I am sure that every last one of us in the real estate industry has experienced the following scenario: You're on the way out the door and your phone rings. You figure you have a couple of seconds to handle the call and then you're out the door. The caller,who lives in a remote area, is asking that you come and take a look at their home to list. Against your instincts you agree and set the appointment. You're out the door and a day later you prepare for the long drive out to a home that you have had little time to investigate.
On arrival, you get the cold sweats, your heart starts to beat and you become enraged that you took your time to drive all the way out to a place that rarely gets a call, let alone a showing! You greet the owner, they show you their home, which incidentally is the best home on the market (in their eyes), and all the while you're asking yourself, "Why am I here!?".
This is a scenario that one of my newer agents painfully described to me yesterday. As I listened to the all too familiar story I began to think of ways that I could teach her to avoid this unpleasant situation in the future. I began by asking about the initial inquiry and apparently it was a referral from another client. She assumed that, because it was a referral, the home would likely be on par with the client that referred her. As she continued, I asked her, "did you use your script?", and the reply was, "no, I didn't have time". Now she found herself in the uncomfortable position of contacting the client and explaining all the things that she could have covered in her missed interview opportunity. By rushing to make a listing appointment, she forgot the basics!
Scripts are designed to help us. They help us uncover basic facts about a property and most importantly, seller motivation. It would have been better for her to explain that she was pressed for time on the initial call and that she would return the call to the prospective client when she had time: time to collect her thoughts and run the script.
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