Search for circle prospecting questions and the lists are all the same list. How long have you lived in the home? Have you thought about selling? What would you do if you could get your price? Do you know anyone who is thinking of moving? Those are discovery questions for a seller, borrowed from a listing appointment, and they are being pointed at a person who has shown no sign of selling anything. The neighbor you are calling did not list, did not withdraw, did not post an ad. They live on a street where something happened, and that is the only thing you and they have in common.
So the correction is about what the questions are for. On a seller call, questions uncover motivation. On a circle call, there is no motivation to uncover yet, and questions that go looking for it get the answer the circle prospecting script is built to avoid: “we’re not selling.” The questions that work on a circle call are about the street, they are few, and they change between the first call and the second. Two on the first. Four on the second. And a short list to retire.
Why seller questions fail here
A question implies a reason for asking it. “How long have you lived there” implies you are estimating their equity. “Have you thought about selling” implies you would like them to. The neighbor, who was offered information about a closing down the street thirty seconds ago, hears the shift from their street to their house, and the call becomes the pitch they were waiting for.
There is a second problem with the standard list that has nothing to do with sales. Questions about who lives on the street, what the neighbors are like, whether the area is changing, or who is moving in are questions that drift toward the Fair Housing Act’s protected characteristics, and an agent who asks them, or who lets a neighbor answer them at length and writes it down, has created a record nobody wants to explain. Keep every question on the property and the market. Never on the people.
The first call: two questions
The first circle call has one job, which is to leave the neighbor with a fact about their street and an offer to send more. Two questions fit inside that, and both are already in the script.
“Would that be useful to you, or would you rather I didn’t?” The exit, offered as a question. It sorts the call before anything else is asked.
“If I put together a short note on what sells around you every couple of months, would you want it?” The ask. It is the only question on the first call that produces a record, and the answer is yes, no, or a request to stop.
That is the first call. Two questions, both about whether the neighbor wants information about their own street, and nothing about them. Agents who add a third question on the first call almost always add a seller question, and the circle objections piece explains what happens next.
The second call: four questions
The second call, six to eight weeks later, to a neighbor who took the note and has received it once or twice, is where questions earn their place. The neighbor now knows your name, has a reason to believe you are not pitching, and has just been told about the newest sale. Four questions, in roughly this order, each still about the street.
“Did the note make sense, or was there anything in it you wanted more on?” A question about the thing you sent. It is answerable, it invites a correction, and a neighbor who asks a follow-up question about a comparable sale has told you they read it.
“That last one went for a number that surprised a few people. Did it match what you’d have guessed for the street?” A question about the market on their street, which lets the neighbor volunteer a view about value without being asked what their house is worth. Most people have an opinion about the neighbor’s price. Few will offer one about their own unprompted, and you do not need them to.
“Has anything changed on the street that a buyer would want to know about?” The road project, the new school boundary, the drainage problem that got fixed, the corner lot that is being split. This is the question that makes you the agent who knows the street, and the answers go into the next note. It is also the question most likely to produce, unprompted, the sentence you are actually listening for, which is “well, actually, we’ve been thinking about it ourselves.”
“Has anything changed for you, or are you settled in for a while?” The only question about the neighbor, asked last, only on the second call, and framed so that “settled” is the expected and welcome answer. The script’s own version. A neighbor who has answered three questions about the street without being sold anything will answer this one honestly, and the answer is either a record note or the beginning of a listing conversation that they, not you, opened.
| Call | Question | What it reveals | What to record |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | Would that be useful, or would you rather I didn’t? | Whether to continue | Declined, or continued |
| First | Would you want the note every couple of months? | The opt-in | Note yes or no, with the date |
| Second | Did the note make sense? | Whether they read it | Engaged, or not |
| Second | Did that price match what you’d have guessed? | Their view of value on the street | Their words, if they offered a number |
| Second | Has anything changed on the street a buyer would want to know? | Street knowledge for the next note; sometimes their own plans | The fact, and any unprompted sentence about themselves |
| Second | Has anything changed for you, or are you settled? | Their state, volunteered | Settled, or their words and a date |
The questions to retire
Four appear on every list and each one costs more than it returns on a circle call.
“Do you know anyone thinking of selling?” It asks the neighbor to inform on their friends, the honest answer is almost always no, and it converts the call from information into solicitation in one sentence. The script retired it for a reason.
“How long have you lived here?” A seller question in a thin disguise. If you need the answer, it is on the tax roll, which is where the farm selection piece gets it.
“Would you like to know what your home is worth?” A listing pitch with a question mark. On a first call it ends the call. On a second call it undoes the trust the first one built.
“What are the neighbors like?” The fair housing problem in its most common form. Do not ask it, and if a neighbor starts to answer a version of it, steer back to the property: “I meant the street itself, anything about the road or the lots.”
What the questions are for
Across both calls, six questions, and only one of them is about the neighbor. That ratio is the point. Circle prospecting works by making you the person on the street who knows what the street is doing and asks nothing in return, until the neighbor’s own plans change and they mention it to the one agent who never asked. The circle prospecting hub builds the whole cycle on that patience, and the question list is where the patience is either kept or broken, one seller question at a time.