“Why aren’t they listing with you?”

You’re sitting at a listing appointment. You know in your heart that you can sell this house – it is a great listing and a quick sale.  You have sold homes like this before and KNOW HOW to sell this one. But something lately has been missing with fewer listings hitting the current market and many more agents competing for the same listing.  Sellers are overlooking you. Why?

After giving your listing presentation your heart sinks when you hear “We have other agents to interview” or, “thank you for your time but we have signed with another agent who we feel is a better fit for us”. Really? You really thought you connected – they kept nodding …

Often, we convince ourselves or have been told success is dependent on how the seller responds to our listing presentation. We focus on emphasizing all our accomplishments and the great value we provide in our service. We’d deliver for the sellers if only they would hire us.

As agents, we totally rely on the listing presentation to make the sale. We become hyper-focused on explaining in great detail our Marketing Plan, our Pricing strategy, detailing the CMAs we have done for them, home prep, staging, and how we will slavishly devote ourselves to showings and open houses and bring pre-qualified buyers to their doors.

All this intensity to get this across consumes us so there is no time to stand back view this whole experience from the seller’s point of view and recognize that there is a secret scorecard the sellers are measuring us against. We don’t know what their criteria is or how the sellers are awarding the points.

So why aren’t they listing with you?

Let’s break it down and take a closer look at what you are doing or not doing that is costing you the listing.

There is a proven method of getting the sellers to agree to sign your listing. The process is not difficult to learn, but rather a mindset shift in the way you are currently doing things.

Substantial prep needs to be done upfront before you even give your presentation; however, all this work will lead to a smoother presentation and a listing commitment 

You only need two major, and critical, elements to entice the sellers into signing your listing.

 Once you understand the process and have mastered these two elements, you will be confident that your approach works every time, and you will see your signed listing ratio skyrocket.

The first major element:
You need a list of open-ended questions you can ask your seller, structured in a way that they are conversational and non-threatening, demonstrate you have their best interests in mind, and which give you maximum information about the following:

a) The seller’s timeframe

b) The seller’s tolerance for the process

c) The seller’s desired financial outcome

Wait - isn’t this what you are already doing?

Not really. What you are probably doing is asking what price they had in mind, or how much they think their house is worth and how soon they want to sell.

This is not what I am talking about. What I am talking about are questions that dig down 80% more deeply than you are probably doing right now which results in the seller willingly volunteering their deepest, darkest reasons behind what they want and even more importantly the emotions they feel at the prospect of getting, or not getting their desired result.

Why would you want to do this?

It’s simple, sellers may say they didn’t hire an agent because they didn’t listen to their needs. What they really mean is that the agent didn’t ask the right questions for the seller to voice their needs at more than a superficial level. The result: the seller concludes that the agent doesn’t “get them” and moves on to the next agent.

Don’t be concerned about being too nosey here. These questions will not be intrusive, they are designed in a way that the seller willingly volunteers the information. Asking questions shows you are focused on the seller and not just the process.

(I will help you with those questions)

The second major element:
A listing presentation needs to be broken down into bite-sized pieces we’ll call “chapters”. Each “chapter” should be able to stand on its own to cover one topic only.

For example:

Your Marketing Plan,

Your Pricing strategy,

Your Home Preparation Plan,

When Offers Come In.  etc.

Having a listing presentation divided into individual chapters saves you a lot of work. Simply grab the “chapters” you need related to what’s important to your seller. In this way, you don’t bore your seller to death by overloading them with agent-centric features which are of no interest to the seller. Telling a seller everything you think they should know about what you offer is a sure-fire deal killer. You’re overlooking their needs.

(If you don’t have a listing presentation that you can assemble into “chapters” or you are not happy with the one you have, I can help you with that, too.)

How would mastering these two elements change your listing closure rate and your professional success?

Wouldn’t it be a relief to have a process in place that is successful, repeatable, in which you are confident and can execute with EASE & GRACE- every time?

You would no longer be flying blind, wondering what the seller’s scoring criteria is and how you are doing against your competition.

How would it feel to be consistently working with sellers that hired you because they say you “get them”?

Delivering a standard A-Z presentation is a deal-killer. Any agent can do that! You need one presentation divided up into easily usable “chapters” that you can use to address specific areas of your seller’s interest.

Now before you go to your next listing appointment, there is work to be done. This upfront work comes from asking the sellers a set of precise killer questions that will thoroughly uncover their needs, their reasons for those needs, and their underlying motivation and driving emotions. The seller will quickly realize that you “get them” and will hire you.

If you would like to find out more on this and other areas you can boost your real estate business, join Coach Jane Lennon at 2:00 PM ET THIS AFTERNOON Friday, June 30th for a look into her 30-Day Rejuvenation Prescription!!

YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS FREE WEBINAR!

Tuesday, August 3rd
11:00 AM EST / 10:00 AM CST/ 9:00 AM MT/ 8:00 AM Pacific
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7707261256

Let’s get those listings!!