When I finally arrive at a home, I want to have completed all of my work ahead of time. I want to walk in the door fully prepared with the expectation of success.
My belief is you establish a flow to your actual presentation and stick with it. Don’t change the structure or allow your client to do so. If they want to talk about something out of order, ask them politely if you could go over that later in a certain segment of the presentation where you normally address that concern.
You are trying to deflect the objections to later (or never) and keep your rhythm and flow of the presentation.
Many of you are reading this and saying, “I don’t want to operate that way. I don’t feel comfortable doing a ‘canned’ presentation.”
I am not talking about a “canned” presentation but a planned presentation. The first segment must be to inform the client of the timeframe this presentation will take. Just employing this one technique will shorten your over-an-hour-presentation to 45 minutes.
If they know you will take 45 minutes, that’s what it will take. Then move to reviewing the qualifying questions. Remember to ask both decision makers if they both agree with your notes from the other day when you qualified them.
This technique clarifies the goals and objectives and builds trust because you cared enough to ask, record their responses, and make certain that you got it right. You are also engaging the person who didn’t get a change to talk with you earlier. They are 50 percent of the decision as well!
Once you confirm the questions and understand their needs and expectations, you are ready for the crucial stage of the presentation. You are going to share with them why they should hire you. This segment, for most agents, drones on much too long.
All we need to do is have about four to six key benefits of why someone should hire us. The ones you select to give them should align with what they said they expect from you in the qualifying questions stage. Remember, they told you exactly how to sell them.
At the end of the why they should hire you segment, you need to insert trial closes. It’s time to go for the close. You may be thinking you can’t do that; they don’t know the price of the home.
My friends, the price of the home should be immaterial in their decision. People who select an agent to represent their interests based on the price the agent places on the home (the price they feel the home is worth) are selecting the wrong agent. The price an agent puts on a home is not the determining factor of whether they are a good agent or not.
Price is the determining factor of whether the home will sell or not. That’s why trial closes at this stage are paramount. You want to at least build a little “yes” momentum and potentially get the contract signed at this stage.
We must then move into the price counseling segment, whether we have secured the signature or not. The truth is we need to remove the word “price” from our dialogue when talking about their home. What we are really discussing with the seller is the value of their home.
The value of their home today is based on the inventory of homes for sale, inventory of available buyers, their location, condition, and the scarcity of a similar property.
Our discussion is centered on the comps. It should also be centered on your Market Trends Report. Use the Market Trends Report to show the competitive nature of the marketplace, and how it will affect the value of their property. A discussion of the law of supply and demand could also be used to further illustrate the condition of the marketplace.
As professionals, we need to move away from the word “price” and toward “value.” Price is a marketing decision. It determines how many people will consider the home as an option. It does not indicate the value of the home. That is controlled by the ease of substitution of this home for another with comparable features and benefits.
After the value counseling, then and only then, ask for an agreement on the value. We don’t want to go another step until we have an agreement on the value of the home. You might have to stay there all day, but once you get it, you can move on to a net sheet and trial close again.
We need to determine if this net figure is enough for them to accomplish their goal. If not, how far are we off? Can they borrow a little more? Can they live with a little less? Can we adjust the interest rate through a different loan program? Can we get the seller of the home they are buying to participate in closing costs? Do they just need to bite the bullet and sell for less than they had hoped for?
In order to walk out of the listing presentation with the contract signed that night, we can’t leave this problem unsolved. Once we solve it, another opening is created for a Champion to close.
You will notice that, up until this point, I have not mentioned anything regarding my marketing plan, which should have been in my presentation package. I have not talked about marketing or what I will do.
If my “why they should hire me” segment is strong, the marketing discussion is unnecessary. In fact, the discussion of marketing only weakens an agent’s presentation. Someone will always have a better Web site or snazzier flyer or be willing to run more ads or hold more open houses.
The truth is if you get them to price it competitively, it will sell. You can’t keep a good listing a secret. You can’t do it, even if you want to sell it yourself. Agents can sniff out good property at a fair value and fair price. The home will sell, and the marketing will be immaterial.
If you have to go into marketing, keep it short. The only reason to go into marketing is if you haven’t secured the signatures at this time. In the last five years of my real estate career, I had over 120 listing presentations per year. That’s over 600 listing presentations in that time. I could count on one hand the number of times I talked about marketing.
Once you reach this stage, you are down to objection handling and closing. That’s really all there is left. Continuing to pause, acknowledge, explore, isolate, answer, and close. We all make three presentations in any selling situation. The first presentation is when we are on the way to the appointment.
The second one is the real one in front of the seller, and the third is on the way home re-playing the tape of what happened.
The real objective is to make the best one the real one. For most people, the best one is on the way home. Ensure the best one is always the one that really counts. That’s what makes a Champion!
Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies, Successful Time Management for Dummies, and over 300 articles in print. To learn more, please visit: http://www.realestatechampions.com/.