Hung Up On Cold Calls

I know you probably don’t do them – which is a shame, because they work.

I have a friend who has no reluctance to make cold calls, has no problem with hang ups and rudeness. He just goes on to the next one and the next one until he finds the gem who answers, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, we have been thinking of selling.’ Trouble is, easy as cold calls are for him, they are often his last resort activity: what he does when he has nothing else to do. If he just did them on schedule, every day or every other day or even once a week, he’d probably rarely get to that last resort place!

Remember Tina LoSasso? She worked with us at Help-U-Sell earlier in the millennium. Tina is quite the entrepreneur. She runs a very successful comic book business with her husband and does a little publishing as well. She’s always in tune with good selling information. On Facebook today, she posted a link to Art Sobczak’s ‘Smart Calling Blog.’ The link led to a piece about how to handle cold call hang-ups and brush-offs.

Art suggests that when the person you are calling hangs up on you or says, ‘I’m not interested’ before ending the call,  that you first remember that this person has a life of his or her own. They have issues and demands and deadlines, and your priority of finding a new prospect is certainly not theirs. In other words, be positively empathetic. Then, instead of calling back and saying, ‘I think we were disconnected’ (which is really stupid):

. . . . try an email, fax, or a handwritten note mailed with a real stamp, stating,

“I have the feeling I called you at a bad time the other day. I apologize. The purpose for my call was to run an idea by you that could potentially help you to (fill in the blank with some result they would be interested in). I’d like to ask you a few questions to determine if we have the basis for a conversation. I will call you again on Friday, or you can reach me at at 800-555-2922, and my email is….”

. . . The purpose is not to pitch, but to raise a question that they just might want the answer to.

Is this likely to get a high response rate?

No. You probably won’t get any response. If you do, yay, big bonus. But, when you do call back, you now can refer to the message you sent, providing another point of reference. And perhaps you will reach them at a better time.

I think that is a little gem! From now on, when cold calling, have your best pen and note cards next to the phone. The call and the note go hand in hand!

Set Fee Blog Stats: 2012 In Review

WordPress creates an annual report for bloggers who use their service. I just (finally) opened mine and go some eye opening information:

  • In 2012, there were 67 new posts on The Set Fee Real Estate Blog, bringing the total to 292.
  • There were about 5,400 total views in the year, with the busiest day being February 15, with 72 views.
  • The post that garnered the most views on that day was about Maurine Grisso’s REO Training.
  • Most viewed posts for the year were (in order):
    1. How To Do It, Step 6: Accountabiity
    2. The Buyer Questionaire
    3. Old Scripts/ New Scripts
    4. Full Service Broker vs Limited Service Broker vs Discount Broker
    5. Clarifying Terms: Full Service Broker, Limited Service Broker, Discounter, Help-U-Sell

It seems pretty clear that the public is confused about the difference between full service, limited service, discount service and Help-U-Sell. I’d probably do myself a favor by writing more about this murky topic.

  • Most people came to this site via Networked Blogs, HelpUSell.com, and Facebook
  • My most active commenters were:
    1. Kirk Eisele
    2. Dan Desmond
    3. Don Taylor
    4. Robin Rowland
    5. Jeanne Strayer

Wouldn’t you like to put those five people in a room and then sit back and listen to them talk!

You can view the full report HERE.

The Reason Why Everybody Doesn’t Do This

As Help-U-Sell Brokers we have the pleasure of delighting sellers when they learn about us. So often, when we lay our program out before them, they get almost as excited as we are. Often, they say:

‘Wow! This is amazing! Why doesn’t everyone do it this way?’

The answer is too complex to share with a seller on the verge of signing a listing agreement, so we take the question to be rhetorical, and reply, ‘I don’t know . . .’ or ‘Beats me!’

But there is a reason. It’s a stupid reason, but it is the reason:

Our industry is organized around the notion that the average agent should make a decent living.

Thirty years ago or so, Brokers (not Agents, Brokers) made a shift in their business models. They put the accent NOT on serving buyers and sellers but on recruiting, retaining and serving agents. In a sense, the Agent became the Broker’s client.

Today, Brokers go to school not to learn how to better serve buyers and sellers, but to learn how to recruit. Keller-Williams, Exit and a host of other companies have invented new wrinkles in their operating systems to reward agents who bring other agents into the company. Basically, they’ve found a way to get their agents to do the recruiting for them.

In ordinary residential real estate today, it’s all about the agent: how to find more, get more, keep more agents. The Broker believes his income stream is dependent on agents, not on buyers and sellers, and that belief colors the entire operation.

So who are these average agents (the ones everyone is working so hard to recruit)? Nationally they do six or fewer deals a year. Really. Think about that. What kind of service do you think an agent doing only six deals a year brings to the table for a buyer or seller? Compared, say, to one doing 25 deals? Who’s going to be sharper, more up-to-date, better able to negotiate and solve problems as they arrise?

But, because the ordinary Broker’s business is dependent on his getting and keeping as many six-deal-a-year agents as possible, he has to find a way to make doing six deals a year appealing. He has to find a way for the average agent to make a reasonable living.

There’s a two-step formula for this.

First, charge outrageous sums of money for your services and do it with a percentage based commission so that your fee is tied to the sale price of the house. That way, when your agents sell more expensive property, they bring in more cash. Never mind that in most cases, it takes no more time, effort or money to sell a more expensive house. Just be glad you get paid more when you do.

Second, give the lion’s share of that bloated commission to the agent. You’re going to have to pay them really well so that they can appear successful even though they’re only doing six deals a year. If they appear successful, you’ll be better able to attract more six-deal-a-year agents who also want to appear successful.

Ok. I’m overstating the case. But I think you see the lunacy in this system. And it is lunacy, madness. The ordinary real estate business is so off track, it may never be able to right itself. It is so lost that the moment Google or Microsoft decides to jump into the business with both feet, automate it like Schwab did the brokerage business 25 years ago . . . well, your friendly local real estate agent could become extinct. . . like the dinosaur.

Thankfully, there is an alternative.

  • It is a system where the Broker is IN the real estate business, where his or her client IS the buyer or seller, where the agent is part of the Broker’s operational system to provide excellent service to clients.
  • It is a system where the Broker’s income stream is dependent on how many buyers and sellers he or she serves, where growth is driven by careful marketing, not by recruiting.
  • It is a system orchestrated by the Broker to drive ever increasing numbers of leads into the office, leads that are handed to the agents who are charged with the important task of turning them into happy clients.
  • It is a system that nurtures truly successful agents, who outperform their ordinary competitors in spades because they don’t have to worry about cold calls, door knocking, FSBOs, angry sellers, and open houses. All they have to worry about is the client they picked up at the office today.
  • It is a system that charges a reasonable Set Fee for the service it provides, a fee that stays the same regardless of the sale price of the property.
  • It is a system that offers sellers a menu approach to services and pricing, where one size does not fit all, and where the fee paid has a direct relation to the tools it took to affect the sale.
  • It is a system that delights customers because: it works, and they save money.

It is Help-U-Sell.

*By the way, in case you missed it, in 2012, the median gross income for an agent was $34,900, according to NAR. That’s gross, before expenses.

Arounds

Of course, you have your ‘Just Listed’/’Just Sold’ programs mapped out and happening automatically, right? Good! You do that because you know it works; and there’s solid psychology behind it.

When a sign appears in your neighbor’s yard, a window of opportunity opens in your mind. Suddenly you are curious about why they are selling, where they are going, what they are asking, why they chose that particular real estate company and so on. In essence: you are OPEN to receive a real estate oriented message.

If I can put MY Help-U-Sell real estate message (sell fast-save thousands) in front of you while this window of opportunity is open, the chances of you receiving the message and perhaps responding to it are greater than at any other time . . . except, perhaps, when YOU need to buy or sell. And there’s not that much time to get the message to you. It’s a window, and windows shut.

Now, let’s expand that concept. And let’s change the pronouns. Now YOU are a Help-U-Sell broker. As such, you have carefully analyzed a ton of data about your area and have judiciously chosen a couple of ripe target markets within that area. You’re just getting started (or just getting re-started) and don’t have much of a presence in your target markets. You can use the ‘window of opportunity’ concept that works when YOU get a listing even when YOU don’t have one. Here’s how:

Start cruising your target markets every day. By cruising I mean driving and checking the MLS. You’re looking for new listings the moment they hit the market. They can be listings taken by anybody. All of the neighbors – and ‘all’ might be 40 or 60 or 100 – now have their real estate windows open. They are ready to receive a real estate message. Why shouldn’t it be yours?

Work with Excel Print/Mail (husmailnow.com) and The Alexanders (brandsawonline.com/helpusell) to create a postcard program to go AROUND the new listings that come up in your target market. I think the best thing to do is be fairly generic. Create an ETM-like Jumbo postcard with content that doesn’t change or doesn’t change much. That way, the program is easy to administer and you can get your message out faster. By an ETM-like card, I mean one with pictures of homes for sale, sold & saved listings, testimonials, an Easy Way, and a bulleted description of your program. Decide how many homes you’d like to reach whenever a sign appears and lock that geography down with Excel or Alexanders. Maybe it’s 20 homes across the street from the new listing and 10 on each side. Maybe it’s more.

Now when a new listing comes up, Push The Button. Get your message into those open windows as fast as possible and listen for the phone to ring.

What are the ethics of prospecting around someone else’s listing? Excuse me: last time I read the REALTOR Code of Ethics it didn’t say anything about this! But shouldn’t this kind of prospecting be reserved for the agent who worked so hard to get that new listing or to make that sale? Absolutely not! Because in all probability, the listing agent will NOT make any attempt to reach the neighbors. They will not have taken the time to create an easy to administer program for this kind of outreach and they will be too busy to do it now. It’s YOUR window of opportunity – take advantage of it and watch your target market share bloom.

The Listing Consultation On Your Tablet

Is your listing consultation linear?  Does it go from point a to point b to point c, from slide 1 to slide 2 to slide 3 (and heaven help you if you get interrupted ’cause you may not remember where you were)?  If so, it’s probably not a consultation at all; it’s just some schtik you memorized, like the Gettysburg Address or the lyrics to Baby’s Got Back.

‘Okay? So now let’s go on to the next slide and I’ll show you all the awards my office has won!’ (slides finger across Ipad to display the next slide in the sequence).

Here’s the point:  you do need graphics to give power to your listing conversation . . . but they need to be called up spontaneously, as needed, not presented in a canned roll, like your high school heath class lecture on sex!

For me, this point was most dramatically illustrated when I saw Steven Covey speak before a couple thousand people.  I was on staff so was both in front of the stage and behind the scenes.  Covey came out and started talking.  Periodically he’d say something like: ‘Put that slide up with graph now …’ and the slide would magically appear behind him.  He had an assistant backstage who had all of his slides on his computer.  He knew them and Covey’s thoughts so well that he could access whatever graphic the master needed to make his point.  It’s one of the best ‘speeches’ I’ve ever heard because it wasn’t a speech at all:  it was a conversation with graphic support.  That’s what you want your listing consultation to be.

I am in Oaxaca, studying Spanish at the Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca.  It’s a wonderful school set in a sprawling hacienda on the edge of the historical district.  My teacher, Cinthia, is outstanding.  Not a word of Engish is spoken in her four hour class.  It’s against the rules!  But she has an Ipad on the table in front of her and when we Gringos need a definition she quickly accesses Google Image Search and shows us a picture of whatever we don’t understand . . . and then gives us synonyms for it in Spanish.  That’s what needs to be happening in your listing consultation.

Use the graphics when your sellers need help to understand.

The graphics are support for your conversation.  They are not the conversation.

How do you accomplish this?  First, you memorize the Gettysburg Address (your listing presentation) . . . linear-ly.  Learn it upside down, backwards, speak it in your sleep.  Tie each point your want to make to a graphic.  In other words:  do what every class on listing presentations has taught you to do.  Then break it down:  which slide(s) support each point you are likely to make with a seller?  Now, trash the script and start practicing having a conversation about listing using the truths you memorized.  Pull up graphics when they might help.

When you go live with a seller, have your slides laid out on your tablet in ‘slide-sorter’ view, so you have a thumbnail of each one.  When you need graphic support, simply touch the thumbnail you need.  When the seller has a question or needs clarification, touch the appropriate thumbnail.  When they need to see why staging is so important, touch a thumbnail.  When you are talking about how you out-perform the local MLS, touch the thumbnail with your stats.

Your tablet is an essential tool today, for listing and for so much more.  But don’t get sucked in to using it like the old presentation book you tried to learn so many years ago, going from page to page, from canned script to canned script.  You hated that at least as much as your sellers did!  Use the new tool to liberate your listing conversation.  You’ll get in, make your point quicker and more powerfully, and leave with  a signed listing agreement.  I promise.

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