other areas in the real estate business. The place that we do our best work leaves is around that nurturing piece. So working on behalf of the agents, calling on behalf of their team and them just to get a lot of the messages out that they simply don't have the time for in that in that colder space.
SPEAKER_00Give me an example of some of those phone calls that you're making on behalf of agents.
SPEAKER_01The very obvious ones that you would be probably doing internally in your business. A lot of agents across Australia is obviously those just listed, just sold. We do like to tease those out as well with, you know, pre-coming to market to get the hype around if the agent doesn't have time to do sort of those magic 50 calls. Also, any wonderful off-market results or sales will definitely be calling local owners and letting them know about that. In addition to that, we do like to feed through throughout the year if there's anything special that the agent has got going as well. So if they're doing any competitions, you know, around Easter and things like that, colouring in competitions, they might be doing letterbox drops around the area. So we want to promote that and get the most entries for things like that. And on top of that, also any, you know, Christmas calls, anniversary calls as well, which is really powerful. Even if you weren't the agent that was the one that sold the home, some agents provide us those lists. They're very good at getting organized. Um, so we can call and wish them happy anniversary for that month. Um and also past appraisal calls as well. So if it's been, say, within anywhere from, you know, one to two, three years, uh, we do reach out and check in to see if their circumstances have changed. Because um, yeah, naturally some agents, their pipelines are ever growing and they don't have the time to sort of spend, you know, if it's not that immediate attention, that, you know, immediate sort of client that's coming on the market. So we'll be there to assist in that nurturing side of things.
SPEAKER_00Nurture is such the leakage of our industry. And you're quite right. If an agent's got someone who's going to put it on the market in the next two to three weeks, they're all over it. If it spans out four months, six months, twelve months, there's a gaping hole. And unfortunately, we see the competitor signboard on it, who actually catches them at that point where it is two weeks out. But they they're 12 months down the track doing it. How do the consumers respond to the on-behalf call and what's your approach to that?
SPEAKER_01Because of the team that we do have, um, they are mostly women. So a lot of the time it's it's a very natural phone call, it's very well received. And just to put it out there as well, Lee, all of our callers are Australian-based and we do try and position them to be suited to that particular marketplace because we do call all over Australia. So there's a lot of um variety in our country. When we're doing those calls, it's not as if they are assuming that we are an extension to that agent's business. We really are calling as if we were on behalf of that agent. And part of the prep and the onboarding is to get that introduction right. So we'll be obviously making sure all pronunciations right, which I know that sounds a little bit silly, but we ask how do people know you in your local marketplace? Um, is there any nickname so that we look very much a part of your team and are using the right language? And even if it's whether we're saying calling on behalf of or if calling from so-and-so's team. So we're really trying to get that message incorrect. In terms of how it's received, as I said, because they don't know any different, they feel as if they're getting an update from the agent. A great example of this is actually one of our clients just recently listed a property. So we Weakle has been in touch with this client, I think, for around four or five years, because this agent's been with Weekle for a long time. This particular home wasn't within the agent's direct BDA. So it's sort of adjacent to their BDAs. So they didn't always see their signboards up or always have their letterbox drops and things like that around because they weren't, you know, in that direct area. However, we were always updating them and keeping them in check. So we've actually achieved, I think it was three desktop appraisals in this time and obviously a handful of market reports doing follow-ups every six months. The agent obviously called, was called out, still called out the number one agent in the area just to get a second opinion, but ultimately went with our client because they said, Hey, you've actually been keeping us up to date. I've been looking at, you know, our conversations. We you've been keeping us to date, I think, since since 2019 or 2020. The agent's only spoken to that person after the market reports of the desktop appraisals, you know, three or four times. Um, but it was really us during that follow-up year in and year out.
Using On Behalf Calls Plus Cleansing
SPEAKER_00This is so amazing. And I want people to understand vendor management is actually what you're doing there. But the industry thinks of vendor management as when the vendor's on the market and we manage the vendor, the agent does that, but babysitting a lead over a period of time is managing that vendor with the update, the reports, just letting you know. And the on behalf call is a notification call. There is no pressure to it. And I think that's where the breakthrough is. Just for complete transparency, we call, make calls on behalf of myself and the complete salesperson course. So if any of you have ever received a phone call from my team, this is that service. I use it myself. And I'll just explain how that came about, Lucia. Obviously, I'd heard from you due to the Joel Hood story that we did, which was a massive success that you had, and he was completely unknown in an area and had no staff. So suddenly getting momentum and one sale should generate five, is what happened in that story. However, I was touring Perth and I got a really cranky phone call from a beautiful agent who said, I can't believe you're in Perth, and I didn't know about it. Now he'd missed the emails, the text messages, and I hung up the call and I thought, he's right, we didn't notify him. So he can decide if he wants to go to the complete salesperson course or not. But the fact that I didn't notify my customers is how I got onto using your service now. And your wonderful team ring up. Lee just wants to let you know he's gonna be in Melbourne on this date and this date. Would you be open to attending? I get that report back that says yes, no, interested, maybe. And it's just so good to know. And obviously, we've had great success with sell out events this year, so the proof's in the pudding. But for me, we also get, oh, I've retired, uh, I've I've left the industry, I've gone back to this. So it's cleansing of data that's important. How do you do that on behalf of the agents?
SPEAKER_01Yes, so cleansing of data is very important, especially with data acquisition being a great challenge for also for new agents coming to the industry. That is essentially your asset is the database that you're building, because that's where that, um, if you maintain it well, that's where a big portion of your GCI can obviously come from. So for us, when we we're doing the calls, where even if a client's not, or sorry, a homeowner, I should say, is not wanting to engage with anything they're not looking to sell or anything like that, we are trying to confirm if they do still live at the address, or at the very least, if it's very cold data and we're the first interaction, trying to assess if they live in that suburb. If they don't, we will, we've got a whole series of sort of what we call like database cleaning um rules. So we'll be updating and if they've moved or if it's their parents' property, we do try and get their phone numbers or their e or an email address so we can update that direct detail contact. And also if they have moved address, we'll alert that to the agents so that they can update it in their CRM systems as well. And it also just means that when if it's us or you know, someone else that's going back to do those calls internally and associates three, six months later, at least that work is done. So you're not constantly calling the same contacts who who we know that, you know, their details aren't correct.
SPEAKER_00Now, Lucia, a lot of our agents have stopped doing the hot spotting, meaning a result's just happened, a great result, and they're on to the next one, and they don't notify their established clients and their future sellers around that particular board. Now, this happened to me. Robin and I were walking, it was a long weekend, and we decided to go for a walk in a different direction. And I saw this big thump and sold board on a property a stone throw away from mine, but an area I don't go into often. And I text the agent, what did it go for? I was shocked at the result. It was absolutely phenomenal. Yet I don't know about it. And as we know in real estate, you earn money while you sleep. When someone gets a great result in a street, the the income has actually gone up for everyone in those surrounding properties. However, I would imagine other people, if they were an established client or future seller of an agent and see a sold or a for sale and think, why didn't you let me know? Um, what did it go for? How come you didn't communicate with me? And I think that's where your service is just perfect for it. But as an example, let's do a little phone call for our listener to see the style and how it all works. And Lucy, I'm gonna put you on the spot because all your people are on the phone. I'll be the resident in the street. Ring ring. Hello.
SPEAKER_01Hi, Lee. My name's Lucy and I'm just calling on behalf of John Smith. How are you?
SPEAKER_00I'm good, thank you.
SPEAKER_01That's good. Look, Lee, it was just a very quick call. I'm not sure if your circumstances have changed this folk last. Just wanted to give you a very quick update because there was an incredible result John received around the corner from you at 10 Smith Street. That one sold for a record price of three million.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness. Three million.
SPEAKER_01Three million. Three million. So a record for the street. Uh have you been tracking the results in your in your neighborhood lately?
SPEAKER_00I haven't. I, you know, you see all this hype going on in the media and no, but I haven't been tracking it. And and that shocked me. Three million dollars in this street is a lot of money.
SPEAKER_01It's a lot of money. It's incredible. And so it was um, it was a local family who was looking to upsize. A lovely story, and you'll have some wonderful new neighbors uh coming to the area soon. So it's just while I've got you leave the reason I was reaching out is obviously this result that John's achieved has pushed the prices up and it means a lot for the value of your home. Can I ask when you last had an appraisal?
SPEAKER_00Oh, it'd be three years ago.
SPEAKER_01Three years ago? Okay. Well, as I said, this result absolutely impacts the value of your home in the best way. John's actually going to be in your street over um the next week or so. Would you like him to pop out and provide you with a free quick uh assessment just to let you know where it sits now?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that'll be fine. Wednesday over.
SPEAKER_01Fabulous. Let me get his diary. So afternoons are generally best for him next week. Would Thursday be suitable?
SPEAKER_00Thursday's good.
SPEAKER_01Thursday? Fantastic. Uh say two o'clock?
SPEAKER_00Two o'clock would be great. Two o'clock.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful. And can I just confirm some details there? Or is it number 10 Smith Street? That's good. You just saw it number 10. Fantastic. And may I just confirm your best email address so we can send out all of that good, you know, a digital copy to you guys as well.
SPEAKER_00Lee at lwts.au.
SPEAKER_01Lee at lawts.au. Fantastic. And Lee, I'd just love to get a couple of details, just so John can prepare the most accurate information because I know you haven't had an appraisal for a little while. So may I just start by getting some details on bedrooms and bathrooms that you've got there?
SPEAKER_00Yes, we're a five-bedroom home, three bathrooms, and a double lock-up garage and an ingram pool.
SPEAKER_01In ground pool. Fantastic. That's wonderful. And what renovations have you done? Has there been any work to the home that you've done over the past couple of years?
SPEAKER_00Yes. We put a full multimedia studio in as we now work from here. And we've also upgraded the bathrooms.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Fantastic. I bet you get a lot of use out of that. So I'll jot that all down here. And I just want to clarify: do you have any property plans on the horizon? Is is uh have things changed for you and your family there?
SPEAKER_00Yep, the kids have moved out. So we're in quite a large home and we always talk about moving, but we end up staying.
SPEAKER_01You understand? Yes. That's it. Well, what uh obviously I'll let I'll I'll pass this on to John and he'd love to go through the options with you, whether that's you know, whether your timeline's now or somewhere down the track, just so you've got all the options. And uh yeah, he he'd love to to come and see you home and obviously see the updates that you've done.
SPEAKER_00I look forward to seeing him on Thursday.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful. Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00Lucia, beautiful, normal conversational style. And I wanted you to do that as people think it's this showcasey voice, big prospecting, and it's actually the opposite of that that makes it work. And I know Joe from your team makes calls on behalf of myself. I've had so many people say that lady who rang me was absolutely lovely. And uh I listened to the feedback and think this is the way it should be. And I think the difference with your team is they they actually make calls for a profession. This is their chosen job. Yes. Whereas other people are avoiding making the call, you can hear it in their voice.
Sourcing Data And Running Call Blocks
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And they and and I know this sounds obvious to say, but they enjoy making calls. That's one of the things we we look at, or they enjoy having a conversation. The girls genuinely love uh the work that they do and and also seeing the the influence that they that they can have within the agent's business. And uh it's lovely because we do get agents that will write to us and let us know, hey, this lead went to this place or I was able to convert this or what have you. And the girls are really invested and they're, you know, it taking it very personally and sometimes like, hey, I think you need to let the agent know this quite immediately. So they take a lot of ownership um when they're calling on behalf of the agents too.
SPEAKER_00Now, some of the agents that you've worked for have reported back to me with great success that you actually sourced some data for them as well. How does that work?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we're not a primarily a data company like some of those other big providers, like ID for me and ownership data, but we do have the ability to sm to source data subject to what's available. It's all mobile rich and email-rich data. Uh, and it basically comes down to a postcode or a sub earth. If you've got a certain patch or if you, you know, you're not in a position if you're starting out and you can't afford to uh undergo, you know, purchasing thousands of bits of data or or having minimum requirements. That's something that we can absolutely assist with. And then we go on from there and we can do the calls. And that's something that we did for Joel Hood, who you mentioned earlier when he first started. I mean, that was pre-ID for me days. So um we would just try to do our very best to help Joel out there. Obviously, those clients have gone on to forming his database. Um, and it's it's interesting to see, Lee, because when you do those colder calls, um, whether it's our data or from another provider, and we had the opportunity to continue working on behalf of that agent, you do gradually see the relationships warm up in time and people becoming more receptive and it being a lot easier for the girls to make those calls in time.
SPEAKER_00Warming up the data is the skill of this industry because until the the data's at a point that you can have that success rate, which is what, you know, I'm gonna use that term, you're managing these future vendors into a point of engagement. Question for you: how many calls on average are the team getting through per hour? And how's that blocks of time done?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so look, it's a general average of around 20 calls per hour, is where we like to see that lead, just because there can be some variety. If you are, say, for example, if the data's very, very new, it's fresh, we're calling, say, ID for me data, it hasn't been cleaned before, you might see that sitting around that 25 mark plus. And that's because those conversations are a lot shorter and we're sort of getting through it faster. On the flip side, if we're working with a top performing agent, very conversational, um, one of those just comes to mind is the lovely lady Jackie Walker from um REMAX and Toomba. Her clients are very, very lovely and chatty. So we might get to around 17 to 18 calls. There's a lot of lead entry notes. So sweet spots around the 20. In terms of our blocks of time, um, we do things on a three-hour shift. So for us, we found that that was really the sweet spot in terms of for the for the girls for energy levels. Obviously, it's not challenging calls in compared to some other telephone marketing special that are very salesy, but you want to keep keep those energy levels high and be able to put in um your best effort to listen to our clients. So that three-hour mark uh goes up to then six, nine, and twelve hours. And that's the box of time that we do in the week.
SPEAKER_00Does anyone get their open for inspection list called back?
SPEAKER_01We actually have done that. We have done that for um for Is the Saturday Monday call possible? We have just started to introduce that. And again, that is with with Jackie uh on a Saturday. So that's something that's actually going really well. And it look, it suits volume-based agents who are going through perhaps team structural training changes. That's where we can help. Calling back past buys, that's definitely something that we do as well, trying to assist to see if they've purchased and obviously um if they've got a property that they're looking to sell for an agent in Perth, we're even trying to do a deeper clean with our VAs, like Raymond B heads that department, as you you um would be familiar, Lee. So he'll actually, in certain states where you can do an ownership name search, uh, we will grab that list, do an ownership search, and then from there uh follow that up with a phone call and again add them to the database or try to nurture them through to assist them with buying or renting out their property if they're going down that path or selling their property.
Processes That Convert Long Leads
SPEAKER_00Yeah, ringing back all our previous purchases to find out which door they bought is the most important part of reclaiming doors into the future. Yes. Because quite often the agent had a great relationship, they got on well, they bought off a competitor, which is fine, but that's a door still in your area and a future door for the future. Final questions for you. What has been the best observations of the agents that use it well?
SPEAKER_01So the agents that use it well, it's definitely those that take ownership of their database. And and by that I mean it's those that are collaborative with us. So that's in the prep before we start the campaign, and then it's very much in the follow-up. So when we are providing these leads, and they're not the most immediate, urgent, exciting leads. It might be a marker report or a desktop appraisal, and it's not that face-to-face interaction. Those agents who take that seriously, and by taking it seriously, it doesn't need to mean that it's taxing in terms of the agent having to do everything. It's really about having a process and a funnel for what to do with each of these clients at those stage. And so those that have that laid out very well will mean that those homeowners are getting followed up. They're getting exactly what they want. And then in the future, ultimately, what we are here fully is we want these agents to basically be called out, um, ideally uncontested, but to be called out and to influence, you know, their bottom line with their GCI. And it's not really a coincidence when an agent gets called in, you know, that's the most exciting phone call, they go called in. It's it's always a series of steps or seeds that have probably taken place a long way down the path, whether that's obviously through some natural things like billboard or results and things like that. But it's a series of all these other little bits of communication. So the agents that work with us well do that follow-up so beautifully and so consistently, uh, no matter how immediate that particular homeowner is with wherever they are in their property journey.
How To Reach WeCall For You
SPEAKER_00Lucia had an a fantastic service. And I'll I'll just re bring up that point that your wonderful ladies enjoy making phone calls. Where there's been a lot of people employed by companies to make phone calls and they just don't seem to make phone calls. They find something else to do in the day that is more exciting, like show a property. But without the communication, without warming up the data, there is no future business. How does our listener get hold of you other than your link in my show notes?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so obviously just jump onto our website. We've got a contact submission form there. So from there we'll send out an info pack so you can see all of the different packages and pricing for those different hours that I spoke to. And then myself or one of our team members will reach out and we can obviously schedule a demo so I can go into more detail as to how a reporting works and some more of those conversations that we have.
SPEAKER_00And the website address?
SPEAKER_01Yes, so it's wecall for you, number fourletteru.com.au.
SPEAKER_00Lucia Hatton, thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for having me.