John Duncan MBA BCA Licensed Real Estate Salesperson (REAA 2008)
Key 1.1 Secure more invitations to appraisals with pro-active marketing.
Say out loud to yourself. “I want to be their real estate resource before they know they need one!” This is your goal for your pro-active marketing.
Becoming perceived as the local real estate resource by potential vendors is the key to a satisfying career as a real estate professional and is also the primary goal of the processes built into SalesPartner real estate software systems. We have discovered that even new salespeople can achieve a high level of profile as a real estate resource in just a few months of work with SalesPartner.
So you have a salesperson license and a licensed agency to work from. How do you get your own listings? Why does it seem so easy for some colleagues and such a challenge for others? When I have a training group that includes salespeople who have been in the industry for 10 years or more I regularly ask; “Where do your listings come from?” The veteran salespeople report that most of their vendors are people they have helped with a real estate transaction in the past. They have dealt with them before as a real estate professional. All the participants in the course usually readily accept that as the natural order of things. The more experienced you are as a salesperson the more referral and repeat business you should be getting.
The question that follows to the whole group is: “How many of the intending vendors in your area have made a previous real estate decision?” And we ask “How many of those have dealt with a real estate salesperson or agency still active in the industry today?” (The answer is nearly all. Only a very few current owners among those who inherited or partnered with a property owner might be the exception.)
You can immediately see how vital it is for new salespeople that many veteran salespeople and existing real estate agencies have come to ignore their past clients soon after they have completed their property purchase. Salespeople are always busy and without good systems can quickly lose touch with past clients. We believe many purchasers never hear from their agent again after settlement is complete. A quote to remember: “Each phone call before settlement shows how much you care about getting paid, each phone call after settlement shows how much you care”. (Phone calls after settlement are also a good source of testimonials, referrals and relisting.)
If veteran salespeople and their agencies were better at keeping in touch it would be much harder for new salespeople to be successful when they enter the industry. The fact is they often are not very good at it. This represents a huge opportunity for new salespeople to build quality relationships with these real estate “orphans” right now.
We know real estate transactions are hand made and to be successful you need excellent people skills. Databasing however is about opportunity, being there early and often, and about building relationships and trust with potential clients, both buyers and vendors.
It also helps when the processes you use for keeping in touch achieve a couple of other key objectives. These are;
- Illustrating the current market.
- Demonstrating the systems you use to market available properties.
We will provide more details of these processes and systems in later chapters. But it’s important to note that the processes you have available for pro-active marketing from a SalesPartner database are designed to both illustrate the current market and have your potential vendors say to themselves. “I want this to happen when I list my property.”
Talking about marketing allows us to bring up this question. “What do real estate salespeople sell?” The answers we get during our seminars include – properties, themselves, their agency and their services. If we ask more clearly “What is the service that you the salespeople sell to vendors?” we can still get a wide variety of answers like marketing plans, support and expertise during an emotional period, negotiating skills, or the ability to get their property sold.
We agree with all these answers but believe they are not the primary service real estate salespeople are commissioned to provide.
Our answer to this question, “What do real estate salespeople sell?” is that the primary services real estate salespeople sell are the processes they will use to find the best buyer for the vendor’s property and then secure the best net price.
Other people have provided similar answers with different emphasis and here are a couple we like with apologies for any paraphrasing:
“My role is to find the people with the most emotional involvement in your property and make sure they compete with each other to buy it” Which is attributed to Ian Keightly and Michael Bulgaris.
“To introduce your property to as many people as possible who are currently in a position to proceed” – Robert Bevan
From The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller “For Sellers, their (the top real estate agent’s) goal is to net them the most amount of money, in the shortest amount of time, with the least amount of problems”. See the “Seller Value Proposition” P95
There are many skills involved and techniques which can be learned to determine a buyers’ walk away offer level for any property (in SalesPartner we emphasise CMAs for buyers) but we believe the primary processes which motivate the ultimate buyer to pay the best price (call upon their fighting funds) include competition with other real or potential buyers. Think of Auctions, Tenders, multiple offer situations and buyers making offers before the first open home. Mastery of SalesPartner databasing helps attract multiple offers.
We believe most vendors will try and list their property with the salesperson they expect will ultimately achieve the best net result for them. (Net means after fees, marketing contribution and property presentation costs have been taken into account.) The goal of achieving the best possible net sale price is foremost in the mind of vendors when bringing their property to market. Put even more bluntly we believe any salesperson could sell all the available property in your area tomorrow if price didn’t matter.
The emotional aspect of the listing decision cannot be ignored. Tom Hopkins “ There probably aren’t two clients in a hundred who will admit it, but one of the main reasons some people pay real estate fees is to get attention and sympathy while a matter of great importance to them is being resolved”.
We agree but then the question is; “Why would they choose you rather than one of your colleagues in the industry?” “How can you be different, win more listings and protect your fees?”
RSS Feed
