People who are new to working as a realtor will quickly come to learn one thing. One of the most important moments you’re going to have early in your career is when you’re interviewing with homeowners looking for a realtor to help them sell their home. You’ll quickly realize that you need to put on a near-perfect performance if you’re going to secure their business. It’s not easy to do, but the good news is that you will almost certainly get better with it over time.
In the beginning, however, there’s a whole host of bumps in the road, and perhaps a few potholes too. Securing your first few clients is really empowering and an essential step towards building your real estate business, and when you have these types of opportunities you’re well advised to be bringing your very best. However, even digging up these opportunities can be a challenge. Here at Real Estate Leads, our online real estate lead generation system is an effective way to generate more of them for yourself.
So what we’re going to look at today is what you can do to maximize the chances of securing new clients by means of an excellent listing interview with them. We can start by emphasizing the truth of the fact that real estate agents market homes—they don’t ‘sell’ them. Instead, they sell themselves, and they should be asking questions of prospective clients as much as those clients will be doing the same.
Embracing this approach is front and center, and is very much a prerequisite for everything that’s to follow here.
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Determine What You Need to Learn in Advance
It’s important to have a fairly concrete idea of what you’ll be asking of prospective clients, and including in what order you’ll be asking these questions. Keep in mind as well that you should be rehearsing all of this in advance so you are NOT reference questions jotted down on a piece of paper. Needless to say, that will reflect badly on you. Here are standard questions, but note as well that they are not ‘in order’. You should be moving them up or down based on what you know of the sellers’ situation.
- Ask about the clients’ reasons and urgency for selling
- Get an idea of value and the approximate debt on their home
- How would the sellers describe their home’s condition? Even asking them to rate it on a scale of 1-5 is fine if they would rather not go into detail
- Ask to compare their homes with neighborhood competition
- Establish their requirements for a listing broker/agent
- Determine which marketing methods they think are most valuable and effective
- Inquire as to previous good and bad experiences they might have had with agents or brokers
- Ask what problems they might envision in selling their home
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Conducting the Interview
As mentioned, it is advisable to not be referencing your questions from a written list OR writing out the people’s responses in the same way. One approach that IS more acceptable if you’re not confident in your memory is to take an audio file of the discussion on your smartphone. Of course, you MUST inform them of your intention to record the conversation, but most people will have no problem with that. Once they agree, you simply begin recording and play your smartphone on the tabletop or somewhere similar where it can pick up the conversation well.
Approach it with the focus on you being the one who’s asking the questions, at least in the beginning. You SHOULD loosen up a bit and let them ask you questions, but in the beginning make sure it’s you who are leading the conversation that way.
Pair this with a solid understanding of what their home is worth based on current market values and you’re likely going to be getting off on the right foot.
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Be a Solution Provider
So far during the interview you will have not given the listing prospect any materials or made a presentation, asides from perhaps handing over your business card. The most helpful approach is to be formulating responses bases around which of your service capabilities are likely to be of most interest to them, based ongoingly on the response they have to your inquiries.
Your aim at this point should be to show them how you can resolve each of their problems. Try to address the most important or most troublesome issues first. Defer pricing (commission rate) to last if that’s going to be one of their consideration. Lay out how you’ll do the marketing they value, and show them other marketing approaches you’ll take that haven’t been specified or mentioned earlier in the interview.
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ASK for the Listing
This the most solid advice of all here. The best realtors ARE assertive, nearly all the time. They believe in themselves and they know they can meet and exceed the prospective clients’ expectations. They’re not hesitant to look them in the eye and ask if they’d be willing to list with them, and they ask with real conviction and self-belief in their voice. Further, they don’t hesitate to ask to discuss commission.
Of course, this assertion is only going to be effective if they preceding parts of the interview have been conducted well by you. It’s a sum of parts, but if you’ve led the way nicely then you can be very confident in assertively asking for them to list with you.
You’ll find that people are quite forthcoming with information when they’re asked for it, especially when you keep in mind that they have MUCH to gain or lose her with the sale of their home. You’ll probably also find that they appreciate it when the focus is addressing specific concerns instead of pushing services on them.
Sign up for Real Estate Leads here and receive a monthly quote of qualified, online-generated leads that are delivered exclusively to you. When you register with us, you’ll be able to choose a specific region of any city or town in Canada. Provided that region has not already been claimed, you’ll be able to claim it for yourself and from that point forward you – and only you – will receive the buyer and / or seller leads generated for that region.
If that sounds like a near sure fire way to get more out of your prospecting efforts, you’re that much closer to making a very smart decision when it comes to growing your real estate business!
