When any of my agents go on a listing presentation, about 85% of their presentation is pre-planned.  They know the maximum price they'll take the listing (before turning it down), they know the terms they expect to get on the contract, the likely sales time frame, and what commission they expect to earn (usually 7%).  If you follow these simple steps, you will increase your listing conversion rate and outpace your competition.

 Here are my stats for my agents using these techniques.

• We list 86.4% of the appointments we go on, and we hand pick our appointments.
• At approximately 10% of our appointments, we turn down the listing because the sellers were unreasonable or the house was no good.
• The remaining sellers opt to list their homes with someone else.  When questioned, most of them were listing with friends and we are unfortunately the guinea pig used to confirm statements made by the agent-friend. (Which troubles me that they are listing with people the don't trust to begin with.  Oh well.)

1.  Develop a philosophy about how to conduct your listings.  Here's mine:  

Before you begin your presentation you should have previewed the entire house, and you should already know your sellers main objections (there are only a few) and their hot buttons (infinite variety).  If you know this information in advance and know how to use it, you'll be the best listing agent in your company in a matter of weeks.  In addition, you should have already set your limits for your listing price, terms, and commission.

2.  Prep your sellers with a Seller's Concerns survey

You can do this with email, over the phone, or in a mailer.  We often hand deliver a small pre-listing packet IN PERSON that includes some general tips for sellers, a copy of our listing agreement so they could highlight their questions for us, a Seller Concerns Survey, and a brief agent bio.  We happened to use a two pocket folder customized with our company logo and we add a professional lable under our logo with the name of our clients and their address.  This survey is designed to flush out objections in advance (you can simply peruse it before you begin your presentation) and you can tailor your presentation to focus on those concerns and eliminate the objection before it occurs.  I'll send you a free copy of the survey we use when you subscribe to this blog and send me an email at eric.lowery@era.com to let me know you've signed up!

3.  The beginning of your presentation (after previewing the house) should be all about the seller's concerns and goals

In addition to the Seller's Concern survey, we have a similarly styled document that we use to outline the seller's goals, and then we discuss an action plan for making their goals a reality.  We phyiscally write down both the goals and the action plan as the sellers speak.  We ask them to tell us what they think should be done to market the house, and we only interject to explain how we would accomplish what they were desiring.  The Survey and Goal sheet would then go into my listing folder so that I could refer back to it when I would make follow up calls to my clients.  Again, I'll send you a copy of this goal sheet when you subscribe to this blog and send me an email at eric.lowery@era.com to let me know you've signed up!

4.  Be super organized, neatly dressed, and always professional

We use a simple 2 divider folder (6 sets of tabs) and it is the only thing we bring on our listing presentations other than a good blue pen.  No laptops, no bulky unorganized briefcases - just sharp, clean paperwork.  Our folder is packed full of every document that we  need to finalize the listing - listing paperwork, satellite photos, tax records, notes from previous conversations, the survey, the goal sheet, and any listing addendums we've created - anything that is non-negotiable to us is pre-filled.  Some things, like the satellite photo, are simply filler for the homeowners to see when we are flipping through documents in the folder.  Basically,  when we are in front of the client, we never have to fumble around to find anything.  There are no computer glitches, missing papers, fumbling around...nothing.  The only thing you'll find is a smooth presentation that is entirely focused on our seller.  The end result is no matter how many times they've sold property, or how many agents they'd interviewed before me, We're going to be the absolute most professional agent they've met.  And we are determined to be just that.

5.  If the words you're speaking are about you, you're throwing away your effort

Listing someone's home is NOT about you.  I repeat, it is not, not, not, not, not about you!  An occasional rapport building might be necessary when you express similar interets, etc., but in your general conversations with prospects you should be saying "you"  10 times more than you say "I."  In addition, your prospects should do most of the talking.  Your presentation should be about 65-70% listenting.  When you do this, your prospects will feel that you're on their side, you care (which you should), and you're not a sales hungry, greedy salesperson.

BONUS TIP: Get your listings at 7% by up-selling the co-op and giving your clients options

If you really want to get that 7% listing, up-sell the co-op to 4%.  It will show that you're not so greedy that you're just trying to take a higher cut when you close.  Also, don't talk about the commission as a whole.  Instead break it down into the two sides.  Tell them that you work for three percent and they have the option to offer whatever co-op they like.  Stress that they should offer at least the average co-op (usually 3% or so) if they want sufficient agents to show the house.  This forces the client to make the final decision on the commission rate based on their true motivation, not their fear of over paying their agent.