Five Secrets to Listing Success

Listing success can be achieved if you follow several basic steps.

1 - Make your ads speak to the reader.

Most of our ads, frankly, don’t work. We spend our hard earned money advertising one house. It makes the seller happy but doesn’t do much for our business. The only persons who that ad could appeal to are: the seller, who thinks you’re working hard to sell his house; the buyer, who only wants to buy that house; and the guy who got paid to sell you the ad. You have only made three people happy at best. Even worse, the buyer for that house probably never even saw the ad. If we want to be more successful, make our ads have mass appeal. What is it that buyers want? They want to know how to purchase without making a mistake, without overpaying, or without too much hassle. What does a seller want when he looks at the real estate ads? He doesn’t want something irrelevant to him and his situation. He wants to know three things: 1. How much am I going to get? 2. When am I going to get it? 3. How much do I have to pay you? Target your efforts to your audience.

2 - Go on the shortest listing appointment you can.

People are busy these days. Wife gets home at 6:00; husband gets home at 6:30. They want to eat dinner and relax. Nobody says, “Hot dog, the real estate lady is coming over tonight.” If you could show them what you need to show them and take the listing in under an hour, you could get in more doors and take more listings. Learn to take less paper not more. I have four papers, (plus all the forms) and a listing presentation. It’s quick, it’s easy, and nobody’s confused, including me! I can teach the newest agent in the world how to do this and get out with the listing.

3 - Stop reducing your commissions.

The seller has gone to seller’s training school, too, you know. He knows to ask you to reduce your commission and most of us do. Keep in mind that when you reduce your commission by what you think is only one percent, it is actually reducing your commission by almost 17 percent. Here’s the math. If six percent represents 100 percent of the commission, then every sixth is 16.67 of the whole – and that’s close enough to 17 percent to suit me. That’s a big drop! We have to learn how to stop giving so much away and still make the seller happy. We have to build value and show him what he’s paying for.

4 - You don’t need a whole bunch of new people as much as you need to not lose the listings you now lose.

If you are going on 10 and only getting five, get more in touch with what the people want and take nine out of 10. People want a sense of control. Let’s let them have more say in the pricing and in the commission being charged. Don’t panic, I haven’t lost my mind. Here’s what I mean. I lead people to do what I want them to do, I don’t argue with them. For example, I think a house is worth $300,000 and the owners think it’s worth $325,000. I’ll take the listing but I’ll explain the timeline and remind them of what they said about when they wanted to get out and let them see that if we price it too high, we can get it but it won’t be for another year or so. Then let them choose the better price. I simply don’t argue. Same thing when it comes to my commission. They can choose. They also know what services they will be getting for the choice they make. It’s an awesome new concept in real estate. I can’t tell you about how it works in this short a space, but contact me and I’ll fill you in.

5 - Stop overcoming objections; don’t give them anything to object to.

Bobbi Boldon entered the real estate business in 1978. She has been a real estate instructor and has appeared at the TriplePlay Convention in New Jersey. You can contact her at Boldonspkr@aol.com or 303-766-7779 or visit her Web site at www.BobbiBoldon.com.