It’s my firm belief that every real estate agent should have a copy of the “Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2011”, which is available from NAR for less than $20. It contains over 100 pages of the most up-to-date and useful information you will find anywhere. Click here to get your copy: http://www.realtor.org/prodser.nsf/products/e186-45-11?opendocument (you will need to log in to see the reduced price). We are very fortunate in real estate that NAR does such a good job of researching the profiles of buyers and sellers. This blog, “The Top 5 Things Homebuyers Want From Their Agent,” discusses NAR’s discovery of what buyers want and how you can give it to them, because knowing what they want makes the relationship more profitable for the agent and more pleasant for both parties!
What They Want
It’s very important for you to addresses these five categories in the counseling interview. Not only does it contribute to maintaining loyalty, but Read the rest of this entry »
“What happened to salesmanship?” I’ve been asked this question many times in the past two years, which is an indication that we all need to do something about it. Real estate isn’t the only business suffering from a lack of selling; almost every other business is going through the same thing. This blog contains six showing techniques that will distinguish a salesperson, with real salesmanship skills, from an “order-taker.” An order-taker typically finds a prospect, puts them in a car and rides them around until they find something they like, writes a contract, and hopes and prays the offer is accepted. If the contract is rejected, they return to the car and ride around more and more…and this can go on for months. Once a buyer of anything has been through this kind of process a number of times, they learn it’s better to shop online first and find an order-taker later.
We’ve all been though it. It happens in restaurants with servers who don’t have a clue about the food other than what’s printed on the menu, so it feels easier to just buy fast food than deal with a server who knows less than the voice at the drive-through. It happens in car sales when the salesperson doesn’t know one vehicle from the other, never suggests that we “take a ride,” and wouldn’t dream of returning a call. You see it other places as well. For example, Amazon doesn’t have any salespeople, but they sell more books electronically than do bookstores with salespeople—because the salespeople don’t know how to sell. Therefore, the convenience of shopping online, anytime, outweighs the visit to the brick-and-mortar store.
Fortunately, salesmanship isn’t dead yet, as there are a few companies who have recognized the growing void and are working to fill it. For example, Carmax developed a system that allows the salespeople to sell and the customers to shop, and in the process they became the largest sellers of used cars in the U.S. If you go to Carmax you’ll certainly have a chance to buy something, because they know how to find what you want, they can tell you what you want to know, and they have a streamlined process which makes it easy and fun to buy. So it CAN be done. Take a look at the techniques below and integrate them into your showing process, and you’ll begin to fill that salesmanship void and leave the order-takers in the dust!
Six Salesmanship Showing Strategies
1. Sell people what they want to buy. Selling is really a simple activity! The most important step is to ask people what they want to buy and how they’re going to pay for it—and then go find it. Most often overlooked? The “asking what they want” part. Counseling for a salesperson is the same as Read the rest of this entry »
Selling real estate is not what it used to be, and it appears it will be a long time before we’re back to what resembles a balanced or healthy market. Therefore, agents need to do everything in their power to cultivate leads, including 
counseling potential buyer clients about making the decision to buy. I wanted to write this blog before the New Year because experience tells us there will be more people thinking about buying a home between January 1, 2012 and April 1, 2012 than during any other time of the year. Aggressively marketing and developing leads in these months can create a sizeable business for the remainder of the year. The saying “Strike while the iron is hot” is left over from the blacksmith days, but it’s completely applicable when it comes to Read the rest of this entry »