Separate Yourself By Value

There can only be one cheapest agent.

What you think is the problem, isn’t the problem, the way you think about the problem, that’s the problem.

There can only be one agent that is the cheapest in every market; therefore if you’re not aiming to be the cheapest, you must compete on brand. A brand is customer experience; customer experience is valuable. Where does the customer see the value? What value can you add to the service you provide? And what value should you strip out, because the customer doesn’t find it valuable?

There are three types of customers you need to get close to. Existing customers of your firm – they know you, love you, chose you for a reason. Competitors customers – they chose the competitor for a reason, and have valuable insights into the way you present, that turned them away. Non-consumers – people who haven’t yet consumed real estate services, yet still have valuable perceptions around who’d they choose and why.

The industry is so transactional in its nature that rarely does it stop for just a few moments to get close to these three customer types to understand what the customers find valuable.

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How do you drive up value in the consumer’s mind:

More jobs are done.
What’s the job the customer needs to get done? If you think it’s to get the house sold, you’re wrong. It’s one of the jobs, but there’s far more to a successful transaction. They want to be sold, have successfully purchased, be moved, and getting on with life post the transactions. The more you can help to alleviate the things they will go through in the transaction the more valuable you become.

Most of what we do is forgettable, but there are moments that become remarkable. Like the moment when the agent turns up a day after you’ve bought or sold, to organise the mail redirection, provides quotes from suppliers like a removalist and organises the disconnection and connection of essential services.

While it seems simple, often agents only do these things if they notice their competitor is doing them. When you have a deep understanding of the customer, then you can serve.

Designing the customer journey is about identified low points (think pain, anxiety and stress), then placing a high point (moments of joy, wonder and amazement) right next to them. The closer the high is to the low, the less likely the consumer is to remember the low. Think price reduction, then 24 hours later there’s a buyer appointment, and the buyer makes an offer.

Whenever you have to call a client and you’re putting it off, hesitating, there’s a real chance you’re about to deliver a low, what can you do in the following 24 hours to engineer a high?

When you understand the customer journey, you can design the low and high points. Disneyland places an approximate wait time on all its rides. Then when you get to the head of the line, you turn to your partner and say ‘wow, that was pretty quick’. You’ve just experienced an engineered customer experience. It’s the moment when the customer realises they had unmet, unidentified and unsatisfied needs that were just met and exceeded. Those moments become remarkable, and those satisfied customers bring you your next customers.

Demonstrate understanding through case studies. Take being an executor of a will. What are the jobs the executor needs to get done and how can you demonstrate value? Here are some questions to ask:

  • Have you been an executor before?
  • Do all the beneficiaries get along?
  • You’ve already got a full-time job, and now you’ve been given another one, how do you feel about the role and the sale?
  • Do any of the family members want to buy the property?
  • How much transparency is required in the sales process?
  • Does the property hold sentimental value?
  • If so, and the property is ripe for redevelopment how do you feel about selling the property to a developer?

Your role as an agent of value is to take the pressure and the stress off the client. You can help if required to negotiate with the beneficiaries, provide a transparent sales process and negotiate with family members etc.

At that moment in the transaction, the customer says, ‘wow you get me and my situation, more than I get me and my situation’. That’s called situational awareness.

The problem, we’re heading into the same situations, almost as though it’s the first time we’ve ever experienced them. We have low situational awareness and rarely train our teams around customer service standards.

Use unique language to position yourself as different. Every agent talks about styling when they should be talking about the benefit.

One buyer is going to walk through five homes this weekend, that one buyer is going to decide to buy one of those homes. The home that feels easy to live in and feels as though they don’t have to do anything to is the one they’ll buy. Your job as the agent is to make those two things happen. That’s why you have a team of people around you – painters, furniture people etc., to achieve those two buyer values, to negotiate that one buyer up and get the buyers decision in favour of the sellers home.

The agent that makes it the easiest, the one that demonstrates true empathy for the situation, who can show how many of the jobs they get done that the customer didn’t even know they had to do, to navigate a successful move, is the one that wins. There’s only one answer to thriving business success – drop being competitor obsessed and be customer obsessed.

This article first appeared on Elite Agent: https://eliteagent.com/theres-only-ever-one-cheapest-agent-josh-phegan/

Ep 145 – How We Help Buyers See Value

In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips talk about how we help buyers see value when they have multiple properties to choose from. Alex advises finding out why the client is looking to buy in order to qualify them. Josh adds that it’s understanding where the value proposition is in a property, and they discuss the advantages and pitfalls of a property’s features and benefits over another property for a specific client. Alex reinforces the need to go to auctions and opens for other agency’s properties to stay on the front foot with your market knowledge.

They discuss ways to help educate the buyer about their market, and how and why to assess buyer urgency to arrive at the proper value proposition. Josh then reminds us that people aren’t selling or buying a house, they’re moving toward a vision of a better lifestyle.

Separate Yourself By Value

There can only be one agent in your market who’s the cheapest, and if you don’t want to be that agent then you must separate yourself by the value proposition that you bring to the table. In my Coaching Tip today I’ll show you how to separate yourself by value through knowing what you should do to help your client.

When you really think about it, people don’t want to sell, nor do they want to buy a house. They don’t actually want to go through any of that experience. What they do want is to live in a new place, and not live where they are anymore. And they want you to handle all of that bit in between with as little fuss as possible. That’s the value the customer needs to see what you do for them.

Being a great agent is about understanding how best to take care of those challenges your customer is going through. For example, let’s say your client is the executor of a will. Your job is to understand all the difficult things they’re dealing with and help them with as much of that as you can.

Start by asking the right questions to understand the family dynamics they’re challenged within this role. Then find out what they know about the market, the area, sale methods and pricing models. Once you know their situation you can outline potential challenges they may face during the sales process, and tell them how you can alleviate those pain points to make things easier for them.

It’s that situational awareness of knowing exactly what to do to really help your client with their unmet, unidentified and unsatisfied needs that will add value to your customer. The agent that alleviates the most pain points is the one that wins. Knowing how to separate yourself by value is what will make you a great agent.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Ep 144 – Winning Against the Overpricing Agent

This High-PerformancePodcast for Real Estate Agents features Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips talking about winning against the overpricing agent. Invariably they’ll end up selling for the price you would have quoted, but they win the listing by inflating the value of a home to the vendor. Alex begins with knowing who you’re up against so you can tailor your presentation and show case studies supporting your process. Josh explains price history, pricing transparency, and how to use a tactical spreadsheet at open for inspections and listing presentations to show listing price vs. sale price of properties.

Alex lists some of the tools he uses to win and progress clients, and Josh gives an example of his listing dialogue. He advises getting clear on what you’re doing for your customer and showing them exactly why they should decide to use you as their agent.

Service Success

In business, if you’re not prepared to admit where you’ve failed the customer, then you’re never going to recover from that failure. In my Coaching Tip this week I’ll show you how service success happens when we identify and deal with areas of service failure, and then work to achieve service recovery.

Here’s a really basic service philosophy. If a child orders an ice cream at Disneyland, and the ice cream falls to the ground as the child licks it, from Disneyland’s perspective that’s a service failure. What they do is recover by remaking the ice cream, giving it to the child, and teaching them how to lick the ice cream so it doesn’t fall to the ground.

What does selling ice cream at Disneyland have to do with selling houses? Well, it’s about areas in your business where you’ve failed at a service level, and what you can do to recover by fixing the issue and really backing the customer in.

Say you’ve made promises to a client and, for whatever reasons, you’ve not made good on those promises. Would you still charge for services you did not deliver? Would you admit failure and try to seek recovery? I’m telling you to have that conversation with the client. Admit to that service failure. Don’t make excuses. The idea is to go super hard in backing the customer in so they will bounce back and be reasonable.

You see, a customer you’ve failed is going to be talking to other people about why they shouldn’t use you. It’s the worst marketing you could ever do. But service recovery is about you doing what’s right and fixing the issue so that the customer can say you backed them in, and they’ll tell other people to use you because you’re great at what you do.

Look at the service success in your business today. Identify areas where you have service failure, and decide what you can do to achieve service recovery. Make sure you’ve got great checklists, great forms, great dialogues and great visuals. Learn from your mistakes and prevent those critical errors from ever happening again.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

The Main Purpose

When you get clear about the purpose of your business, that clarity changes the entire way that you work. In my Growth, Leadership, and Management Tip this week I want to help you focus on the main purpose beyond profits, because everything that you do stems from that.

On the inside of our business, our main purpose is to inspire estate agents to achieve their potential and to reach financial freedom. Everything we do is about that. I want you to think about the underlying thing that you believe in that drives your business. Why did you start your company? What is the problem you’re solving? What is the challenge that your business resolves better than anyone else?

Purpose is ultimately about understanding what you’re going to do to help people along their journey. If you just want to make money, that doesn’t do anything for your client. If you get clear on your purpose, then you start thinking about how to make it easier for people.

That might mean holding seminars for tenants about how to buy their first property, or do sessions for landlords about what to do to grow their portfolio. Start to think differently about problems you’ve never really thought about before. Where are the areas where things are clunky and not really working? Maybe you’re moving from one thing to the next, but you’re not getting the result that you want to get for your client.

Here’s a great example of making it easy. One of the greatest challenges in property management is the to-ing and fro-ing between the property manager and the tenant about the cleanliness of the home when the tenant moves out. What would happen if, for a small fee to the tenant, we simply send a cleaner through the property after they leave. Call it “Tenant Easy.” Fix the issue for the tenant and for the property manager.

That’s what a great business does. It alleviates the pain points. We want to make property easy for people. Make that the main purpose and you completely change the game.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s Growth, Leadership, and Management Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next month.

Ep 143 – Dealing With Setbacks

In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips discuss methods for dealing with setbacks and getting back on track. Alex agrees with Josh that setbacks are a way of life and offers two basic things you can do to get over them. Josh advises that, when there’s been a service failure, just jump on the front foot and admit it, then take action to prevent it happening again. Alex notes that a mental state of moving on will prevent the downward spiral of thinking about it too much and losing listings as a result.

Josh reinforces that the one who recovers fastest wins the most, and lists some actions to get a quick reset and get back into the business. He advises understanding the setback is not your entire reality. Drop the tension, fix the situation, and get back to business.

Pay for leads, or leads that pay?

Pay for leads, or leads that pay?

The number one thing that determines the success of any business is how it acquires its customers. Our industry is hooked on the now, wanting an instant lead payoff. We have a short-term view, wanting to get a listing for this Tuesday’s sales meeting. On the flip side, we have agents who are still building relationships yet fail to convert any of those relationships to real live listings. So where’s the balance?

You need to get clear about what you do and what you don’t do. Lead generation websites aren’t new, but they do cut into your margins and breed lazy agents. Even worse, a number of the leads are already in your existing database. The better question is where does the customer hang out before they need you? They hang out at open homes and enquiring online. They also hang out with existing customers of the firm, better known as Landlords, Tenants and past clients of the firm.

What are the best lead sources?

Open homes – you meet more people more often who are already out looking for a solution. From neighbours to genuine purchasers that have to buy today. The buyer who buys’s is tomorrows seller. They choose the property not you, so it’s the beginning of the relationships.

Buyer enquiry – Buyers are establishing price points and value when they enquire, how you handle those enquiries determines whether they see you as valuable, or just another agent sending another automated reply which didn’t answer the buyers questions. It’s always my preference to call the client over emailing them; it gives you a real chance to find out exactly where they’re at in the purchasing cycle so you can provide the very best advice.

Market appraisals – The owner just want’s a price, after all, it’s probably the bait and hook that you used to get the customer to call, find out what your place is worth. The big banks are using the same tagline, so it’s time to change. The role of the agent at the market appraisal is to find out the clients dissatisfaction (the problem they are trying to solve), their vision (solution and what it looks like) and preparedness to make the first steps (attend opens, private appointments, make offers or bid at auction).

Landlords – They have a principal place of residence, but is your agency a full-service firm? If you are you’d get on the phone to arrange a time to see their principal place of residence, to provide and equity update, then either sell and upgrade, or use that equity to buy another investment property.

Personal network – You’ve got 1000’s of friends on social networks, but where do they live? If they live in an area you service, then you must cross the bridge of awkwardness and be their agent. The easiest way to introduce work-related conversations in a non-work environment is just to say it, ‘you wouldn’t believe what happened at work yesterday’, particularly around just listed/sold activity.

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The secrets of word of mouth marketing matter more than ever. Therefore customer experience is everything. You need to be able to define it to deliver it. Map out where the customer’s highs and lows are, then place a high next to the low. If you get a price reduction it’s a low for the client, so make sure you get a buyer inspection within 24 hours, a high, so they put the connection together between price reduction equals buyer activity.

The best in the business focus on appointments only. Get me to 3 appointments a day, buyer, market appraisal or listings appointments and watch your business fly. I’m not trapped in industry dogma around door knocking, cold calling, or vanity marketing. The best form of marketing is always an auction or for sale board up, and a sold sticker applied.

You must know what makes your business work, so you can amplify your efforts and steer clear of the activities that suck resources. For all the effort, energy and talk around social, I just wish people would spend more on serving the existing customers they’ve already got. Hunting for new, when the reality is a great business has repeat and return customers.

How much does your business spend on marketing? And how much of that budget is spent on retention and renewal of existing customers? Why pay for a lead that you’ve already got?

This article first appeared on Elite Agent: https://eliteagent.com/josh-phegan-pay-for-leads-or-leads-that-pay/

Dealing With Stress

Stress happens all the time, but you don’t want your business to slow down. My Coaching Tip this week is all about dealing with stress because your ability to cope when things go wrong makes a massive difference to your overall success.

Stress occurs when you’re here, but you want to be over there and you don’t know what to do to make that happen. If you’ve got the right systems then the people inside of your business can be working them. But if you don’t, there’s no way to ensure you’ll have the outcomes you need to achieve.

As people, we need to understand that stress needs recovery, and recovery needs rest. In fact, rest and renewal are critical components for being a great real estate agent. I’m saying you need to take plenty of holidays every year. This will give you the clarity and perspective you require to build a sustainable business. Working weekends is not sustainable in the long term.

Over time you’ll learn to think about the strategy around what to do to achieve the outcomes you need. You have to take control – start to understand the simple activities and renewal cycles you can do every day to reduce your stress. Tension isn’t going to solve any situation. Changing the way you feel will.

When your business starts to speed up, that’s a good thing. It’s when you put a business under stress that growth really happens. But the systems that got you to this point are not the systems that will take you forward. You need to find new ways to handle that higher level of demand.

Ultimately the best professionals are always in control, and they know exactly what to do. They have coping mechanisms for dealing with stress so that they can achieve the outcomes they require. Learn now how to get yourself back into a position of performing at your best.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Ep 142 – How to Win the Listing When You’re Not the Logical Choice

In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips talk about how to win the listing when you’re not the logical choice. Alex tells how to be mentally prepared to present with passion, ask the right questions, and win the listing. Josh proposes bringing up objections first and dealing with them, and Alex expands on ways to handle customer objections. He then lists things to do to follow up after the presentation, and Josh reinforces the need to have a plan set with the owner.

Alex talks about influencing your referrers to help you get business, and Josh suggests some great questions to help you win the business. Alex notes that he loses 1 in 3 listings, but being gracious in defeat will get you future business.