It's important for any real estate professional to predictably handle different situations that arise with prospects and clients. When they ask a question, it's good to be able to predict what is going to come out of our mouths - and to make sure it is appropriate.
This is what scripts are for.
As a newbie agent, I took a Tom Hopkins seminar and he spent a lot of time on scripts, insisting that his were magic, and he left the impression that if we changed any of the wording in any way, they wouldn't work. (And to learn them, you could buy his tapes.)
The next weekend, I was at another agent's Open House. She was clearly a Hopkins devotee. She was spouting his scripts word-for-word, sometimes appropriate, other times not. And it set my teeth on edge to listen to her interact with the prospects coming through, as well as observing their reactions.
And I knew that using these scripts, or anyone else's, wouldn't work for me. But the idea of knowing what to say for any occasion was important, and I worked out a lot of scripts that were my own.
They didn't sound fake.
They didn't sound like I was trying to sell or manipulate people by getting one word "yes" answers to questions that would not likely elicit a "no" response.
They were mostly about asking questions that would help me do a better job of getting their vision of what they wanted in a home.
For those of you old enough to remember the Hopkins approach, there were some elements of his scripts that I used. I called contracts "paperwork" unless the clients were attorneys. The answer to the old how's-real-estate question was often Hopkin's "Just unbelievable!" That always pretty much covered it - still does!. And over the years, I've borrowed a few scripts from other trainers.
But most of the actual scripts were and still are my own. They work for me.
Handling objections can drive clients nuts if you aren't listening carefully enough and aren't nuanced about your response. Are they saying they hate the place so let's get out of here NOW? Or do they like it except for some small non-disqualifying issue? And when they want to sleep on it, or they ask you what kind of people live in the neighborhood, you need to be prepared!
So bottom line? Develop your own scripts. It's OK to borrow from trainers and colleagues as long as whatever you are saying sounds like you and not one of those dolls with a disk inside that predictably replies to your child's question.
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