We are in an inventory business; when you are out of inventory, you are out of future business. Find out the real objective in following up with your leads to create inventory. Too often, we are trying to determine the interest of the prospect. Don't be fooled into thinking their interest has value to you as a Salesperson. The prospect's level of interest is meaningless. What matters is: Do they need it; do they want it; can they afford to take action. It's their desire, need, ability, and authority to take action. Interest is something that many Buyers and Sellers use to evade committing to you or anyone else.
1. Determine the value of the lead
It boils down to how much, how soon, and how much effort. How much effort contains two parts. How much to get them to the committed client level and how much to serve them to a high level of satisfaction, so they buy?
2. Determine if they need, want, and can afford your service
Do they have a demonstrated need? Is there a gap between what they want and where they are currently in their home? Are they seeking assistance? Is there a desire to change, or is it a want or wish? Do they have the ability to proceed? This usually relates to financial equity, down payment, credit score, employment. Do they want someone's help?
Too often, we are trying to determine the interest of the prospect. Don't be fooled into thinking their interest has value to you as a Salesperson. The prospect's level of interest is meaningless. What matters is: Do they need it; do they want it; can they afford to take action. It's their desire, need, ability, and authority to take action. Interest is something that many Buyers and Sellers use to evade committing to you or anyone else.
I have an interest in securing more real estate. I am always looking to buy more. My interest is securing property for 70% or less of fair market value. How valuable is my interest to you now? I would be happy if you called me to tell me about properties that you have that meet that criteria. The truth is if you find that type of opportunity, you'd better be buying it yourself, not selling it to me.
When someone says they are interested, it's a short way to say, "If you could sell my home for $50,000 above market value and find me a home to buy for $50,000 below market value, I would let you represent me on those transactions." Oh gee, how magnanimous of you!
3. Categorize the lead
This is where a lot of Agents stumble. They don't have a clean categorization process. They don't have the ability to see the inventory of leads they currently have in their possession. Most Agents categorize leads based on time frame. I think that is the right approach, but it is only half the equation. We might create categories like "A" leads who will do something in thirty days or less and "B" leads who will take action in thirty to ninety days. We could create four to five categories like these.
The real question, beyond time frame, has not been factored into this typical type of system. The real question is a question of commitment. How committed is this person to working with you? How committed are they that they will give you at least an interview to represent their interests? To me, committed means that I would bet big money on these people. I would bet my car, my house, all of my possessions that I was going to get an interview or that they were going to list or buy with me. Someone in that category has great value to me and my business. Not everyone is in that category.
The next category would be those who will probably do business with me. A probability is something that happens 51% or more of the time. I know that is a wide gap between 51% and the committed level of 98%. People make a lot of money on probabilities because the odds are in their favor. Casinos play the probability game, and so should you.
The last category is a possibility. That is something that is a 50/50 chance or less. It could be only a 1% chance; that is still a possibility, but you'd better have a Plan B if you are going to operate with such low odds.
Your follow-up plans need to be designed on your ability to accurately assess the conversion probability of the prospect. If you can combine the typical Agent's time frame categorization that is letter based (A, B, C, D, etc.) with the commitment scale (1 - committed to you, 2 - probably with you, 3 - possibly with you), you will have a process that will enable you to maximize the return on your time, energy, and effort to increase your conversion and income. By tracking these different categories of leads, you will achieve a clear picture of the health of your business. To have a healthy business, we must have a reasonable level of leads in each category. We need to cultivate leads upward from long-term leads to short-term. We need to move leads up from the possibility level to the probability level quickly. If we can't move them at least to the probability level quickly, the odds are too long; refer them to another Agent. Let them invest their time and let them accept the high burnout rate on these leads.
We are in an inventory business; when you are out of inventory, you are out of future business.
Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print.
Real Estate Champions is a premier coaching company. Training covers a wide spectrum from new agents, to seasoned, as well as those interested in real estate marketing or real estate investing.
You can get more information at Success Trio, Market Dominance.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dirk_Zeller
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Untitled
FARMING STRATEGIES (1)
Do you have a farming strategy?
The number one answer in the real estate industry today is, “No, farming and mail-outs don’t work!” It’s interesting to note that less than 5% of all agents have a consistent farming program.
• What is a farming program?
• How do I choose my area of focus?
• What do I send to homeowners?
• How often do I mail to them?
September Housing Starts
OTTAWA, October 8, 2010 — The seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of housing starts was 186,400 units in September, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). This is down from 189,300 units in August.
“Housing starts moved lower in September due to a decrease in urban single starts in Atlantic Canada and Ontario,” said Bob Dugan, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre. “Multiple starts were unchanged.”
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts decreased by 3.3 per cent to 163,200 units in September. Urban multiple starts were unchanged in September at 99,600 units, while single urban starts moved lower by 8.1 per cent to 63,600 units.
September’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts decreased by 23.7 per cent in Atlantic Canada and by 10.9 per cent in Ontario. Urban starts increased by 6.4 per cent in British Columbia, by 3.9 per cent in Quebec and by 0.6 per cent in the Prairie Region.
Rural starts2 were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 23,200 units in September.
As Canada's national housing agency, CMHC draws on more than 60 years of experience to help Canadians access a variety of high quality, environmentally sustainable and affordable homes. CMHC also provides reliable, impartial and up-to-date housing market reports, analysis and knowledge to support and assist consumers and the housing industry in making informed decisions.
“Housing starts moved lower in September due to a decrease in urban single starts in Atlantic Canada and Ontario,” said Bob Dugan, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre. “Multiple starts were unchanged.”
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts decreased by 3.3 per cent to 163,200 units in September. Urban multiple starts were unchanged in September at 99,600 units, while single urban starts moved lower by 8.1 per cent to 63,600 units.
September’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts decreased by 23.7 per cent in Atlantic Canada and by 10.9 per cent in Ontario. Urban starts increased by 6.4 per cent in British Columbia, by 3.9 per cent in Quebec and by 0.6 per cent in the Prairie Region.
Rural starts2 were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 23,200 units in September.
As Canada's national housing agency, CMHC draws on more than 60 years of experience to help Canadians access a variety of high quality, environmentally sustainable and affordable homes. CMHC also provides reliable, impartial and up-to-date housing market reports, analysis and knowledge to support and assist consumers and the housing industry in making informed decisions.
Monday, September 20, 2010
The Success of a Listing Presentation
The success of a listing presentation is determined by what you do before you even walk through the door. Most agents enter the meeting flying blind, ill prepared, and oblivious to the needs, wants, desires, and expectations of the prospect.
Make this pledge to yourself right now: Before you enter another listing presentation, qualify your prospects in advance.
Ask questions that allow you to obtain important information about the customer's desires, timeframe, and expectations. Without this information, you can't possibly serve the client well.
Many salespeople, especially in real estate sales, think they'll offend the customer if they ask questions. Here's an analogy that should put your mind at ease. Imagine you're sick and schedule a doctor's appointment. You arrive, the doctor enters the examining room, and you look up and say, "Guess what sickness I have today?" From across the room, the doctor is supposed to assess your symptoms, diagnose your ailment, and prescribe a cure without checking your ears or throat, listening to your lungs and heart, and, most importantly, asking you questions about what is wrong and how you feel. It sounds ridiculous; yet it's what Realtors do when they try to serve clients without first asking questions to qualify their wants, needs, and expectations.
Without good client information, a listing presentation becomes an explanation of your services and service delivery system. But what if the prospect sitting in front of you wants to be served differently? Then what?
The customer ultimately determines whether your service is good or poor. Since the customer rules on the quality of service received, the only way to start the service process is to learn what customers want, rather than trying to guess their desires and expectation.
You need to qualify prospects for two main reasons:
• Qualify prospects to safeguard your time. By qualifying prospects, you assess their motivation, desire, need to take action, ability to act, and authority to make buying or selling decisions. You also assess the odds that the prospect will result in income-producing activity. The qualifying process increases your probability of sales success by determining which prospects are likely to result in commission revenue and which are likely to consume hours without results.
• Qualify prospects to determine their service expectations. What kind of service do they expect? What buying or selling approach do they follow? Is there a match between your philosophy and theirs? If not, can you convince them through persuasion that your approach is better than their preconceived notion of what and how you should represent their interests? If not, are you willing to turn down the business? The only way to address these issues is to learn what your prospects are thinking before you make your presentation.
Before you enter a listing presentation, diagnose the situation you're entering and the opportunity it presents by learning the prospect's answers to qualifying questions. I recommend you acquire this base of knowledge over the phone when you're scheduling the presentation appointment. If you wait until you are face-to-face with the prospect, it's too late. By then you want to be offering a tailored presentation, not acquiring baseline information.
Focus your qualifying questions around the following four topics:
1. Motivation and Timeframe: Ask questions that allow you to learn how badly the prospect wants to buy or sell, and in what timeframe. Sample questions include:
• Where are you hoping to move?
• How soon do you need to be there?
• Tell me about your perfect timeframe. When do you want this move to happen?
• Is there anything that would cause you not to make this move?
2. Experience: A prospect's view of the real estate profession is filtered through personal previous experience and experiences related by friends and family members. The following questions help you learn your prospect's real estate background and preconceptions:
• How many properties have you sold in the past?
• When was your last sales experience?
• What was your experience with that sale?
• How did you select the agent you worked with?
• What did you like best and least about what that agent did?
3. Pricing: The following questions will help you to gauge the prospect's motivation. They'll also help you determine whether the prospect is realistic about current real estate values.
Let me share an old real estate sales truth: The higher the list price, the lower the motivation; the lower the list price, the higher the motivation.
Listen carefully to the answers to the following two questions. They'll reveal whether your prospect is ready to sell or just fishing for a price:
• How much do you want to list your home for tonight?
• If a buyer came in today, what would you consider to be an acceptable offer for your home?
4. Service expectation: Learning your prospect's service expectation is absolutely essential to a good working relationship, but I'll caution you that when you begin to ask the service-related questions, you will likely hear silence on the phone. Likely, your prospect has never met a service provider concerned enough to ask what the customer wants, values, and expects. As a result, you might have to probe and ask follow-up questions to help the prospect open up and enter a dialog.
• What do you expect from the real estate agent you choose to work with?
• What are the top three things you are looking for from an agent?
• What would it take for you to be confident that my service will meet your requirements?
By qualifying your prospects before the appointment, you will be prepared for your prospects needs, wants, desires, and expectations. Then you will be able to find clients that fit your business, and you will be able to serve them well.
Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print.
Real Estate Champions is a premier coaching company. Training covers a wide spectrum from new agents, to seasoned, as well as those interested in real estate marketing or real estate investing.
You can get more information at Listing Presentation Manual, Real Estate Training
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dirk_Zeller
Make this pledge to yourself right now: Before you enter another listing presentation, qualify your prospects in advance.
Ask questions that allow you to obtain important information about the customer's desires, timeframe, and expectations. Without this information, you can't possibly serve the client well.
Many salespeople, especially in real estate sales, think they'll offend the customer if they ask questions. Here's an analogy that should put your mind at ease. Imagine you're sick and schedule a doctor's appointment. You arrive, the doctor enters the examining room, and you look up and say, "Guess what sickness I have today?" From across the room, the doctor is supposed to assess your symptoms, diagnose your ailment, and prescribe a cure without checking your ears or throat, listening to your lungs and heart, and, most importantly, asking you questions about what is wrong and how you feel. It sounds ridiculous; yet it's what Realtors do when they try to serve clients without first asking questions to qualify their wants, needs, and expectations.
Without good client information, a listing presentation becomes an explanation of your services and service delivery system. But what if the prospect sitting in front of you wants to be served differently? Then what?
The customer ultimately determines whether your service is good or poor. Since the customer rules on the quality of service received, the only way to start the service process is to learn what customers want, rather than trying to guess their desires and expectation.
You need to qualify prospects for two main reasons:
• Qualify prospects to safeguard your time. By qualifying prospects, you assess their motivation, desire, need to take action, ability to act, and authority to make buying or selling decisions. You also assess the odds that the prospect will result in income-producing activity. The qualifying process increases your probability of sales success by determining which prospects are likely to result in commission revenue and which are likely to consume hours without results.
• Qualify prospects to determine their service expectations. What kind of service do they expect? What buying or selling approach do they follow? Is there a match between your philosophy and theirs? If not, can you convince them through persuasion that your approach is better than their preconceived notion of what and how you should represent their interests? If not, are you willing to turn down the business? The only way to address these issues is to learn what your prospects are thinking before you make your presentation.
Before you enter a listing presentation, diagnose the situation you're entering and the opportunity it presents by learning the prospect's answers to qualifying questions. I recommend you acquire this base of knowledge over the phone when you're scheduling the presentation appointment. If you wait until you are face-to-face with the prospect, it's too late. By then you want to be offering a tailored presentation, not acquiring baseline information.
Focus your qualifying questions around the following four topics:
1. Motivation and Timeframe: Ask questions that allow you to learn how badly the prospect wants to buy or sell, and in what timeframe. Sample questions include:
• Where are you hoping to move?
• How soon do you need to be there?
• Tell me about your perfect timeframe. When do you want this move to happen?
• Is there anything that would cause you not to make this move?
2. Experience: A prospect's view of the real estate profession is filtered through personal previous experience and experiences related by friends and family members. The following questions help you learn your prospect's real estate background and preconceptions:
• How many properties have you sold in the past?
• When was your last sales experience?
• What was your experience with that sale?
• How did you select the agent you worked with?
• What did you like best and least about what that agent did?
3. Pricing: The following questions will help you to gauge the prospect's motivation. They'll also help you determine whether the prospect is realistic about current real estate values.
Let me share an old real estate sales truth: The higher the list price, the lower the motivation; the lower the list price, the higher the motivation.
Listen carefully to the answers to the following two questions. They'll reveal whether your prospect is ready to sell or just fishing for a price:
• How much do you want to list your home for tonight?
• If a buyer came in today, what would you consider to be an acceptable offer for your home?
4. Service expectation: Learning your prospect's service expectation is absolutely essential to a good working relationship, but I'll caution you that when you begin to ask the service-related questions, you will likely hear silence on the phone. Likely, your prospect has never met a service provider concerned enough to ask what the customer wants, values, and expects. As a result, you might have to probe and ask follow-up questions to help the prospect open up and enter a dialog.
• What do you expect from the real estate agent you choose to work with?
• What are the top three things you are looking for from an agent?
• What would it take for you to be confident that my service will meet your requirements?
By qualifying your prospects before the appointment, you will be prepared for your prospects needs, wants, desires, and expectations. Then you will be able to find clients that fit your business, and you will be able to serve them well.
Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print.
Real Estate Champions is a premier coaching company. Training covers a wide spectrum from new agents, to seasoned, as well as those interested in real estate marketing or real estate investing.
You can get more information at Listing Presentation Manual, Real Estate Training
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dirk_Zeller
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Four Characteristics of a Champion Agent's Presentation
Numerous studies have shown that your tonality and body language account for over 90% of your presentation's effectiveness. The words you select account for less than 10% of your effectiveness. If you're focusing on finding the right words, as most salespeople are, you are not focusing on the areas of your presentation that are most important. If you don't know what to say, all you can do is focus on the words to say. If you know what to say, you can now begin to focus on the tonality and body language.
There are four parts to a great presentation:
Conviction
Webster defines conviction as a fixed or firm belief. I'd add that there is nothing more compelling than conviction.
Your unshakable belief that you are the right person for the job and can accomplish the task will set you apart from the competition. Your conviction in the value of their home will earn their trust, even if your price is lower than other Agents'. Your bedrock belief about where the marketplace is headed, backed by statistics that prove your belief and conviction, sells you and shows them why they should do business with you. People are attracted to people who have conviction. They trust, admire, and respect people with conviction, even when they don't agree with them.
Before you go on a listing presentation, decide the core truths that you are going to express to them with absolute conviction. You don't want to have ten things or core truths. You need half a dozen or less. If your core truths are in line with the Seller's thinking, all the better. If their views are opposite yours, you know that your persuasion and resolve need to increase to move them to your point of view. Our goal is to have strong enough conviction to get them to sign the contract.
Enthusiasm
There is an old saying... enthusiasm sells. Sellers want to work with Agents who are enthusiastic about their home. If you don't like (or express enthusiasm about) their property, you reduce your ability to secure the listing. If the market is changing or tough, you have to be honest; you can't just hide market realities. Too many Agents are only enthusiastic about getting the listing. They aren't enthusiastic enough to get the home priced right in order to get it sold. Any Agent can show enthusiasm and demonstrate that they are excited about the opportunity to list the home and represent the Seller's interests. Your listing presentation will be more interesting if you are enthusiastic about the Sellers, the home, your career, and the real estate business.
Confidence
I know that my edge as a new Agent was my confidence. I am not completely sure where that confidence came from, besides athletics. I was new to the game of real estate, but I was confident I was the best Agent for the Seller. I really believe that my background as a professional athlete made me immune to the lack of confidence syndrome most new Agents posses.
I believe we all need to tap into victories we have had in the past. Those are so valuable. As you increase your confidence in preparation, it allows you to prepare with more passion because of your expectation of winning.
If you lack confidence, determine what you need to do to upgrade your belief in yourself. What do you need to upgrade in you ability to achieve long-term success in real estate sales? What knowledge should you acquire that will raise your confidence? What activities would help increase your confidence? What skills do you need to master to dramatically increase your confidence? What one thing, if you did it with excellence, would change your self-confidence?
The great success motivator Napoleon Hill says, "What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve." What Napoleon was saying was that anything the mind can grab hold of and accept as truth will come to be. This is true of both positive and negative thoughts.
Assertiveness
One of the single biggest mistakes of non-Champion performers is not wanting to be seen as too pushy or aggressive in how they sell. Most of us wimp out before the close. We are not willing to assertively ask for the business. One way to overcome that is to tell the client up front that you are going to ask for their business. That way, they expect you to do it. They are not surprised when you ask them to sign the contract. It also sets you up, in advance, for when you get to the end of your presentation. You'd better ask for the order because you said you would.
The definition of a great salesperson is "a person who convinces someone to do something that is beneficial to them or convinces them to do it faster.
Going for the close or asking for the order is not pushy. If you don't have enough confidence in your service and skill and value, you should get out of the business. Your confidence will sell. As a Real Estate Agent, your job is to persuade prospects that you have the best service and the best value. The best value is not price, but by factoring in all the benefits of your service, your present the best value. Our job is to link our benefits with their service expectations. Then, ask them to act now, so you can help them.
Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print.
Real Estate Champions is a premier coaching company. Training covers a wide spectrum from new agents, to seasoned, as well as those interested in real estate marketing or real estate investing.
You can get more information at Listing Presentation, Market Dominance
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dirk_Zeller
It's Your Career - I'm Here to Support YOU!
Constantine Isslamow
Real Estate Broker / Mortgage Broker
CENTURY 21 United Realty Inc. Brokerage.
Independently Owned & Operated
CENTUM Core Financial Inc. Brokerage License #: 10642 Constantine Isslamow License#: M08005391
Friends, followers and Connections are the way of the future.
There are four parts to a great presentation:
Conviction
Webster defines conviction as a fixed or firm belief. I'd add that there is nothing more compelling than conviction.
Your unshakable belief that you are the right person for the job and can accomplish the task will set you apart from the competition. Your conviction in the value of their home will earn their trust, even if your price is lower than other Agents'. Your bedrock belief about where the marketplace is headed, backed by statistics that prove your belief and conviction, sells you and shows them why they should do business with you. People are attracted to people who have conviction. They trust, admire, and respect people with conviction, even when they don't agree with them.
Before you go on a listing presentation, decide the core truths that you are going to express to them with absolute conviction. You don't want to have ten things or core truths. You need half a dozen or less. If your core truths are in line with the Seller's thinking, all the better. If their views are opposite yours, you know that your persuasion and resolve need to increase to move them to your point of view. Our goal is to have strong enough conviction to get them to sign the contract.
Enthusiasm
There is an old saying... enthusiasm sells. Sellers want to work with Agents who are enthusiastic about their home. If you don't like (or express enthusiasm about) their property, you reduce your ability to secure the listing. If the market is changing or tough, you have to be honest; you can't just hide market realities. Too many Agents are only enthusiastic about getting the listing. They aren't enthusiastic enough to get the home priced right in order to get it sold. Any Agent can show enthusiasm and demonstrate that they are excited about the opportunity to list the home and represent the Seller's interests. Your listing presentation will be more interesting if you are enthusiastic about the Sellers, the home, your career, and the real estate business.
Confidence
I know that my edge as a new Agent was my confidence. I am not completely sure where that confidence came from, besides athletics. I was new to the game of real estate, but I was confident I was the best Agent for the Seller. I really believe that my background as a professional athlete made me immune to the lack of confidence syndrome most new Agents posses.
I believe we all need to tap into victories we have had in the past. Those are so valuable. As you increase your confidence in preparation, it allows you to prepare with more passion because of your expectation of winning.
If you lack confidence, determine what you need to do to upgrade your belief in yourself. What do you need to upgrade in you ability to achieve long-term success in real estate sales? What knowledge should you acquire that will raise your confidence? What activities would help increase your confidence? What skills do you need to master to dramatically increase your confidence? What one thing, if you did it with excellence, would change your self-confidence?
The great success motivator Napoleon Hill says, "What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve." What Napoleon was saying was that anything the mind can grab hold of and accept as truth will come to be. This is true of both positive and negative thoughts.
Assertiveness
One of the single biggest mistakes of non-Champion performers is not wanting to be seen as too pushy or aggressive in how they sell. Most of us wimp out before the close. We are not willing to assertively ask for the business. One way to overcome that is to tell the client up front that you are going to ask for their business. That way, they expect you to do it. They are not surprised when you ask them to sign the contract. It also sets you up, in advance, for when you get to the end of your presentation. You'd better ask for the order because you said you would.
The definition of a great salesperson is "a person who convinces someone to do something that is beneficial to them or convinces them to do it faster.
Going for the close or asking for the order is not pushy. If you don't have enough confidence in your service and skill and value, you should get out of the business. Your confidence will sell. As a Real Estate Agent, your job is to persuade prospects that you have the best service and the best value. The best value is not price, but by factoring in all the benefits of your service, your present the best value. Our job is to link our benefits with their service expectations. Then, ask them to act now, so you can help them.
Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print.
Real Estate Champions is a premier coaching company. Training covers a wide spectrum from new agents, to seasoned, as well as those interested in real estate marketing or real estate investing.
You can get more information at Listing Presentation, Market Dominance
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dirk_Zeller
It's Your Career - I'm Here to Support YOU!
Constantine Isslamow
Real Estate Broker / Mortgage Broker
CENTURY 21 United Realty Inc. Brokerage.
Independently Owned & Operated
CENTUM Core Financial Inc. Brokerage License #: 10642 Constantine Isslamow License#: M08005391
Friends, followers and Connections are the way of the future.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Success of a Listing Presentation
The success of a listing presentation is determined by what you do before you even walk through the door. Most agents enter the meeting flying blind, ill prepared, and oblivious to the needs, wants, desires, and expectations of the prospect.
Make this pledge to yourself right now: Before you enter another listing presentation, qualify your prospects in advance.
Ask questions that allow you to obtain important information about the customer's desires, timeframe, and expectations. Without this information, you can't possibly serve the client well.
Many salespeople, especially in real estate sales, think they'll offend the customer if they ask questions. Here's an analogy that should put your mind at ease. Imagine you're sick and schedule a doctor's appointment. You arrive, the doctor enters the examining room, and you look up and say, "Guess what sickness I have today?" From across the room, the doctor is supposed to assess your symptoms, diagnose your ailment, and prescribe a cure without checking your ears or throat, listening to your lungs and heart, and, most importantly, asking you questions about what is wrong and how you feel. It sounds ridiculous; yet it's what Realtors do when they try to serve clients without first asking questions to qualify their wants, needs, and expectations.
Without good client information, a listing presentation becomes an explanation of your services and service delivery system. But what if the prospect sitting in front of you wants to be served differently? Then what?
The customer ultimately determines whether your service is good or poor. Since the customer rules on the quality of service received, the only way to start the service process is to learn what customers want, rather than trying to guess their desires and expectation.
You need to qualify prospects for two main reasons:
• Qualify prospects to safeguard your time. By qualifying prospects, you assess their motivation, desire, need to take action, ability to act, and authority to make buying or selling decisions. You also assess the odds that the prospect will result in income-producing activity. The qualifying process increases your probability of sales success by determining which prospects are likely to result in commission revenue and which are likely to consume hours without results.
• Qualify prospects to determine their service expectations. What kind of service do they expect? What buying or selling approach do they follow? Is there a match between your philosophy and theirs? If not, can you convince them through persuasion that your approach is better than their preconceived notion of what and how you should represent their interests? If not, are you willing to turn down the business? The only way to address these issues is to learn what your prospects are thinking before you make your presentation.
Before you enter a listing presentation, diagnose the situation you're entering and the opportunity it presents by learning the prospect's answers to qualifying questions. I recommend you acquire this base of knowledge over the phone when you're scheduling the presentation appointment. If you wait until you are face-to-face with the prospect, it's too late. By then you want to be offering a tailored presentation, not acquiring baseline information.
Focus your qualifying questions around the following four topics:
1. Motivation and Timeframe: Ask questions that allow you to learn how badly the prospect wants to buy or sell, and in what timeframe. Sample questions include:
• Where are you hoping to move?
• How soon do you need to be there?
• Tell me about your perfect timeframe. When do you want this move to happen?
• Is there anything that would cause you not to make this move?
2. Experience: A prospect's view of the real estate profession is filtered through personal previous experience and experiences related by friends and family members. The following questions help you learn your prospect's real estate background and preconceptions:
• How many properties have you sold in the past?
• When was your last sales experience?
• What was your experience with that sale?
• How did you select the agent you worked with?
• What did you like best and least about what that agent did?
3. Pricing: The following questions will help you to gauge the prospect's motivation. They'll also help you determine whether the prospect is realistic about current real estate values.
Let me share an old real estate sales truth: The higher the list price, the lower the motivation; the lower the list price, the higher the motivation.
Listen carefully to the answers to the following two questions. They'll reveal whether your prospect is ready to sell or just fishing for a price:
• How much do you want to list your home for tonight?
• If a buyer came in today, what would you consider to be an acceptable offer for your home?
4. Service expectation: Learning your prospect's service expectation is absolutely essential to a good working relationship, but I'll caution you that when you begin to ask the service-related questions, you will likely hear silence on the phone. Likely, your prospect has never met a service provider concerned enough to ask what the customer wants, values, and expects. As a result, you might have to probe and ask follow-up questions to help the prospect open up and enter a dialog.
• What do you expect from the real estate agent you choose to work with?
• What are the top three things you are looking for from an agent?
• What would it take for you to be confident that my service will meet your requirements?
By qualifying your prospects before the appointment, you will be prepared for your prospects needs, wants, desires, and expectations. Then you will be able to find clients that fit your business, and you will be able to serve them well.
Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print.
Real Estate Champions is a premier coaching company. Training covers a wide spectrum from new agents, to seasoned, as well as those interested in real estate marketing or real estate investing.
You can get more information at Listing Presentation Manual, Real Estate Training
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dirk_Zeller
It's Your Career - I'm Here to Support YOU!
Constantine Isslamow
Real Estate Broker / Mortgage Broker
CENTURY 21 United Realty Inc. Brokerage.
Independently Owned & Operated
CENTUM Core Financial Inc. Brokerage License #: 10642 Constantine Isslamow License#: M08005391
Friends, followers and Connections are the way of the future.
Make this pledge to yourself right now: Before you enter another listing presentation, qualify your prospects in advance.
Ask questions that allow you to obtain important information about the customer's desires, timeframe, and expectations. Without this information, you can't possibly serve the client well.
Many salespeople, especially in real estate sales, think they'll offend the customer if they ask questions. Here's an analogy that should put your mind at ease. Imagine you're sick and schedule a doctor's appointment. You arrive, the doctor enters the examining room, and you look up and say, "Guess what sickness I have today?" From across the room, the doctor is supposed to assess your symptoms, diagnose your ailment, and prescribe a cure without checking your ears or throat, listening to your lungs and heart, and, most importantly, asking you questions about what is wrong and how you feel. It sounds ridiculous; yet it's what Realtors do when they try to serve clients without first asking questions to qualify their wants, needs, and expectations.
Without good client information, a listing presentation becomes an explanation of your services and service delivery system. But what if the prospect sitting in front of you wants to be served differently? Then what?
The customer ultimately determines whether your service is good or poor. Since the customer rules on the quality of service received, the only way to start the service process is to learn what customers want, rather than trying to guess their desires and expectation.
You need to qualify prospects for two main reasons:
• Qualify prospects to safeguard your time. By qualifying prospects, you assess their motivation, desire, need to take action, ability to act, and authority to make buying or selling decisions. You also assess the odds that the prospect will result in income-producing activity. The qualifying process increases your probability of sales success by determining which prospects are likely to result in commission revenue and which are likely to consume hours without results.
• Qualify prospects to determine their service expectations. What kind of service do they expect? What buying or selling approach do they follow? Is there a match between your philosophy and theirs? If not, can you convince them through persuasion that your approach is better than their preconceived notion of what and how you should represent their interests? If not, are you willing to turn down the business? The only way to address these issues is to learn what your prospects are thinking before you make your presentation.
Before you enter a listing presentation, diagnose the situation you're entering and the opportunity it presents by learning the prospect's answers to qualifying questions. I recommend you acquire this base of knowledge over the phone when you're scheduling the presentation appointment. If you wait until you are face-to-face with the prospect, it's too late. By then you want to be offering a tailored presentation, not acquiring baseline information.
Focus your qualifying questions around the following four topics:
1. Motivation and Timeframe: Ask questions that allow you to learn how badly the prospect wants to buy or sell, and in what timeframe. Sample questions include:
• Where are you hoping to move?
• How soon do you need to be there?
• Tell me about your perfect timeframe. When do you want this move to happen?
• Is there anything that would cause you not to make this move?
2. Experience: A prospect's view of the real estate profession is filtered through personal previous experience and experiences related by friends and family members. The following questions help you learn your prospect's real estate background and preconceptions:
• How many properties have you sold in the past?
• When was your last sales experience?
• What was your experience with that sale?
• How did you select the agent you worked with?
• What did you like best and least about what that agent did?
3. Pricing: The following questions will help you to gauge the prospect's motivation. They'll also help you determine whether the prospect is realistic about current real estate values.
Let me share an old real estate sales truth: The higher the list price, the lower the motivation; the lower the list price, the higher the motivation.
Listen carefully to the answers to the following two questions. They'll reveal whether your prospect is ready to sell or just fishing for a price:
• How much do you want to list your home for tonight?
• If a buyer came in today, what would you consider to be an acceptable offer for your home?
4. Service expectation: Learning your prospect's service expectation is absolutely essential to a good working relationship, but I'll caution you that when you begin to ask the service-related questions, you will likely hear silence on the phone. Likely, your prospect has never met a service provider concerned enough to ask what the customer wants, values, and expects. As a result, you might have to probe and ask follow-up questions to help the prospect open up and enter a dialog.
• What do you expect from the real estate agent you choose to work with?
• What are the top three things you are looking for from an agent?
• What would it take for you to be confident that my service will meet your requirements?
By qualifying your prospects before the appointment, you will be prepared for your prospects needs, wants, desires, and expectations. Then you will be able to find clients that fit your business, and you will be able to serve them well.
Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print.
Real Estate Champions is a premier coaching company. Training covers a wide spectrum from new agents, to seasoned, as well as those interested in real estate marketing or real estate investing.
You can get more information at Listing Presentation Manual, Real Estate Training
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dirk_Zeller
It's Your Career - I'm Here to Support YOU!
Constantine Isslamow
Real Estate Broker / Mortgage Broker
CENTURY 21 United Realty Inc. Brokerage.
Independently Owned & Operated
CENTUM Core Financial Inc. Brokerage License #: 10642 Constantine Isslamow License#: M08005391
Friends, followers and Connections are the way of the future.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Is the Luxury Real Estate Rebounding?
Is the Luxury Real Estate Rebounding?
Despite the reported challenges facing the housing market, there’s news about the luxury segment that seems very promising.
On May 28, The Wall Street Journal released the results of a study conducted by MDA DataQuick, a real estate information provider, stating that in certain parts of the country, sales of homes over $2 million in the first quarter of 2010 were reminiscent of numbers seen in 2005, when existing-home sales volume peaked nationwide.
The WSJ singled out Beverly Hills, San Francisco and Menlo Park in California as well as Manhattan and The Hamptons in New York as having particularly strong rebounds. Even Las Vegas and Miami—markets with significant troubles over the past few years—are experiencing a “strong uptick,” the Journal reported.
What’s driving the trend? Price reductions and low interest rates have likely spurred sales. Plus, many luxury buyers in places like Miami are international buyers, and the exchange rate has been very favorable lately.
The WSJ study is not the only positive news for luxury homeowners. According to the National Association of Realtors, sales of existing single family homes valued at $1 million or more in May (the latest month for which statistics are available) rose 77.3% year-over-year. And the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing reports a “strong reduction” in average days-on-market for active listings of luxury homes.
If you’re a seller--particularly in the markets mentioned above--this is good news. If you’re a buyer, it’s even better. Many parts of the U.S. are still strong buyers’ markets due to increasing inventories and decreasing prices.
It's Your Career - I'm Here To Support YOU!
Constantine Isslamow
Friends, followers, and connections are the way of the future.
Twitter | Linkedin | ActiveRain | Facebook |
Despite the reported challenges facing the housing market, there’s news about the luxury segment that seems very promising.
On May 28, The Wall Street Journal released the results of a study conducted by MDA DataQuick, a real estate information provider, stating that in certain parts of the country, sales of homes over $2 million in the first quarter of 2010 were reminiscent of numbers seen in 2005, when existing-home sales volume peaked nationwide.
The WSJ singled out Beverly Hills, San Francisco and Menlo Park in California as well as Manhattan and The Hamptons in New York as having particularly strong rebounds. Even Las Vegas and Miami—markets with significant troubles over the past few years—are experiencing a “strong uptick,” the Journal reported.
What’s driving the trend? Price reductions and low interest rates have likely spurred sales. Plus, many luxury buyers in places like Miami are international buyers, and the exchange rate has been very favorable lately.
The WSJ study is not the only positive news for luxury homeowners. According to the National Association of Realtors, sales of existing single family homes valued at $1 million or more in May (the latest month for which statistics are available) rose 77.3% year-over-year. And the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing reports a “strong reduction” in average days-on-market for active listings of luxury homes.
If you’re a seller--particularly in the markets mentioned above--this is good news. If you’re a buyer, it’s even better. Many parts of the U.S. are still strong buyers’ markets due to increasing inventories and decreasing prices.
It's Your Career - I'm Here To Support YOU!
Constantine Isslamow
Friends, followers, and connections are the way of the future.
Twitter | Linkedin | ActiveRain | Facebook |
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