Not the same as yesteryear
The buying decision today, is made very differently than it was years ago. The modern client wants to make the buying decision on his or her own after weighing all the facts. Pushing a client to make a buying decision with the hard sell tactics or clichéd closing questions will only alienate you from your prospect. Abandon such strategies immediately.
Understand that your future clients will make the decision to buy, sell, borrow or invest, on their own, after they have considered all the facts. After your prospects have gathered the necessary information to their satisfaction and processed it in a logical manner, they will arrive at the only logical conclusion: They must take action to buy, sell or borrow and most importantly, they must use your services.
In order to allow your prospect to draw the appropriate conclusion, you must control the facts.
That’s right; YOU must be the primary source of information for your prospect. Controlling the facts is a responsibility that you must take very seriously. It is your obligation to provide accurate information in a manner that is consistent with your client’s goals and one that leads to a sale. Focus on the facts that make your point, but don’t make the point.
When you control the facts and present your prospect with options and choices in a way that the only logical conclusion to be drawn is to buy from you, they will buy from you!
Establish Yourself as a Leader
Your prospect must come to accept that you are an excellent source of information. To do this you must establish yourself as a trusted authority on your subject by calling attention to your achievements and standing in the community. Your prospect must see you as a professional on par with their doctor, CPA or attorney and put as much weight on your opinions as they would on the information they receive from these other advisors. You must change from a run of the mill realtor or loan agent to an industry leader. Examine your past accomplishments, your current affiliations and various roles. What can you say about all of these achievements that will shine the brightest light on you?
Modesty or inadvertent disregard of their own accomplishments keeps many agents from taking their rightful place as a respected professional. Stop being so modest and begin to toot your own horn.
Control the Facts
When your prospect accepts your authority in the industry, they will be happy to rely on your opinions and your advice. Dispense your advice and facts as undisputed information – but nothing more than information. Let the prospect draw the obvious conclusion.
Many agents try to too hard to convince prospects to choose this or that, let the prospects make up their own mind. Trust that an intelligent prospect will make an intelligent choice based on right the information. Your job is to supply that information. Know your facts thoroughly. Present only the relevant facts. If the all the facts are not in your favor, present the negative or contrary facts first, get it out in the open and then provide the facts that will offset it. Don’t try to ignore or whitewash information that will not support your case, present it. By sharing all the information you further establish your creditability as a leader.
Close the Deal
Assume the sale, make plans to list, take the application, etc. Assume that the prospect drew the same, obvious, conclusion as you did, until they tell you otherwise. Be prepared to walk. The less you sell, the more your prospect will want to buy.
For example, (this is an over simplification, but you will get the idea) if your prospective buyer/borrower wanted to buy a home below market value with good appreciation, you may provide data regarding the advantages of buying a short sale, the risks of poorly executing a short sale, selected strong neighborhoods, and the advantage of buying a short sale today, the mistakes that are made by novices and the huge ramifications of those mistakes. Explain how to avoid the mistakes and share details of what you have done and what qualifies you to help have assisted your past clients to make the wise choices. Establish your authority. After your authority has been fully established, your client will conclude that he should buy a short sale, right now in one of the select neighborhoods and you, as the short sale expert should orchestrate this transaction. As luck would have it, you or your associate have a short sale listing available right now in the right neighborhood and you are able to begin the loan pre-qualification right now.
People want to work with industry leaders. People want to receive the best available advice and information; people want to make up their own minds. All you need to do is help the process along.
How have you changed your marketing strategy from a few years ago? Email me your story so I may include your success story in a future article.
David K. Lal is a licensed broker, a frequent trainer on real estate matters and a consultant to top producing mortgage and real estate professionals. Lal currently serves as the president of the non-profit, National Real Estate Council. Join other top agents in a twice a month free Power Conference Calls to learn new strategies, marketing and legal updates at www.nrecweb.org/training. Lal can be reached at [email protected] or by calling 888-97-4-NREC.
