As with it all, you need to find rapport and show your value. There are tons of opinions of how you should proceed through a listing appointment. ROAR is about finding your path. While I lean towards some ideas and prefer some tactics, I want to show you as many options as I can so you create what works for you.
I know of a real estate coach that does his listing appointments over the phone, maybe even Zoom these days, and shows his value. When I asked him about setting a price, he says he tells them, “If you agree I’m the guy for you, than do you agree I will come up with a fair price for your home?” His assistant snaps pictures and he nails down the price.
Some people have slide presentations during their listing consultation, some have folders and some just show up. Almost everyone does a comparative market analysis or CMA. Your MLS might come with a nice little CMA program. There are also services like CloudCMA that our team uses that creates a really nice presentation that you can email or print.
Sellers are much different than buyers. They expect a different kind of agent. Buyer’s know immediately when a new home hits the market. Sellers have no idea when I new buyer has started the search and they want you to move heaven and earth to find them. And they will question your marketing, tactics and everything else if they get stressed. I watched a long-time, very successful buyer’s agent buckle under the stress and demand of working with sellers.
Arrive on time. I can’t believe I have to say this but agents have a problem with keeping track of time and making it anywhere on time. It’s hard to get a listing when you can’t show up on time.
Tour the house. Agents are divided on this next part. Some want to have the seller walk them through the house. This is the time to bond over the house with the seller. The seller is trying to impress the agent which changes the power dynamics subtly. This process will take 3-5 times as long which is other agents say, “Is it okay if I walk through your home alone so I can see it the way a buyer would?” These agents don’t want them getting sentimental and selling THE AGENT on the house, which is actually a danger. What this agent might do is ask them to look over disclosures while they walk the house.
Time for the sit down. The kitchen table is the most common spot to gather. Psychology says sitting near each other will cause people to like you generally due the proximity. Sitting across from the clients is more of a professional tone. Take your pick. Now, the bold agent might just say, “Are you ready to list with me?” If that’s what you are reading, do it. If they don’t respond the way you were hoping, just laugh it off and move on.
Most CMA programs start off with who you are, your accolades and how great you are. That seems fine but as I’ve been diving deeper into Chris Voss‘s idea that come from his time as a hostage negotiator, I’m starting to think that stuff comes near the end if at all. He talks about walking into a room with top officials and laying out all of his successes to impress them. He said he was laughed out of the room. When he called a father who’s son was kidnapped the father asked, “How are you going to help me from 3000 miles away?” He laid out exactly what Haitian kidnappers do, when they do and why they do it. He proved he knew the the climate and the process.
We do this on our team. We call it casting a vision. This is the market, this is the activity we expect, this is the kind of buyer we think you will attract and so on and so on. I haven’t delved into this yet but this is a good time because listings are so different and often demanding. You are a guide on this journey. They know they want to get from point A to point B but exactly how to do that isn’t clear. Now if you are traveling through uncharted areas, the people derive their hope from you to cast a vision or illuminate the path as I describe it. The better you can explain the landscape and show that you have done this before, the more likely they will pick you. You show your value better than you tell your value. The distinction is telling is listing achievements. Showing is having a story that they can imagine and see themselves in.
The CMA presentation. I always made a CMA but I almost never went through it. Different personalities need different things so you want to have a versatile presentation to hit all of that and I’ll touch on that in the DISC lesson. I would bring the actual listing printouts of each home in the CMA. After going through that, seeing all of the details and differences, it was harder to argue price, not impossible but harder. It’s up to you, practice on people and see what you like. Make sure you pick something because you think it works and not just because something else felt uncomfortable.
Price. There are some studies that say overpricing your home will actually cause it to sell for less later. I’ve never taken that to an appointment because I don’t know if they believe the paper or believe that their home is overpriced. If they want to leave room to negotiate, get them off of that. Look at stats and you will likely see that the homes that sold closer to or after the average days on market had price drops. Homes priced right will sell quickly. If you can’t get them to the price you think will sell it and they look to be difficult to get a price drop later, tell them you will go with their price but if it hasn’t sold in X weeks, you will drop the price to Y and you will state that in the agreement. This is the best defense against seller remorse.
Commission. The fun part happens here. You decide your commission and your value. Well actually, you have attempt to create a value in their head. You want them to understand you are the person they should work with and anyone else would be a mistake. If you don’t believe that, you will have trouble having other people believe it. Some agents have trouble believing they deserve 5 digits checks. If you do, remember this at the very least, you are risking no check with every client. With high risk, there is high reward. If people would pay us by the hour, 90% of the agents would do it in a blink. But the clients don’t want that risk. Think of it like this, if you wanted to sue Apple for something, you would likely look for an lawyer who would take the case on contingency. You win, he gets a big cut. You lose, you’re out nothing. Apple on the other hand has plenty of money so they pay their lawyers by the hour. Risk, reward. Remember this when you are fighting for your commission.
Sometimes people are just asking to see if they can get a discount. The number one agent response to a request to drop their commission is, “No.” And a short answer is usually best.
The second you start trying to justify it by explaining the cost of your marketing and other expenses, they will respond with, “Well, if you didn’t do that, could you reduce your commission?” You’ve set yourself up as that is your value. The second most popular response is, “If I can’t negotiate my commission, do you really think I could negotiate well on your home?” This is a tricky play but it seems to work.
“Well, Agent X will do it Y%.” Remember the in the elements of scripts that doubt is one of those elements.
- “How many homes has he worked in this neighborhood?”
- “How many homes did she sell last year?”
- “I haven’t heard of them before.” That’s tricky if the seller thinks they are well-known.
- “Aren’t they just a solo agent handling everything by themselves?” This is for a team obviously.
- “Are you worried about getting lost in the machine of a team system?” This is the solo agent throwing doubt on a team.
- And if nothing is working, try the takeaway, “I understand if it doesn’t work for you. I was really looking forward to working with you and think I can really help you with my experience and my abilities.” Then shut up. Make them say no.
If you do drop your commission from your original stated number, don’t let them perceive it is because they pushed. Make it because of the situation they are in or that you respect their line of work or something. If they feel they talked you out of it once, they can easily think they should try during inspection negotiation.
Let’s say they are interviewing other agents. They will likely tell you in the beginning at some point that, “We will be interviewing other agents.” At the end of your time, you can say, “I’m ready to start working for you right now. If you want, I will call those other agents to let them know you have signed with me.” Again, shut up. Agents talk and explain too much. Ask questions and wait for answers.
A side note about your commission, guard it. It’s very easy to give some away. “It’s just $250 out of $7000,” you might tell yourself. You have have your broker fees which might put you down to $5,600. Then you have taxes, now you’re down to $4,200. Plus your fees to market the homes, cost averaging your association dues, taking into account your car and you are down to $3,800, maybe. These are off the cuff numbers but giving up your money is a much bigger percentage than you think. We all have given up commission to get deals closed. Just don’t let it become your go-to move to fix everything.
Exercise: Put together your listing consultation. Start with an outline and then build on it. Put a deadline to have it done and find a non-real estate friend listen to you give it.
Do the work, get the results.
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