Several months ago I was approached by a real estate company to help them solve a problem. You see they had a team of agents that were assigned to families that were relocating to a different area. This agent (who was in competition with another company) would sit down with the seller and pitch the value proposition of their company and themselves. The seller would then make a decision regarding who they wanted to list their house. The problem was the team was losing more than it was winning.
This field of sales is very complicated and clearly there are other factors to this problem; most that were out of everyone’s control. BUT there was one thing the company could do…..help their agents become better at the listing presentation. Enter my services.
We began what I call “The Great Listing Presentation Project” or GLPP for short. At the core of this project was asking each agent on this team to perform their listing presentation in front of a reviewer. Using a check-list and a series of questions/objections the reviewer took the role of the seller. At the end of the listing presentation the reviewer would complete written feedback and send it to the agent.
Thirty-nine agents later there were clear common denominators in the weaker presentations and clear common denominators in the strong presentations. This series of blog shares those lessons.
By the way if you are not involved on the real estate market there is still value here for you. Ironically, the majority of these lessons had no relation to a specific market but are about sales skills.
Lesson #1 – Building Trust
When you ask a room full of people who they last hired to perform a service for them (i.e. plumber, tree remover, car mechanic) and why they made the decision to hire that person you hear a variety of answer. These answers include: referral, used them before, knew them from another activity. But when you dissect the answers it’s really only one answer; they trusted them.
For someone to hire you they must trust you, like you, believe you are competent, believe you care about you (not just the money). The question is how do we build these feelings? Well, we need to make sure the client gets a glimpse of who we are, how we do business, and give them a track record of our performance. In short, we have to demonstrate why we are trustworthy and likable.
This is the area where many of the agents struggled. They shared nothing about their successes or background. This lack of information meant the seller could not build the feelings necessary to hire them. It wasn’t that the agent was against doing this, they just weren’t sure how. That’s understandable. Most of us are uncomfortable sitting in front of someone and telling them what a wonderful person we are. And frankly, the client doesn’t want us to do that either. So what the solution? A Silent Salesperson.
What is a Silent Salesperson? It’s a document or group of documents that can be given to the client in advance of your appointment. Some salespeople drop it off prior to the appointment and ask the prospect to review while some email information about themselves. By providing this information before they can get a feel for who you are but most importantly you don’t have to say it.
A typical Silent Salesperson would have testimonials, examples of previous successes (in the real estate industry that would be houses sold), and a resume. Some have more personal information like pictures of their family, hobbies, charities, etc. The personal level of it would vary on the industry. Obviously you will need to filter the information (for example if you have a hobby that is considered controversial you may not include it) and keep even the personal information professional.
A Silent Salesperson is a great tool because it builds feelings about you without you having to say it. But, this is just one tool. Building trust with a prospect is a continual process. Think about other ways you can demonstrate trustworthiness.
Please feel free to comment and add to this conversation
Next week is problem #2 – Building Structure Into Your Presentations