Training Tip #4- Listing like a Star
Listing 101
Everyone knows listings are the key ingredient to long term success in real estate.
Without a book of listings and the name recognition that listing ads and listing signs give you, it is very difficult to maintain or grow your business.
Don't get the wrong idea, in a buyers market it can be time consuming and expensive to add and properly maintain a book of listings, but it is still the way to go in the long run. Because when our market turns, and it will, you'll be in position to take your business to a much higher level. You will have listings that other agents wish they had.
Let's assume that at this point you've already got the listing appointment, and you have found out that you are competing against the top agent in your market! What should you do now to make them see that you are their best choice to get the home sold, in a reasonable amount of time for the most money possible? Well the first thing you need to do is formulate a “value proposition”. In other words, you need to figure out what unique, valuable qualities it is that YOU have to offer them. Then you have to figure out how to express that to them... in a few brief and easily understood sentences. In other words... what's your angle?
Play to your strengths. For example: what can you build upon in your prior career, your educational background, your unique talents and your real estate skillset and track record? Great things to "sell" are high sales volume, years of experience, computer literacy, marketing skills, trustworthiness, military background, educational degrees, real estate designations and personal things that will set you apart.
Stress these attributes in all your communications and specially your listing presentation. This brings us to the listing presentation. We're not going to get into incredible detail on listing presentations here today, this is Listings 101 after all.
But we will give an overview of what you want to accomplish in your appointment and an outline on how to make things go your way. Your goal is to establish the following.
1- The most important thing you want to establish is that you are not only a great agent, but a nice person that they can trust with their home sale. You do this by being on time, smiling a lot, complimenting their home and listening to them.
2- Establish that you have a unique "Value Proposition". For example: "I am the perfect combination of experience, marketing savvy and personal service". We suggest that you should state this right off the bat as soon as you start your presentation at the kitchen table... and again when you're wrapping up.
3- Make sure that they are convinced that you know the market. Have a good mini- CMA prepped to go over with them. It should cover all solds, contingents, pendings and actives in their neighborhood. Obviously, you can't present a CMA with any great detail about the value of their home before seeing it, and should not try to do so. The focus of the listing appointment should be on YOU, your skills and how you plan to sell their home. We first want to establish who they are going to list with, based on who will do the best job. If they drill you on what you feel you can get for their home, feel free to point out neither you or they themselves will establish the selling price for their home. The market does that based on how great a job you do of marketing it! Which takes us to our next point…
4- Go over a timeline of the steps you will be taking to get their home from Day 1 to Closing Day. This a fantastic technique because it shows how thorough you are, how much work is involved, your marketing plans and gives you a great chance to erase 90% of all the fears and misconceptions they may have. Be sure to establish that you are organized, methodical and you will be keeping them informed and in control at every step. People can NOT make big decisions (like hiring a listing agent) without clarity. Also remember that the 3 top reasons that owners choose agents are marketing skills, communication skills and willingness to allow the owners to feel that they are involved and in control.
Three ways to make sure you stand out as more professional than any of your competitors.
1- Do your homework on active market competition, particularly in their neighborhood. Consider making appointments to visit EVERY competitive listing in the neighborhood. This alone can get the listing in many cases. Why? This shows that you care enough to gather knowledge to accurately price their listing. It also will allow you to talk intelligently about the competition. Trust me they already have opinions about all the neighboring competition. The third reason to do this is that your "competition" will not.
2- Make sure that you have copies of your mini- CMA and your listing presentation book printed out for them to keep. Print them on a color laser printer and have them bound, with an attractive cover or in a high quality folder or sharp 3-ring binder. We have a OKI color laser that our agents can use for free. This is another way to get the listing by default. Oh, and make sure your listing presentation is colorful, well written and thick... at least 30 pages!
3- Your third secret weapon is to stress the incredible advantages of listing with your office and if possible the powerful nature of your franchise. This is where the power of RE/MAX is so important. We find that our agents often have the listing before even setting foot in the house because of the power of RE/MAX. We have one agent whose listing presentation basically consist of the following "RE/MAX has over 100,000 agents in 60 countries, RE/MAX sells more real estate than anyone, over 50% of national real estate advertising is for RE/MAX, RE/MAX sells over 35% of all homes in Brevard county, if you list with me your home will be featured on the #1 (realtor.com) and #2 (remax.com) real estate websites in the world. Why would you list with anyone else?
Need some help getting together a great listing package or working on a presentation for your computer?
We have some great listing booklets that are over 50 pages, ready for your personal stuff in front and a mini CMA at the end. We also have some Powerpoint listing presentations that are dynamite. There are also hundreds of these types of publications on remax.net for free.
