MASTERMIND AGENT FREE GIFT FROM JOE MEYER, GRI

Transcription

1 MASTERMIND AGENT FREE GIFT FROM JOE MEYER, GRI 1055 STEWART AVE. 2 ND FLOOR SUITE 2A BETHPAGE, NEW YORK info@joemeyer.com PRO-ACTIVELY PROSPECTING YOUR WAY TO PROSPERITY! Life is like a cafeteria. There are no waiters to bring your success to you. You must be willing to help yourself. 1

2 MASTERMIND AGENTS SUCCESS With Joe Meyer When I first entered into the real estate industry back in the 1970 s I was told a few things about starting this career. 1. If you don t list you don t last. 2. Your job is to get listings. 3. All the top producers make most of their money from listings. Those bits of wisdom served me well and still serve many of today s top producers as well also. Many agents today speak about the importance of time management. That is one of the reasons why you should invest most of your time on listings. When you take a listing, you have better control of your time. If you take a listing (that is priced right) you have relatively very little time you need to invest into that listing. If you are instead constantly looking for and taking out buyers, the time you invest for the same amount of money is probably tripled or more. Not only that, but you can take out a buyer, find them a home, negotiate a deal and 2

3 if for any reason that deal dies, you often lose the buyer as well. If the deal dies and you re the listing agent, you retain the listing for another agent to sell it. In addition, if you want to take some time off for a vacation, you can ask someone to watch over your listings and while basking in the sun on some tropical beach, you can make money getting listings sold. You can t go away and continue to work with buyers and make a sale. So..what is your listing potential? I ve seen agents go from 3 listings a year to 30, some go from 30 to 100 and some from 100 to 300. It takes focus and commitment. To vastly increase your listings, a few things have to take place. You have to start and commit to making prospecting for listings your major focus with your time commitment. In your spare time you must commit to vastly improving your scripts and dialogue. (This is where most agents fall down) You must rid yourself of all fears associated with taking listings; including your fear of prospecting, your fear of speaking to homeowners honestly and relentlessly about their pricing, and your fear of walking away from a bad listing. You must develop the attitude of a closer. 3

4 If you can do these four things, you are well on your way to becoming a Mega-Lister. Of all of these four things, the most difficult and time consuming is learning all of the necessary scripts and dialogue that go into it. I hear so many agents tell me about how great their listing presentation is, but when I hear it, I cringe. Particularly, when it comes to overcoming listing objections. What you think is persuasive is generally not what the homeowner thinks is persuasive. OVERCOMING KAKKARAPHIAPHOBIA. The fear of failure. In real estate terms this is the fear of rejection when prospecting, the fear of rejection when negotiating listing price, the fear of rejection when hearing objections that sting us or baffle us. This fear of unacceptance is natural or you wouldn t be human. We all want that feeling of acceptance from the time we are babies. The secret in this business is putting things in their proper perspective. Is your goal to get a listing appointment or make a new friend? Is your goal to get a saleable listing or not upset the homeowner by taking it at an overpriced value? Is your goal to get the listing priced right or to not have the homeowner hate you until their listing 4

5 expires? (When they list it with someone else at a reduced price) Look, in real estate you are looking to create friendly business relationships and hopefully they will turn into future referrals. I m sure you have some very, very good friends and you have relatives who love you. STOP trying to make people love you and instead do your job. Trust me, they will like you and respect you more at the end when you succeed at getting their house sold, than if you fail to get it sold no matter how nice you are. This means you may have to ruffle a few of their feathers prior to actually helping them out. Why? Simply because a lot of homeowners don t trust you and won t listen to you in the beginning. It s not that they don t trust YOU as a person. They question your reasoning and logic. After all, why won t they save the commission by selling it themselves? Why DON T you see the extra $40,000 in value in their house as they see it? Why shouldn t they list with the discount agent when all you agents are the same? When confronted with these challenges, today s agent risks upsetting the apple cart with these homeowners. That means you put yourself at risk of feeling unaccepted by them. This is what separates the Mega-Lister from the so-so lister. The Mega-Lister fears losing the quality listing more so than the friendly, warm and fuzzy rapport with a homeowner. This does not mean that the Mega-Lister needs to be antagonistic or argumentative to the point of being arrogant and/or obnoxious. It does mean however that the Mega-Lister is willing and skilled enough to confront the issues (not the person) head on. 5

6 Another characteristic of the Mega-Lister is that they realize that the homeowner is simply making their argument as a business decision and do not take it personally. The Mega-Lister looks at it as their job to educate, persuade and help the homeowner. The Mega-Lister also realizes that not all homeowners are open-minded or motivated enough to even listen, so they just walk away and wish the homeowner well. The so-so lister will pick up the Mega-Lister s scraps and take that listing well overpriced and probably at a cheaper commission. Rarely, does this work out for anyone. GENERATING LISTING APPOINTMENTS The most sought after listing appointment is the personal referral. They usually call you and they are generally already sold on you. It s an easy one. However, most of us are not generating a lot of these. At least not as many as we would like to have. Why? Well, as the sayings go, Rome was not built in a day and You ve got to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run. So, let s take it one step at a time. Personal Referrals from past business and sphere of influence - Mega Lister 6

7 - Starting out DEVELOPING PERSONAL REFERRALS As demonstrated in the previous illustration, your ability to generate personal referrals often is a result of your past business. If you are a fairly new agent, you have no past business to call on for referrals. Or do you? One thing that has always been consistent in real estate over the years is the turnover rate of agents. I suggest to new agents that they speak with their broker and ask them if they could do some research for you. Ask that they go over all the agents from their office who left company (either for another company or even better, who left the industry altogether) Ask the broker to go over the past buyer sales that those agents were involved in. Then go visit those buyers; who are now homeowners and potential sellers in the future. Become THEIR new agent. Here is some dialogue for you. Mr. Smith, Hello. My name is Larry Lister from XYZ real estate. The reason I m calling on you is because the agent who sold you this home; Sammy Salesperson is no longer with our company and I volunteered to take over his duties in regards to client service. I want you to know that I will make myself available to you and your family if you ever have any questions regarding your real estate investment. Some of the things I do is to once a year offer you a complimentary market analysis to let you know how your home is doing in regards to appreciation in value. There is no fee or obligation for this. It is just part of the free service you receive for purchasing a home through our firm. Another thing I offer is concierge service in regards to the upkeep of your home. If you are ever 7

8 in need of a referral for a plumber, electrician, landscaper or anything else for the home, I would be more than happy to recommend someone that our company has used and/or recommended in the past, often with a discounted price because of our referral. So, here is my business card. Also, Mr. Smith, we like to let our past clients know what is going on in their neighborhood in regards to listings and sales but without being too much of a bother. So, if you don t mind, I would like your address so that I may just send you that information. Whenever speaking with anyone who is in a position to recommend business to you, one of the best ways to end the conversation is to ASK for a referral. Here s where the problem lies. Most agents just hand over their business card and ask, If you ever know someone who is thinking of buying or selling, please have them call me. The problem with that is that you lose all control of the situation. Instead, say something like this. By the way, I was just wondering; who among your friends and family are most likely to be next in making a real estate move? If they give you an answer of someone, then simply conclude with, Do you have their phone number so that I may call on them? Generating personal referrals is an ongoing process in which you consistently are asking for business from all sources; including past clients and friends/family. They say that real estate is a contact sport, meaning you have to be always in contact with people. Don t be a secret agent. Let people know you are proud to be a Realtor and that word of mouth referrals is one of your best sources of business. Other ways that you can stay in contact with people and build your personal referral business is to develop an database. s are an inexpensive and effective way to stay in contact with your referral base. I actually suggest that you keep a database that is broken down into categories. You can simply break it down to: Future buyers 8

9 Future sellers Friends/Family Past clients This way you can send s that would meet their particular interests and get across the message that you want them to receive. This set up does not have to be elaborate nor expensive to be effective. It can be done with setting up databases in Microsoft excel and sending out the s with Microsoft outlook. As your database grows, then you may want to invest a little into mass companies such as Constant Contact, I-contact or Mail Chimp. Another major aspect of developing your referral base is social media. This would be utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like. As part of today s world, it is difficult to ignore these avenues of contact, however, how you use them still follows many tried and true old fashioned guidelines. People of wisdom in the business world have always said to avoid topics such as politics, religion and sex, watch your language and avoid controversial or possibly offensive topics. Virtually every agent I speak to says they use social media to attract business, I m shocked when I see some of the things they post on these sites. I ve seen vulgar language, racy pictures of the agents in their skimpy bikinis, (fine for the beach, not for social media) their deeply convicted religious views and opinions, harsh political statements, etc. All of this may make you somehow feel better, but I can guarantee that you will turn off some of your social media followers who may not want to now use your services or recommend you to someone else. Whether you think that is stupid on their part or not, or whether your feelings have nothing to do with your abilities as a Realtor, these people following you also have their own personal feelings and prejudices and often follow those feelings when making business decisions. So, if you are serious about using social media as a source of business, think first before posting anything that might in the least be offensive or controversial. Another thing you might want to consider 9

10 is how much of what you post has anything to do with real estate. If you avoid the controversial stuff but only post personal stuff, then how often do they think of you as a Realtor who could help them or someone they know? My suggestion is that for every posting you put something personal on, the next posting should be real estate related. FOR SALE BY OWNER The for sale by owner is considered by many agents to be the most difficult listing to obtain. However, if you speak to certain successful agents, they will tell you how easy they are for certain reasons. 1. You have very little competition with as few as 5% of all agents working the fsbo market at all. 2. According to national studies, the fsbo market only accounts for about 7% of all sales. 3. The vast majority of fsbo s will list with a broker after trying it on their own for an average of 28 days. 4. Most fsbos don t realize at first how much they lose by not using a broker. According to the National Association of Realtors, on average, Fsbos gross about 15.1% less than Realtor sales. So, even by trying to save the commission, they are netting a lot less. Where do we find Fsbos? Major Metro Newspapers Local newspapers/periodicals Driving around looking for Fsbo lawn signs On-line Fsbo web sites. (Forsalebyowner.com, Zillow.com, craigslist, etc.) 10

11 Subscription Fsbo websites; i.e. Landvoicedata.com/joemeyer (Receive discount with this landing page site) How do we approach Fsbos? Door Knock Phone call Snail Mail The funny thing about prospecting for sale by owners, is that you never know what you are going to come up to. I ve experienced many that were very nice, open minded and very easy to list. By totally ignoring the fsbo market altogether, you will miss out on obtaining some very easy listings. On the other hand, I ve also faced some very obnoxious, closed minded fsbos who did not want to listen to anything at all. Then the most likely fsbo is very resistant at first, but after experiencing the life of a fsbo for a few weeks, will open up, listen and list with a Realtor. The key then is follow up! In prospecting for fsbos in this section we will emphasize a lot on following up with them after initially not getting the appointment or the listing. ***** Please note. I encourage agents to always be compliant with all prospecting laws whether they be local, state or national. If a Fsbo is on the national do not call registry, you are NOT permitted to solicit their business by phone. It is during these times that I suggest either knocking on the door or mailing. In some locales, there are local laws that do not permit soliciting by door knocking. If they are on the 11

12 national or a state do not call registry and you cannot legally knock on the door, then mail. It has always been my opinion and my practice to conduct real estate in a legal and ethical manner at all times. Phoning For Sale By Owners Hi. This is with Realty. I see you are selling your house and as a specialist in residential real estate, I was wondering if I could come over and take a look at your house? No, we are not working with brokers. I understand. Is the primary reason to save the commission? Yes. Fine. If I could get you the amount of money you re asking for in your pocket, would you consider working with me then? Well perhaps. Great. I plan on being in your neighborhood tomorrow around 4:00 or Saturday morning around 11:00 a.m. Which would be best for you? Hi. This is with Realty. I see you are selling your house. Are you cooperating with Realtors at this time? No. We don t want anything to do with Realtors. (They rudely hang up.) 12

13 (This is when we commence follow up visits) FSBO Follow up (and handouts/mailouts) 1. Safety and security tips 2. Open house tips 3. Marketing and advertising tips 4. Questions to ask your potential buyers 5. Showing and negotiating offers Here is an example of a follow up handout/mailout for a Fsbo. You can either stop by the house and give it to them or you can mail it to them. I prefer to stop by the house even if they rejected my first attempt when I initially stopped by. The conversation might go something like this. Agent Hi Mr. Smith, I stopped by the other day. Owner Yes, I remember but I told you then that I wasn t interested in listing my house. Agent Yes, I know. That is really why I stopped by again. You see, being a neighbor of ours I want you to know that since you are determined to sell your house on your own, we just want to make sure that you take all the necessary safety and security precautions. I just wanted to give you this handout on that topic and to have you share it with your family. You see, as Realtors, we have safety and security seminars to help us. I just want to see you and your family go through the process safely. Here it is. Have a nice day. By just giving it to them and walking away, you leave a good taste in their about you. It shows that you care and that you are not going to try to push them into a decision that they are not yet ready to 13

14 make. You ll generally be looked upon favorably compared to any competition that is looking for that listing as well. The following is the fsbo follow up safety and security handout. I will let you come up with the others. Just put this on your letterhead with your photo and contact info. FOR SALE BY OWNER SAFETY AND SECURITY TIPS One major aspect of selling your house by yourself that is often overlooked or not even thought of at all is that you are inviting total strangers into your home and precautions must be taken to protect yourself, your family and your valuables. REALTORS have training this very serious matter. It is a sad fact that there have been a number of incidents in recent years that have led to robbery, assault and murder of real estate professionals doing their job. For Sale By Owners must learn to take precautions when selling their house. We hope that the tips we are sharing with you in this report will help to keep you and your family safe and out of harm s way. 1. Try to never show your home if alone. Ask a neighbor, friend or relative to be there with you. Let others know when you have your appointments or an open house. Have a prearranged time for your spouse, friend or neighbor to phone you if you haven t already phoned them after the appointment. 2. Know your fastest escape routes from every room of your home. Make sure all deadbolt locks are unlocked when showing, to facilitate a faster exit if necessary. 3. When prospects begin to arrive, write down their car make, model, physical description and license plate number as a future reference. If you have a photo copy machine in your home, (a lot of people with home offices will have this) ask for their driver s license to photocopy. This may 14

15 appear at first to be extreme, but many real estate salespeople now practice this. Besides, you will be sharing a lot of information about your home with the prospective buyers. In today s day and age of intensified security, this is not as extreme as it may seem. 4. NEVER allow strangers to tour your house by themselves. If there is more than one in the party, don t let one stray to another part of the house while you are with the other party. This can be especially difficult when they bring relatives back for a second visit and the whole family shows up. Always keep keys, credit cards, jewelry, cash, prescription medicines and other valuables tucked away and out of site. 5. Never lead them into a room. Always direct them where to go and follow closely behind them. Keep yourself at the doorway. You don t want to get caught in a room where someone could block your only way out. 6. Never leave a message on your answering machine that you are not home. Simply say, you cannot come to the phone right now 7. When setting appointments with a stranger, never say you can t show the home at a certain time because you will not be home. Say something like, I ll be busy at that time. Would 4:30 be convenient for you? Get their name and phone number. Call back on the phone to verify it is a legitimate phone number for them. Do not ever discuss your personal schedule with them; like when you work, when you have to be at social events, etc. 8. Don t discuss home security issues involving security systems, alarms, watch dogs, etc. A professional burglar can use this information to their advantage. Instead, let them know that you provide all this information to them prior to them taking title to the house. 9. If you will be having an open house, you must have enough people there to help you in the event of an abundance of prospective buyers show up. Educate your helpers to security procedures prior to the open house. At the end of the open house, check all windows, doors, etc. to make sure they are locked and secured. 10. If you have a For Sale Sign, make sure that it says By appointment only. Try to never show your home when strangers just show up at the door. 11. Try to never park your car in your garage or driveway where it can be blocked in and prevent a quick getaway by you when showing your home. Keep your car keys on you and easy to get at quickly if need be. 12. Don t trust anyone. Criminals can be well dressed, tell you they are a doctor or lawyer, come in either gender and seem like the nicest people in the world. Don t be paranoid, just cautious. 13. Trust your instincts. If you start getting a funny feeling about someone because of their conduct, or are unusually curious about security systems or when you will or will not be home, 15

16 tell them that you are in a hurry because you have company coming over in a few minutes. This could deter them if they in fact had criminal intent. 14. Most of all, remember that a few precious possessions is not worth your safety. Taking precautions to protect yourself and your family is time well spent; and a quick escape is a far better choice than having to fight back. PROSPECTING THE EXPIRED LISTING HOMEOWNER There are many reasons to be excited about prospecting the expired listing homeowner. First of all, as long as there are agents willing to accept overpriced listings there will be an abundance of expired listings. Secondly, a University study a few years ago showed that nearly all of the expired listing homeowners did eventually re-list with a broker. Specifically, the study showed that 64% of all expired listing re-listed with a DIFFERENT broker within 30 days of their listing expiring. Here is some of the psychology of the expired listing homeowner. They run a myriad of emotions. They might be angry with their previous listing broker, feeling they were betrayed by them. They might be angry at all Realtors for not showing their house very often, if at all while it was on Multiple Listing. They might be angry at themselves for hiring the previous agent without being a little more selective. They might be embarrassed because they thought they had such a beautiful home that they thought it would sell fast and told all their friends, family and co-workers that it didn t sell. They may 16

17 also be relieved and happy that it finally expired so that they may relist with someone else. You never know what you are going to get. That is something else you should be aware of, whether prospecting for Fsbos or Expireds; over the course of time you will find that there are a lot of prospects who are very nice and very easy to deal with. Somehow, agents get the idea that all Fsbos and expireds are very difficult and cantankerous. In fact, some of them are the easiest and most pleasant listing experiences you ll ever have. Getting back to prospecting the expired listing, let s look at some possible scenarios and dialogue. Generally, when a listing expires, the owner has the following options. Re-list with the same broker Re-list with a different broker Take their house off the market Attempt to sell it as a For sale by owner Of all of these options, the one we see the most of is to Re-list with a different broker. That is why Expired listing prospecting is so effective. So, let s take a look at some prospecting strategies and then we will go on to scripts. *****BEST EXPIRED LISTING STRATEGY. GO AFTER THE EASY ONES FIRST!!!!! Excuse me Joe..Did you say Easy????? Yes, I did. So, where do we find the easy expired listings? Well, it has always been my experience that when a listing expires, the homeowner is looking for something different. They don t always want to admit that it was them and their insistence of a certain price. So, look for expired listings with a broker/agent that is not similar to yours. 17

18 For instance, if you are with a small local outfit, you might want to go after the listings of the Mega company. If you are with a Mega company, you might want to go after the expireds of a small Mom and Pop outfit. If a listing expired with a broker who is from out of the area, you might want to emphasize your success in the local market. If you see an expired listing with a very small commission payout to the selling/buyer broker, you might want to emphasize the fact that with a full commission, you want to give out a higher split to the selling/buyer broker as an incentive to show their house. Other easy ones would be expired listings that are right in the area of one or more that you successfully marketed and sold. Identifying the easy ones, let s take a look at the prospecting approach. Most agents like to call; (Subject to Do Not Call restrictions) however, I always felt that knocking on the door was more effective. I think that homeowners are much more apt and prepared to possibly reject you on the phone rather than face to face. Here is my approach at the door. AGENT: Hello, Mrs. Jones? I m George from XYZ Realty. According to our computer files your home is no longer on the market. I was just wondering if you were still planning on selling it? There are a number of ways that the owner can answer. I m not selling anymore. I already sold it. (probably not reported on M.L.S.) What do you mean it is off the market? (Not aware of the listing expiring) I m not interested. (Probably very angry) Yes.Please come in. 18

19 However the owner answers, you must remember it is your job to get in and get an appointment, so you must be prepared for any of the above responses. Also, with expired listings, it pays to do your research. Know what is going on in the neighborhood. Try to know who your competition might be in trying to secure the listing and also know as much as possible about the broker who had the listing when it expired. This is not to necessarily knock their recent listing agent but to try and figure out what they sold to the owner to get them to list with them in the first place. Study their website and see if you can see any weaknesses with that company and then be prepared to demonstrate your strengths to the owner and how although their past broker surely tried their best, that you feel your company might be in a better position to market their home successfully. Again, as with the FSBOS, the key to expired listings is to follow up..follow up..follow up. ALTERNATIVE PROSPECTING ACTIVITIES It is amazing how many opportunities that are out there to generate listing appointments. One of my favorites is to just hop in the car and drive around. There are so many things to look for. Dumpsters in the driveway Home improvement companies in the driveway These could indicate that the owners are cleaning out, or fixing up in order to sell. Just knock on the door, introduce yourself and ask if they are fixing up to sell. Overgrown lawns, a ton of circulars in front of the house/driveway. 19

20 This could indicate a distressed property. Look up contact info in public records. Fsbo signs You might be surprised how many fsbos ONLY put a sign on their lawn and never anything else. This is often a cry for help. I listed many fsbos in my career from these people. Another thing I used to do is to make friends with the owner of a small Mom and Pop hardware store. They are always looking for new business with the Home Depots and Lowes breathing down their necks. What I would do is to let them know that I sell real estate in the local area and since I use their hardware store I would be happy to recommend them to new buyers in the area. I would ask if they would be willing to offer a 10% discount on the back of their business card for somebody s first purchase. They loved the idea. I in turn would ask if I could leave some literature on their front counter and ask for their recommendation and they were more than happy to. One final thing with the hardware store. They usually kept 2 or 3 of the plastic red/white For Sale By Owner signs on hand. I would buy them, leave my business card on the back and instruct the owner to let the customer know that it was already paid for. He would then tell them how if they ever decide to interview a Realtor, they should definitely call me. 20