I’ve spoken previously about the importance of capturing the calls that come into the office and how that can boost your business. But it is only part of the process, you need to convert those leads to listings and there are so many ways your team can lose that potential client along the way.
I’ll give you a specific example. Recently a friend’s mother passed away and she needed to sell her home. She called two of the top agents in her local area and one from out of the area that was recommended to her.
One of the local agents arrived at the home and commented that he was really busy and nearly cancelled the appointment, swore a number of times and left pretty quickly. He referred to pricing in another suburb entirely when talking about the price of her mother’s home and didn’t ask a lot of questions.
The other local agent was nice enough, although my friend commented her personal presentation wasn’t the best.
Both these agents didn’t come prepared with information, but they did email some price and marketing details some time afterwards.
The non-local agent had already chatted to my friend when she called to make the appointment, arrived with a CMA to show her, had researched the area, and chatted with her and the other family members who were present for two hours. He listened while they shared memories of their time at the home with their mother and talked about its features. He didn’t clock watch and rush off. He built rapport with the family, sharing stories of his own.
Needless to say, he got the listing and sold it quickly and for a good price too! Plus, he made sure to ask who referred him and gave her a thank you gift when the home sold.
Grab hold and don’t let go
The work doesn’t stop just because you’ve managed to get the team to answer calls correctly.
You need systems in place to lead them through the process from answering the call to getting in front of the client.
These can include a thorough pre-appraisal questionnaire to find out more about the potential client and their situation. Then, when an appointment for an appraisal is made, your pre-listing system can include a gift-box, email or even text message that goes out.
People like to do business with people they know and trust, but in most cases your team are going to be appraising a property for people they have never met. You need some sort of rapport-building exercise before your sales agent or property manager gets to the home to overcome this.
Building rapport is easy. I’ve written about the art of making easy conversation before and this can be employed here, particularly when the agent or property manager is on the phone dealing with the enquiry and setting up a meeting.
At the end of this process there will be a pay day for both the agent and the agency so you want to make sure you do everything you can to make it easy for them and help them secure the client.
And that also goes right up to providing training in what to say when they get to the property, the do’s and don’ts (one agent I know would always make a habit of taking off his shoes at every house, even if the owner said it was OK to wear them. He said it showed them he had respect for their home), as well as having some type of presentation that covers all the methods of sale, overcomes objections and wins the business.
A good boxer doesn’t step into the ring totally unprepared. They work on strength, cardiovascular fitness, endurance and nutrition as well as a range of punches. As a business owner you want your team to be fully prepared so they can deal the opposition a knockout blow. Join me in my upcoming FREE half-day Real Estate Brilliance webinar and see how you can set them up to be winners.
