A gift to you, here are nine different ideas for you to create a massive degree of separation to win every listing, to grow your business. Set yourself up for success to ensure you WIN the listing every time.
1. PRE-QUALIFY ALL DECISION-MAKERS –
Pro Tip – Use a PreQual script when calling ahead to confirm your appointment
(ask for our special FSBO and TEAM versions)
Now, let me ask you a question if you truly are committed to winning every listing appointment you go on, do you put yourself in a situation where you only talk to one of the decision-makers? Has there ever been a time in your career when you only talked to one? Ended up not getting the listing because you didn’t talk to the spouse or the other decision-maker?
That’s the cardinal sin; that’s a no-no. You want to make sure you talk to everybody involved, and the big question is that value elicitation question, what’s important to you about the agent you choose to represent you? Essentially they’re going to answer the question, hey, when you show up, will you sell me this way? It’s that good; it’s that powerful. That’s number one.
2. TAILOR YOUR MARKETING PROPOSAL
So you’re pre-qualifying to find out what’s important to them, what their expectations are, and what their desires are. Do they want lots of print? Do they want to go online? Do they not care about any of that stuff, and they just want the result?
You have to find out exactly what’s important to them and then tailor-make that marketing proposal to match their needs and their criteria. So, you need to get a little less boilerplate and a lot more customized.
3. SOLD CREATE AN AVATAR
When you’re presenting to the customer and inside your marketing proposal, you can show them that you do things differently from everybody else in the market. For example, I’m going to go in and say, well, the ideal buyer for this home is probably a newlywed couple, maybe they’ve got a child, maybe a child on the way, they’re buying this three-bedroom, two-bath colonial in the move-up part of town, out of a condo as an example, that person on Facebook, in my marketplace, there’s seventy-five hundred of them, or there’s fifteen thousand of them right here in our local marketplace.
And you can then say to Mr. and Mrs. Seller, “I know the exact type of buyer because I’ve created an avatar based on who they are, and I’ve already done some research on Facebook to let you know, there’s thirty-one thousand of them, and the moment you list your home with me tonight, my marketing team and I are going to go back and run very specific strategic ads directly to them, driving them in their native world, Facebook, right back to your home. Is that the kind of marketing you’re looking for?”
4. BE ON TIME AND IN THE RIGHT STATE
Be on time, be early, and ultimately be in the right state. So, again, has there ever been a time where you showed up at a listing appointment, and you were driving in your car and you were totally late, and you finally showed up, and you’re like, do I look okay? Is that the kind of state that you want your brain surgeon to show up in your attorney to show up in?
I don’t want my real estate professional to show up that way. I want you to show up with a swagger, great energy, and feeling good, having reviewed everything inside your pre-qualifications to know my needs. So you show up entirely for me, on time, ideally early, and in the right physical and emotional state to be of service, to help me, as the homeowner, achieve my goals. You know what I’m talking about.
5. SOLD SOLD PRESENT YOUR STATS
Present your marketing, your track record, and your reviews first. Now, try on this little script. If I want to create a degree of separation, everybody wants to know one thing from you, what’s the value of my house, and then, how are you going to get there through marketing? We believe you start with your marketing plan, your track record, your proof of success, and then all of your reviews on whichever sites you use. To this, you say, this is how we do it better and more, and here are the numbers, here’s the data, here are the stats, online, offline, and all those great things, with check, closes along the way.
“Can you see that this is the kind of marketing that will ultimately attract the right number of buyers to get the bidding war opportunity you desire, Mr. and Mrs. Seller? Of course, you do.” When they say yes, you know what happened; they just said yes to you. They said yes to listing with you. Then you show them your track record, saying we’ve sold so many homes already in this area, myself, my team, our group, our company. Social proof is always good.
And then reviews, here’s what other people are saying. Now, of course, we know what they want to do. They want to talk about the price. And one of the greatest lines you can ever say is, “Mr. and Mrs. Seller, I know you want me to get your price. But understand, you’re hiring me to market and negotiate the best possible transaction for you.”
6. THREE-PRICE STRATEGY
You want to present a three-price strategy. Now, you might alter the language a bit, but consider this, the average agent walks in and says, here’s the comps, here’s what’s sold, here’s what’s pending and what’s going on, right? And that’s okay. It’s what we’ve always done, but you’re different; you’re a gamer. So you’ve got to have degrees of separation; she was the only one that gave us the three prices versus everybody else gave us one, so consider, are you ready?
“Mr. and Mrs. Seller, we have to decide tonight in the marketing of your property when we unveil the home and do everything we’re going to do to have the world see your house. Most importantly, the fifteen thousand avatars that I showed you on Facebook, we have to decide what pricing strategy we’re going to choose to get you the highest possible sale for your home.” So, number one is the bidding war or frenzied price strategy, and this is where we know homes are selling at a price range of X or a per square footage of Y, and we, we just price it slightly below that, and then guess what happens?
I turn on the marketing, and everybody goes, oh my goodness, it’s a deal. “Mr. and Mrs. Seller, generally speaking, when people think there’s a deal and they hear that multiple buyers are writing offers on this property, what do you think happens to the price? Exactly. Well, option number two is we go right at fair market value, and we simply look at the comps, and we see the price trends, and we price it perfectly, and those properties sell in this market very quickly as well. And then, obviously, you might say to me, but Tom, we’re really looking for you to find the needle in the haystack.”
7. SOLD THE MONEY SHOT SOLD
You got to earn your fees. This is where we’ve seen tens of thousands of agents in North America, and for my European clients, you guys know it’s a little bit different, my Australian clients, you guys know it’s different too. But, in North America, there’s this compression of commissions happening every single day. And yet, great people like you say, wait a minute, if I can’t negotiate my own fees, how can I negotiate the final sales price for them?
I’ve got to be stronger, so I’ve got to present a better case; I’ve got to show my value. So, what do you do? You create the upside-down pyramid and say, “Mr. and Mrs. Seller, when we’re deciding on commission, you’ve got to look at two different numbers. First, there’s the side of the agent that lists the home who will spend all of the money and time, and energy marketing and servicing the property; what do they charge? We charge three percent, and we do all of this marketing, and we have to decide tonight, what would you like to offer to the buy side?” And at this point, because they probably have never seen this before, they will scratch their head and say, well, what do you recommend?
We were kind of thinking five percent. How does that work? What if we only offer two over here? What happens? And you might want to say to them, “Well, again, the bigger the funnel, the more potential buyers, and most importantly, agents that might be working with those buyers, they’re going to see your property.” “So, if the MLS says three percent, it’s going to elicit a certain emotional response for all those agents when they’re looking inside the MLS at your home versus showing another one where two point seven five, or two and a half, or two, might elicit a different response. So it’s three percent; what would you offer the other side?”
What I really want to stress to you is the same thing I stress to all our coaching clients – what will you charge? You have to value your fees and make sure you’re getting what you want to run your business profitably, make it make sense for you, do all the things that you need to do, and make the profits you deserve for taking on the risk that you take. So, you can spend a lot of time on this one, and I certainly encourage you to do so.
8. CAN YOU HANDLE THE OBJECTIONS?
If you can’t handle the objections, you don’t deserve the listing. That’s right, I said it. Like if you walk out of that presentation with the age-old line I used to teach a million years ago where I’d say every real estate professional goes on a listing presentation, and has four presentations. The first presentation is the one they make on the drive-over. I’m going to say this, and I’m going to do this. Then there’s the second presentation, the one they actually make, blah, right, the stuff that comes out.
Then there’s the third presentation, the one you make in your car, on your drive back to the office, like I should have said this, and I missed that, and I should have closed. And then there’s the fourth one, the one you lie and tell your broker, oh, I said this, this, this and this, but they were kind of jerky. If you’re not handling the objections, if you’re not asking for the order, if you’re not helping them make an informed and educated decision, you’re not doing your job.
There’s only one presentation that matters, and it’s you leaving it all on the table, right there, in the moment of truth. It’s the bottom of the ninth, the bases are loaded, and this is your chance to win; this is your opportunity to shine, and you and I both know, if you walk out, some knucklehead can walk in and get that listing, put it in the MLS and sell it in two seconds, and everything you did to get to that moment because you didn’t handle the objection, you didn’t close, was for nothing. Are you with me on this? So, handle their objections.
I mean, it’s not like there’s anything new, we want to start at a higher price, we need to think it over, we’re talking to another agent, we need to pray, whatever it is like you got to do, and manage whatever it is, handle the objection and close because if you leave without it, you know what happens.
9. SOLD FOLLOW-UP SOLD
If you don’t get the listing, what will you do regarding follow-up? My recommendation is, give them an assignment. “Look, I know that you guys are considering; you’re talking to other agents; I just want to encourage you, I want to remind you, go to pull up my reviews, and then go to any other agent you’re talking to and considering, and read their reviews.
Because at the end of the day, if you have a choice between a great brain surgeon, someone that does it all day, every day, and has a big track record of success, and someone else that maybe is just getting started, or somebody else that maybe doesn’t have reviews, even if you don’t like me as much, you might realize who you work with real matters. Strategy Matters and Passion Rules!