🎙️ You don't need a single closed sale to get your first real estate listing. Four of the five ways agents get listings work just as well on day one as they do in year ten. In this episode, Robert Rico, licensed agent for over 30 years and head instructor at US Realty Training, walks through where listings actually come from, how to borrow credibility you haven't earned yet, and the word-for-word answer to the question every new agent dreads: "How many homes have you sold?" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🚀 START HERE ✅ The New Agent Checklist ✅ Get certified ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📋 WHAT WE COVER The five lead sources: Sphere of influence, referrals, geographic farming, expired listings, and FSBOs plus open houses. Four of them require no experience at all.The "secret agent" problem: The number one reason new agents quit in their first year, Robert says, is that they run out of leads, and they run out of leads because nobody in their life knows they're licensed. Business cards printed, headshot looking sharp, and then silence, because telling people feels like begging.What the data says: According to the National Association of REALTORS® 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 43% of buyers were referred to their agent by a friend, neighbor, or relative, and that jumps to 49% for first-time buyers. On the seller side it's 66%: two out of three sellers hired someone they already trusted or someone a person they trust vouched for.The credibility transfer method: Three places a brand new agent can borrow proof starting today: your brokerage's track record, your broker or mentor sitting at the table with you, and splitting your first listing with an experienced agent. Half of a listing you actually get beats 100% of a listing you never got."How many homes have you sold?": Most agents lose the listing in the first two seconds of that answer, not in the number, in the flinch. Robert gives the full three-part response and the one thing you have that an agent juggling 40 clients does not.Out-preparing the veterans: Experience is the one round a new agent will lose. Preparation is the round you're favored to win. The six things that belong in your listing presentation folder, and the trap that makes most agents sound smaller than they are.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✍️ YOUR ASSIGNMENT Write down 100 names. Family, friends, old coworkers, your barber, the guy at your gym, your kid's teacher, your softball team. Then reach out and tell them you're in real estate. You tell people so that they tell people about you. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 The promise: your first listing with no clients 00:43 Way 1: Your sphere of influence 01:21 Way 2: Referrals 01:49 Way 3: Farming a geographic area 03:03 Way 4: Expired listings 03:49 Way 5: FSBOs and open houses 04:35 The real reason new agents quit 05:14 The "secret agent" problem 05:46 What the NAR data says about referrals 07:07 Who already trusts you? The 100-name list 08:44 The credibility transfer method 10:02 Bring your broker to the appointment 10:59 Split your first listing 12:11 "How many homes have you sold?" 13:55 The complete 3-part answer 15:43 Out-prepare every veteran in the room 16:34 The 6 things to bring to a listing presentation 18:09 The trap most veterans fall into ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED Certified Real Estate Specialist (CRES) The full client-finding system, taught by Richard Shulman, #1 Keller Williams agent in Los Angeles with over $1.6 billion in sales. Includes a 250-page workbook of scripts. usrealtytraining.com/certified-real-estate-specialist Certified Investor Agent Specialist (CIAS) Taught by Branden Lowder, licensed since 1993 with over 3,900 deals closed. usrealtytraining.com/certified-investor-agent-specialist 📺 Watch the video version on YouTube ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT US Realty Training has helped thousands of people earn their real estate license and launch successful careers in real estate. Learn more at usrealtytraining.com
