Has this ever happened to you? You procrastinated on preparing for a listing presentation. Then, you got super-busy right before the appointment, so you slapped together the CMA at the last minute.
Now, you’re glancing at the comparables at the stoplights on your way over. You’re not too worried because your best referral source recommended the clients, and it sounds like a slam-dunk.
You meet them and you make a good connection. You really like them! They’re smart, super-nice and attentive to your presentation. Not to mention they’ve got a great house.
Sure, you stumbled over a few questions. It wasn’t your best performance ever, but everything seems positive and they’re going to give you a call the next day.
On your way home, you feel a bit bad that you weren’t better prepared, but you’ll make it up to them by proving they made the right choice. You’re already looking forward to how you’re going to market a great listing.
You get the phone call: “I’m sorry, but we’ve decided to work with a different agent.”
Oof! That one hurt. Super-nice people, a great listing and worst of all, you feel like you’ve let down your best referral source.
Not to mention the $10,000 commission, down the drain.
Plus, what about all the lost future referrals you might have gotten from these new clients? You know darn well you lost the listing because you were over-confident and you didn’t prepare as thoroughly as you should have.
Hey, we’ve ALL done it. I’m no exception.
I can’t fix what’s already been done, but I can tell you how to ensure it never happens again.
Here it is: Treat every appointment like it’s worth $100,000.
Think of your listing appointments as a game of chance. One out of every 10 is going to be worth $100,000. It might be the million-dollar listing, or it might be the tiny apartment condo. The odds are exactly the same.
I’ve personally sold tiny, low-commission properties that turned into total commissions of way more than $100,000. How? Because of the string of referrals that started with me doing a great listing presentation for a young couple, and then delivering a fantastic result on the sale of their simple, inexpensive condo apartment.
Over the years, I got referrals from them, their parents and then an explosion of referrals from referrals.
You never know where a string of referrals is going to originate. If you prepare for every listing appointment like it’s worth $100,000, you will earn an extra $100,000 quicker than you think.
But it’s not only your attitude. You need better skills, too. Work on them both!
If you need any further convincing, think about this: That one lost commission could have been the BIG one. Don’t let it happen again.
After Ted Greenhough’s first year as a Realtor, he earned between $590,000-$865,000 every year for 12 consecutive years, all as an individual agent, without ever once making a cold call, reciting a canned script or doing any other “salesy” stuff. Now he runs Agent Skills, an online learning program for agents across North America.
