Stay Ahead by Prospecting Daily

You may not realize it, but if you want to be doing a successful business next season, you need to be working on that right now. How far in advance are you prospecting for potential leads now so that you can move on them when they become available?

You should be working 3 to 4 months in advance at all times, collecting leads, prospecting daily so that you have a steady pipeline of new opportunities coming in to you at all times. Find the people who are ready to come to market now. Find the people, too, who are thinking about selling so that when they decide to move you will be ready to move with them. Some of the best people to check up on are market appraisals you have done, not just within the last three months, but anytime in the past. Prospecting is a continuous process – you should be doing at least one core session a day, three if possible, with people in a position to take their property to market and sell it.

When you have properties working it makes a difference not only in the way your business works, but in how you feel about the work you are doing – and that success is projected to your potential customers in the way you present yourself, even the way you interact on the phone. So always be prospecting, always be working on something new, stay ahead of the curve and your positive actions will attract more customers.

We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip and will join us again next week.

Critical Skills for Your Success

There are three critical skills you need to have a handle on inside your business: Prospecting, finding and winning potential sellers, and selling the properties. It is important for you to do an audit of your business in order to discover the critical components you have in place, and identify those you need to cultivate.

The details that are covered by prospecting for sellers, selling yourself to your customers, and delivering a successful presentation are interconnected and dependent on each other to make the whole process work. Included in the mix are buyer work, vendor work, leverage, understanding your financials – not to mention building in time for yourself!

You need to know what your lead sources are and how to work them, and have a source for potential sellers that you can bring to the marketplace.

You also need to be able to communicate with customers about fees, marketing, pricing, terms, and method of sale. You have to make the initial contact and talk with the vendor before meeting with them. When you arrive at the property you will discuss why they are selling and what their personal needs are, pitch to those needs, then cover marketing and the selling method, discuss pricing the property, discuss your fees, and then close with the customer comfortably. All the while you must sell yourself and your brand.

One of the best ways for you to approach your business audit is to have a quiet, thoughtful look at all of the skills you know you have inside your business right now. When you have that picture, then you can think about areas where you need to spend time to improve your performance in the marketplace. For example, if your listing presentation needs work then you have to bring that up to par so that you can prospect more. And you will prospect more once you are confident that you can win that business with your listing presentation.

We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s coaching tip, and look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Asking powerful questions and why using trial closes are so important

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!

How to structure a winning listing presentation

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!

Listing Presentations that Win

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.

Seller management and the setup to sell meeting

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.

How to work with multiple offers

Today we’re going to talk about multiple offers. Sometimes inside of your real estate career the market can just shift, and within minutes you move into a position where you’ve got multiple offers on a property. One of the most challenging things for agent is that when those multiple offers start happening, many don’t know how to deal with all of those circumstances.

We have previously talked about the six elements of an offer, and you really need to know before you can take those forward to the owner. For example, you need to know:

• The name of the person who’s going to be on the contract
• Solicitor details
• Settlement terms, for example 30, 42, 60 days
• Deposit amount
• The conditions that might be come with the offer, for example pest, building inspection or finance
• Price they want to pay

Most agents only negotiate on the price. But what I know is most critical is that you negotiate on all six terms, because one of those terms could be the number on reason why an offer doesn’t proceed. What is critical when you’re working in a multiple offer scenario, you need to be clear about how you work it and what your process is and you need to be able to explain that to not only your seller but also to the buyer.

What’s frustrating from a buyer’s perspective is thinking that you are going to be purchasing a property and moving forward with that offer process to than be told there are multiple offers on the table.

Our recommendation in this scenario to go back and speak with each individual buyer face-to-face and write down all the details required in order to take an offer forward to the owner. Take forward all of the offers to the owner and get their instructions on what they’d like to do and who they’d like to negotiate with based on the terms of the offer.

Once that is done, set up a meeting with each of the individual buyer and let them know you have now moved into a multiple offer scenario and that this is the way that you work multiple offers. Confirm all of the terms of their offer and that their actual offer price is the most that they’re prepared to pay for the home. Once we’ve got their confirmation, then get them to put an initial on the bottom of that to confirm that this is the most they are prepared to pay for the home.

Different states throughout Australia and also internationally will have different regulations around how to handle this.

Remember, when you’re working with buyers in a multiple offer scenario, they can get a little bit tense, and there’s a good reason for that, because emotionally they’re missing out on purchasing the home.

What I know in working with the owner in a multiple office scenario, it’s important that we don’t get too greedy, and that sometimes there are people that will offer a little less in terms of their asking price but will actually move forward in a position where they’ve got a much more straightforward contract in terms of the other terms that are associated with actually making the offer.

Remember, in multiple offers, when a buyer misses out, they’re you’re next big buyer on something else. So make sure that you’ve got plenty of stock to be able to refer them to once you’ve been able to bring the deal together.

How to win listings by referral

Hi there, and welcome to this week’s coaching tip.  Today we’re going to talk about one of the most important lead sources inside of your business, which is actually winning business by referral.

When we think about building referral, we think about how do we get that to happen on a regular and consistent basis.  A referral doesn’t occur because someone actually gives you a $500 gift voucher or a bottle of Moet.  The reason why a referral occurs is because you’re really good at what you do.  Now what I know is that every single time that someone refers me a piece of business, I’ll then send that on to another agent.  And when I send it on to the other agent, I say to them, “Just remember that although I’m not your in-client, I’m one of your key referrers.  So treat me like a second vendor.”

Recently one of my clients in Adelaide had his brother Dan who wanted to sell his property in Brisbane.  And we referred it to one of our clients, Mark in Brisbane. I said to Mark “You’re now going to work with Dan, you’re going to list the property, but can you let me know what happens so when I’m speaking with Dan I know exactly what’s going on in terms of his sale process.” Mark was incredibly good around what he did. He called me prior to the listing presentation, after the listing presentation, when the property went on the market and sent me a link to the property on realestate.com and domain.com.au. In addition to that, he then also called me after the first open for inspection, after the second open for inspection, when there was an offer received on the property and when the offer was accepted.  He also then called me when the property actually exchanged unconditionally, and then called me again when the property settled. He treated me as the referrer as a second vendor.

Most people think that referral just happens.  Well the only reason that it occurs is that you actually deliver incredible levels of service to those people that have, (a), referred you, and (b), been referred to you.  And what’s important is that you need to think about is your service remarkable.

What I know is that in building a business by referral, it’s absolutely critical that you know who your key referrers are.  So what I do is I have a little booklet just actually containing all of the people that refer me business on a regular and consistent basis. There are some people in that booklet that have spent no money with our training company yet they’ve referred us into over $100,000 worth of work every year because their key influencers are inside of the industry.  Just remember that in order to work a referral, you’ve got to build a relationship and one that’s genuine.  And often it’s not about calling up and asking for a referral; it’s simply about calling up, speaking to them about them and their business, and in addition to that about what’s going on in their world.

The more genuine that you are, the more likely that you can build a better relationship with people. Remember, the key to building word of mouth marketing is to make sure that you’re actually doing the work on a regular and consistent basis.  You need to be calling out for business and speaking with those referrers on a regular basis and letting them know of your success.

Don’t forget to add all of your referrers to your database so that should you be sending out your weekly videos or your monthly videos around what’s happening inside of your marketplace, they can see you, connect with you and connect with you as being the area specialist.

Do you use the 7-2-2 rule?

Hi there, and welcome to this week’s coaching tip. Today we’re going to talk about an incredible rule around seller management called the 7-2-2 rule. Dean Mackie from our first Headstrong series taught this to me. He said that if a property that is on the market has had seven inspections, has been on the market for two weeks or has had two ads in the paper and if it doesn’t look like you’ve got a buyer who is going to move forward to an offer, then we you need to have a price change.

What I see go wrong a lot in vendor management is that properties stay on the market for a long period of time before agents are actually prepared to have decisive action. What I know in managing vendor relationships is the higher the level of intensity, the shorter the relationship will be. And the lower level of intensity, the longer the relationship will be.

High intensity is about getting on the phones and speaking with each of your vendors every day. If you can call all of your vendors first thing in the morning, it sets the expectation that you’re not only there to do business but you’re there to make things happen.

If you’re speaking to your vendors on a regular and consistent basis, then it starts to build trust, and that’s what actually counts when the moment that matter arrives and they ask you, “Should we actually accept this offer or should we try for a little more inside of the marketplace?” Remember, your vendor management is about following that simple 7-2-2 rule.

When we talk about a price change, just don’t get a price change of $5,000 or $10,000. Get a price change that is significant enough to actually put the property into the next price bracket and significantly encourage buyer activity. At this point, you also need to get buyers through properties the moment after you’ve got the price reduction. Don’t leave it to the ad in the paper or the change of the price on the internet to get more buyer activity through the home. The moment you get a price reduction, you must get a number of buyers through that property within the following 24 hours. It’s absolutely critical so that the vendor actually links price reduction equals buyer activity.

I’m a big believer in work hard and work well with people in the first 7, 14, 21 days of them being on the market and you’ll get them sold. The longer they are on the market, the more difficult the relationship is to manage and the more difficult it is to actually build great prospecting from all of that social proof in selling those properties.

Moments that matter

Today we’re going to speak about something called the moments that matter.  In business there are a few moments that matter and will make a huge amount of difference to your success. These moments are generally around prospecticg and the way offers are presented.

One of the first moments that matter for me is your ability to first of all get a list of 24 people in front of you for your 45-minute call session. To make the calls you also need a clear purpose or outcome-driven objective that you’d like to achieve out of the calls. The next moment that matters is setting your timer for 45 minutes and finally actually making the first call. Once you get those moments that matter in that right sequence and that right play, then you’ve got success.

Moments that matter inside of the listing presentation are pretty simple as well.  The first part of that is all around the prelisting appointment, how the appointment’s set up, getting the expectation from the vendor around pricing, and making sure that you’re going to be meeting with all of the decision makers who will be selecting an agent.

Once you’ve done that, turning up to the property is critical to make sure that you’re on time and presented well.  Once you’ve done that, the next component is then walking into the property, seeing the home, building repertoire with the customers, identification of all of their needs, selling the appropriate features and benefits that relate to their needs, trial closing consistently through the course of the presentation, and then after all of that handling their objections, and finally the moment that matters the most, getting them to sign the agency agreement.

Now if you think about it, all those moments that matter are going to have different areas of resistance, from you getting on the phone and not feeling like making the prospecting call, right the way through to asking the trial closes around the open times, the auction times when the property can be photographed.

So what’s absolutely critical is you start to think more in a process of the things that you need to do in order to get those moments that matter to really count.  Let’s face it: no one in the general population just wants to be a number.  No one wants to just be just another prospect.  Ultimately everyone is out there looking for people to give them guidance and for them to become that trusted advisor.  So really what you’ve got to start to think about is where are the moments that really matter in my business.  Maybe for example it could be at the open for inspections, and that when you meet buyers the way that you take their details, the way that you follow up after the open for inspection determines your level of success from referrals.

I want you to stop worrying about trying to go through the business so quickly and start focusing on doing the right work until the job gets done.  The moments that matter are absolutely critical inside of your real estate business, and if you start to think about those critical processes you will actually get better results.