Stop Chasing Shiny Objects And Sell More With Sheila Howell

Social media can feel like the only way to grow a real estate business, but what if the fastest path is still the oldest one: being visible, talking to people, and following a simple plan. We sit down with Sheila Howell, a real estate professional and mentor, to get practical about what actually helps new agents build momentum, especially when they’re balancing another job, a family, and a packed calendar.

We get specific about real estate lead generation and the numbers that matter. Sheila breaks down why you have to start at the top of the sales funnel, then track a few clean metrics you can act on, like meaningful conversations and conversion rate. We talk open houses as a real business strategy: how newer agents can get the opportunity to host, how to market beyond the MLS with Facebook and Instagram, when door knocking makes sense, and why “too much traffic” can still hurt if you can’t connect with people.

Then we zoom out to the long game: building trust in your community. Sheila shares ideas like PTA, church, local events, and even hosting face-to-face workshops at the library to position yourself as a helpful local expert. We also cover self-management habits like calendar blocking and Sunday planning, and we end with a reminder every entrepreneur needs: avoid shiny objects and stay focused on the few strategies that move the needle.

If you’re a new real estate agent, a team leader, or anyone building a commission-based business, this one is packed with actionable tactics. Subscribe, share it with an agent who needs clarity, and leave a review, then tell us: what’s the one strategy you’re committing to for the next 30 days?

Transcript

ommunity Visibility That Actually Works

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Really encouraged to get involved with things like uh your you know, if they've got kids, PTA, um church, other, you know, community events. One of our agents hosted a an Easter egg uh hunt a couple years ago in their community and he gave away a leaf blower. You know, not a crazy expensive leaf blow blower, but he handed out, you know, you could hit you could go and hand out uh coloring pages to your neighbors, you know, to your community. It doesn't have to be crazy expensive.

rom Corporate Marketing To Real Estate

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Welcome again to the Commission Code Podcast. We appreciate you taking the time to listen and join us here today, and we're here to help you increase your business revenue and have time to enjoy it. I'm your host, Morris Samson. I've been consulting and training business people for, well, let's just say over 40 years. We're focused on increasing revenue and having time to enjoy it. After years as a professional salesperson, I spent 32 years in the corporate world. I retired as vice president and chief learning officer of the sales department of a large insurance company, where we designed and built and delivered training for over 12,000 professional salespeople. Now, I get to consult one-on-one helping people grow their business and organize themselves to make the most of the time they have. We also build online courses to support business owners in their work as they strive to build the business that they've always wanted. Our objective is really very simple. It's this. We're here to help you get what you want from your business and your life. So, right now, let's get on with this episode. Sheila Howell is our guest today on the Commission Code for your success. We're excited to have Sheila here. Sheila, I think you're the very first real estate professional that we've had on the show in some 300 episodes. So you're the first. We love it. I love being the first. Well, you got it, and you built a wonderful business. And uh, I think it's going to be fun to chat with you about that and what you do. Tell us a little bit about you.

entorship And Building A Simple Plan

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, so I spent most of my career in corporate marketing. And in 2020, I had a chance to take a buyout after, you know, those Monday morning reportings, you know, what happened on over the weekend, and thought, you know what? I am ready. I'll just retire. But very quickly I learned I am not meant to retire. So, you know, I did the typical thing. I hopped onto Chat GPT and, you know, did lots of research about what people do for retirement roles. And, you know, there are a lot of things that didn't match, but real estate really is my passion. I feel very strongly that that is a way of building significant wealth for a significant number of people. And so you take that aspect with my passion for helping people, my passion for people helping grow their wealth. And I love numbers. So, you know, with all the analytics that I did, my corporate background as well as, you know, the marketing piece that comes along with it, it was just a natural match. So I absolutely love it and I haven't looked back.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Great. So for the past what six years, you've been running your own business?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

It's been about four years because it took me a little bit to figure out that retirement wasn't for me.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, that makes sense. And that's that's probably a space a lot of us are in or have been in. Yes. And now we're trying to grow what business we have into something more significant. And I understand you also do some mentoring on the on this as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yes. So our the brokerage that I'm with is Red Watch. It's in central Ohio and it's growing very quickly. But one of the things that we've noticed is that in real estate school, in quotation marks, you know, they teach you about the rules and the law, but they don't teach you how to run your business. And so that's one of the things that AMP, which stands for agent mentorship program, that's what we do. We help our agents figure out how to run and grow their business. And so, you know, it's so much fun. We've we actually have agents that have been um in real estate for a really long time because business is always changing. And to have a mentor that they can lean on to, you know, run ideas by and when they're struggling, to have someone that they can call, you know, really makes a difference for them.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Oh, it does. It makes all the difference in the world. And it's it's such a position where you need some help from somebody that's actually done it. Uh, my my whole business is around helping business owners increase their revenue and have more time to enjoy it. Because you know, if you're working all the time, why why do it if you don't have some time to enjoy it? So when it gets down to it, how you run your business is what's going to provide those two things. And that's where I spend 99% of my time is is talking about that particular kind of thing. So I'm always always open to to chatting about how you start a business and how you get it going and such. And as I say, you're you're our first real estate professional. So I'm curious as to how you do that in the real estate world. How did you begin your business? How do you teach people to begin their business? You take it from here.

etrics That Start At The Funnel

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Awesome. All right. Well, so a lot of the agents that we have also have full-time jobs or part-time jobs. So that point of about balancing life and being able to, you know, run your business but not have it run you is really significant. And so one of the things that we help our agents through is understanding, okay, so I only have so much time. How do how do you make the most out of that time? And one of your guests that you had a couple weeks ago, uh, Dr. Tracy Jones, she was mentioning this two-page business plan. And it's kind of similar to that, but we build it specifically for real estate agents. And so we work alongside of them to build their business plan. And then one of the things that I love, because I geek out on numbers, is actually helping them put the numbers behind it and developing the metrics so that they know what metrics to watch. Because, as you know, if you don't measure it, it gets away from you very quickly. And so each agent really needs to decide what they want to do to drive their business. So whether it be um, you know, some are really, really good at open houses and and having those conversations at open houses, and then there's others who are very good at cool calling. You know, quote calling is not my gig. I that's very difficult for me. But some are really good at it. And so, you know, we work with them to say, okay, well, what are the three different strategies you want to implement? Because to your point, it can't be 10, because if it's 10, you're not going to succeed. But if you pick two, three, the chances that you're going to be successful is much higher. So we help the agents through, you know, that process of figuring out what's right for them. And then we just we we meet with them weekly, we have training classes because at the same time we still have to train on, okay, well, this is updates to the contract. This is the new technology, this is that. But we really try to keep them focused on growing their business and their individual business, you know, what makes the what sets them apart from the you know, 10,000 other agents in the area, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Oh, absolutely. And uh you're you're we're on the same page about strategy because you have to focus in business. We've got to be able to focus on the business. And that's that's tough when you're trying to do this in addition to a full-time or part-time job, because you've got to be able to carve out time to to really focus on your business, or as uh Michael Gerber said in his book, you've got to work on your business as well as in your business. So if you don't take some time to think things through and do that, you're you're gonna be in deep kimchi, uh not good stuff, that's for sure. Um you mentioned metrics, and metrics are are important. My problem with metrics is that everybody wants to measure everything or they just want to measure the stuff that looks good. You know, oh man, it's it's you know, well, great. We our total sales were down, but boy, our sales were up with this particular product, man. That was great. We did really good with okay, wonderful. But what really matters and what what do you think for a new business getting started? What metrics do you do you look at?

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Well, again, it kind of depends on the agent where they're focusing. But one of the things that I try to do is bring them back up to the top of funnel. Because if you if you're not filling the funnel, then you know the chance that you're going to be able to convert, you know, is really um and and get the sales that you want, that's very difficult. So when we walk through the process, it's like, okay, well, let's say that you're gonna have an open, you want to do an open house every week. Well, in order for it to be a successful open house, you want five people, five real conversations, right? Well, if you convert it 20%, then you know that's going to get you X. So that's one of the things that I work with the agents so that they understand, okay, are you getting the five? If you're not getting the five meaningful conversations, that's a problem because then that means you're gonna have to convert all that much better. So, you know, trying to solve that problem. And then if you're not converting the one out of five, why not? And so we can kind of hone in on okay, well, then let's let's work on, you know, real playing. I don't like scripts, but role playing is different to me because it kind of pushes outside of the the comfort zone a little bit.

pen Houses That Create Real Leads

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

So, you know, working through those metrics that are specific to each of the agents. But for me, it always begins at the top of the funnel. And I think a lot of that because you know, being in corporate marketing, we were always like, How many people are we driving to the site? Of course, it's got to be quality, quality visitors, but you know, that that was a key metric when I was in corporate. So I kind of go back to that.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Oh, makes perfect sense. And I I guess I'm I'm worried though, it are we at the top of the funnel? Yeah, I'm gonna have an open house, but how did I get that open house to begin with? How do you how do you go about getting people to to work with from the beginning? That's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Because you're right, if you're a brand new agent, how do you get that? Well, with our brokerage, we have over 800 agents in central Ohio. And so, you know, if you've got if a if a listing agent has uh a new listing, we are pushing our agents to reach out to them and say, let me hold an open house. And we the our agents are going with really well or a lot of knowledge and a lot of training on how to hold a successful open house. So when you have to find the property, and with all the agents that we have, it makes it easier because you know, for the number of new listings we have every week is significant. So going out, you know, reaching out to the agents to say, may I hold this open house for you? Most of them will say yes because they recognize that their sellers want more people in their home. Um, so that's that's number one. Number two is what are you doing to promote the open house? Just slapping it on the MLS is not enough. You know, you need to have your Facebook ads, your Instagram ads, and what do those ads look like? And that again is where we come in at because you have to have enough people seeing it. Now, if it's an OSU game day, uh we kind of tell the agents to stay away from those days because it's gonna be a dead to do.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

That makes sense, yeah.

etting Listings Through Relationships

SPEAKER_01 13:26

But outside of football season, you know, it's a lot easier to schedule those open houses. But we really, you know, drive on marketing them. How like I encourage people to go out and door knock in the neighborhood and hand the fly around and say, hey, I know that you know we're having an open house, we want to let you know that there might be more traffic. And by the way, you know, if you know anyone that you would like to, you know, have as a neighbor, tell them about it. And so it drives that excitement, it gets more people in. And one thing to kind of be cautious about, which you don't think about very often, is if you get 20 people in the open house and it's just you, it's hard to have those five meaningful conversations.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

So it's a balancing act. But you definitely, you know, if you feel like it's going to be one of those really hot properties, that's when you have another agent come in with you. And even if they're just observing and, you know, any new leads you get, it's still a learning process for the other agent. And that's part of what I love about our platform is we really work as a team and we support each other.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

And I've I've got one question then I want to go back to the to the very beginning, I think. Um, okay, so you got this listing and you want me to to come do your open house and I do that and you sell the house. Are we going to split the commission to some extent?

SPEAKER_01 14:55

It depends. So um if the agent, so if the buyer comes in and they're what you call unrepresented, then you know the the agent that's hosting the open house, you basically work with them to uh typically the listing agent would let you have a portion of that commission. Uh, if it was just my listing and I was doing the hosting of the open house, it doesn't come into play. But if the buyer is represented by another agent and they did not come in with them, it's that other agent's uh commission that they would get. And really, it's just a learning experience in that case. And it's an opportunity to have one of those conversations. So and we are finding more people coming in without a buyer's agreement. I don't know why, um, but it seems like buyers are a little more hesitant to sign those buyer brokerage uh representation agreements.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

That's interesting. We've we've been around the country, started off in Alabama, wound up in Louisiana and Arkansas and Texas and New Jersey and New York and bought houses by the grace of God in all those areas. And I wouldn't even begin the process till I had an agent under under contract and somebody to somebody to help us, uh, because you just never know what's going to happen. And I always feel like having a professional on my side is a worthwhile thing to do. But uh, so that's interesting to me. The question I have for you though is this I'm a brand new agent and I've helped a couple of people with their open houses, but gee, Sheila, I want my own dead gun listings. How do I how do I find people who want to sell their house?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Well, so finding listings is definitely a challenge. There are leads, lead programs out there. So there's many out there that that offer leads. They're very, what I would say, cold leads. They take a lot of work. But again, if you don't mind the hustle, there, you know, you can convert, but it will take hustle. Um, the other way is of course, you know, you hear a lot about your sphere. And so, you know, working with um people, you know, that you that know, like, and trust you, but also having random conversations. So, you know, I'm I'm not too shy to wear my I'm a realtor or my brokerage shirt out to get coffee than just having conversations. Um, you know, whether it be the, you know, at the hair salon, you know, there's there's someone that uh does my nails and there's a place where there's someone in her uh salon that's looking to sell. So it's those kind of conversations. Now I will say that if you're a new agent, it's hard to get that listing if you don't have a team or someone behind you. So again, that's where the amp comes in because it's not just this agent saying, Hey, let me sell your house. And I haven't ever done this before.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I work with new agents of all sorts of different industries and um usually independent contractors of some kind. And I it's one of the things I always say is you don't ever tell people, gee, I'm new at this. Yes, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Yes, that's a big time no no. No, you're not gonna lie to them and tell them you've been in the business for 30 years, but you don't have to say, you know, this is my first listing, right? You you don't do that, uh, it doesn't do anything to help you, and it causes some angst and amongst the person you're working with. So just don't do it. Yeah, you've got you've got, if you're involved in any kind of a good operation, you've got support, you've got more people behind you and more information and and more ways that you can get whatever they need. So it's not a question of whether or not you have the the knowledge and the the credibility because you've got that all behind you. So the key is to to begin to build a relationship, and that's where it all where the rubber meets the road, seems to me.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah, that's a really good point because it is the relationship. And and even if you have a ton of experience, if you don't have a good relationship, okay, you might win that listing, but that doesn't mean that it's going to be a good listing, a good experience.

orkshops And Community Based Marketing

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And you begin to qualify prospects and figure out who is and who is not someone you really want to work with. Yep. Not to mention the situation itself. So that makes perfect sense. You were talking about getting down and talking to people. We call that personal observation, and it is so vitally important. I have a friend who says, Hey, if nothing else, go get a cup of coffee at Starbucks and stand in line. Get up to the front, don't buy your cup of coffee, go back to the back end of the line, start all over again. And this guy knows everybody in town now. But those are the kind of things he used to do. He says, You want to meet the manager of the branch of the of the bank, the guy, the president of the bank in town? Great. Find out where he goes to lunch. And hang out there. You know, you walk in, you I'm waiting on someone, you have a seat, and and you just wait when he walks in, you bump into him. Oh, hey, Mr. Jones, so nice to see you. My name is Morris Sims, and I always wanted to meet you, and I'm just glad we had that opportunity today. Uh, maybe at some point in time I can buy you a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

I love that. That is a great approach, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

And this this gentleman who taught me that uh is a multi-billion million dollar producer, and uh just he just recently moved to Lake Tahoe. Nice. Oh, geez, some people really do well, right? And that's that's all part of the deal. Yeah. Outside of social media, uh it's my opinion that we we use that as a crutch way too much. Outside of that, how do your new agents become visible?

SPEAKER_01 21:20

So open houses are for sure one of them. Yeah, I really encourage to get involved with things like uh your, you know, if they've got kids, PTA, um, church, other you know, community events. One of our agents hosted a an Easter egg uh hunt a couple years ago in their community, and he gave away a leaf blower. You know, not a crazy expensive blower, but he handed out, you know, you could have you could go and hand out uh coloring pages to your viewers, you know, to your community. It doesn't have to be crazy expensive, you know. So it's those types of things. It's just getting out, meeting people, having those conversations, and starting to develop those relationships.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Absolutely. And I I think that's true if you're selling houses or insurance or travel or widgets. Yes, it all is gonna come right back down to that and being visible to start the conversation to build a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

So is in in I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead, please.

alendar Blocking And Sunday Planning

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Another place to do is to host workshops. So uh, you know, you see a lot on Zoom and virtual, but I'm a firm believer. and face-to-face workshops. Host something at the library.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Ooh, at the library, what a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Yeah. They have these nice meeting rooms and they've got all the A V that you could possibly want. You know, you can't have like food and drinks. At least in my library, you can have drinks that have a cap. But you know, that's okay. You know, water is perfectly fine. They're not there long enough to need a four-course meal.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Isn't that the truth? With with that brand new business owner, brand new agent. We've taught them they got to get out and go do these things. We've taught them all the other things that they need to do and the training they need to get how what do you recommend as far as how they manage themselves? Because I won't use the words time management. Because I think that's a total misnomer. You can't manage time. We only got 24-7. So how do you teach them to manage themselves? I know I've got I'm doing I've got a full-time job. I've only got a certain amount of time I can deal with this because I've got a family to deal with as well. How do you teach them to manage their time? What do they what do you tell them to focus on?

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Well so we talk a lot about calendar blocking. And so and what does that mean and how you know how do you implement it? Again we kind of take each and every agent through it for themselves because sometimes it's like okay based on their schedule it's not you do something 15 minutes every day. Some it may be that you take two hours on you know Wednesday night because that's the night that your kids are at some event uh or some practice. You know you kind of have to make it fit for you but then you know at the same time I'm a big proponent on taking some time on Sunday and looking at the week and planning it out because it's amazing when it's like oh okay I have to be be prepared for this on Thursday. In that case I need to do XYZ um you know that was something I did my corporate days and it just has really stuck with me. So um that that's something that works really well for me and I've really encouraged most agents to try and do that. And I think that goes across to all industries you know looking at your calendar and picking one day to really plan and strategize what's happening for the week.

ocus, Shiny Objects, And The Close

SPEAKER_00 25:09

As a disclaimer I'm going to tell everybody we have not had this conversation prior to recording this podcast. I talk about that all the time. It it comes from my my knowledge of it comes from a uh video that Darren Hardy did and it's called Sunday planning. And he he talks about a wonderful story about him meeting an older gentleman in his 90s who had to recover his company from his son who was almost 70 because his son wasn't doing what he wanted him to do. So he took back over the three companies and they got into a conversation about well how in the world do you handle that at your age and how do you plan your your time and he had a just a spot on system to do it. So Darren Hardy Sunday planning Google it's worth your time I love it. Yeah that's when I started doing that years and years ago it reduced stress and anxiety so much I had the I had that Sunday evening Monday anxiety that some people get and it's like oh my word I got to start tomorrow and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. Right. It just sort of all begins to kind of blow apart. So I'm I'm with you 110% on that one. There's no doubt about it. Yeah. Sheila wrap us up here what what's the one thing that if if you could get new agents to just listen to you on one thing if they would just do this what what is it?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Stay away from the shiny objects oh my goodness amen you know I I I had to do that in corporate especially because you know you couldn't do you couldn't go a day without getting someone saying hey we have this new technology new this new that and it's really hard to say no but you have to say no and go back to here are my three things or four whatever but that very very limited number and just stay focused.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

And maybe you don't really win at those three four things do not matter yeah yeah absolutely my friend Bob Berg is an author he wrote uh the go giver and the go giver series he he lives down in Florida and just a really really nice guy he posted a a daily email thing and today it it was a a quote from another friend of his that said you know you have to ask yourself is what I'm about to do the best and highest use of my time right now yes and I thought wow I got to use that somewhere so I just did perfect and that that's another thing that can help you stay focused is is really the the skill is being able to stay focused. So Sheila thank you very much I'm excited about the fact that I I now have a podcast with a real estate professional and uh you've given us some great ideas and some great thoughts. Thank you so much for being on the commission code. Well thank you for having me Morris I really enjoyed it well that does it for this episode of the Commission Code podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to MorrisTems.com for more information and in the meantime hey have a great week get out there and meet somebody new and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission code. Best wishes I'm Moritz Dems