Emotional intelligence is crucial to success in any industry, but especially so in real estate. Emotions are running high from all sides during these types of transactions, and you are generally not experiencing people at their best as they are either trying to navigate their own large financial decisions, the emotions of their client, the agent on the other side, your own stressors…the list goes on and on.
Then, if you’re in a leadership position, you have the joy of experiencing this on an exponential basis as you work to support everyone on your team. At times, everyone sharing their emotions with you can feel overwhelming. As a former Broker-in-Charge for 200+ agents this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, as you might be able to imagine! When you work towards high emotional intelligence it helps you navigate complex relationships, handle high-pressure situations with grace, and inspire trust from those who work with you.
Emotional intelligence isn’t something that you can perfect – you’re going to have bad moods and even bad days – but working towards a higher level consistently will improve your life, professionally and personally! Here are some ways you can actively level up:
Practice Self-Awareness This is the foundation of emotional intelligence. Think about and seek to understand how you react in different situations. This will help you manage your own emotions and ensure that your responses are measured and thoughtful, not impulsive. If you struggle to do this a journal will help you recognize patterns and identify areas for growth while allowing you a private place to vent when the going gets tough.
Be a Master Empathizer Leaders who show empathy build stronger, more trusting relationships which can translate into better team performance, retention, and client satisfaction. Also, when you are actively working to empathize, it encourages those around you to as well as leading to a more emotionally intelligent workplace overall. If you’re not sure where to start, actively practice listening without interrupting or silently planning what you are going to say next. Attempt to fully understand the other person’s view before offering feedback or a solution. If you’re not sure what to say, “I understand how you feel,” really goes a long way.
Improve Your Emotional Regulation Real estate is a wild and exciting industry to do business in and, as a result, it can sometimes be hard to maintain composure. Remaining calm under pressure means you will be better equipped to make rational decisions and lead your team through difficult times. Emotional regulation means controlling your emotions in a way that prevents them from negatively affecting your decisions or relationships. Don’t read me wrong here – I am not saying do not HAVE emotions. Have all the emotions you can, just work to be aware and control how you respond TO your emotions. See what I mean?
Try this: The next time you’re faced with a stressful situation, pause, breathe, and assess from all sides before acting. My go-to here is to try to assume when someone tells me something, that I have less than half of the information. This keeps me from jumping to conclusions and being reactive because I already know that I need to seek more information before I should do or say anything. Then, I work to get the other side of the story, put together the entire puzzle, and then decide the way forward.
If you find yourself frequently being reactive, find a mindfulness technique (deep breathing, journaling, meditation, yoga… etc.) that works for you, and try to build a short daily practice to stay ahead of your impulses. It won’t happen overnight, but you will definitely see a difference if you stick with it.
Seek Feedback Even the most self-aware are still viewing themselves through their own lens. Seek feedback from trusted colleagues to gain insights on how others experience your leadership style. You can also conduct regular 360-degree feedback sessions where your team can anonymously share their thoughts. Be open to this feedback and use it as a tool for growth!
Develop Relationships and Social Awareness Make time to connect with your team. Regular check-ins and showing genuine interest in their well-being can strengthen your relationships and inspire more collaborations and growth across your organization. As you spend time with your team, make it a habit to observe non-verbal cues like body language, tone, and facial expressions. This will help you to read the room and gain insights into unspoken feelings or concerns, allowing you to address them proactively and foster an environment of transparent and respectful expression.
Emotional intelligence isn’t just a “soft skill” it is critical to creating an organization where your members can thrive and want to remain long-term. Get started with these ideas and start building your emotional muscles!
We hear about agent safety measures, but is this something that you have policies and guidance for within your organization?
If not, we’ve got you! Use our Safety Tips for Agents list as a guide to discuss ways with your agents to be more aware of their surroundings, be proactive about their safety, and arm them with exactly what to do should they find themselves in a place where they feel uncomfortable.
Above all, slow down and trust your instincts. No transaction, client request, or amount of money is worth your safety!
Mark Twain said, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first”. While this advice is evergreen, it’s especially important during the summer months to ensure that you are accomplishing what you need to and still have time for fun activities. Here are some things to consider as we refresh on this strategy:
🐸In the long run, this approach will help you overcome the fear of difficult tasks or stop procrastinating on them. This leads to a boost in productivity and a reduction in stress levels as you will feel more in control of your day.
🐸More challenging items require more effort, and if you leave them until the end of the day it is highly unlikely that you will be more motivated to complete them at the end of the day than the beginning. Decision fatigue is real, and knocking out your important work first will take less of a toll on you mentally throughout the day.
🐸In real estate it’s wise to leave time in your day for the almost guaranteed reactive items that come your way. If you have already completed the must-do or most challenging item, you will be in a much better mindset to tackle the whirlwind than if you are still trying to complete a project.
🐸Summer schedules, especially for those of us with school-age children, can often be challenging even though they are jam-packed with fun things. Different drop-off and pick-up times and weekly shifting schedules with camps or childcare often leave either us or people on our team feeling frazzled as a baseline. Knocking out your most challenging or important items first allows you to have more ease in the rest of the day knowing that the heavy lifting is done.
🐸Take a look at your work management system and while you are listing out everything you need to do during the day, begin to prioritize the most challenging and must-be-done-today items first. Knock those out very first thing and create a habit of doing this every day so that it carries you throughout the entire year.
🐸 More effort doesn’t always yield more results. Figuring out how to accomplish the work you need to do within working hours is important not only for your business but your mental health. Many of us believe that adding hours to our work week will help us accomplish more, but that will take a toll mentally, emotionally, and physically ultimately leading to lower production and other unwanted side effects. Rather than more hours, most of us just need a re-set to our approach to work and how we manage our time.
It was Shark Week this week on The Discovery Channel and, while there is always more to learn about the behavior and anatomy of these fascinating creatures, they also give us some examples of traits that we can emulate to help us as sales professionals. Don’t worry, I’ll try to keep the puns to a minimum.
🦈 Keep Moving Forward. Sharks need to stay in constant forward motion to breathe. If you get hung up on an unsavory encounter with a prospect or any number of challenges that happen during a real estate transaction you may also (metaphorically) be finding it hard to breathe. Overcoming challenges is the name of the game in real estate, so actively practicing ways to not get overwhelmed when the inevitable happens, will ensure that you can keep moving forward to take care of your other clients or prospect for new ones.
Ideas on how to do this: Keep a sales journal to write down what went wrong and ideas of how to prevent it moving forward. By getting it out of your brain and onto paper, you won’t weigh yourself down by holding onto that negative encounter. Practice mindfulness and establish a strong life and work balance. If you’re not teetering on the edge all the time, you won’t be so reactive as a baseline when things don’t go your way.
🦈 Know Your Role. Sharks are apex predators and are very comfortable with their position on the food chain. As a successful sales professional, you are in the apex position of your market. Figure out where your time and energy are best spent for maximum results and then use tools, the power of your team, and outsourcing to accomplish the other items. By trying to do everything, you may dilute your best strengths. Knowing your role within your organization or community will help you dig deeper on what you do best and allow others to do what they do best.
🦈 Sharks AREN’T Mindless Killers. Shark Week illustrates that there is a lot more to sharks than their earlier reputation of being just mindless biting killing machines. Sharks are curious creatures, but they aren’t just biting everything in the sea. In your prospecting and relationships exercise your curiosity about the other person, their experience, and what they want to accomplish. Avoid being the mindless “killing” machine just trying your sales pitch on anyone who will listen and dig deeper to establish a relationship where you can be the one to help them with their real estate transactions for life.
🦈 Don’t Let Fear Stop You. Yes, there are sharks in the ocean and yes, there is a very VERY slim chance that you could meet one while you’re swimming. But you shouldn’t let that small chance stop you from enjoying a day at the beach. Don’t let fear stop you from trying that new tool or prospecting strategy! Being bold will help you keep your place as the apex salesperson in your market!
🦈 Stay Sharp. Sharks have between 5-15 rows of teeth, depending on the species. This means as one tooth becomes dull or falls out, there are many more ready to slide into its place allowing the shark to always have a mouth full of tools to get its job done. You can stay sharp in your profession by carving out time to learn about new tools and strategies that are being used successfully by others in the industry. Read books, listen to podcasts, mastermind with others outside your market, take classes, and attend conferences. Continuous learning will help you to stay sharp!
I attended this webinar on June 27, 2024 and these are my notes:
The real estate industry is ever-evolving. It wasn’t too long ago that we were waiting by the fax machine for the latest listings.
Everything new, everything that changes, is to keep you in the industry at a higher level with what the consumer and the market requires. Don’t let changes scare you into leaving the industry. Be aware of what is going on, look at it as an opportunity and not something to be fearful of.
Just focus on doing the next right thing right. The only thing you can control is getting better every day and make sure that you are always coming from a place of contribution.
Are you showing up like a pro to your buyer meetings? You should show up to a buyer meeting just like a listing meeting.
This is going to be an environment where if you don’t own your professionalism and own your work, you are setting yourself up to fail.
How can I make my agents feel confident in presenting themselves as buyer agents?
If you are confident in what you are doing, you are set up much more likely to succeed.
Make efforts to understand the mind of the consumer and map out a path for your agents so that you are setting them up to be as confident as possible in their unique selling proposition. What makes you be you?
Can you share your unique value proposition in your sleep? Does it roll off your tongue?
Create a roadmap for your agents to lead them down a favorable thought pattern. The anxiousness and nervousness of what is “about to happen” is worse than actually doing it. Start practicing and acting as though the deadlines are already in place for your area.
Five steps to lock down every buyer agreement:
Have a unique selling proposition. Create this and practice your elevator pitch. Everyone on your team will do this differently and that’s good!
Master the materials within your buyer presentation. Put together a powerful presentation, much like you would with a listing presentation in order to confidently educate your potential buyers so that they feel comfortable and confident in you to represent them.
Have something to show your clients. Give them value and a resource and it will be easier to ask for a commitment from your prospective clients.
They turned their four page presentation into a 26-page bound buyer book. They added pages that talk about real estate fees, competing with multiple offers, reviews and endorsements.
They also have a workbook that they bring to the buyer presentation that they give to the buyer that helps them walk through the process and helps them really nail down their goals and what they want to achieve in buying a home.
Make sure you’re taking notes during the meeting. Make a checklist of what your next steps are. Taking notes also shows them that you are invested and paying attention to their detailed needs.
They’ve also created a digital version of their buyer presentation to show on an iPad.
The goal is to have your agents feel confident that they can comfortably represent anyone and handle any situation.
Examples of the buyer guide:
They added pictures of each agent, information about them personally – their likes, interests, pets, hobbies, etc. so these are really personal and helps them to know like and trust the agent.
Even if you’re a solo agent, talk about the people who help you and are part of your team.
Discuss competition openly as well as fees.
Discuss risk management as part of why you need to use an agent. Most people don’t know what to look out for when purchasing a home. The biggest piece of the puzzle that brings value to a client is not open a door or sending e-alerts. The biggest value is helping them to find a property AND get them to the closing table.
When you talk about risk management, it immediately elevates your position.
Each page should be its own resource and you can hit the pages that make sense for the type of buyer you are working with. Merely having a tool like this elevates your position with the potential client.
Add pictures of specific clients with reviews that are tailored to the agent using the buyer presentation. Use the ones that refer to you by name. Show all reviews – especially ones where you solve a problem within a transaction, not just the fluffy ones.
Don’t let the technology scale you out of the relationship part of this business. Work hard on building relationships so that they remember exactly who you are, how to reach you, and how to find you for their next transaction. You want to work with people for their lifetime.
Here’s the workbook preview:
This helps to set expectations and help the client avoid pitfalls up front. This will work for first-time buyers or experienced investors.
Lenders are going to play a big role in moving forward. Ensure that you are setting the stage for everyone to communicate and work together early on in the process: during the buyer presentation.
Go meet with your lender partner and bring your buyers in so you can solidify that you work as a team. Discuss with your lender how to navigate the new landscape of buyer agency so that you are speaking the same language.
Final three steps to lock down every buyer agreement:
You can really show your value by the way you handle the objections that are sent your way. If you are representing someone and there’s an objection, be thankful for it so you can address it now and get everyone back on the same page. “That’s a fair question, I totally understand how you feel. Thank you for bringing that up, do you feel like I’ve answered this well for you?”
Don’t practice on the consumer. Practice with your colleagues, friends, your dog, whoever. Don’t practice live with the consumer. It’s good to get perspective outside of the industry and practice with someone who isn’t in the business.
Accountability. Set up accountability checks and meetings with your teams.
Morning huddles, accountability partners, etc.
Get started NOW. Don’t wait for the deadline to come for you and your area. Start now, practice now, and start using this with your clients now. Waiting until the deadline starts will not be what sets you up for success.
It’s never been a bigger deal for you to know your industry, know your facts, so that you can be the advocate and lighthouse for your clients and community to buy and sell real estate.
Here’s the link if you want to buy the template for these presentations and workbooks, otherwise use them as inspiration to create something similar to wow your new clients! https://www.lockdownbuyers.com/buyeragentpropackage–538ba
This webinar was presented on June 21, 2024, and here are my notes.
Hosts: Tom Ferry, Jimmy Mackin, and David Childers
This is a skills, marketing, and follow-up market. A lot of agents weren’t ready for the shift into this environment.
When 2024 started, we were a little rosy about how things are going to be. The market hasn’t changed that drastically from where we started at the end of the year and we are now in a political cycle making the existing market even more challenging.
The commitment we are going to make is going to be now for the next 12 months. They will help us with the mindset and the marketing that we need to get through this market. 1M+ agents in the first four months of this year took zero listings according to his experts reporting. Their goal is to help us avoid this.
Go to TheListingChallenge.com to download their app named In Here to get live roleplays, marketing and more for free!
David Childers explains his take on the market. You can find all his slides on The Listing Challenge.com. The #1 question he’s getting is about what’s ahead for the second half of the year.
4.8M homes were sold in the US in the last year. Many people are wondering if the market is going to crash. Lack of housing inventory is what is keeping the prices up right now. A crash is unlikely due to a tremendous amount of demand for homes in the US.
88% of the mortgages in this country are below 6%. 88%. Not everyone will make a decision based on having a low mortgage rate, but people are going to do everything they can to stay with those low rates.
Be the knowledge broker in your local market.
Use this line for prospective sellers: “If the only thing you love about your home is your interest rate, we should talk.”
We saw unhealthy price appreciation in 2021 and 2022, but we will see a more normal path of appreciation in this period.
It’s unlikely that we will see 5% rates this year. There will probably be 1 rate cut this year. Overhwelmingly the banks are saying this will likely happen in September of this year.
We will probably see one rate cut this year, but not many more, and there will not be a big tsunami of things shifting.
Jimmy Mackin on marketing for listings. They’ve learned that getting busy isn’t the hard part, it’s staying busy. You need to be on offense and taking action all the time.
Today’s Agenda:
Generate Buyers
Leverage Buyers for Listings
Sell your Success
The order of operations matters in this. First, you generate high-quality buyers that you can leverage as an asset. Create the right hook or offer to get buyers excited to work with us.
(He’s using this thing where his body is over the screen, so don’t mind those smudges, it’s Jimmy’s shirt, etc.)
Focus on the parts of the market that are the hottest. Fewest DOM and most demand within your farm.
If something works in one channel, extend that strategy to another channel. Take a screenshot of the map of the area you’re focusing on and make a story post that looks like this.
Use the responses that you get to build a relationship with these people.
Step two: Leverage these new buyers to send this letter to.
This letter is very specific about what the buyers are looking for and the timing. It’s low pressure calls to action that has been proven to work.
Qualify these buyers and turn them into letters that you send to your farm.
Look for people who have owned their house for 5+ years and have 40% or more of equity, and find the most desirable neighborhoods. If you don’t know where to find this information, ask your Title rep to help you.
Marketing is all about stacking the layers of campaigns. This is how you drive results within the business. Hit the phones and circle dialing the area that you sent the letter to.
This is a great way to get the conversation started and get your foot in the door.
Send the email campaign, post on social media, get your list together of people you want to target, send your letters, and then start using the above script to create the conversations that generate action.
This helps you find off-market listings and generate inventory.
Show your sweat. Talk about what you are doing to generate this action for your clients. Sellers don’t want to sell because they are locked into a super low interest rate. By showing them that you are capable of helping them find somewhere to go, even if they can’t see it right now.
Use this letter to send after you’ve helped someone do this.
Putting all of this together, you have a cohesive strategy to generate action from your database and create some momentum with your listings.
Go to ListingChallenge.com and register for these slides within the app.
They will do this on the third Friday of every month. This market is one of the most challenging that they have ever seen and they want to challenge us to step up and take action. Get outside of your comfort zone and give this a shot.
A strong listing program has always been key to a successful real estate business. Now more than ever it’s crucial to give this important topic your attention so that you can support and develop your team. We are hearing a lot about how to market for more listings, but we also need to invest time and effort into coaching our agents so they can be more confident and knowledgeable to get more signs in the ground.
Use these strategies to guide your team to grow their skills and their book of business!
📝 Hold dedicated listing meetings. Setting aside time solely for listings will force you and your team to invest time and energy into this part of your business. It’s best to do this monthly and separately from your sales meetings. Discuss existing listings and brainstorm ways to update pricing, navigating challenging conversations, marketing, and MLS listing strategies to get movement. We used to call reviewing the MLS listings “Roast My Listing”. You can also role-play, review any current marketing, and market conditions, and work on strategies to grow your listing presence in your market.
🍽️ Set up a mock kitchen table to practice role-playing listing appointments. Grab a little bistro table and two chairs, throw a tablecloth on it, and ask your agents to role-play different parts of their listing presentations. During your listing meetings if someone mentions that they struggled during a recent appointment with a topic or conversation, ask them to come to the front to re-enact it and have others come up and role-play what they would have said in the same scenario. I know everyone hates role play, but this exercise not only boosts the skills of the person who raised the challenge but the entire team watching. If you want to get better, you have to do the uncomfortable things too!
👩🏫 Ask your top listing agents to mentor and share. Encourage a culture of education and growth from all parts of your organization. You may be the leader, but allowing your agents to share what is currently working for them will help your team to hear different points of view and discover new skills and strategies that they can make their own. This also helps to develop leadership amongst your ranks by allowing them to lead portions of meetings, speak publicly, and mentor others.
📑 Review and update your listing presentation for today’s market. Have a professional listing presentation and review it annually. Go through each page and brainstorm with others on ways to make it more clear, what you should remove, and what new information should be featured that will help educate sellers for today’s conditions. And for goodness sake, if you don’t have a listing presentation stop reading this right now and get started on making one.
🪧 Make sure your team understands your marketing. Guaranteed sold! I’ll buy it if it doesn’t sell! Use my moving truck if you list with me! Your marketing doesn’t work if your agents don’t know how to talk about it. They are the ones answering the phones and incoming messages in response to it, so ensure that they know what your current marketing is, how it works, and provide them with suggested language to use when someone calls so that they can speak to it with confidence and book that appointment.
🏋️♀️ Ongoing listing training. Yes, this would also be in addition to your monthly listing meeting! Set up a training to cover the listing process from soup to nuts. This will help you to develop an army of listing agents and allow those who have started listing but don’t feel like they have mastered it to take your training again and again until they feel confident. Every six months or quarterly would be a good cadence for this. Create a syllabus and adjust it over time so that you’re not recreating the wheel every time the class is held.
📈 Make sure your team understands market statistics and how to run a true full CMA. Being able to nail your listing appointment is one thing, but if your agents don’t understand the market or how to properly price a house, they’ll fumble the ball after the paperwork is signed. Have a concentration on this during your listing meetings and training sessions so that your agents are incredibly confident and capable in this area to serve your clients well.
🤝 Practice tough conversations with the seller about price. This is the other component of nailing your CMA and explaining the market well. Role-playing conversations with sellers who are dead-set on a certain, sometimes unreasonable, price will allow your agents to calmly and successfully navigate these challenging scenarios so that the seller feels educated, supported, and that your agents are acting in their best interest of their bottom line.
🔎 Track and report on met listing appointments. It’s never fun to tell someone that you went on a listing appointment and didn’t get it, but by tracking and reporting on the appointments you create opportunities for conversations and coaching so that you can conduct a post-mortem on what happened and develop skills so that it doesn’t happen again. Also, chances are, someone else has had an appointment in the same area recently and they can share what worked or didn’t work for them before the agent goes to the meeting. Don’t keep your appointments a secret!
Effective leadership isn’t just about making decisions; it’s about fostering an environment where problem-solving thrives. Whether you’re managing a small team of agents or overseeing a brokerage, giving your people strategies they can use to brainstorm creative solutions and solve problems independently will enhance productivity, collaboration, and the success of the business. One technique to offer them is the 1-3-1 problem-solving approach.
Here’s how it works:
Identify the Problem: Clearly define the issue at hand. Whether it’s a lagging sales strategy, client communication is in the dumpster, or your operations staff needs to get organized, pinpointing the problem is the crucial first step.
Generate Three Potential Solutions: Brainstorm to generate a variety of potential solutions to the problem. Emphasize creativity and diversity in ideas to explore different perspectives and approaches. You’re going to be pleasantly surprised with what your team comes up with!
Select the Best Solution: After evaluating the pros and cons of each proposed solution, choose the one that aligns best with your objectives, resources, and values. Consider the feasibility, impact, and long-term implications of each option.
Easy enough, right? Encouraging and employing this strategy will do so much more for you and your business than just taking things off your plate.
🤔 Promotes Strategic Thinking: Rather than reacting hastily, individuals are prompted to analyze the root causes of problems and devise thoughtful solutions.
👯 Fosters Collaboration: Each team member contributes unique insights and expertise, leading to more robust solutions.
📈 Boosts Accountability: By actively participating in generating and evaluating potential solutions, individuals feel a sense of ownership and accountability for the outcomes. This fosters a culture of empowerment and initiative within the organization.
🛸 Encourages Innovation: By empowering team members to think outside the box, you can drive continuous improvement and adaptability.
💡 Streamlines Decision-Making: By weighing the pros and cons of each option, you can make informed decisions with confidence.
Give it a shot and see what it does for your to-do list and your team as a whole!
Seller Processes & Contracts with Emily Kettenburg
I attended this webinar on May 8, 2024. Here are my notes, enjoy!
Also on the panel: Sandra Hendrix, Carolyn Augur, Tausha Fournier, and Stephanie Younger
This is the halfway point through the NAR Effect Webinar Series.
The ability to balance your business as both a buyer agent and listing agent is the key to growth in your business.
Forms and processes are the only things that are changing, there’s no reason to have your hair on fire.
Lean into your state and brokerage-specific forms. Each state is reviewing their forms and are making the necessary adjustments. Each state will be a bit different, so be sure you are paying attention.
Five-Part Listing Process:
Prelisting consult and fact-finding
Knock knock and walkaround
Sit down – why us and exposure
Pricing presentation
Signature
Real estate is a relationship business built on trust, the commodity is the house. We are in the trust business.
Step 1: Prelist and homework.
This is a fact-finding mission. Do your homework and ask questions in advance to prepare for the in-person meeting.
Step 2: Knock Knock and Walkaround
Thanking the client for choosing us, gaining trust and showing professionalism. Show them you appreciate them spending their time and that they’ve chosen you to come talk to them today.
When you tour the home you take notes so they know you are actively listening. Even if you don’t need to, take the notes to show them how committed you are to the details.
Step 3: Sit down
Unique value proposition. This is about creating the value for them. Explain how you are going to share their home with the market.
Step 4: Pricing Presentation
Make sure the seller understands the difference between fair market value, vs perceived value.
Fair market – highest and best price that someone will pay without any undue stress to the buyer or seller.
Explaining agency and how commission works/how everyone gets paid.
Explain how agency works in your state. Be sure to bring a buyer agency agreement with you to the listing appointment so they can see what the buyers are signing before they view the home.
Step 5: Signature
You’re asking for the job of marketing and selling their home.
Each part of your process is a conversation that takes your seller one step closer in their decision forward to hire you. Each of these steps is your interview. They aren’t your client until you have a signed agreement with them and they have a copy of that signed agreement.
Don’t underestimate the value of a true client for life. Your goal is to represent them forever.
Today’s consumers want to be served vs hard sold. They need and deserve a clear understanding of how we work for them and how we represent them.
The biggest complaint of real estate consumers is communication. It’s been #1 on the list for the last 20 years.
What is working for Step 1: Pre-List and Information Gathering
Break it down into 3 basic objectives that you want to happen during this step:
Establish or re-establish rapport
We are solution oriented people, we sometimes need to slow down and connect with the person that is the client. Don’t go straight to the sale. When you are connected, you work together as a team. Rapport is often skipped or rushed, but this is the foundational piece of the relationship. This helps you to have hard conversations down the line.
Situational details. What are the details of the situation that you need to know.
Why. When. What has to happen in order for this move to be successful. What timelines do we need to be aware of? What other things have to happen prior to us hitting the market.
Property details. What has changed since you last saw the house?
What changes have been made? Upgrades or updates? Ask them what they think it’s worth.
The agents who have these three steps down, are consistently bringing in more listings. This helps the potential client to see what it’s like to work with you. They can relax into the process and trust that you’ve got it.
Most people think they win or lose their presentation on price. Not true. You most often lose on step 1 or two.
Step 2: Knock Knock and Walkaround Strategy
Is there a way to turn one listing into multiples? This is also known as a viral listing strategy. This is the part where you establish the expectations. Expectations can only be met when they are understood.
ListingLeads.com – you can find a ton of scripts here from Tom Ferry and Jimmy Mackin
Viral Listing Strategy: Before we even go to the appointment we are going to send an email to our database that says that I’m going on a listing appointment! I can’t share too much about the house, but I’m about to meet a potential seller who is thinking their home. I can tell you that homes of this size/neighborhood/etc. Typically sell at _____ price. If you’d like more details, reply back and I’ll send them to you.
You can also turn this into an Instagram story with a poll to generate interest in the potential listing as well.
When you get to the appointment, you can show the results of these two+ efforts to the potential client. This shows the potential interest in the market about their home and will also show the potential client you are already making efforts to sell their home.
When walking around, keep the focus on the client. The walkthrough is the most important part – you are getting to know the house so you can market the message. What’s the story of the home, what did the seller enjoy most. Ask about renovations, ask about any known repairs that need to be made. Why are you moving? Where are you moving to? What’s important to you? What do you want out of this transaction? This is the time to build trust by being a great listener.
Is there anyone else that needs to be involved with the decision-making?
What are your communication preferences?
Tell me about your financial situation. This is an enormous financial decision – treat it with respect.
You need to understand the market financially and be able to explain it to them.
Ensure that you are using “we” in conversation.
Frame your expectations: you expect them to sign with you and for you to sell the house in terms that suit them best.
Marketing and messaging is important and you collect most of this information during this part of the process.
This is a great opportunity to build trust and rapport. We are giving them all of our attention and showing that we are working together to sell this home.
Also by asking these questions you can kind of figure out their social style or DISC profile to help you during the sit-down portion so you know what to focus on that will be much more important to them.
Numbers people?
Emotions/Feel people?
Marketers need to know their audience – the seller is your audience for this presentation.
A small gift/gesture also helps during the initial meeting.
Role play these conversations so you are really comfortable and know how to cover all the questions you need to ask.
Step 3: The Sit Down
Your Unique Value Proposition and your unique marketing is presented during this time.
Most sellers want to know that you have a social media strategy to market their property. You will need to be able to illustrate what you will do and how you are different than others in the area. We are in a sea of sameness – this is your opportunity to really stand out and highlight what you’re doing from a marketing position that will solve problems for them in this process.
What are your favorite things to do? What can you do to give additional exposure to their listing?
Go through your entire presentation. Are you highlighting everything that you do that solves problems and creates add’l exposure? Or are you just highlighting the things you like the most? You may be excited the consumer needs to know how this will benefit them and the results that you get from those activities.
Show your efforts before, during, and after the sale to generate interest.
If you show your social media post and email that you sent out prior to the meeting and the results, it shows that you are willing to do the job before you even get the job. You’re already working for them and they didn’t even ask!
Your value is the problems that you solve for the seller and exposing the property to the largest amount of people possible. Illustrate how you do this for them
Step 4: Pricing Presentation
Reconfirm why they are moving, what their financial situation and goals are, and figure out their communication style.
The analytical will want more information and specifics. Know who you are presenting to
Four pricing strategies you need to know for each of your listings
Value market pricing. Creating a CMA and pricing accordingly to that. You’ll use this strategy in a buyer’s market.
Price Banding. When you separate your listing price from the bulk. Most listing you are looking at in this area. Let’s price it a little bit out of the group to draw more attention. If all the homes are between 300-320k, list yours at 299k. Don’t have your listing bunched up with other listings, separate it a little bit lower from the group so it gets more views.
Price High and test the market. You can only do this if the home has something unique. Use only in a seller’s market.
Psychological Pricing. Set your price apart so the buyer feels as though they are getting a deal. $299k vs $300k
Agency in your state – understand both buyer and seller agency and how they work. Be able to explain these to the client.
Bringing a buyer agency contract and explaining it to your seller during the meeting
Most of us don’t give the whole picture of the transaction. Especially with the upcoming changes, it’s especially important to illustrate what the buyers are doing and how they work.
Step 5: Getting the signature
The hardest part of getting the listing is getting the lead in the first place. The more opportunities you have to get in front of sellers, the better your listing strategy will be. Prospecting more and talking to more people is key to building the listing side of your business.
Stephanie made a commitment to go on 200 listing appointments in one year. She signed 72 that year. Her conversion wasn’t great out of the gate, but it takes time and practice by going on tons of appointments to improve.
The power of closing is more of a mindset than specific words. In their listing process they have a seller intake call that takes roughly 30 minutes. A walk through that’s 30-45 mins (they say it takes 15 minutes). Their presentation is about an hour and a half or longer. She gets a lot of criticism that this is a long time, but it’s worth the investment of preparation and time with the client. You are interviewing for a job that pays a lot, it should be taken seriously. The likelihood of you getting the listing is better the longer you are taking with the client.
Their strategy is asking lots and lots and lots of questions. One of those is “what price are you hoping to get for the home?”
Practice the art of asking more questions. Your goal should be to listen more than you talk.
There are six types of closes. You’ll want to change your strategy depending on who you are talking to. You can use them situationally and together.
Have a well practiced and well researched presentation. If you don’t have this, there’s no closing trick that will help you secure that listing. You must have a listing presentation.
A, B, C. Always be closing. This is closing the client throughout the entire presentation. Try to get agreement throughout the conversation. “Because you said yes to this….” You can use a summary close at the end to review.
Read: Never split the difference by Chris Voss – use a late night FM radio DJ voice a bit to create a calm conversation.
In her listing presentation, she practices the art of being slow and even, curious and clear, and controlling her facial reaction or flushing reactions. A professional expects objections and questions. Don’t let your tone and face show that you are uncomfortable about commission or any other matter.
You will be improving all the time. Even with 20+ years of practice there are always ways to improve and do better.
Learn to keep track and re-state what they said was important to them. This shows that you are listening. She likes to use summary close paired with an assumptive close:
Because you said this was important to you…and this and this…and I love this house and would be honored to sell it, I would love to list this house with you. Or it sounds like we are ready to work together (if you are feeling super confident).
I’ll get the paperwork sent over to you to sign/I have the paperwork right here for us to sign.
Don’t oversell it. Summarize what is important to them that you can deliver to them, say that you would be honored to sell the house, and then ask them to sign the paperwork.
If you don’t have a well-practiced process and presentation, you probably aren’t going to get the listing anyway. You can practice and you can get better.
Ask the potential client if they have heard about the NAR changes and walk them through the facts regardless of their answer.
A conversation is a frame. Start with curiosity, move into empathy, and then move into a close. Don’t skip steps or they won’t be comfortable.
Building trust happens in all 5 of the steps.
You are closing throughout the process, just don’t forget to ask for their signature before you leave.
It’s not anything other than forms and processes. Don’t be intimidated by big NAR changes here. If you can clearly convey options the seller has, how everyone gets paid, this process will be easy.
Know your forms and rules inside and out.
Be able to convey your value.
Bringing a buyer agency agreement with you to the appointment so that the seller understands what buyers are going to be seeing before they view their home. This also helps them to understand how the commission works on the buy side.
If the seller is also potentially a buyer, you are getting a step ahead there as well.
You don’t have to be in the real estate industry very long to realize that the assumptions you’ve had about being an agent are far from the reality of working in this dynamic and exciting community. Since most of our potential and current clients will never have the pleasure of experiencing this work first-hand, it’s important that we understand the myths surrounding our industry and know how to communicate effectively with the public to help them sort out what are feelings and what are facts.
Our pals over at 1000 Watt and Bright MLS did the heavy lifting for us, compiling a report that gives us the stone-cold facts to help back up what we have long known to be true. Below are the highlights taken from the report to help break it down into bite-sized pieces for you. There is also a link to the full report for those who want to go on a deeper dive into the data…you know you want to! Being able to respond to inaccurate or misleading reporting is something that will help you and your team position yourselves as educators and sources of truth within your communities.
From the Bright MLS/1000 Watt Report:
🐂 Fact #1 Agents do not “steer” buyers to homes with higher buyer agent commissions. Analysis of over one million home sales transactions taking place across six states and the District of Columbia between 2020 and 2023 shows no such relationship between sales activity and commissions.
💰 Fact #2 Commissions do not drive up home prices. Reports on the settlement have suggested – and in many cases, outright stated – that high commissions are causing high home prices. In this high-cost housing market, it is understandable that people are looking for someone to blame for high home prices. The primary drivers of home prices – properties of the home, qualities of the neighborhood, inventory, mortgage rates, demographics, labor market conditions – are all very much beyond our control. However, it is these supply and demand factors that drive home prices. It is clear from recent transactions data that there is no relationship between the offer of compensation to the buyer’s agent and home prices.
⚖️ Fact #3 Listing a home on the MLS creates an open and fair housing marketplace. Under the proposed settlement agreement, NAR agreed to create a new rule for MLSs prohibiting a blanket offer of compensation to buyers’ agents in the MLS system. The change means only that offers of compensation cannot be communicated via the MLS as they currently are able to do, but buyers and sellers can still negotiate who pays what. The mechanism by which buyers and sellers can negotiate and communicate about commissions is still unclear.
The MLS creates an open, efficient, and fair housing marketplace. When brokerages hold listings off the MLS to sell as “private” or “office exclusive” properties, they are keeping information about available homes for sale from a lot of prospective buyers. Public real estate websites and apps, where buyers and sellers browse for homes, rely on the nation’s local MLSs to get their data. The MLSs set rules so that the listing data is accurate and consistent, and then the MLSs feed that information to hundreds of thousands of websites and apps, making the information widely available to consumers.
👩🏫 Fact #4 Homebuyers highly value a knowledgeable, professional buyer’s agent. Narrative around the litigation and settlement have suggested that buyers’ agents have become less necessary. The argument goes that since home shoppers can now view homes online, buyers’ agents are not as important and therefore do not “earn” the compensation they receive.
Buying a home is the biggest financial decision most people make. Consumer research has consistently shown that homebuyers value working with a real estate agent. According to the 2023 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 90% of homebuyers said that they would use their real estate agent again or would recommend their agent to others.
