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.

When should you hire an assistant?

Over the last few weeks we’ve had a number of people that have been speaking to us about how to work with an assistant.

In most businesses you need to write around $300,000 in gross commissions before it becomes financially viable to hire an assistant. A lot of people ask me “What do you get an assistant to do and do they even make phone calls?” and it’s such a great question. In my opinion an assistant is exactly that: someone that assists. When you hire an assistant, you need to make sure that you’re running at double your normal speed because you will need lots of overflow work in order to be able to get the assistant to do what they need to do.

When you’re looking to employ an assistant, you really want to get someone that’s most importantly coach-able. And coaching or someone who is trainable is probably one of the most important characteristics. You see, you can teach skill but you can’t teach attitude, so it’s absolutely important that you get someone who’s really good at what they do and interview them throughout the sales process.

Often what I see is that a lot of people put on an assistant as a knee jerk reaction, and they don’t really think about what they need that assistant to do. I would have my assistant handle all of my email, all of my email enquiry and all of my database marketing and automation. That would allow me to stay focused on making calls and being face-to-face with all of my clients.

If you want your assistant to do dollar productive activities then you need to make sure that they are competent in their capacity and ability to be able to do the calls. Instead of having them do the OFI callbacks, I would have them spend most of the time calling back all open for inspection booklets and old enquiry logs.

BUT, before I do that I would teach them the ten best qualification questions:

1. What’s the reason for the move?
2. Did you need to be there by Easter?
3. What locations are you considering?
4. Have you inquired anything or been to any other opens?
5. Have you bid on anything or came close to making an offer?
6. Are you going to be using the bank?
7. Where are you at with them?
8. Is this your first, second or third purchase in the area?
9. Is there any chance I can come and see your place as it will give me a great idea in what you’re actually looking for in the next one.
10. Have you had anyone from our brand through to give you an idea of the value?

What we’re doing here is training for competence. And what you want to start to think about is when you put on an assistant, you want someone that you can train for competence in their areas of skill. Administrative assistants are usually the first assistants that people put on, and then in time they may also put on an additional assistant that may do a lot of the buy work in terms of open for inspection overflows, a lot of buyer appointments and also in addition to that to do live prospecting around new properties that have been listed and sold inside of the marketplace.

There are a couple little tips here in making the assistant and relationship work correctly.

1. Be very clear and specific about how the assistant is actually measured – i.e., what does success look like to them in their role.
2. Train them for competence around those core skills. So now it’s qualification questions or how to actually use the database.
3. Meet every morning with them every morning first thing and ask “So what have we got on today?” And you want to ask them that question and let them tell you what they think that they need to be doing. That way you’re training for competence, but most importantly you’re training for them to have initiative.

It is also important to understand a little bit about their world. Things like are eating correctly, exercising correctly and pretty focused around the work that they’ve actually got to get done.

If you’ve got an assistant who is dollar productive, they need to be producing income, but you can’t expect them to produce income if you’re not producing it yourself. It is critical that if you’re going to get an assistant, you need to stay focused on the prospecting and the listing component of your business, allowing them to assist you throughout the course of the sales process.

We have seen some great assistants that come into the marketplace, and it’s not determined by age. Most importantly, what you’re looking for is people that are hungry enough to get the job done. One important thing here: make sure that you understand what it is personally that your assistant is wanting to achieve, because their personal goals are the number one things that’s going to drive them to be active and working inside of your business.

Make sure every day you have a really clear task list, and at the end of every day you sign off on that task list around the things that have and haven’t been done. It’s important that you actually keep these simple business disciplines in place in order for you to have a great relationship.

Why the real estate hour glass is critically important

There are effectively six key database categories that you’ll work:

  • Buyers
  • Potential sellers
  • Market appraisals
  • Current clients
  • Past clients
  • Referrals

If you think about your database, it’s effectively a little bit like an hourglass in its shape. You’re always going to have a lot of buyers that you funnel through your system, and you sort them out by asking one basic question: “Is this your first, second or third purchase?” Then you cascade them into the six categories listed above according to their answer to that one defining question. If they say it’s their second or third purchase, then your buyer also becomes a potential seller. Some potential sellers will then come into your market appraisal list. Remember, you’ll always have far more potential sellers than you do market appraisals.

The key distinction between potential sellers and market appraisals is that potential sellers are people who own a property in your area, but you have not yet been down to the home. With a market appraisal you’ve now been to the home and you’ve got a deeper relationship with the client, as you have provided them with an idea of what their property would be worth in the marketplace today.

Those market appraisals then come to the thinnest point of actually being your current vendors that are actually listed today. Those current vendors who are listed today then become your past clients, both people who have bought from you and people who have sold through you. The reason that past clients who have bought from you are so important is that they now own property in the area that you service. And of those past clients who have sold property with you, some may have since moved on, but others still live in the local area, and they might have purchased their property from somebody else. So that’s a pretty critical group of people to be working.

This then finally comes back into your referral group. Many of your past clients will actually become some of your key referrers. But also think about other people who might refer you to potential clients, like restaurant owners, or anyone who is in any type of business where they meet a lot of people. These people could be some of the best referrers inside of your business.

Now, when you look at each of these categories, one of the biggest challenges is that agents don’t actually know how to work them. For example, the best thing you can do with your buyer database is to add them to your email alert system.  Some of the best databases in the country right now have automatic buyer alert systems.

Your database needs to connect with your website buyer registration system so that when buyers register on your website and are entered into the database, the database automatically sends them properties that suit their criteria.

Next, you want to send these buyers a list of sales in the area at least once a month. There are two ways to do this: You can send them a list of all of the recent sales that have closed inside of your brand, or you can send them the list of sales that have closed in the post code. This is a fantastic thing to do with buyers because it gives them real property values they can work with, thus giving them confidence to make offers on other similar properties.

With both potential sellers and market appraisals there is nothing more relevant than speaking to them around new properties that have been listed as well as properties that have sold in the area, in addition to sending them the monthly report of sold properties.

Finally, it is important to track on a weekly basis the total number of people in each category with the aim of growing each and every single one of those categories. It is important that you don’t have an over-inflated category that isn’t fit.

In real estate, there are so many things that you can do, but only a very few things that you actually should do in order to achieve incredible results.

Numbers you can’t hide from

This week we are going to talk to you about Hard Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Hard KPIs are significantly more important than the Soft KPIs we discussed last time. These are the numbers you can’t hide from.

The Hard KPIs in your real estate career are your foundation: Total number of listings, the number of sales you’ve made and the amount of income that you produce. When looking at your hard KPIs it is important to first understand how much revenue you need to write per month and then break that profit down into a 10-month calendar.

The reason why a 10-month calendar is important is that it gives you eight weeks of holiday per year for rest and renewal.

How to work this out: Let’s for example say you have a target of $500,000 in gross fees and you divide that target by 10 months. That will show you need to do $50,000 in revenue per month. Next, work out what your average fee needs to be from a dollar perspective: Let’s say for example that your average fee is $10,000. That would mean you will need to do a minimum of five sales per month.

Now, we know you need to list more than you’re going to sell, so to do those five sales you will need to list around seven new properties every new month. If you’re listing seven and selling five you will generate your target of $50,000 in income.

You should also be reviewing your Soft KPIs every day, including your numbers of calls, connections, and appointments you have made. You should also review your Hard KPIs around their listings, sales and income for your target versus actual. This is critically important so that you know when you are on track to hit your target, and where to focus if you are not. It is also important to know the numbers around stock and transactions for your existing marketplace today to determine whether or not you should be operating in a secondary marketplace as well in order to hit your target.

If you don’t know the numbers in your marketplace, you can’t achieve market share and get the total number of listings, sales and income that you deserve to write this year. Review those Hard KPIs daily, make sure you’re on track for success, and remember, there are only three ways that you can increase your income: One, increase your average sale price; Two, increase the total number of fees and the amount of your fees, and the third thing you can do is to increase the volume of properties you sell.

Knowing the most important numbers to measure and why

What should we measure and why should we measure it? It is important for you to know the core numbers that are critically important to your success.

Your Soft Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are definitive elements, such as the number of call sessions that you do per day. Most agents we work with aim to do a minimum of one, but preferably two to three call sessions per day. A call session lasts around 45 minutes during which we get agents to measure three separate components.

The first component is the number of calls they’re doing. Now, a call is actually just dialing a number; however, during a 45 minute call session you will probably make 16 to 24 calls. Statistically, out of those calls an average of 50% will ultimately make a connection, meaning you will get to talk to a real, live human being. Your goal should be to make eight to twelve connections per 45 minute session. If you’re not getting that number of connections, the issue is usually that you’re taking too long to facilitate the call. You may also be trying to do actual business on the call rather than simply book an appointment. It is always best to meet the client face to face for that business conversation; the purpose of the call is to set the meeting up.

The next component to the call is, if someone doesn’t answer and you have to leave a message, make sure you only leave your name and number. Never leave your brand, or the reason for the call. When you only leave your name and number a significantly higher number of people will actually return the call.

When we aim for our eight to twelve connections per 45 minute session, the final measurement is what we call your Total Number of Appointments. Every day your goal should be to book a minimum of two to three appointments, because the more appointments you book, the more face time you get with customers and the more likely you will be to convert and do business.

Appointments are critically important. What we’ve found is that too many agents simply don’t think about the outcome they want to achieve from their call sessions. It’s not just about the total number of calls or the total number of connects. The number that really counts here is the total number of appointments you ultimately book.

What I do with a number of agents is have them go to their diary and select three open appointment times; for example, tomorrow at 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM, and maybe 11:00 AM the following day. Then I say, “All I want you to do in the next 45 minutes is to see if you can sell those appointment times to three of the people you speak with. If you can do that, you’re 90% of the way to actually getting the job done.

I’m a big believer that you don’t need to be in the office every day from 8:00 AM through 6:00 PM in order to succeed. I do believe that you must be in the office for as long as it takes to get the job done, which means you must stay focused and diligently do your 45 minute call sessions. However, measure every one of those calls in terms of their resulting in connections and appointments so that you’re crystal clear about what success looks like for you in your business.

You’ve got to be ready, set, go.

This is the kind of mindset as we move into January that will really make all of the activity happen. Prospecting in January is one of the best things you can do on the inside of your business as there are a lot of people who love speaking to real estate agents at this time of the year.  And why is that?  Well they’ve just spent two or three weeks with their family in pretty closed environments over that Christmas/New Year period, and they’re ready to start talking about the future and the things that they’re going to be doing this year.

Right now there’s two critical things that you should be focusing on.  Number one is actually going through all of your existing stock and getting it really saleble and in the marketplace.

Start your Open For Inspections as early as you can so you’ve got lots of opportunity to be meeting neighbours, potential sellers, past market appraisals and clients that we know in and around each of those homes.

It is also important to start to build that momentum in the marketplace with your Open For Inspection boards, For Sale boards, etc. letting people know that you’re open for business.  It’s also a great time to increase all of your advertising in the newspapers.

Remember, the more people you meet now, the more potential sellers you’re going to find to be able to release them for February and March this year.

The second thing that I like to get people doing at this time of the year is to really focus on your prospecting.  And there’s two critical groups of people to focus on. One is all of the buyers that have been coming through your Open For Inspections late last year.  These buyers are particularly important.

The second key group of people that I’d like you to call is all of your past market appraisals.  Anyone that you’ve spoken to during the course of 2012 who was thinking about putting their property on the market is a fantastic hit list for you to be getting on the phone and speaking to.

This time of year is a fantastic time in the real estate industry.  People are really relaxed, there’s really good energy, and you can stay focused in the work. One of the key things is to start to think about doing consistent call sessions every single day on the inside of your business.