Cold Calling Without a Script: 7 Proven Lessons From a Chef Turned Listing Agent

Ask Albert Mughannem what script he uses on prospecting calls and he gives an answer that makes most trainers wince. “I personally think the best script is a no script,” he says. Albert has been doing this long enough to defend the position. He was first licensed in 1986, spent more than a decade as a professional chef and restaurant manager, and came back to real estate about seven years ago. Today he runs Team Mughannem Real Estate in Southeast Michigan with his wife, Teresa. Their business pulled $3 million from FSBO leads in a single year.

His approach to cold calling without a script comes down to a ratio: listen twice as much as you talk. Where most agents give a homeowner five minutes before moving to the next number, Albert will stay on the phone for 20 or 30 minutes, even when he knows an appointment is not coming out of it. That patience is what homeowners react to when they tell him he sounds different from the last 10 agents who called.

Here is how he thinks about scripts, discouragement, empathy, morning routine, and AI, in his own words, from his conversation on the REDX Podcast.

Co-authored by the REDX Publishing Team and:

Albert Mughannem

Albert Mughannem founded Team Mughannem Real Estate in Southeast Michigan with his wife, Teresa, after more than a decade as a professional chef. He specializes in probate, inherited homes, and the major life transitions behind them, and his husband and wife team pulled $3 million in business from FSBO leads in a single year.

Read my $3 million FSBO case study

Watch the full conversation on the REDX Podcast:

Should You Use a Script, or Try Cold Calling Without a Script?

Albert’s answer is to drop the script and have a real conversation, because a scripted agent stops listening. “The problem is, I don’t think some folks reading from a script listen very well,” he says. “They listen for the objection, and then they want to go into the next line of the script.”

That habit costs you the only useful information on the call. An objection is a symptom. The reason underneath it is where the listing lives.

“If you listen twice as much as you talk, then perhaps you can see where the objection really is coming from, what’s driving that objection. And if you can relate better to the prospect, you’re more likely to get a positive outcome.”

If you are new, keep the script and make it yours

Albert isn’t telling brand-new agents to dial with nothing. He wants them to graduate off the page:

1. Start with a proven script so you have somewhere to stand.
2. Read it enough to understand the intent of each line, then stop reading it word for word.
3. Put your own personality on it and let the conversation bend where the homeowner takes it.
4. Keep making calls. Volume is what turns borrowed words into your words.

He compares it to being on camera for the first time. Awful at first, easier every time, eventually second nature. If you want the middle ground between a full script and pure improvisation, our guide on when to use real estate cold calling scripts and when to let them go covers how top agents make that call. And before you dial anyone, REDX recommends you avoid calling numbers on the Do Not Call list. Our agent’s guide to the DNC list and TCPA walks through the rules.

Why Do Homeowners Tell Him He Sounds Different?

Because he is not performing. “People are smart, and they’ve been around, and quite frankly, they can hear when you’re not being authentic,” Albert says. “When you’re just reading from a script, when you’re just trying to make a sale, get that next deal, they can hear it.”

The tell for him is what prospects say out loud, unprompted: you don’t sound like every other realtor, you don’t sound like the last 10 people I just talked to. Those calls run long. Twenty minutes, sometimes thirty, on a number most agents would have abandoned in four.

What Counts as a Win If You Do Not Get the Appointment?

Five minutes of real conversation plus an email address. That is Albert’s bar, set deliberately lower than an appointment, because he doesn’t believe one is available yet.

“If they’re willing to do two things, stay on the phone with you and give you an email address, you basically have a win, whether or not you get a listing appointment.”

He is blunt about the math on first calls. “Nobody, and including myself, is going to sign a contract with just a single phone call,” he says. “You do need to be able to get in front of them, look them in the eye, and shake their hand.” The call earns the follow-up. The follow-up earns the appointment. The appointment earns the listing.

FSBO sellers are a good example of why the long game pays. According to REDX MLS tracking data, 38% of FSBOs end up listing with an agent, and 88% use an agent in some capacity before their home is sold. The homeowner who tells you today that they have it handled is often in that 38% four months from now, and the agent with the email address is the one who hears about it.

How Do You Handle Homeowners Who Are Brutal on the Phone?

You let it be about them. Albert does not pretend the abuse is rare. “People can be brutal on the telephone. They get cussed at, hung up on, and called all sorts of names,” he says. His filter is to read it as frustration that arrived before he did.

“I really don’t take it personally. So I let those types of insults roll off my back, and then I pick up the phone, because the next conversation can go really, really well.” The thick skin came from years of it. The empathy underneath is what he refuses to fake: “The empathy part is simply my heart. And you really can’t fake that.”

That empathy is the engine of his niche. Albert works probate, inherited homes, and major life transitions: an elderly parent moving into assisted living, a family selling a house someone lived in for 60 years. Come alongside people in those moments as a partner, he says, and they trust you with the sale.

What Do You Do When You Are Too Discouraged to Dial?

He stops dialing. A bad attitude leaks into your voice, and calling through it damages every conversation that follows.

His reset looks like this:

• Walk away from the prospecting calls for the rest of the block. There is other real work in a real estate business.
• Call your sphere instead, with no agenda. Friends, family, people at church, clients you already like.
• Talk about anything besides real estate. Ask how life is going. Let people who like you remind you that you are good with people.
• Work the business you already have and put out a social post or two so the day still moves.
• Come back to the list when your attitude is right, because the homeowner hears the difference.

If the reluctance is bigger than one bad morning, our guide on conquering real estate call reluctance gets into the underlying fear and how to work through it.

What Does His Morning Look Like Before the First Call?

Albert protects personal time before he protects prospecting time. “If it’s all 100% work, that’s a recipe for burnout,” he says. The order matters to him:

1. Up early with coffee and time with God in prayer, which is what centers him for the day.
2. Time with Teresa once she is up, including their morning walk.
3. Calendar and email review to see what the day actually requires.
4. Phones at 9:00 a.m. He waits until nine on purpose, because he does not want to be a nuisance to homeowners.
5. Ninety minutes to two hours on the REDX list, wrapping up between 10:30 and 11:00 depending on how it is going.
6. Lunch, then existing business for the rest of the day.

Seven years of that rhythm produced what he describes as a growth chart running at a 45-degree angle, every year better than the last, including in down markets. His favorite REDX feature is the piece that makes the 9:00 a.m. block possible: “You guys have concise lists with phone numbers and contact information that work. I just sign into my REDX list, and there they are at nine o’clock every morning.”

Where Does AI Belong in Prospecting, and Where Should It Stay Out?

Albert uses AI in the hour before the call. Most agents stop at staging photos and listing descriptions, which he considers the beginner version. His use is research.

Run the address before you dial

Take a FSBO or expired address, run it through an AI tool, and ask about the property and the neighborhood. “It cuts down on the time of research, and it can do the research for you before you pick up the phone,” he says. “It can arm you with more information, make you sound like a pro in that particular neighborhood, whether you are a pro or not.” He also uses it for blog content and for drafting scripts he then makes his own.

Where he draws the line

Obvious AI social posts and synthetic versions of yourself. “If somebody’s trusting you with a half million dollar investment, their largest investment, authenticity trumps AI all the way,” he says. Simulating your own image and voice because you dislike being on camera is, in his words, taking it a little bit too far. For a fuller framework on where automation helps and where it hurts, see our breakdown of AI for real estate prospecting.

Try This on Your Next Prospecting Block

Albert’s habits translate into a short list you can run tomorrow morning without changing your lead sources or your CRM.

1. Set a listening ratio for one block. Aim to talk half as much as the homeowner, and ask what is behind an objection before you answer it.
2. Redefine your win. Five minutes of conversation plus an email address counts. Log it that way so a long, appointment-free call stops feeling like a loss.
3. Let one call run long on purpose. Pick the friendliest conversation of the morning and stay in it past the point you normally exit.
4. Research three addresses before you dial. Ask an AI tool about the property and the neighborhood so you have something specific to say in the first 30 seconds.
5. Guard the first hour of your day. Coffee, family, or whatever centers you, before the phones, because your attitude carries in your voice.
6. Have a discouragement plan. Decide now which sphere contacts you call when a block goes badly, so the reset is automatic.

Keep this one for the days the list feels pointless. Albert once called a homeowner who said “I’m here now, can you come now?”, drove over, and signed a listing contract 30 minutes after the initial phone call. It does not usually work that way. “Sometimes you get people at the right time,” he says, “and you don’t ever know when that right time actually is until you make the call.”