From Listed to SOLD - How to Sell Those Listings You Work So Hard to Get!

With all the doom and gloom in the real estate market, what's this about being able to actually even SELL a home, much less sell it in fewer than two months? Seriously?

Yep, seriously.

If a buyer exists* for a listing, it is possible to sell a house in a relatively short timeframe. But it's not done with gimmicks or creative marketing or bonuses or fancy home brochures... rather with good old fashioned common sense and hard work.

Loreena Yeo will again join me in the SWS Virtual Studio this Wednesday, September 29th to tell us all about how and why her average Days on Market statistic is far lower than that of her competition. She'll share how she prepares her seller, how she prepares herself, what she says, how she says it and why it works. She'll take us through the process of preparing a home for market, from pricing to staging, and how she gets her sellers to cooperate.

Will Loreena's approach work in your market? In most cases, yes. If there ARE buyers* for properties in your area, there's no excuse for a listing to languish on the market!

Intrigued? Please join us Wednesday for a free teleseminar on Getting Your Listings SOLD quickly so your sellers can move on with their lives... and you can enjoy putting a nice paycheck into your bank account. Not to mention all the referrals you'll receive from your Very Satisfied Clients! 

* Sometimes there simply isn't a buyer on the planet for a particular property. Some properties are "fatally-flawed" or otherwise unsellable at any reasonable price, and some markets are still severely distressed. But if buyers ARE buying in your marketplace, there's no reason your listing can't be the one that gets bought!

The DETAILS 

Date: Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
Time: 4:00 pm Pacific / 5:00 pm Mountain / 6:00 pm Central / 7:00 pm Eastern
Duration: 60 - 90 minutes
Cost: Free to attend live, but you must register HERE

REGISTER FOR THE FREE TELESEMINAR SHOW HERE!

A few weeks ago, I started writing about the Go-Giver real estate agent - how we in our industry can apply Go-Giver principles to our business. To read earlier posts, see the links at the bottom of this blog!

Here's a quote from the introduction to "Go-Givers Sell More" by Bob Burg and John David Mann:

"It's not about you, it's about them."

Mr. Burg and Mr. Mann explain that success in sales is not due to "mastering the close" or having a "dazzling presentation" or the ability to "shoot holes in any customer objection from fifty paces." It's about being a real person - a person who "enriches, enhances and adds value to people's lives." As the Go-Giver fictional Realtor(R) Debra Davenport says "You want people skills? Then be a person."

Okay, so this is where today's blog begins...

"Listing Presentations, How to Lose them from Hello!"

Yes, I watched Jerry McGuire recently.

Real estate agents always want to know how to do a better job at their listing presentations, especially if they've lost out on a listing or two recently. They wonder if perhaps their presentation materials need to be fancy-schmantzy-ed up, or if they need to do a better job explaining why they're better than their competition.

After all, isn't that what sellers want to know? How totally awesome WE are? And, the better we are at telling them how awesome WE are, the more likely they'll be to believe us?

Um.

No.

As counter-intuitive as that may sound, a seller prospect probably doesn't care much about how awesome we are. He may not even care if we're better than the competition, at least, not at first.

What's that old saying? "No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care?"

That applies perfectly here. When you waltz into a seller wannabe's home, say "hello" and then whip out your Power Point presentation, three-ring binder and put on your presentation face, you're sending a pretty clear message that you don't care much about your audience. It's all about YOU.

No, it's not, Jennifer! I'm there to help the seller! My fancy Power Point presentation and three-ring binder are all about the seller and his needs!!

Um.

No. Nice try, but... No.

Think about it. Your "audience" (the seller wannabe) has a Problem. He is considering hiring you to Solve that Problem. But if you don't have a clear understanding of his Problem, you can't possibly address his Problem. And you can't have a clear understanding of his Problem unless you take the time to learn about it. And you can't take the time to learn about it if you're doing all the talking!

Besides, no one believes you when you tell them how great you are, anyway.

Wanna stand out from your competition? Let them go in with their fancy-schmantzy Power Points, three-ring binders and presentation faces (and subsequently bore the audience to death).

YOU go in with a sincere desire to help. Your competition won't stand a chance.

RELATED GO-GIVER BLOGS
Prospecting - If It Feels Wrong, Don't do it!
Mr. FSBO - You're An Idiot and I'm Not!
Have You Read the Go-Giver? You oughta!

God Bless 'em, sellers just want to help. They have lots of opinions on how their homes should be marketed, advertised and promoted to agents and buyers, and they LUV sharing those opinions with us. And of course, they expect us to agree with their opinions and implement their ideas immediately!

And sometimes they're right. Hey, our sellers are intelligent human beings, and at times, they have great ideas we'd never thought of.

But sometimes, um, they don't. No disrespect to homesellers around the world, but we DO (or should) know more about selling houses than they do. We DO (or should) know what works and what doesn't work.

Now, truth be told, there are things we do simply because they make our sellers happy and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, there's a lot right about it. And many of these things we do primarily promote ourselves more so than the property, and again, that's just fine. Open houses, color brochures, single-domain websites, Craigslist postings and virtual tours might fall under one or both of these categories.

But what about ineffective marketing that is expensive or time-consuming? How can you tell your seller "no" without sounding cheap, lazy or disrespectful?

Before I answer that burning question, here are some examples* of marketing I "refuse" to do:

• Enhanced Realtor.com listings
• Broker open houses
• Magazine advertising
• Newspaper advertising
• Talking House sign riders
• Flyer distribution to neighborhood
• Flyer distribution to real estate offices
• .... feel free to add your own

*If, in your market, any of these marketing approaches actually work, please do them - don't accept what I say as gospel. In some markets, broker opens are effective. In resort markets, magazine advertising might be worthwhile. Know your market and adjust my advice accordingly.

So, how do I respectfully say "Just Say No" to a seller's suggestion?

Ready?

"Well, Joe, here's the thing. I want to sell your house as much as you do, so if I thought a particular marketing venue would work, I'd be all over it."

Very simple. It reminds the seller that you're on the same team, with a common goal of getting the home sold. And it's true! If you believed that having an enhanced Realtor.com profile would sell the house, you'd do it, right? If you thought that advertising the listing in the newspaper would bring in buyers, you'd advertise in the newspaper all day long, wouldn't you?

Of course, you certainly may do any and all advertising suggested by your seller; nothing I'm saying here advises against it. Doing these activities certainly won't hurt the chances of the home selling, but if you want to say "no" and haven't figured out how, give this a try. If said calmly, confidently and non-defensively, the seller will usually understand and agree!