EP 17: The Simple Open House Strategy That Converts 70 Deals A Year (PART 2)

⚠️ Before you listen to Part 2… go back and watch Part 1 first.

This episode is a continuation — and without Part 1, you’re missing the foundation of the entire system. 

In Episode 17 (Part 2) of The Buyer’s Box Podcast, Ally Burnett and Cole Watkins go deeper into the exact scripts, setups, and conversations that turn open houses into real clients.

This is where the strategy becomes execution.

If Part 1 showed you how to generate traffic…

Part 2 shows you how to convert it.

Inside this episode, you’ll discover:

• The exact open house script that builds instant rapport
 • How to get over 90% of visitors to sign in
 • The “1–10 question” that stops people before they leave
 • How to naturally uncover buyer intent without sounding salesy
 • The conversation flow that leads to setting appointments on the spot
 • How top agents turn casual visitors into serious clients

You’ll also learn why most agents lose opportunities at the open house — not because of lack of traffic, but because of weak conversations and poor structure.

👥 WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR

• Agents who already watched Part 1 and want to execute better
 • Realtors struggling to convert open house traffic
 • Agents who feel awkward starting conversations
 • Anyone who wants a repeatable, proven conversion process

🎯 WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS

Open houses don’t convert because of luck.

They convert because of structure, psychology, and conversation flow.

This episode gives you the exact playbook.

Get the scripts and strategy how they get 70 Deals a Year through this Open House Strategy!

 EP 17 EBOOK:  The Simple Open House Strategy That Converts 70 Deals A Year

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hey everybody, this is Allie Burnett from the Buyer's Box. We are back with episode two. And today we have Cole Watkins.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Yeah, if you didn't watch the first one, I guess it is a chronological thing, right? Uh Ali, like you gotta watch that one before you watch this one.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Yeah, go back if you didn't.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Yeah. So we talked about open houses. That that's my wife and I, we were selling 70 homes a year, just the two of us doing open houses, uh, you know, and getting business from that, meeting clients, building relationships, building our database. Uh, so the first two years of my business, I did not miss an open house. Saturday or Sunday did not matter. My birthday, Super Bowl, holidays didn't matter. I was in an open house. And uh, you know, it it really that's how we built our business. So we have a team of 55 to 60 agents now, and uh the majority of our business still comes from open houses. We're not a Zillow team or uh, you know, Flex or any of that kind of stuff. Not there's nothing wrong with it. It's just we chose to go this route and it's been working for us really well.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

That's amazing. And it's a very organic, I would say cost-effective, you know, over the long-term way to build relationships with people, get in front of people, get into homes, get to know the inventory, and also become comfortable with those phone skills because you know, uh, Cole's group, they do a lot of similar things that you know, our team is doing with online leads and prospecting. It's just in a different format, which is amazing about this. And what I'm super excited to hear about today is, and so in the last episode, we kind of talked about what to do with your signs, how to circle prospect, and everything leading up to the grand finale, the open house. So um, we're gonna fast forward. It's the day of the open house. Tell me about it. What what do you do the day of? Um, what what's the script? What do I what do I say?

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yeah, okay. So the day of the open house, you know, and like Ali said, we we we had circle prospecting, door knocking and dialing, uh, and then talking about driving traffic to your house with uh open house signs and not being lazy about that now. Uh we can't we can't do all of that work uh and then do like 50% on our open house. Uh we got to be 110% on it. And so uh, you know, anything worth doing is worth doing right. And so uh what we do is like a we want a big spread, right? We we don't want just a few uh papers out on the on the counter and uh hopefully someone signs in. You know, like we want music going. So that's a big thing for us. Our setup is broken into two parts. Uh, one is kind of like one of those multi-tiered uh paper holders, right? Uh and we have like signing cards on those, we have our business cards, we have uh like uh literature on the buying process. Uh, and then I have my laptop out and it has our buyer presentation. The first slide on it is uh our team of 55 agents uh you know on there. So it shows them that agent and that open house is a part of a bigger organization, a company. Uh and and a lot of times people are making, oh hey, like is this is this who you work with? Is this yeah, yeah. Oh, I see you right there. Yeah. Uh and it's a great opportunity to create build rapport and trust with that client. So we have the sign-in area. I'll talk about the sign-in really quick. Uh, this is something I do for our sign-in. Uh, I like these and I put these on a um like a tiny, what is it, uh, clipboard. Uh, this is a small smaller clipboard, and I have three or four of these ready to go. This is something that we took from COVID, uh, the COVID days that uh we keep doing today because you would have you know 30 people lined up to come into this house. And uh if you have an iPad, if you have uh electric sign in, like that no one's gonna wait for that, right? If you have one tablet where people are writing stuff down, like then everyone is backed up behind them. So we were just handing these things out, running our script, and letting people fill these out as they they took their tour of the house. Uh, but this is a huge part of our intro script, and we'll come back to this. Um, getting people to sign in. We've raised our sign-in rates over 90% now because of that. That's amazing. Uh yeah, no, it was it was definitely like, how do I get people to sign in without like you know being a bully? Um, and so that yeah, right, like like uh that that never works. Um and so uh we have our sign-in. I keep my sign-in, all of this stuff right next to the door or as close as I can to the door, whatever piece of furniture or inlet in the wall, whatever it is uh conducive for me to have this front and center as soon as they walk in. Then the other part of my setup is going to be uh music. I always have a speaker and I always have some kind of music going on in the house so that there's not this awkward, just kind of like the step steps that being.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Oh, I need that.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yeah, and you're just kind of looking at each other. Uh like but uh there's some music going. Uh we have some food out. Maybe it's cookies, maybe it's pastries, uh, maybe it's you know packets of gummy bears, whatever it is, uh, Coke, Sprite, Waters. We have all the whole thing laid out, right? Uh and the thing is, what a lot of agents do is they they kind of half-ass that all that whole part. And even if you do your circle prospecting right and you have some of the neighbors come, those nosy neighbors are interviewing you. They're interviewing, they're they're seeing like, would this be an agent that I would want to list my house? Obviously, they have a hold on our market because they're doing a uh an open house, they have a listing on our street. Um, would they be willing to sell, would I be willing to work with them? Would be that they'd be willing to sell my house. So they're interviewing you without interviewing you. So I want it to be impressive. I want it to be remarkable, right? Uh, and so I I do my like all of our agents, we have red carpets that we roll out in front of the house and it says, Welcome to my open house. Uh, so like it's impressive, right? It is from the moment they walk in, they're getting like, okay, like this is different than the other 15 open houses that I've gone to. We turn all the lights on, we open all the windows, uh, right. We make sure that the house uh is cooled off enough. So uh we we really do as much as we possibly can to turn it into an event, not just an open house that we're doing to appease our sellers.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Sure. And um, I think in our ebook, I'm gonna kind of work on, and maybe you already have this, a little bit of a checklist because I think it can become overwhelming. Do you have a checklist for your agents?

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, yeah. I can send that to you.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Okay, awesome. Yeah, we'll add that in. So um, because I think it can be a little bit overwhelming when you're setting up your first one or your first few. You don't know what to set up. Okay, so red carpet's out, you got your sign-in sheets ready, you got your property disclosures ready, you got the the short, the hot sheets. I don't know what they're called there, but um and you got your music playing. Okay, here comes nosy neighbor number one.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

All right, so nosy neighbor number one. I'm gonna just gonna grab this. I don't I don't have any MLS sheets with me right now. Let me see.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Paul didn't know he was getting into a role play episode.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

No, I didn't. Uh but it's okay. Uh so someone comes up, they're they're knocking on the door, right? Uh, I'm excited. And oh, one thing I I didn't say that I should have is that this is key. This is like one of the biggest keys to having a successful open house is that uh I'm a big uh believer in visualizing, uh uh like uh not I'm not necessarily meditating on it, but like visualizing where I'm gonna be and what I'm gonna be doing and doing it successfully in that environment. And so for me, uh I'm thinking about okay, for the next three hours, for the next four hours, like this house on 123 Banana Street is my house. Like it's my house. Like, so everyone that walks in is my guest. And so I'm gonna greet them just like I would every Sunday night. My my wife and I, we do steak night at our house. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

We're gonna crash that.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah, you you need to. You need to come to Houston and crash it. But it's uh we o like it's such a fun time for us because I'm cooking steak. Uh we have you know charcuterie and everything, and people are walking in and they're friends of ours, so we're greeting them in that way. And you need to greet people at your open house that way because no one else is doing that. Everyone else is just sitting on the couch watching the game saying, Hey, welcome in, come on in. You know, uh there's some there's some uh MLS sheets on the uh on the counter. Let me know if you have any questions. That's the majority of the agents, right? Uh 71% of agents sold nothing last year, 86% sold less than four. That's that is what agents are doing. Maybe that's what you're doing. Uh you're watching this, but we're gonna fix it. Uh so this is I have this separate, uh, and then act like this is the MLS sheet, okay?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Uh I have this and I have this in my hand. This is on a clipboard. Uh when they walk in or when they open the door, I'm I'm lots of energy. Hey, hey guys, uh Cole Watkins with the bridge group. How are you doing today? What brings you out? Right? Uh they're gonna walk in, I'm gonna shake their hand, okay? Uh, and then they're gonna come in, introduce themselves, and then uh I'm gonna prompt them uh with questions that get that that break the ice. So uh hey, like what what brings you out today? I'm I have this in my hand, I'm in no hurry to give it to them. Um so uh hey guys, uh what brings you out today? Did y'all did y'all see the signs? Was it the Emma, was it Har or Zillow? And they're like, oh, you know what? Actually, our neighbor invited us. All right, circle prospecting worked, right? Uh uh hey, did they did they happen to send you the flyer I put on? Yeah, they did. Did it look like yeah, absolutely good? These are real conversations that we're having, right? So yeah, uh awesome, wonderful. Uh hey, uh uh real quick, uh, so I'll go into that. Uh real quick, I'm gonna give you uh a little bit of information. You might not have seen us online, so I'm gonna give you the rundown of this property and send you on your way. Uh, real quick, we have the price up here, and that so the whole time I'm using this to point stuff out.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Okay. Uh the bridge group, the bridge group, the bridge group.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, I love it. You have you have the bridge group, and then you also have I'm expecting you to fill this out. Uh so hey, uh, so real quick, up here uh is your price. Down here, the schools are in blue. Something that makes this property pretty unique is the fact that, you know, whatever uh tax rate is on the back, it's got a lower tax rate than everyone else. I'm gonna tell them one unique thing about maybe two unique things about this property, uh, and then uh I'm gonna send them on their way. And I'm gonna the way that I'm gonna do it is I'm gonna put them together and hand it to them. Hey, look, this is for you. Uh, this is a quick survey for the seller, really helps me give them feedback afterwards. Feel free to take your time filling this out as you tour the property. Okay, I'm gonna hand it to them. No problem. They're gonna take it uh and they're gonna start working on it there. I'm gonna say, hey, look, take your time with that. Feel free to uh fill that out on your way back. But hey, I am gonna ask a favor. Uh on your way out before you leave, uh, one to ten. Give me a one to ten, right? Your opinion on this property. Ten is we're making an offer on it. One, uh, this is the worst property you've seen on your tours, right? So, like, uh definitely not making an offer, but ten is the best one. So, and you can't use seven, okay. And so they laugh and then they leave, right? Uh, they take the tour of the property. I have music going. Uh, I might ask them if they want a water or a soda or something like that. Okay. But I leave them alone. I'm not touring with them, I'm not walking around with them. I leave them alone. I let them do that, right? Uh, that's the intro. All of that is very purposeful because as I'm pointing things out with this, I want them to understand that I'm gonna be asking them to fill this out. It's understood that other people have filled this out. If I have other completed ones, I leave that there on the counter uh because it's a monkey see, monkey do kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, they they filled it out. I'm filling it out. Uh, I cannot stress to you enough how like big of a difference this has made uh having individual cards for uh sign-in. It's been great. Um, so uh we do that and then we send them on their way. Uh now when they come back, I'm just gonna, just like my follow-up afterwards, I'm gonna follow up with the last thing I said, which is all right, hey, look, uh I saw the kids were, you know, paying uh special attention to the backyard. Uh, you know, I'm sure that was that was definitely a benefit. Uh, this has a huge lot on it. Um, give it to me. One to ten. What did y'all think? Okay. And they're gonna look at each other. Uh, they might say different numbers, you know, and who cares? At that point, like I don't I don't care. Uh unless it's like a nine or a ten and we're writing an offer on that, great. But if they say, uh, well, you know, I think if if I'm not allowed to use seven, then I'd have to give it a six. Okay, good. Uh, what would make it a ten? That's my first question. And again, I'm not this isn't a buyer appointment yet, so I'm not really paying too much attention to it. Uh, but but it's really to pivot into the next question, but it's to stop them. That whole if you don't use one to ten, then you can't follow up with one to ten before they leave. And the one to ten question is designed to stop them before they leave the open house. Everyone else does not want to talk to you. They want to, they want to just look at the house and they want to leave.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

I have an advice person.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Avoid the salesperson and hurry on out. That that expectation that I set in the beginning stops them before they're leaving, and they understand that they're gonna converse with me about their opinion on the property. So it's it just works. And so the one to ten, okay, six, what would make this a 10? And then they tell me. Now they're stopped and they're can they're they're already conversing with me. Okay. Uh now I'm gonna get into if agents are still asking, like, hey, uh, do are you working with an agent? Do you have do you already have an agent? Uh like that's that's a novice question.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

It's like the label retriever question where they're like, hey, hey, hey, don't you want to work with me?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Right, yeah, yeah. And it smells terrible, smells like commission breath. Uh, like for me, I like to use this question because it gives me a very good idea of what's going on. Uh hey, up until this point, has anyone sat down and gone through the home buying process with you? Uh, I'm sorry. Uh I I skipped one.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Uh so uh uh the what would make this a 10? We listen to them uh and then we say, so up until this point, how have you been going about your home search? Up until this point, how have you been going about your home search? Now they're gonna say, you know, one of the neighbors here is a friend of mine, and they said uh we'd love to have the kids all on the same cul-de-sac, or you know, whatever. Uh our kids play baseball together. Um, I saw it online. I I just started my search. People think that's an objection, it's not. It's I get excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

It's just a fact, really.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah, yeah, great. Uh, I just so happen to work really well with first time or with people that are in this stage of the game, right? Uh, and so like the the the that that's a that's a stall, right? It's it's not even an objection. Um, but for us, uh that's that up until this point, how have you been going about your home search? Is gonna also tell me, hopefully, if they're working with an agent.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Okay. Uh, and it's just a way more skilled way to ask that question. The other thing uh we're gonna do after that is we're gonna go into uh okay, so they're gonna tell me whatever. Great, wonderful. Um, and then you might ask them like, how long have you been looking? You know, like if they indicate that uh they've been looking on on uh you know on the MLS or on Zillow for a while, uh oh it sounds like y'all have been looking for a while. Uh may I ask, how long have y'all been looking? Okay, about six months. Okay, if they've been looking for six months, they might be working with an agent. That now I'm gonna ask a follow-up question to that, which is how many offers have y'all put in? I'm gonna see how serious they are and if they're working with an agent.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Sure. One thing I want to add to this is when somebody tells me that they've been looking at homes, I'll say to them, have you only been looking online or have you been looking at homes in person? And then if they say in person, then I'll say, Have you been looking at open houses on your own or are you working with someone? So that's another way that you can kind of do that too.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Absolutely. Yeah, no, you you that those are those are great uh qualifying questions. Uh for me, if I'm asking, uh, so how many offers have you put in? That's gonna tip me off to whether they they're working with an agent and seeing him in person, right? Yeah, that's great. So uh how many offers? But I also want to get to the fact that if you've been looking for six months, you should have been putting offers in. Right? Uh, but also uh if you've been looking for six months and you did put offers in and they didn't work out, now I'm gonna dig. Now I'm gonna say, you know, my son, he's two, uh, he he does something, he'll drop something, uh, or like he's we're potty training right now. So we're in a restaurant last night and he just uh you know peas all over himself and he looks at us and he goes, Oh no, what happened?

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Oh so cute.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

He goes, Oh no, what happened? And uh and you know, like for me, uh whenever they say, Well, we put in two offers and uh we just can't get them accepted, that's when I look at them and say, Oh no, what happened? Right. Uh like I I say, uh, you know, like uh, oh no, like uh it tell me about it. Why do why do you feel like those offers uh didn't go through? Uh and I get them talking about like what did or didn't work. What I'm listening for is for them to to any pain points with the agent that they selected to write those offers for them. And so then I'm gonna say, hey, look, uh like maybe maybe in hindsight after you meet with me, that was a good thing. Has anyone ever sat down with you and gone through the actual 36 steps of buying a home before you actually take the first step on that journey? They're like, 36 steps.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

What?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yeah, our agent hasn't even like done that. Uh like no, they haven't. Uh no one has. Uh okay. Like, uh, hey, look, like I all of my past clients have really appreciated uh me taking that that crazy complicated uh roller coaster of a process of 36 steps and bringing it down into six easy steps uh before you start getting the time is of the essence emails, the option fee, the earnest fee are due, your appraisal fee is due, survey fee, like all of these different things that most agents just kind of sweep under the rug until it's time to pay up. Uh, you know, like like those things, we're gonna go over timelines. There's four different timelines that we have to follow. Uh, inspector, we're gonna go through all of that over a cup of coffee if that works for you. When is it typically a good time for you to meet during the week over that? And I can do this over Google Meet or I can do this in person.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Sweet. And then you set the appointment and it's a wrap.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

I set the appointment there at the open. I just did this two weeks ago, three weeks ago at the open house for two of our new agents. They not only got to see, as for this guy, uh they not only got to see me convert at the open house, but I set the appointment for right after the open house and they got to go on the appointment with me. You know, you're gonna have open houses where no one comes to them. You're gonna do everything right. Uh, the the only thing that you would do wrong is to give up on the process.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

That's solid. That's all I can say. I mean, that's solid. And I appreciate you so much for sharing literally the whole process from start to finish. And if you're a single agent out there and you've not done this or not tried to do this, follow the blueprint. Cole's already figured out all the good points, bad points, and made it all good points. So follow the blueprint. Is there anything else you want to add, Cole?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

No, I'm just uh I'm very confident in the process because we have agents come in all the time that are brand new, but like just got the um, you know, one of our agents, our top producer, uh in 2025. Uh, she was this was her first full year with our team. She closed 31 transactions, uh 15 million, 15.1 million in volume. Um, and and it was open houses. It was just crushing the open houses. That's solid. Our our second top producer, he also closed 31 transactions and just a hundred thousand dollars off at 15 million uh in open houses. And he has built the business from the open houses. Now they have client care uh programs that they're running, they have a database email that they're running, and now they're getting referral and repeat business from the people that they met in the open houses they've already transacted with. Sweet. And so uh yeah, it just it's a great way to build your base.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Wow. Thank you so much. And we're looking forward to hopefully maybe having you back in the future.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Awesome. Looking forward to it. Thank you.