For many more dialogues, see Your Client-Based Marketing System—the complete seller marketing tool).

First, Decide What You Want

Sellers are pretty clever. They will say, “I just love you, Carla. You are so professional! We want you to list the property. But, we want our price.” So, you’re flattered. But, ask yourself, “What do I want? Do I want a listing and happy sellers for a short period of time, only to disappoint them when it doesn’t sell, or do I want a long-term professional relationship based on trust and honesty?”

The Dialogue

I hope you answered the latter. If so, this dialogue is for you. Here are the five steps:

1. After the seller states his price, ask, “If I were to list the home today at your price, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being high, how would you rate me in customer satisfaction right now?”

2. “What would cause you to lower your rating?”

3. “If the house doesn’t sell within ______ days or ________weeks, how would you rate me?”

4. “I would rather turn down your listing now, and have you refer me to others, because I was honest with you now, than take your listing today to please you—and disappoint you greatly when your home doesn’t sell.”

5. “I assume you expect me to market your home to a ‘sold’ sign, not just put up a sign and wait for something to happen. I know I can’t get a ‘sold’ sign on your home at this price, so I don’t want to promise you something that I can’t deliver. My reputation isn’t worth a sign on your property.”

When you start using this dialogue, you will be amazed that you will have sellers stopped in their tracks, because you told them the truth! The majority of the time, this dialogue will re-open the question of pricing, and you will list the property at the right price.

Last question: How much ’substantiation’ do you have to prove your price is right? Watch our next blogs to get ideas on how to gain credibility.

If you’re a newer agent, I understand how difficult it is to organize that blizzard of information. And, admittedly, you’ll have to keep changing your organization as you progress. Yet, until you meet the organizational challenge, you can’t really move forward.

There are two reasons to organize.  The first is that it provides much better customer service. If I’m the consumer today, I want to know that you are trustworthy—that you’re good for your word. If I can see that you have systems, I know that you will have a much better chance of keeping your word to me. I’m using the word “see”, because we believe what we see, not what we hear.

The second reason is that it provides you much better time management. The agent’s biggest challenge is to find a way to make the same amount of money and quit working 24/7. Creating systems will take a long way toward that goal.

Take system inventory now.

Here are the minimum systems you need:

For sellers:

• Lead generating system (should be run with contact management software)
• Automated process for following the lead from first contact through listing
• Visual marketing presentation and a system for having them pre-done and always ready to go
• Pre-first visit presentation and a system to have them packaged, ready to use
• System for following the listing from first listed to after closing (can be automated with use of a contact management program)
• After close/client retention system (can be automated)
• Your personal marketing system—a marketing plan that can be automated and delegated to someone

For buyers:

• Lead generating system—driven by contact management
• System to follow the buyer from first contact to sale (can be automated)
• Visual buyer presentation—packaged and ready to use
• Pre-first visit presentation—packaged and ready to use
• Checklists: process during buying/before closing/after closing—client retention
• Your personal marketing system

How to begin. Real estate professionals are doers. We talk our way through processes.  We dread organizing things, and frankly, we’re not good at it. So, how do we begin?

Start with one system or process at a time. Make a list and prioritize it for the systems you need first. Put a date to start, and a date for completion (I know, there’s that organization again!). You’ll find that the first is the hardest, and then, it starts to actually get easy! It’s a skill like anything else. Bottom line: Systematization allows you to actually run a business, not just run after buyers and sellers.

Note: If you want to make it easy on yourself, get The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit and Your Client-Based Marketing System, the complete buyer and seller systems, with dozens of checklists, processes, and presentations already created for you.

Webinar on Motivating Yourself/Others

Motivational and inspirational webinar coming up for you: On March 17, at 2 P. M. EST, I’ll be doing a webinar for the NAR Learning Library, titled Light ‘Em on Fire: Newest Truths about Motivation. Click here for more information. Join me!

Are you using the old term, “listing presentation” to describe the presentation you give to the seller to list the home? It’s over. The days of describing what you’ll do for a seller as a “listing presentation” just don’t cut it in this marketing world.

Today, savvy agents are presenting “marketing plans”, not giving listing presentations. Why? Because you want to describe what you’re going to do for the seller in action terms. That’s your special marketing plan. To get the commissions you expect, you must compete on “added value” issues. That added value is all about you, not just about your company. These added values are best stated in your individual marketing plan. Here are 5 points to remember as you create your plan:

1. It’s an action plan—what you will do for the seller

2. It’s specific—it has dates for what will be done and who does it

3. It’s not about what the company will do—it’s about what you will do

4. It is stated either as a checklist, as a calendar of events, and demonstrated in your visuals.

5. It has a section on pricing, but the pricing, or market analysis, is only one part of the plan

Show Them or Tell Them the Plan?

We agent types like to talk. In fact, many of us became agents because people told us that, since we’re good talkers, we’d make great salespeople! That’s an old idea today. Why? Because consumers are over-whelmed with sales talk. The client today just doesn’t trust salespeople because they have a good ‘sales spiel’.

If you’re finding it increasingly difficult to list properties at the right price, it may be because you’re working too hard trying to talk the seller into it, and are not working hard enough to show a seller into it. Sellers, like all of us, believe what they see, not what they hear.

Go visual. Instead of trying to tell a seller what you know to be true, back up your statements with statistics, graphs, facts, etc. You do this already in your market analysis. But, most agents don’t do this with the rest of their marketing plans. Start now gathering information to back up your chosen marketing strategies. For example, if you’ve found, through your experience, that open houses do not sell that particular home, start keeping statistics of your open house visitors, their needs, and what happened to them during their buying cycle. You want to provide sellers the information they need to make good decisions, and to support your marketing plan.

Tell them What You’re Going to Do—Show them Why, and Show them What Worked

In a recent study of buyers visiting open houses, only seventeen percent accepted the claims of the agent holding the home open. The other eight-three percent sought a second opinion! So, back up your claims with testimonials, statistics, pictures, graphs, and history. You’ll see a dramatic rise in your marketable listings. You’ll have enthusiastic clients forever. You will have told the truth attractively!

For a complete sellers’ process, including marketing plans, see Your Client-Based Marketing System.