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You've done it! You're in the meeting with the
client - you've done the hard part, getting the actual appointment,
so why are your palms sweating, why have you spent the last 10
minutes in the car out the front of the house double checking
paperwork and rehearsing your opening lines and ruing the fact that
the powers that be have chosen today for you to be having a bad
hair day? Chill out! You really have done the hard job already -
how just use the following tips to put your listing plan together -
this should be the fun part!
These tips work equally well for real estate
sales or property management and - I think in most sales based
industries where you have a pitch meeting with a client.
If you're talking more than 50% of the time -
you're talking too much! Clients don't want to be simply "spoken
at", treat this meeting like a conversation rather than a
presentation.
Ask open questions. Sounds simple right - but do
you know what your first questions are going to be? What about
these as ideas: What would you say are the three main reasons you
decided to call me (or my company) out today to chat with you? What
are say the three most important things you're looking for in an
agent / property manager? Not should this give you the basis for
your presentation structure but by asking for three - you'll
typically get 2 or 3, if you ask it without specifying a number
you'll usually only get one answer.
There will always be a small percentage of
people who you present to who are crazy analytical types. These
people, and I'll admit I can be one of them, will have their entire
focus shifted with a simple typo on your presentation. No longer
will they be thinking about what you're saying - they just won't be
able to get it out of their heads that you wrote "a lot" as one
word!!! Always have one of these lovely analytical types (we all
know a few!) proof read any of your handouts before you test them
on clients.
I recently shared a stage with a great speaker
by the name of John Shackleton - he said his philosophy on sales
was simple and two pronged. Make friends and ask for the business!
I couldn't agree more. So many people do a presentation but never
ask for the sale. If you're in sales (and property managers you are
too when going for a listing) you have to be able to close. Most of
us however are brought up in an environment which actively allows
us to be afraid of rejection or failure - which contributes to the
fact that most people don't like to close (or ask for the
business)! Think about it - in school, failing a test was never
rewarded and yet even Bill Gates first business venture failed. How
did you feel the first time you asked someone out and got rejected
- yet James Dyson inventor of the Dyson vacuum was rejected by
every major manufacturer in the UK and yet has now sold over
$10Billion worth! Get over this fear of failure and rejection and
practice closing every day.
End memorably. I don't care how you do it - but
be memorable. Maybe it's that you drop a pre-written thank you card
in the letterbox as you leave, maybe you've taken a photo of the
kids at the house and you drop it back on a height recording chart,
maybe you drop back a dog biscuit with your written presentation
(provided they have a dog!) Find some way to stand out in this
client's mind, some way to show you care. It doesn't have to cost a
million bucks - it doesn't actually have to cost anything, it
should simply show you cared enough to be different.
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article written by Kirsty may be copied, reproduced, or freely
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