Chapter 6: Working with Buyers + Sellers
Where it all clicks
This is where it all comes together. Working through a checklist is where everything clicks — the dots connect, the overwhelm calms down, and you finally feel like you're operating like a real business instead of winging it. My goal with systems like this has always been simple:
Save time
Increase profitability
Create scalability
Win more deals
And elevate the hell out of the client experience
This checklist wasn't always public
Originally I built this just for internal use. Then I walked into a listing appointment for a $1.8M property, and the seller asked, "How will you project-manage this?"
I pulled up our Dropbox and walked him through our checklists. That was it. I got the listing on the spot.
He later bought a $3M property, and over the years referred me more than $12M in additional sales. Why? Because no other agent he interviewed had systems to show him. Your checklist isn't just back-end organization — it's a closing tool.
Your New Listing Checklist
Here's the actual checklist — make your own copy and customize it to how you work:
New Listing Checklist (Google Doc — click to make a copy): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K0SzhdDSdXs8FyAWtaRqnpUIx4L76bRM/copy
This also lives in the Toolbox Templates Library so you can always find it. Once it's yours, edit the steps to match your market, your vendors, and your process.
Link it to your email templates
This checklist references most of your communication templates. Our own checklists have direct links to the email templates built right in — so an admin can work down the checklist and open the exact email they need without hunting for it. Set yours up the same way. All templates are in the Communication Blueprint chapter.
The "17-point Listing Launch System"
In your Buyer + Seller Guides, you'll see I reference a 17-point Listing Launch System. That number comes from grouping the checklist steps into bigger "buckets" for presentation — I don't put the actual checklist in the guide, but I do walk clients through it at the appointment.
Pro tip: edit your guides to reflect your custom number of steps, so everything lines up when you show clients exactly what you do and how you do it. (The 25-point Contract-to-Close System gets its own lesson — Transaction Checklist.)
Bonus hiring guide
This checklist doubles as your SOP and training guide for a new admin or transaction coordinator. Plug and play — hand it over and they know exactly how a listing runs.
Let AI do the heavy lifting
Build your version: paste your Listing Process from the last lesson into Claude and have it generate a custom New Listing Checklist you can drop into a Google Doc.
Turn it into a training SOP: have Claude expand each checklist step into a "how to do this" SOP for a new hire — your onboarding doc writes itself.
Keep it current: when a form or vendor changes, have Claude update the checklist and the matching SOP in one pass.
Your next move
Copy the checklist, customize it to your market, and link your email templates into it once they're built. Then save it as your training SOP so the next person you hire runs your listings exactly the way you do.