Agentjason 2.0

Most important part of getting price reductions?

This morning I woke up to an email from a graduate that needed some help.  The situation paraphrased:

I need to call a client in response to an email I just received about his objection to a price reduction. After receiving low offers his argument is “If I reduce, then I’ll get even lower offers”.

The graduate was looking for a dialogue to use with the seller to get the needed price reduction and from the rest of the email it seemed that the initial conversation about reducing the price happened on the phone.  Nothing was decided on the phone and then later the seller emailed his objection to the agent.  Of course thanks to Floyd Wickman and several others I'm full of dialogues that fit in this situation to help get the price reduced, but for this post I want to argue a more important point:  how and where you have this conversation in the first place is more important than the dialogue used. Price reduction conversations should be in person and ideally in your office.

"But Jason, I don't have time to meet in person."  Really?  How much time do you think an agent spends on the initial call trying to convince the seller to lower the price, then how much time is spent crafting the perfect response email when the seller sends you their objection?  How much time is spent dwelling on it and asking other Realtors and trainers about how to respond?  Add all that up and it's way more than just scheduling an appointment with the seller and then handling it all in the moment, in person.  Besides, delivering a world class dialogue requires you use proper facial expressions, visuals and body language - these things are not possible over the phone.

And when you think about it, there are a lot of other benefits to meeting in person.  Being in your office gives you more control over the situation.  Being face-to-face allows you to build a stronger relationship with your client and it communicates non-verbally that you care enough to take the extra time.  Since they're coming to you, it's not really that much extra time and you can even see if they have a referral to send your way.  The more I think about it, the more I can't imagine why someone would want to have a price reduction conversation over the phone.Here's the only dialogue you need for the phone:  "We've been talking about your house at the office and I want to go over a few things with you.  It's important and I'd like to see you in my office. Would this afternoon at 4 work or would 5 be better?"

Have any thoughts?  Let me hear em!

The Perfect Listing Presentation

What makes the perfect listing presentation?  Is it the way you dress?  The accuracy of your market analysis?  The car they see you drive up in?  The place you sit in the house?  The time you have to deliver your message?  You have your opinions, so do a lot of other trainers.  One thing I know for sure is that most Realtors need a lot more work on their "presentation", a fact I'm reminded of every time I work with a group.  My life as a Realtor changed when I had a well put together presentation with a solid process that gave me control and appropriate visuals to keep me on track.  It's such an important skill that I've given "Listing Presentations" it's own category on this blog.

If you're one of Floyd's graduates, you know that he teaches a process to follow that is designed to match the psychology of the seller as you move through the appointment.  On its own it is very powerful and when you add visuals, it becomes even more effective.  The visuals however, are where nearly everyone trip up and that's my focus for this post.  The other day I told someone to think of their visuals as backup singers or dancers.  They are there to enhance you, but they can't do the show on their own.  For my students, I offer to look over their listing presentations and give them my honest feedback;  my #1 most frequent comment being: Use better pictures and dramatically fewer words.  What I'm trying to get the student to do is stop reading from a piece of paper or laptop screen and just make your point to the seller.  As a general rule, a seller can not read a screen and listen to you at the same time.  And occasionally I'll reference Steve Jobs as the master at creating presentation visuals and although he's not a hall-of-fame speaker like Floyd, the man can create some eye-catching images.

Business Week published a slide show that takes some points from a new book about what we can learn from Mr. Jobs.  If I've ever said to you, "Take all those words out of your visuals", maybe the article/slide show will help.  Note:  In the picture below, it's no coincidence he is standing in that exact spot.  See the text behind him?  Even though you're just at the kitchen table, have you put this much thought into your performance?  

Anyway, this is a topic I must write about more this year.  What are your thoughts?  Do you have areas you struggle with when it comes to the Listing Presentation?  Thought on how the points in the Business Week slide show translate into your own work?  Leave some comments and I'll get to work addressing them.

 

Free Webinar: Recruiting Rescue with Floyd Wickman and Julie Escobar of ProspectsPLUS!

via prospectsplus1.wordpress.com

If you look at your business card and it says broker/owner, office manager or team leader; or if you are an agent with one of the several companies for whom recruiting people into your downline is another way to earn, check this out. Floyd is doing an interview with industry friends ProspectsPLUS and he'll specifically be talking about recruiting. As always with Floyd's events, expect to learn a ton! Click through to the event and register yourself today! The event is October 6th at 12:30pm.

Think you are good at selling? Take the pencil test.

Floyd taught me a great way to detect if someone is really a salesperson or just someone who thinks he is.  All you have to do is listen to their conversation with a prospect and see if they are asking questions.  Many of my students enter the Floyd Wickman Program thinking they are skilled salespeople.  But when we get to sessions 2 and especially 3 where we talk about how to ask and use questions, a bright light is shone on the truth - the truth that they really aren't.  

Watching a student take the path of gaining awareness of what they need to learn and then trying it out in the field is one of the most gratifying things I get to do professionally.  It always comes across in the listing presentation when the student first learns that instead of selling, they've been talking at the seller the whole time (we're #1, we have a company magazine, we have an 800 number for your sign, we're great, now let me give you a CMA, please sign?)  Haha!  

My students look at that vital event called the listing presentation in a whole new way by graduation and for sure many go on to be great at using questions and figuring out what problems they are there to solve for the seller.  But before today I'd never heard of the pencil test.  Mike Brooks writes about it and makes the point very clearly in his blog post.  Read it here ------>  Broker/Agent Social Network.

How to get closer to the asking price

For years Floyd has taught that one thing you can do to make your listing more "salable" is to set it at an odd price.  My favorite when I was in the field was to persuade the sellers to end their price with 777, like $495,777.  I've posted about this before and recently one of my grads brought me another supporting study from a different university.  As long as you understand the concept, it's easy to sell the seller on choosing an "odd price" or as the study calls it, a "precise anchor".  In any case, agents don't set prices, sellers do - so these two studies could help make your point to a highly analytical client.  Read them now for a refresher and you'll rarely need them, but print the links in this post for that one time a year you will - it could be the next appointment!  If you want the full study, leave a comment and I'll send it to you.  And thank you to the grad who brought me this second report.  I forget who you are but I'll give you credit if you remind me!  :-)

Refresher in Objection Handling

The longer you've been around Floyd the more likely it is that you've heard him say "If you can sell something, you can sell anything.".  My Google alert service notified me of this auto industry site that mentioned him.  The writer does a pretty good job of explaining Floyd's objection handling track and I think you should read it.  It's a good refresher and a fine example of how long lasting the skills you learned from Floyd are and how broadly they can be applied.  I wonder how long ago this guy was a Realtor.

AMSOIL Dealer Training Page Four.  (scroll to the sub heading that says "Counter Price Objections"

The Correct Way to Interpret MLS Stats (I think)

I am a Master Salesperson.  I am also a Master Trainer.  I am NOT, however, a master mathematician.  MLS stats are thrown all over the place and I believe that when most people see them, they take them at face value, Realtors included.  My post earlier today referenced a graduate's post and I was trying to point to a particularly good example of a Realtor using a blog to engage their sphere.  I still think the post I referenced is fantastic but this time I wanted to call your attention to the comments section.  Below, I've included the link once more so you can read it again and this time I want you to notice:

1. My comment of course, about listing agreement length.  Only because I think it's a good reminder I'd give any student. 
2. The fact that Larry's comment could to some seem argumentative, but that the blog owners let the comment stand instead of deleting it.  Comments are just conversation and only in rare cases should be deleted.  Most (even negative comments on blogs) offer great opportunity to win over new fans - depending on how you respond.
3. Lastly, Larry's great take on interpreting MLS stats.  Since I'm not a math whiz, I can't say for certain he's right but it sounds very logical and is not the way this salesperson/trainer would have thought. 

So thanks to the Crossland's for the great initial post, thanks to Larry (whoever you are) for the math lesson and thank you both for the opportunity and example to educate my own readers.  Oh yeah, and thanks to my readers for paying attention.  Hope you're learning and staying inspired! 

What a good Realtor blog looks like

One of the biggest hurdles my students tell me keeps them from taking up blogging is knowing what to write.  I look at it this way:  writing something is better than nothing!  Truthfully, in the beginning, while you're developing your style no one will be reading it anyway.  It takes time to build readership and during that time a committed blogger will naturally get better.  

Why does the consumer hire you?  Certainly you don't think it's because you have access to data do you?  The data is all on the internet in case you didn't notice.  But local perspective, guidance and individual interpretation for their situation (ahhhh!) - can't get on the internet, at least not yet.  When you're with your clients face-to-face, isn't this the type of stuff you talk about?  Okay, so this is what you write about.  A good Realtor blog is not just another place to display your listings.  Listings can be linked, but a good Realtor blog is a place for your sphere to get perspective, your take on things, a place for them to build relationship with you over time and a place to maintain a relationship post transaction.

For those of you that have one, what else would you say a blog is good at doing?

Want to see an example of a good Realtor blog?  This post was inspired by:  Sylvia and Steve Crossland.  Floyd Wickman graduates and very good real estate bloggers!

You can't talk back to your mom: so talk back to me!

Blogs give you a voice, but they are also can be a large part of your social networking experience if you know what you're doing.  A site like Facebook is great for social networking because people interact so much - posting on walls, sending SuperPokes, instant messaging, stalking people by looking through all of their pictures (oops, was that out loud?!).  ActiveRain, a blogging platform created for Realtors, started with a brilliant points feature that rewarded you every time you wrote a post or, and here's the genius part, left a comment on another person's blog.  To expand my point, Jeffrey Knott, my recent grad from Phoenix joined ActiveRain last week and almost immediately got a referral from another agent a few states over.  This didn't happen because of ActiveRain per-se but becuase of all the activity (social networking) they encouraged.  Realtors got addicted to earning points and moving up in their metro area rankings.

Now you can extend what ActiveRain created across multiple blogging platforms.  TypePad's new and free service called TypePad Connect allows you to create a profile, complete with profile pic and links back to your blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, etc., so that whenever you leave a comment on a blog, other readers can find and interact with you.  It works whether the author of the blog uses Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, all the majors.

Here's my challenge to you:  Turn your time reading blogs into background lead generation by signing up for TypePad Connect.  Read a post and feel inspired or have your own thought?  Don't just move on, use your TypePad Connect account to leave your thoughts behind.  For example:  What do you think about this post?  Talk back to me!  Leave a comment and who knows - this blog has over 1000 readers a day - maybe your referral is just a few hours away like Jeff!

All I REALLY needed to know I learned from Floyd

What a great post Pat!  I would agree, even if I didn't work for him now!

Post:  All I REALLY needed to know I learned from Floyd Wickman