"Did you know?" the voice on the other end of the telephone asked.
"Who is this?" was my initial response, quickly followed by "Did I know what?"
That's how the conversation began this morning with a local real estate agent (Let's call him Bill) who is a member of the Charleston Real Estate Investor's Association.
"Did you know that the restaurant that our local real estate club meets at once a week, has just been listed on the Charleston MLS for $1,900,000?"
I could hear the frustration and intensity in "Bills" voice...so, I tried to choose my words carefully as I tried to recall something - anything from my thousands of hours of training in handling objections that could help me handle this call as gently and tactfully as possible, and all I could come up with was:
"Apparently you have some reason for asking that, may I ask what it is?"
Answering a question with a question, didn't that work for Tom Hopkins 20+ years ago?
Unfortunately, It didn't serve me well, because I spent the next 20 minutes, listening to "Bill" rant and rave about "How unfair it was" and "How this restaurant owner was so disloyal" to the 20-25 real estate agents who patronized his restaurant every week, for almost a year because the "ungrateful" restaurant owner didn't even consider one of our members to list his $1,900,000 property.
WOW!
A $1,900,000 listing that got away...
Seller not loyal...
Agitated, betrayed agent...
What would you say?
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