Dave: We have two questions here. The first is: 'are top producers likely to be listing agents?' The answer is yes. There are two reasons for this:

• An agent can manage 10 listings, but it is awfully hard to drive 10 buyers around town to look at homes. There is a physical limitation here.
• Secondly, top producing agents know that a listing is the absolute best marketing vehicle to grow their business. It is like putting an advertisement right in a neighborhood. Certainly, you could not do that any other way. You can’t put post signs in a neighbor-hood unless you have listed a home! I should point out that there are some closed communities that don’t even allow listing signs, but this is the exception.

A listing actually gives an agent access to the sphere of a neighborhood. The neighbors want to know what the house is listed for, what it looks like and how much it sells for. As a matter of fact, "nosey neighbors" are frequent attendees at open houses. Agents also know that these neighbors are assessing their expertise and skills in case they have to list themselves.

And while that seems to be frustrating for you, let’s try to turn around this equation. First, why do agents say 'you don’t need to call on me because I am a listing agent?' For many, it is a convenient way to keep loan officers away. Remember, they are approached by many loan officers and top producers typically already have loan officer relationships. When they hear this statement by an agent, most loan officers turn their tail and run.

I am going to suggest you don’t do that. Why? For one, listing agents have plenty of sales. They actually have more skills than the average lower-producing agent. When the owner of their listings is purchasing another house, do you think the agent says to them 'I only list houses, I don’t sell them.' Of course not! Or if a potential buyer visits their open house and does not buy that house and is not associated with a real estate agent, do you think that they turn them away?

Now they may have a team of agents, some of which focus on the sales produced by the listings. But either way, the top producer is involved. Again, they are likely just trying to brush you off.

So, the question is: how do you respond when an agent says 'don't call on me, I am a listing agent?' We certainly will go nowhere if we start arguing with them by saying that you know they do sales.

First, you should not be surprised. Before you approach any agent, you should have done your research. That includes looking at social media, their advertisements and talking to others about them. “Others” would include close agents, their manager and/or vendors, such as settlement companies. Approaching agents without this background is not going to be very fruitful. Going further, having a referral from someone they know is also a major step which will help tremendously. The response? Something like: 'That is exactly why I decided to talk to you. I specialize in helping listing agents find more listings, help sell them more quickly and turn them into lead machines.'

What you'd be doing is talking about the value they are interested in, not the value you are interested in. Of course, to state this, you must be able to back it up with real life examples. Stay tuned for more information in my next column.

Dave Hershman is Senior VP of Sales of Weichert Financial and the top author in the mortgage industry. Dave has published seven books, as well as hundreds of articles and is the founder of the OriginationPro Marketing System and Mortgage School – the online choice for expert mortgage learning and marketing content. His site is www.OriginationPro.com and he can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..