Complaint Review: Bob Fitzgerald Coaching

Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2013 9:49 AM  

I am extremely happy with the Fitzgerald referral service.  I am very busy and do not have time to cold call.  Having Fitzgerald as part of my team allows me to have the best of both worlds.  They are the experts in cold calling and helping me to get my foot in the door.  This frees me up to give my clients the attention that they need and do what I do best... Sell homes!

Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2013 10:14 AM
To: Cheri Washburn


I've just started using the Prospecting service and after my first month, I've taken my first listing from their efforts. I'm able to submit the leads, areas, and price points I want to be prospected and their efforts create appointments. It's not a "magic pill" as they like to say. And, by doing your job and knowing your scripts, you'll take and sell listings from the appointments they set, and you'll see a good return on your money. Combined with my own prospecting efforts, I'm finding VIP Prospecting to be a valuable tool in my business to keep myself leveraged so I can stay focused on what makes me money; being in front of people and taking and selling listings.

Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2013 10:58 AM


Our team has been using the Fitzgerald system for appointment setting on FSBO, EXPIRED AND SHORT SALE LISTINGS for appx. 9 months to date .Our success has been good to date and is multiplying monthly.

WE feel Fitzgerald system is our partner and we work as a team for common results to make it a win -win scenario.

I recommend this system to any agent that desires more listings and help to advance their real estate career.

Again, prospecting isn’t new nor is it complicated.  There are 4 reasons that an agent will not take listings using our s

What does almost every company in the USA have in common?

Online attacks from people that only tell their side of the story! Companies can’t prevent these attacks in today’s online age BUT they can tell the other side of the story…  Decide for yourself.

FACT:  Prospecting isn’t new… nor is it complicated!

FACT:  We have hundreds of clients that love the service that we provide and the tens of thousands of dollars that they’ve made working with us!  Anyone interested in our service can talk to as many of these references as they need to be sure they don’t lose out on listing after listings simply because a handful of agents out of hundreds choose to tell their one sided story on sites like this.

FACT:  As I type this, we have over 300 agents in our prospecting schedule and by comparison we have had very, very few complaints. 

FACT:  In today’s day and age, most companies have people that complain on web sites like this.  The only reason I took the time to reply was so that a handful of people with slanderous, single sided stories can’t rob you of what others have called the single best investment they’ve ever made.

FACT:  YOU ARE SMART!   Simply read my reply and ask yourself… Does what I wrote make sense?   This is my side of the story.

MY REPLY is very simple.  Just think for a moment about what we do.  We Call.  We are telemarketers “calling” for sale by owners and expired listings.  Prospecting isn’t complicated at all.  If you’d like to see what our prospecting looks like watch this video. You’ll see that it is very simple and not complicated.

www.prospectingworks.com

http://fitzgerald-coaching-prospecting.blogspot.com/

If you hired a telemarketer to work form your office, what would they do?  What would you do?  You would give them a list of people to call… they would call and set appointments and you’d make the presentation, handle the seller’s objections and get the listing.  Right?  You see, prospecting isn’t complicated.

So why do some agents that have a problem with this?  We have set thousands of appointments for real estate agents there are 4 reasons that agents do not succeed and then post their complaints on sites like this one. Decide for yourself who is at fault.

FACT:  We do not want our telemarketers to be the real estate “expert.”  That is the agent’s job.  Our telemarketers do not discuss the current market with a seller.  Our telemarkters do not discuss the home prices with a seller.  Our telemarkters do not handle seller’s objections or answers sellers questions about the home selling process.  We let the agent be the agent and we simply make the appointment.

This is an actual example of an appointment that was sent to one of our clients… then listed and sold!

Again, prospecting isn’t new nor is it complicated.  There are 4 reasons that an agent will not take listings using our service.

1. The agent is too BUSY to actually do what it takes to follow up with the seller and convert the listing.  Expired listings and for sale by owners are being called by a lot of great agents every day.  It is very competitive and our telemarketers have to stand out to actually get the appointment for our clients.  We IMMEDIATELY send the appointment to the agent but if that agent doesn’t follow up right away and confirm the appointment… what do you think happens next?  If the agent doesn’t call back for days or in many cases even weeks then the seller doesn’t even remember that we ever called or loses interest and cancels the appointment.  Without diligent follow up… generating that appointment was a waste of time.  This is a challenge for some of our highest producers.  They may earn six and even seven figures in selling real estate but if they are too busy to follow up with our appointments then they are not going to get listings.

2. The second challenge that can be a problem with some of the highest producers is that they are already “buying leads” from many other sources.  Some have hundreds of leads from lead generation services, web leads, marketing leads, mailing leads, open houses leads, sign calls, Ad calls… etc.  The bottom line is that the top agents have so many leads that they don’t value nor follow up diligently with the expired listings and FSBO appointments that we set for them.   In most cases this type of agent couldn’t even provide any feedback on the appointments we set for them because they NEVER looked at the e-mail with the appointment to begin with..  I don’t have a problem with an agent having far more leads than they can handle but unlike these other sources of leads, my team may have spent 3 to 4 hours and invested hundreds of dials to finally set that appointment.  If they are too busy to open the e-mail or follow up with the seller to confirm the appointment then they aren’t going to like that I hold them accountable for not doing their job.  This is a partnership and they aren’t holding up their end of the bargin.

3. The most common problem that I’ve seen after setting thousands of appointments for agents is that some simply don’t have the skill to convert a prospecting based lead.  The first question that we ask every potential client is if they are comfortable with prospecting based appointments.  Have they worked with expired listings and for sale by owners in the past?   They are not “come list me” referrals.  It is not difficult to handle basic objections about the sellers price expectations or the fact that the seller may have a friend in the business but an agent doesn’t want to hear that other agents are listing the same type of appointments day in and day out.  It is easier to simply “trash” our appointments because the seller had some basic objections rather then educate the sellers and take listings.  I’ve spent more than a decade coaching agents and the bottom line is that if they can’t help a seller see the benefit of listing with them then they are going to have to stick with working with buyers.  There was an agent that posted that we sent him 52 appointments and he didn’t take a listing so the program is a scam.  Never once did it cross his mind that he only helped prove my point.  We can set the appointments but we can’t take the listings.  Most agents in our program would have listed at least a dozen of the exact same appointments.  Again, only a handful of the hundreds of clients we are prospecting for complain at all.

4. Finally, how about common sense!  If you hire a telemarketer you’ll need to provide them with phone numbers...  If you don’t want an appointment in a particular area, don’t put that seller on your list… If you want to be in the call schedule this week, make sure we have your numbers on … We work on referrals, you will have to communicate when you take listings or we will stop calling until you do…

When an agent writes a post that says they only received 6 appointments in 3 months… they never tell you that they haven’t sent in their numbers for 2 months and ignored all attempts to get feedback on any listings they’ve taken from the appointments they did get.  There is ALWAYS more to the story.  Imagine a site like this for your sellers.  The seller wants way more for the home than it is worth… they refused all the advice you gave them about the market and price reductions but they still went online to complain that you didn’t do anything to sell their house and that people should beware of listings with you.  You’d simply direct them to sellers who took your advice and were thrilled with your service!  If you are still unsure about our service, e-mail me and I’ll arrange for you to talk to as many agents as it takes to see that they are making thousands and thousands of dollars with us and you can too!

Bob Fitzgerald

Coachbobfitzgerald@gmail.com