where they live, where they are employed, how long they have lived there, how many members live in their household, if they have children and how many, if they have grandchildren, the names of their family members as well as their ages, if they have pets as well as the type of pets they have and their pets name, where they attended college, do they like sports, what sports do they participate in, do they travel often, where do they go on vacation, and etc. As you can see you want to know everything about them so you can build on the relationship. Having this information will provide you many avenues for communication in the future which will relate to their personal interests. Having a real consultation will require some practice. I suggest you design scripts for every possible response you may possibly get so you will be prepared to handle various scenarios’. You need to master having this type conversation and mastery only comes only through practice. I would suggest that you role-play a call with a good friend or someone in your office. Practicing consultations will greatly improve your confidence level and widen your comfort zone so you don’t dread making calls.
Incorporate into this conversation personal things about yourself. You are not only getting to know them personally but you’re also allowing them to get to know something about you. Make sure you aren’t boastful. Keep it simple and about yourself personally. Conversations between two people will allow the other person to perceive your personality, professionalism, and trustworthiness. Be totally honest with them. Don’t tell them what you think they want to hear or they will do the same thing to you and you will have accomplished nothing.
Step Two
Now that you have gotten to know each other a little it’s time to find out what their needs and wants are. If you’re initial contact was made about a particular property, delay any communication about that property. Explain to them that you can help them find what they’re looking for and help them make an investment that best suits their needs, but you need to separate their needs from their wants. First find out their bare necessities. A good way of doing this is to form a mental picture of what they have right now. In most cases people will buy something that is comparable to what they are accustomed to. They may upgrade or downsize a little but the properties won’t vary much unless they just inherited a large amount of money. After I’ve learned of their needs, then ask about their wants or dream home. I also explain that having this information is going to save both of us valuable time and it will help me in finding a better financial investment for them. After gathering this information, I can explain that according to the information they have given me, the property they called about doesn’t meet their requirements and then state the reason; or that the subject property meets their basic needs and you should pursue further investigation.
Step Three
You should set up some type of drip campaign through your contact manager to touch these people no less than once monthly. It is very important that you keep your name in front of the prospect as often as possible. You don’t want them to forget who you are. If during the consultation you determined that they are serious about buying within the next few months, you should touch them in some form weekly. Drip campaigns are good for keeping your name before them but they don’t require a response. I find it better to send a short personalized email that directs a personal interest and stimulates a response from them. Anything you can do to establish consistent communication moves you one step closer to developing a real relationship. The difficult part of sending personalized emails is developing a system to remind you when to send a message. Once you have generated a large database of prospective clients, it becomes more difficult to manage personalized messages. Personally I set up reminders in my contact manager so the process can be repeated each month, week or the appropriate time to touch someone. It’s also good to enter them into your phone contacts so you can call them by name if they call you.
Step Four
You need to set it up in your contact manager, some type of reminder systeym to call them no less than once every 90 days. Set them up as an appointment that repeats itself every 90 days from now on. You understood me correctly. You should personally speak to them about something at least once every three months. You gathered plenty personal information about them during the consultation so you can find something of importance to them to discuss. Remember to always make your conversation personal to them. If you know things they are interested in, current events will provide an avenue to communicate with them. If all else fails, turn to the calendar. Every month has a special day, holiday, or some special event that you can use to let them know you were thinking about them. I especially like the fall of the year because most sports are in full swing. Football is universal across the country. Some family member has a favorite school or pro-team they follow. When their favorite team wins a game, call or email them a short congratulatory message. As you can see, maintaining your contact manager reminders can become very complex but the results of your efforts can be very rewarding.
Step Five
Establishing a system to effectively contact all the people in your database on a regular basis is most beneficial to producing a high level of income. Communication is the least expensive way to market you. It almost cost you nothing but time. Keep your communications short and to the point unless they want to talk longer but don’t let them eat up all your time. It doesn’t hurt to let them know that you are extremely busy but you wanted to take just a moment to contact them because you had them on your mind. Remember to always show a sincere interest in them; personally. If you can establish a true relationship with a prospect, each time you contact them, you are enhancing that relationship. You want to build on that relationship until you either retire or die. It’s a relationship for life.
Step Six
We’ve talked about establishing and enhancing a relationship, but we’ve talked very little about our purpose for wanting to have a relationship. It has been proven that people prefer to do business with people they have a relationship with. People they have gotten to know personally and have a sense of trust and respect for. Better yet, they are more likely to do business with a friend before they will with someone they have a relationship with. It is your goal to advance each relationship into a friendship role. You are probably wondering why go to so much trouble for someone who is only going to buy or sell real estate once every three to seven years or so. Let me explain why.
How many people do you know? A lot; Right? If you establish a relationship with a prospect, how many people do they and all their family members know? Each person in your database knows and comes in contact with a lot of people who are potential clients for you. With each relationship, you are multiplying your database exponentially. You simply reach your prospects friends through them by having a real conversation. Ask for referrals. For example; you have a property that is a very good financial investment. Call the people in your database and tell them you have a property that is an unusually good investment and that you value their opinion; you were wondering if they knew of anyone that might be interested in purchasing right now. People you have relationships with will send you more business than you ever dreamed if, you will only ask them. Referrals is the life-blood in real estate sales and its one thing that most real estate agents fail to ask for. I suppose they don’t ask because they have very few relationships. So many agents place more emphasis on making a sale than they spend on getting to know the people they are working with. That’s a big mistake. You won’t get referrals until you establish a real relationship and you won’t establish a true relationship until you have a meaningful conversation. Hopefully you can visualize this stair step for success. Becoming successful in real estate sales is as simple as developing the ability to communicate with people. The best advice I can give is to improve your communication skills. This can be done by reading books, taking classes, or searching for communication skills on the Internet.
Ask Your Questions
Should you have specific questions concerning various issues, please let me know and I’ll research the answer for you. I also want to encourage you to subscribe to our “News & Updates” weekly report so you can stay abreast of issues that might affect you when buying or selling real estate. If you haven’t visited my website, please go to www.AlabamaRealEstateInstitute.com and view previous articles.