Josh Phegan – Real Estate Training For High Performance Agents

Selling by auction can be stressful, but there are several things you can do before auction day to alleviate some of the stress. Mostly you want to make sure your buyers will be fully prepared to bid and buy property. Having buyers who are qualified and confident will help assure that properties receive the very best sell price possible.

Communication with your buyers and sellers is vitally important, and you need to dialog with them well before the auction. You can help buyers decide how much to bid by making current pricing information available to them. In many states and countries there is legislation in place that limits what you can and cannot quote, and you need to know what your local legislation involves, but you can certainly show buyers examples of properties currently on the market and what they are selling for.

You can also explain the auction process, make sure buyers know what is required of them before they can purchase, and help them through the steps they need to take in order to be financially ready before auction day. That would include seeing their mortgage broker, having their deposit in place, knowing the terms of the deal they are interested in, and being registered to bid if that is required.

Another bit of information you can use yourself is to find out who has requested copies of contracts to be sent to a solicitor for review. As this involves a substantial fee, you know a buyer is interested in a property if they have made this request. Overall, if you know your buyers are fully prepared, then you can feel confident that they are serious and will actually show up and bid on property.

One decision you have to make is when to actually sell the property. Sometimes it is in the best interest of the customer to sell before the auction depending on offers you may receive on the property. If no one is showing interest in a given property prior to the auction, then it might be best to put the property on the market. Then again, if you know there will be multiple bidders for the property it might be best to let it go to auction. Your own experience can help you judge how quickly you think you could sell that property in the marketplace, and whether sending it to auction might result in a faster sale. And you can always consult with a specialist to help you make that decision if you are unsure.

Thank you for joining us for today’s Coaching Tip. We hope to see you here again next week!

One of the most important elements inside of a listing presentation is tactics. One key tactic is the “trial closure” because it allows you to test how ready your customer is to enter the market with you. You do this by simply asking some important questions.

Know beforehand the kinds of questions you want to ask according to the structure of your overall listing presentation to an individual customer. You will be able to weigh their level of engagement not only by the answers they give you, but also by their level of involvement and interest in the process. Are they also asking questions of you? Are they talking actively? Is it clear they understand what you have been discussing with them?

You can use trial closures in several instances, the first being their selection of an agent. Ask them if they would be ready to appoint an agent today if everything else was signed off on to start. If they say “yes”, then you have a good indication that they are on board with you. This is much better than reaching the end of the listing presentation and still not knowing if they want you to represent them or not.

Next you want to see if they understand your recommended sales method and agree with it. So ask them when an auction would work for them, or when an open for inspection would be convenient. If they respond with dates and times without hesitation, then you have another indication that they are comfortable with the sale method and with you.

Your next trial closure can be about marketing. Ask your customers when it would be best to send the photographer and videographer through the house, when they think the sign should go up, where they think the property should be marketed first, etc. Then ask them if they have a spare key. If they hand you the key then you can have even more confidence that they will be signing with you.

A final trial closure question could be about pricing. Simply ask them how they feel about a specific price. Would they need to see a higher price before moving forward?

Trial closures are all about leading up to an endpoint with enough information to actually do business. They have to be done throughout the listing presentation, though – you can’t wait until the end of your presentation and then throw out a random trial closure. You have to use trial closures tactically and consistently to know that you are building the right relationship with your customer. Engagement is your greatest tool for making the connection that will win customers, and there are four simple questions you need to ask your customer:

1. How would you like to see things perceived?
2. What would you like to see happen from here?
3. What do you need to know from me?
4. How can we best work together?

These four questions should really bring your listing presentation to a powerful closure.

We hope you enjoyed today’s coaching tip and look forward to seeing you again next week!

We have spoken before about the importance of creating a winning listing presentation. Today we’re going to discuss how to achieve that.

The listing presentation, as you know, is your opportunity to explain your sales process and approach to a customer in a way that will persuade them to choose you to represent them as their real estate agent. You need to be able to communicate with them in a way that they will understand and appreciate.

Unfortunately, what often happens is that we tend to pitch to a customer from our own point of view, and present aspects of the selling process that we find most important, instead of speaking with them about their values, needs, and selfish desires.

The most engaging listing presentations are tactical in the approach to the customer. There is a definite structure to the process the customer is about to embark upon, so there should be a similar structure to your presentation. Also, using visuals – such as charts, listings, photographs, and some of the forms they will be using – really helps to involve the customer in the process, and is a very effective way to connect and achieve greater understanding.

You must know what the customer needs from you in this process, beginning with the need to feel “safe.” They want to feel secure with you – that you know what you are doing and you have their best interests at heart. You need to be the agent who can sell their property at the best possible price while keeping their marketing costs to a minimum. So you need to address those concerns with them in detail, with confidence and expertise.

As real estate agents, we are often more focused on features whilst the customer is more interested in benefits. Here’s a phrase you should use often: “which means.” This will help you to bring those features and benefits together, and define more clearly what your customer needs to comprehend. For example, you might say, “We will bring up some buyers from our database, which means that they can come look at the property before we take it live to the market – which means we could save you some money on marketing if any of those customers want to buy.”

An example of visuals you can use in your presentation are records of your previous sales, such as your open for inspection register, your auction bidding record, or a list of your last 20 to 100 sales. This demonstrates your ability to close a sale and deliver a great price for a given property, which shows your client that they can trust your advice. This is also an effective way to pitch a certain type of sale you want your customers to consider.

Your open for inspections list is also effective in showing the number of buyers who have actually come through the properties you have on the market. All of this serves to turn the conversation into real, tactical evidence and what it actually means for that particular customer.

One more suggestion is to show your customer an open for inspection register from one property you have had on the market recently. Show the number of buyers that you had through the property, then point out the number of second round open for inspections that you did. Next, show the number of 10-day callbacks and just sold calls. This will give your customer a much clearer view of how the real estate business really works, and demonstrate your expertise even further

Showing actual documentation of your success with a variety of properties is a powerful way to influence your customers to choose you as their agent over your competitors. Always keep in mind that the amount of time you spend with your customer in your listing presentation is not important; the most important quality is the time you spend in addressing your customer’s needs, concerns, and selfish desires.

I hope you benefited from today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week!

Knowing how best to execute your listing presentation and making sure that you are really comfortable with it are vital to getting and retaining customers.

Inside of the listing presentation, the opener and the closer are critically important. The opener sets the tone for the presentation and allows you to pitch towards the selfish desires of the customer. The closer allows you to work powerfully with the customer through clear communication. When they feel confident that they know exactly what you are telling them, they will most likely choose to select you as their agent.

My approach is to think in terms of pitching to the customer because there is a difference between what the customer thinks they want versus what they actually need. The customer may think they want a cheap agent, maybe they don’t want to pay for marketing, and they probably want the very best price in the marketplace, well above every other home that has actually ever sold. But of course, what the customer needs is the best possible price that is realistically achievable in the marketplace today. They need an agent who represents good market value; most importantly, they need effective marketing to get buyers to the property.

By pitching to the selfish desires of the customer we use the opener and the opener, which is a very simple conversation with your customer about pricing. What price were they thinking they want, and what price can they realistically hope to get? So let’s talk about price in terms of how an owner determines the price they want, how an agent determines the price they can expect, and how the buyer finally determines the price they will accept, with the understanding that you want to get your customer the very best price possible for their home.

The second component you want to help the customer understand is the importance of marketing. As you know, marketing is how you get the buyers to the property. The more buyers you can attract to the home, the better price you can expect to get for it. In addition to that, talk with the customer about the sell method. Do they have a preference between auction and for sale?

Of course, you will have to discuss your fee with the customer. Basic fees currently in the marketplace for agents are between 2% and 3.5%. Tell your customer that your fees are certainly not the most expensive, but you are also not the cheapest, and explain to them why you will offer them the best value. Tell them your customer exactly why they should choose you. This is your pitch to the selfish desires of the customer.

The order you present this information to your customer may vary with the situation, so don’t make this a formula approach. The point is to pitch directly to the customer’s individual needs, which means you will pitch to the customer in the order they to hear it, according to their situation. Selecting an agent, selling method, marketing, pricing, and any other steps that take you to final close, need to be discussed at the proper time for your customer.

Now, the steps to final close – called the summation or the summary close – are critically important. First, you want to summarize all of the key points that you have already spoken to the customer about, such as agreement on where the property’s value is likely to fall, the marketing strategy you have decided to follow, selling method, and payment for your fees. The summary close can be very powerful, so give this presentation the time it deserves to be effective. That could be 30 to 45 minutes, or even an hour spent working with the customer. You want to make sure you summarize all the most important points, that your customer is comfortable in knowing exactly what you have actually discussed, and that they are clear about the next steps they need to take in order to move forward in the marketplace.

As you develop your own approach to the listing presentation, make sure you’ve got a winning opener, a thorough closer, and most importantly, create an appropriate structure to influence each customer to choose you as their agent. Never ever underestimate the importance of follow through with your listing presentation, which means to be consistent until you have the property listed. The more you can socially prove yourself and the more you can demonstrate your ability to work in the marketplace, the more confidence your customers will have in you. Consider shooting a testimonial video where your past customers talk about their good experience with you and describe what you did with them during the sales process.

Today we’re going to speak about what is probably one of the most important meetings inside of the vendor relationship management. The seller management meeting is actually a “setup to sell” meeting. A lot of agents claim to do it, but out of all of my coaching clients I have not seen anyone doing seller management meetings on a regular and consistent basis.

The setup to sell meeting should happen a day or two after you’ve been to the listing presentation and won the business. It’s critical not to do it right off at the listing presentation because there’s already so much information to process there, and it’s important to first set up the property to sell.

How do you judge your success in what you have done here?

1. You get the property sold, and –
2. You sell the property for a really great price.

The only way to get the property sold is to go through what we call the “indicators of interest.” Indicators of interest are pretty simple: How many inquires have we got? This then gives us the total number of inspections.

There are only two reasons why a property doesn’t get inquiry:

1. We have no marketing, and
2. The property is in the wrong price range.

As long as we’ve placed the property in the right price range, and we are marketing it correctly, we should see lots of inspections. Those inspections should generate second appointments. If a second appointment doesn’t happen after the inspections we know that people feel that the property is priced too high, and that makes other homes look like a better value to them.

Second appointments need to result in people requesting copies of the contract, and then making offers on the property. Never forget there are plenty of properties you will handle that have already been on the market with other agents, and every single time you do that your clients will say that they’re really unhappy because they never received any offers. The reality of that is, they never got second appointments because they didn’t have enough contract requests, because they didn’t have enough inspections, because they never had enough inquires on the home to begin with.

We have broken all this down into what we call our days on market, then the enquiries, which generate the inspections, which result in second appointments, and finally we get contracts and offers.

For days on market you can expect, for example, maybe 8 enquiries on the home by the 7th day, resulting in 8 inspections on the property, either through private appointments or at the open for inspections. From there you may receive one second appointment and one request for a copy of a contract, but the first week is probably too early to have any offers. We then repeat the process for days 14, 21 and 28.

Basically we are setting an expectation, but if there are no more requests for contracts, no additional offers, and especially if there are no more inspections or additional enquiries on the home by day 28, then we’re in serious trouble.

At this point you need to make sure that you understand the importance of competition. For any given property you are handling, there will be ten other homes in the marketplace, and five of those homes are going to be sold in the next month. Do you want to be one of those five homes that sold? Of course you do.

The way you will sell those homes is to be certain that the marketing you use is going to get you the enquiries, the inspections, the second appointments, the contracts and the offers that you deserve. Spend the extra $500 to get a larger ad in the paper, or go to a highlight listing on domain.com.au. Get the marketing right, and do what needs to be done. Now you can set your expectations where they need to be.

We may now be in a position to get early offers on the home, and it’s important to be aware of that so you know what to do when it happens. because it’s not about the number of days that you’ve been on the market – It’s about the number of days that the buyer has been in the market.

Remember, the role of the setup to sell meeting is to clearly define the indicators of interest, step by step what it takes to get you an offer on the property. Set benchmarks for what to expect by days 7, 14, 21 and 28 on the marketplace. Keep in mind the role of competition. Add to that the possibility of early offers, and be ready to seize your first opportunity to actually upsell your marketing.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s coaching tip. If you need anything further then feel free to email me at josh@joshphegan.com.au.