Category: Listings

How To Do It: Step 1 – Listing Market Share

(This is an elaboration of here ‘)

You’re starting out from scratch (or starting over from scratch . . . or barely scratching by and wanting to start over) and you want to take that first step:  build listing market share.  What do you do?  You don’t have much money and you may not see much on the horizon among your slim and tenuous pendings. Here’s the formula:

Learning:  The Elevator Speech and the Listing Consultation.  In today’s market you also want to check your knowledge of how to help a homeowner who is upside down or in distress.  Don’t worry about fancy schmancy objections and all the shiny things you can hang on these basic bits of information right now. There will time for that later.  You want to work the Elevator Speech until it flows off your tongue without any hesitation whenever anybody asks ‘What do you do?’  There are thoughts here and Step 2!as well as in the Operations Manual, posted in the Download Library.  You’ll also find the Listing Consultation in the DL Library along with video of John Powell working with a seller.  The whole consultation is important BUT there are two key pieces on which to focus:  The Service Comparison Chart and the Seller Savings Comparison.  They are the heart of the whole conversation.

Prospecting:  Start with people who are begging for your help:  FSBOs and Expireds.  Become obsessed with them and obsessive about contacting and maintaining contact with them.  Select powerful handouts to leave with them that differentiate you from the pack.  The old Help-U-Sell DVD, though a little dated, still works very well and, last time I checked was a bargain at about 40 cents apiece via NBS Printing, but a simple flyer that says who you are, and how you’re different is fine, too.

At the same time, mix in the folks who already know who you are and appreciate what you do:  past customers and clients.  Every day, call a few.  You’re catching up, giving them some market information (an item of value) and keeping your business in the top of their minds.

Marketing:  Choose your handouts for use with FSBOs, Expireds and anyone else you’ll be contacting.  You should have several so that you can go back to people with something new.  Also, doorhangers are important at this stage:  since you’re economizing you’ll want things you can leave on a door knob rather than mailing.  Doorhangers can be good for arounds and have the added benefit of giving you an opportunity to actually meet a neighbor face-to-face (if you deliver them yourself).  Speaking of arounds and brags — this is where to spend your marketing dollars in this first phase.  Your efforts are all about getting listings, so when you get one, pull out all the stops in exploiting the opportunities to market around it.

If you’re starting from scratch (or starting over from scratch), becoming visible is very important.  Make sure you present the benefits of seller involvement in the Listing Consultation.  Seller involvement frees you to do more high payoff activities and, if coached properly, means more directional and open house signs in the neighborhood that you don’t have to manage.  Supplement this growing number of signs with inexpensive Blitz Signs.  Even if you have to put them out on Friday and Pick them up Sunday evening, these little gems instantly make the statement that you are here and can save sellers thousands.  Consider investing in a car wrap.  You’ll spend $1,200 – $2,000 (I’m sure you could spend more) but you’ll have a mobile billboard you can park anywhere you want to make a statement.  If your budget is too tight at the moment, opt for magnetic car signs with the Help-U-Sell logo and use them! (drive nice).

Staffing:  If you’re starting from scratch you probably can’t afford help yet.  However, if you have the ability (rather, when you have the ability, which should be soon if you do what’s outlined here), the first person to hire is a good solid administrator who can take over most of the office activities and free you to be out meeting people.  Yes, a real estate license is a big plus and in today’s economy they are plentiful and available.

Time Management:  If the sun is up, the highest and best use of your time is meeting potential customers and at this point that usually means sellers.  Save learning (which is very important) for after 8 in the evening and before 8 in the morning.  When the sun is up become a people meeting machine.  Create opportunities to tell your story.  If you need some down time, schedule it for 2pm Eastern time on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Use that hour to attend the Help-U-Sell webinars to get fresh ideas and connect with other Help-U-Sell members.  Unless you have very thick skin, one of the things that will wear you down is the feeling of being all alone out there.  You’re not, and the Tuesday and Wednesday calls are an opportunity to tap in and re-energize.

Here is a Great Truth:  there’s no reason you can’t get 20 or more listings this month all by yourself.  Really.  A listing is something you can DO as Floyd Wickman used to say.  You can get out of bed this morning and say, ‘Today I’m going to get at least one new listing,’ and there are things you can DO to make that happen.  You can’t DO a sale — there are too many variables, too many other people involved.  But you really can go out and get a listing today and most every day if you make that your purpose.  I’m not much for fear motivation but really:  if someone held a gun to your head and commanded you to go out and get a listing, you could do it, right? So, if you are on the ‘Build Listing Market Share’ step, why not just decide you’re going to get one every day this month?   There will be days that something will block you, of course, but I bet if you are single-minded in the pursuit you can get 20 in 30 days.

OK?  On to Step 2!

Old Scripts/New Scripts

I love ‘scripts.’  I hate ‘scripts‘.  It’s a love/hate relationship.  Scripts are so phoney.  Yet, scripts can be the key that unlocks a great real estate career.  I know:  they unlocked mine.

Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (oh no, here he goes again), I was failing as a new real estate salesperson.  I was 25 and most of my buyers and sellers were 40 or better, so let’s just say I had a lot to overcome.  Completely frustrated after six months, I went to my local Board of REALTORS and checked out a set of Tom Hopkins’ cassette tapes.  Do we still listed to Tom Hopkins?  I don’t know. . . Anyway, Tom was very big on LEARNING THE SCRIPT WORD FOR WORD AND NEVER DEVIATING FROM THE SCRIPT!  As if the words had some magical power to make people say, ‘Yes!’

I’d drive around in my car, previewing property, listening to Tom Hopkins, saying to myself, ‘There’s no way I’m ever going to say any of this stuff, it’s not me,’ or ‘it sounds so fake.’  Still, I kept listening; and then the damndest thing happened.  I called on a FSBO (I had such a great attitude walking up to that door:  I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this person because I’d never gotten anywhere with a FSBO before!).  She opened the door and stood there, arms folded across her chest and . . . suddenly Tom Hopkins’ words started coming out of my mouth.  I got the appointment and I got the listing.  Then I sold the listing in a couple of weeks sold the seller a house and listed two family members’ property.  It was the beginning of my success.

I became a devotee of scripts, a script junky.  I studied them all and I started to notice something:  while the early scripts were pretty much sales technique and tricks of tongue to get the other person to do what you wanted (‘I could stop by at 5, or would 7 be better?’ there is no bad answer to that question), the more sophisticated ones were just simple truths. I started noticing that when I learned a new script I was actually clarifying some basic piece of knowledge I already had and learning how to package it powerfully.  Let me give you an example:  my favorite script from 1987:

‘You know, Mr. FSBO, there really are only four kinds of buyers out there.’  (Intrigued, the FSBO raises an eyebrow or otherwise indicates he wants to know more).

‘There’s the first time buyer.  I love  them;  they are so rewarding to work with.  But you know what?  They’re usually scared to death.  I often have to sell them three or four times on completing the purchase they’ve already made.  Plus, they rarely buy directly from an owner.  They need help and they know it.  It’s probably not a buyer you’re going to find as a FSBO.’  (Is that true?  Yes!)

‘Then there’s the move-up buyer.  This is the local person who’s wanting to go to a newer, better, or bigger house.  They’re great buyers too and you know what?  You CAN find them.  They do shop FSBOs because the number one thing on their list of wants is:  it has to be a bargain and they think that’s what FSBO means.  Plus, when they decide they want to buy your house, you know what they have to do before they close?  Right:  sell their house.  Hardly your best buyer.’  (True?  Pretty much).

Third is the Investor or Speculator.  It’s really two buyers but I lump them together.  The Investor wants to steal the property so he can have a positive cash flow when he rents it.  The Speculator wants to steal the property so he can do some cosmetics and then flip it for a profit.  The operative phrase, of course, is ‘Steal the property.’  You can find them all day long, but you probably don’t want to deal with them.’  (True?  I think so — all that ‘steal the property‘ stuff is just packaging the truth that they’re going to want a good deal.)

‘Finally there’s the quality buyer from out-of-town, the transferee.  Now, think about it.  Suppose you were moving to, say, St. Louis, and you’d never been there in your life and really didn’t know anyone there.  Your company is giving you a long weekend to come into town and find a place to live.  Are you going to trust yourself to find the right house at the right price in the right neighborhood?  I sure wouldn’t.  And transferees rarely do. They seek the professional help of a REALTOR who can keep them from making a big mistake.  The transferee is a buyer who rarely looks at FSBOs because they don’t have time and they don’t know enough on their own.  It’s a buyer that’s largely unavailable to you.  And it’s the buyer I can bring.’  (True?  Mostly.)

All of that was stuff I already knew back in 1987 on some level.  The ‘script’ was just a way of clarifying it and packaging it.

Today I think scripting is mostly about first knowing your business, then about finding ways to present what you know powerfully.  I think it’s fine to learn a Mike Ferry or Brian Buffini or David Knox script, but while you learn it, tie it to your base of knowledge.  Make it your own.

Today’s scripts are different.  In the old world it was all about ‘how can I get this person to buy or sell.’  Today it’s all about solving problems.  Seems everybody’s got some kind of real estate problem and our scripting needs to be focused on this.  For example, I got a glimpse of one that went something like, ‘You’re like so many other homeowners today who find themselves upside down and possibly  unable to keep up mortgage payments.   What you need to know is that you have options.  In fact, I have nine strategies that can help.  When can we get together to review them?’  I don’t know what the nine strategies are but I’ll bet one of you does.  How about sharing it here in a comment (or via email to me if you’re worried about your competitors stealing your silver bullets).  What are your favorite scripts today?  What seems to carry the most weight when you speak to a buyer or seller?  I’d really like to know.

Is Proper Pricing Less Important Today?

Pricing is the topic for today’s training session at 11 Pacific Time. It’s always been a favorite of mine. You see, I learned early on in my career as a Salesperson that the best marketing I could do for my sellers was to convince them to price their home as close to market value as possible. All the marketing you might do, all the fantastic, cutting edge promotion you might undertake, is meaningless if the property is overpriced. Excessive marketing does not make a home worth more. I know: it’s a simple concept, one that is pretty obvious. But it’s striking how many sellers don’t realize it.

(I recently watched Maria Powell doing a listing presentation. At one point she said to the seller, ‘I’m sorry. I really wish I could make your home be worth $400,000. But I can’t. The best I can do is about $370,000 — that’s what the Market Analysis shows.’ )

I have always been a strong advocate of NOT taking overpriced listings. I look back 5 years ago and see that overpriced listings took longer to sell and therefore gobbled up more of an office’s precious marketing dollars. Truth is: every day you have an active listing on the market, it costs you money. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Think about the aggravation of dealing with an unrealistic seller wanting to know why you haven’t sold her (overpriced) house yet. And what about your reputation? So what if you have the best deal in town if your listings sit and sit and sit, unsold.

I always urged brokers and salespeople to fight the good fight, do everything they can to get the seller to acknowledge reality and then, if a realistic price cannot be agreed upon, to get up and walk. Don’t take the listing.

Today, I have to modify that stance just a bit.

It is still clearly in the seller’s best interest to price the property properly and we’re all about taking good care of our sellers (and buyers), urging them to do what’s best for them. But ultimately, what’s in the best interest of the Broker?

Every week we ask top producers where their buyer closings come from. Over and over they say the same thing: sign calls, ad calls, Internet leads, Open Houses . . . in almost every case, the buyer comes to us because of our listing inventory. So it’s clearly in the Broker’s best interest (as well as the best interest of ALL the sellers whose homes we have listed) for the office to have as many listings as possible. Listings are the net we cast into the marketplace to capture buyers.

So, what’s really wrong with taking an occasional overpriced listing? Even an overpriced listing will generate calls, right?

Here’s my new point of view:

If you’ve fought the good fight, if you’ve made as compelling a case as you possibly can and the seller still wants to overprice (that’s overprice, not grossly overprice), I think you might take that listing if:

  • You make it very clear you think it’s too high. By being clear when you take the listing, you eliminate the call two months down the road wondering why you haven’t sold the property.
  • You set a date four to six weeks in the future to revisit the pricing issue.
  • You ask every agent who tours or shows the property what they think of the price and you share that with the seller.
  • You give the Seller a Listingbook account or sign them up for some other ‘First to Know’ program so they can see what other homes are selling in the neighborhood, how the competition is priced, etc.

As an agent years ago, I found it helpful to put my unrealistic sellers in the car and take them out to see the competition.  They usually came back with a new appreciation for reality, especially if some of the competition were shiny new homes with flashy models.

Today, success in real estate is all about the buyer.  Can you attract buyer inquiries and convert them into prospects and then into sales?  Anything you can do to attract buyers is beneficial and nothing attracts them better than listings.

The Mind of Mr. Hippauf

On Wednesday’s Help-U-Sell Broker Roundtable call, Walt Hippauf talked about doing listing presentations online using Go To Meeting.  It’s something he’s done out of necessity:  he’s had difficulties with his legs and is not as mobile as he once was.  Online meetings have made it possible for him to get his business done while minimizing the amount of time he spends on his feet.

It’s more than that, though.  When Walt meets his prospective sellers online, he makes a statement about his business.  He says:  ‘I am different.  I am current.  I represent the new way to sell real estate.’  All of this is true, of course, but the online meeting makes it apparent.

It’s also more efficient.  Speaking as someone who’s lived and breathed PowerPoint for decades, I can tell you that the same presentation done online is always shorter than one done face to face.  Online you are forced to be concise and to the point.  Face-to-face, you spend time elaborating and being conversational.  Walt’s proving that you can do an online listing presentation in 30 minutes or less — and that’s music to the ears of any seller who’s contemplating being trapped in the living room with a salesperson for the evening.

It gets back to that generation gap thing again.  You know:  where the average age of a home buyer today is 32 and the average age of a Realtor is 52.  Speaking in gross generalities: we are in an industry where our customers are often more comfortable with technology than we are.  Where we want to sit down around the kitchen table, make a little small talk so that when we get down to business it’s friendly, they want to get in, get the information, and get out.  Anything that complicates or slows the process is a negative.  Anything that makes it simple and quick is positive.   And here’s the thing about the Thirty-Somethings:  They’re impatient with anyone who doesn’t get it. ‘Oh, you can’t provide me listing information on my smart phone?  Well, then, I’ve got to find someone who can . . . let me Google that.’

It occurs to me that we — meaning Help-U-Sell Corporate — ought to be doing a brief overview of the Help-U-Sell consumer offering online each week.  It’s something that should be of interest to prospective sellers and buyers but also to outside agents and brokers who may not know what we do and how we work.  It would be something to which you could invite FSBOs and Expireds.  If we do it every week, it could become an early step in your listing process.

So help me put this together.  Whatever we do will have to be brief — like 15 minutes.  Our goal will be to get people comfortable with us and excited about working with us.  In that short period of time, what are the 3 – 5 key things to tell consumers about Help-U-Sell?  Leave me a comment with your thoughts.

The Help-U-Sell Homebuyer Stimulus Program

Note:  This Thursday’s training webinar will be devoted to the Help-U-Sell Homebuyer Stimulus Program and to the BIG viral marketing campaign we are about to implement.  It is very important that you get to this meeting.  It is at 2pm Eastern Time (11am, Pacific) and you can register by accessing this link: Registration

It worked.  When the Federal government implemented the Tax Credit programs, there was a definite upturn in business as the deadlines approached.  In addition to helping millions of buyers realize their housing dreams, the programs created huge public awareness that special programs like these sometimes exist.  The Help-U-Sell Homebuyer Stimulus Program was created to capitalize on that awareness and to make our qualified listings more marketable.

Many, if not most, home buyers today are ‘cash poor.’  This has always been true for first time buyers who are one of the largest purchasing groups today, but it’s also true for many other buyers struggling with tough economic realities.   For this reason, many sellers today agree to pay some of their prospective purchasers’ closing costs.  What the Help-U-Sell Homebuyer Stimulus Program does is to formalize that arrangement in a way that makes it marketable.

Truth is:  many sellers already provide this help, but they don’t advertise the fact and usually don’t commit until a purchase agreement is in process.  With the Homebuyer Stimulus program we’re asking sellers to consider the advantages of paying some closing costs upfront, at the time of listing.  That then becomes a big market differentiator that we can advertise.  A buyer comparing two similar homes in the same area is likely to opt for the one that is Help-U-Sell Homebuyer Stimulus Eligible because it may require less cash to close.

There are many new materials associated with the program:

  • A listing Amendment and a sample clause for a purchase agreement
  • A Seller information flyer
  • A .JPEG banner to identify eligible listings at www.helpusell.com
  • A new button to link to program information on participating broker websites
  • A broker guide
  • A sample ad
  • And more

All of these items are in the Download Library under ‘ Homebuyer Stimulus Program.’

The program probably fits best on listings in price ranges attractive to first time buyers, where sellers have equity.  It is probably less applicable to REOs or Short Sale Listings where a lender will make the ultimate decision on any offer to purchase.

What we’re asking participating sellers to do is pay 3% of the purchase price, up to $8,000, at closing towards the buyers’ non-recurring closing costs.  All of the credit will be reflected in the HUD-1 and it’s all subject to State and Federal law, lender requirements, and type of loan secured by the purchaser.  Any credit unrealized by the buyer due to regulation,  type of mortgage or lender requirements, is retained by the seller.  When coupled with Help-U-Sell Low Set Fee pricing, the total outlay by sellers may still be less than paying a traditional broker a full percentage based commission.

Tami Patzer (our Social Networking guru) has developed a viral marketing campaign using carefully placed video announcements about the program.  Once implemented that program should create huge consumer awareness and interest nationwide.  It is important that all Help-U-Sell brokers and team members become familiar with the program before that campaign begins.  That’s why the Thursday webinar this week will be devoted to this.  In the mean time, it would be wise to go to the Download Library, get the materials that are there and familiarize yourself with them.

Really:  Get Ready!  This will be big.

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