Are You Telling It or Showing It?

We believe what we see, not what we hear. If you’re still talking a mile a minute, telling the sellers how wonderful you are, blah, blah, blah–just stop talking and start showing. Also,

We remember only 10% of what we  hear three days later! With visuals, retention goes to 65%.

5 Points to Include as You Create that Marketing 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/or in visuals.

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

Creating specific marketing plans for each individual will put you far ahead of most real estate practioners. Now, the next important action is to dutifully do the actions you promised and report back.

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How do you set the stage for a professional relationship with a seller?  How do you list properties that sell? Most likely you’ll have a phone conversation with the seller before you do anything else.  This is where many agents waste time and energy.  They hear the seller say, “I want you to come over and tell me what my house is worth”, so they run over.  Then, they find out the seller is listing with another agent, wants the evaluation for insurance purposes, or wants to move in one year, etc. Even worse, the seller says, “Just drop a competitive market analysis (CMA) on my doorstep. I’ll let you know if I want you to list the property.” The agent dutifully completes a CMA, drops it on the doorstep, and finds out another agent has listed the property!

 Five Questions to Answer to Set Your Professional Standards 

Avoid wasting your time and being disappointed. Here are five important considerations to answer for yourself to see if your “pre-first visit” system is up to standard: 

1. Would you go to a seller’s home just because he asked you to come over? If not, what are your standards? 

2. Would you give the seller a price opinion without a thorough analysis of the market trends and of the property? 

3. Would you go to the seller’s home without knowing why he is moving? 

4. Would you go if the seller wouldn’t let you explain how you work? 

5. Would you go to the seller’s home of all sellers were not present? 

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you probably are doing too much work listing properties for not enough income! Establishing standards to meet for first visits to sellers, along with a pre-first visit questionnaire, will assure you use your time wisely.

Want much more help in screening sellers AND convincing them to list at the right price? Take a look at Your Client-Based Marketing System. Powerpoint presentation, plus dozens of tips on presenting professionally. Take charge of your listing process now!

Choose or create systems—then harness technology. First, create your systems. Then, choose the technology to run those systems. You’ll spend less money and utilize your technological investments better if you’ve organized your business systematically first. Then, you’ll know exactly what systems you want to automate.

Five Steps to Systematize Your Business                                                                 

1. First, itemize the tasks you do each day.
2. Prioritize your tasks as they relate to accomplishing your main objectives.

What are the most important tasks you do to assure you make money consistently? 

Want some expert guidance in prioritizing these tasks? Take a look at Up and Running in 30 Days. That’s one of the strongest points of this resource–it helps you put all the things you do in perspective.   

       3  .Organize your high-priority tasks into systems–or purchase systems.

Should you create your own system, or buy one? Smart agents buy systems, if they’re available. An example is a listing presentation. Even though an agent could create a system, time spent on creation isn’t worth the price paid in ‘down sales time’ profitability. Don’t be a creator unless you just can’t find a good system.

            4. Choose your technology to support the systems you already have in  place. Let’s say you now how a manually-created listing system. You’ve decided who you will involve in the plan; you’ve decided which tasks you can delegate. Now, you’re ready to choose technology to automate your system. Because you know what you want this technology to accomplish, you can make a good choice. You can easily customize the software to meet your needs–because you already have a system in place.

            5. Package your systems so you can promote your exceptional business organization to buyers and sellers. For example: If you’ve never worked with a particular buyer or seller before, that buyer can’t know if you’ll communicate regularly. Show the buyer your process/system for communicating regularly, so he can start trusting you as the professional you know you are. Remember, we believe what we see, not what we hear. (For buyer and and seller systems, see Your Client-Based Marketing System and The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit.)

Taking these steps to systematize your business allows you to not only grow your business—it gives you a saleable asset.

P. S. Thinking of hiring an assistant? Get your systems in place FIRST.

The listing sold quickly

The listing sold for close to full price

 The Agent-Centered Process

You can guess what that is: The agent creates dialogue to get the seller to list with him/her at any price–so the agent will have a listing he/she can market to snag buyers.

The Cient-Centered Approach Gets You Referrals

If what the client wants from us is a “sold” sign on the property, and that’s the only way they rate us highly–and give us referrals, then, it makes sense to do a  listing and marketing process that creates the higher levels of customer satisfaction. By the “client-centered” approach, I mean to keep the client’s best interest first at heart—not the agent’s!

Five Questions to Ask Yourself

Here are five questions to ask yourself, to see which kind of process you use—and tips to change your process to true ‘client-centered’.

1. Do you have an ‘information-loaded’, prioritized listing system? If you don’t have a complete process, you aren’t instilling trust and confidence in the seller.

2. Do you educate from the beginning, or do you just sell, sell, sell (tell) ? A pre-first visit package educates seller and shows your professionalism.

3. Are you a ‘property information gatherer’ or a ‘people consultant’? An in-depth questionnaire focusing on their needs proves you care more about them than getting a sign on the property.

4. What’s your objective? The statistics prove that most agents’ objective is to list the property. That is not in the client’s best interests. To change to client-centered marketing, you must focus on listing only saleable properties.

5. Do you provide the seller a written marketing plan? A professional marketing company always provides the plan in writing. Shouldn’t you?

Looking for guidance in how to make your process truly client-based? Take a look at the CRS-recommended resource, Your Client-Based Marketing System.      In it, you’ll see all the questionaires you need, a PowerPoint presentation, ready to use, a marketing plan, and much more. Save time and compete with the mega-agents.      

Listing properties. 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 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.

Ideas galore. If you’re wondering exactly how to create those visuals, check out Your Client-Based Marketing System. Dozens of ideas on how to create proof that you know what you’re talking about!

I’m pleased, too, that CRS (Certfied Residential Council) has just featured this resource this month. This resource has been test marketed and approved by the CRS Council, too.

What do I mean? First, ‘buyer agency’ of course means representing the best interests of the buyer. ‘Seller agency’ means representing the best interests of the seller. What are the best interests of the seller? According to thousands of sellers in a Consumer Reports survey , they are satisfied with the level of service when the

1. listing sold quickly

2. listing sold for close to listed price

We all know that listings priced right sell faster and for closer to full price. So, practicing ‘seller agency’ includes taking marketable listings–not over-priced ones.

Agent Agency Practice Doesn’t Put These Two Goals First

‘Agent agency’ means you are listing properties for what you think are your best interests, not the seller’s.  What are those ‘best interests’?

Okay: Maybe the picture’s a little much….

Agents tell me they take over-priced properties because

1. They’re afraid if they don’t take the listing, someone else will. Their selfishness comes first. (Does your doctor give you the medicine you want, because, if he doesn’t, someone else will?! Doctors who do this are convicted of mal-practice–or worse)

2. They think they can ‘get the price down later’ and want to control the property themselves from the beginning. This self- serving tactic costs the seller thousands in proceeds because shopworn properties, on the market a long time, result in much lower selling prices—just look at the sale racks at clothing stores! (And look at your MLS statistics)

3. They want to use the property as a ‘bait and switch’. Agents know that signs and ads–plus online marketing– bring calls. They know the potential buyer won’t buy that over-priced property, so they always have other right-priced properties in mind—to switch them to. Doesn’t this sound exactly like a ‘used-car salesman’ approach?

How to Identify If You’re an ‘Agent Agency’ Practitioner

You’ll know when you answer this question. Do you know the percent of your listings that sell in normal market time? If it’s less than 70%, I think you’re practicing what I call  ‘agent agency’. (You may not even realize you’re practicing this way).

What Do You Think?

What percent of listings sold in normal market time in your price range seems to indicate that the agent is practicing seller agency? What percent indicates the agent is practicing ‘agent agency’? What do you think?

In my next blogs, I’ll help you switch from that tempting ‘agent agency’ to what I call ‘client-based’ marketing. You’ll gain a great reputation and make your listing life much better!

The “Client-Centered” Approach

If what the client wants from us is a “sold” sign on the property, and that’s the only way they rate us highly, then, we must change our methods of listing and marketing properties to create higher levels of customer satisfaction. By the “client-centered” approach, I mean to keep the client’s best interest first at heart—not the agent’s!

Here are five questions to ask yourself, to see which kind of process you use—and tips to change your process to true ‘client-centered’.

1. Do you have an ‘information-loaded’, prioritized listing system? If you don’t have a complete process, you aren’t instilling trust and confidence in the seller.

2. Do you educate from the beginning, or do you just sell, sell, sell (tell) ? A pre-first visit package educates seller and shows your professionalism.

3. Are you a ‘property information gatherer’ or a ‘people consultant’? An in-depth questionnaire focusing on their needs proves you care more about them than getting a sign on the property.

4. What’s your objective? The statistics prove that most agents’ objective is to list the property. That is not in the client’s best interests. To change to client-centered marketing, you must focus on listing only saleable properties.

5. Do you provide the seller a written marketing plan? A professional marketing company always provides the plan in writing. Shouldn’t you?

Polish your ‘seller process’ to assure it is ‘client-centered’. Much more information about how to do that–and gain marketable listings is in Your Client-Based Marketing System.

Is your listing process focused on the best interests of your client? The five questions below will help you evaluate your process, and update it for today’s client.

The “Client-Centered” Approach

If what the client wants from us is a “sold” sign on the property, and that’s the only way they rate us highly, then, we must change our methods of listing and marketing properties to create higher levels of customer satisfaction. By the “client-centered” approach, I mean to keep the client’s best interest first at heart—not the agent’s!

Here are five questions to ask yourself, to see which kind of process you use—and tips to change your process to true ‘client-centered’.

1. Do you have an ‘information-loaded’, prioritized listing system? If you don’t have a complete process, you aren’t instilling trust and confidence in the seller.

2. Do you educate from the beginning, or do you just sell, sell, sell (tell) ? A pre-first visit package educates seller and shows your professionalism.

3. Are you a ‘property information gatherer’ or a ‘people consultant’? An in-depth questionnaire focusing on their needs proves you care more about them than getting a sign on the property.

4. What’s your objective? The statistics prove that most agents’ objective is to list the property. That is not in the client’s best interests. To change to client-centered marketing, you must focus on listing only saleable properties.

5. Do you provide the seller a written marketing plan? A professional marketing company always provides the plan in writing. Shouldn’t you?

Catch Up with the Business Principles and Trends

The principles I’ve outlined above are reflected in the bigger, and more real, world of international business. They’re how you and I like to be treated as real people. Step your business up to the next level now by catching the trends, not by trying to copy what worked in yesteryear.

For a method to polish your presentations for today’s challenging clients, see Your Client-Based Marketing System.