On average, real estate agents make $48,340 a year.
But you didn’t become a real estate agent to earn an average living, did you? You want something more.
The best agents strive to earn a six-figure salary, with unlimited growth opportunities. However, to make all of your income dreams come true, you’ll have to learn how to win over clients.
How can you secure more business and become a top earner? It all starts by impressing home sellers with an all-inclusive listing appointment.
What’s the secret to delivering a listing presentation that works? Read on to find out!
What Is a Listing Appointment?
If this is your first time selling a house, you might be wondering what precisely a listing presentation is? A listing appointment or presentation is the real estate agent’s one chance to make a great first impression on potential clients.
It’s a type of pitch that lets the client know that you’re the right person to hire. An effective listening presentation will be able to turn a home seller into a loyal client.
Agents who work with listings tend to have the best long-term success. If you want to create a decisive listing appointment, your main goal should be to build trust between yourself and the client.
When prospective clients feel like they can trust you with their most significant investment, you’ll be closer to striking a deal. Building trust in a listing appointment is easy if you know what you’re doing.
After you find sellers who are willing to meet with you, you’ll need to start the listing appointment preparation process. It begins with dressing to impress.
Always Dress Professionally
Dressing professionally will help establish yourself as an authority in the industry. It also helps rev you up psychologically.
When you dress like a professional, you’ll feel like a professional. If your prospective client doesn’t get a professional vibe from you, they’ll not want to do business with you. Clients are looking for real estate agents who can drive results.
Dressing professionally sends the message that you’re serious about your career. You’ll be letting the client know that you hold yourself and your work to the highest standards. You can check out this article if you need some inspiration for your professional wardrobe.
Put yourself in the client’s shoes; they’re looking for a real estate agent who has their best interest. If you have the client’s well-being as your number one priority, they will feel that during your listing appointment.
You’ll be able to communicate how you always follow through on your fiduciary duties and hold yourself to the highest levels of professionalism. You’ll be setting expectations just by investing in a quality outfit.
How to Prepare a Listing Presentation
Looking professional is a great start, but the right attire alone isn’t going to win your client over. You’ll also need to arm yourself with the right information. It all begins with figuring out how to prepare a listing presentation.
Information sells. The information you share between yourself and the client is a big part of making your listing appointment effective.
What type of information do you need to include in your presentation? You should be communicating exactly what type of value you can provide. Use hard numbers.
For instance, let the client know what a property profile would look like for their land’s top selling points. You can add data such as the property’s size, the property’s age, the exact number of bedrooms, and competitive market analysis.
By collecting a lot of data, you’ll be able to show the value that the listing can have on the market. It’ll also be a great way of demonstrating how much money they stand to make to home sellers. After all, everybody wants the best deal possible when selling their house.
Competitive Market Analysis Benefits
How can you make a competitive market analysis? The competitive market analysis is what’s going to show how much money similar houses are selling for. You get the numbers by collecting information on houses that have similar features to the property you want to sell.
If the information isn’t properly collected, it can be easy to skew the information of the competitive market analysis. Since you don’t want to give your client the wrong expectation, you’ll need to go above and beyond to collect accurate data.
Begin by learning the ins and outs of the house’s makeup. Reach out to a title representative and find out the exact square footage. From there, you can determine exactly how many bedrooms and bathrooms the house has.
Any other data you can find will be helpful. Use the MLS to locate similar houses in the area. Write down the sales prices for similar homes.
Once you have all of this information, you can start creating an accurate estimation of the client’s property. The property value will be one of the most powerful pieces of information.
The property value explains to the seller how much they can make. Encourage your potential clients to envision what life would be like if they had that much money.
Gauge Motivation and Pick a Price
How motivated is the home seller to sell their home? A seller’s motivation will let you know how to handle the listing sale. You can determine motivation by listening to their replies and reading body language.
By determining their motivation, you’ll be able to decide what type of goal you’ll be setting for yourself. For instance, is the client rushing to sell their home?
Focus on helping the seller move their home quickly. Instead of focusing on getting them the biggest cash payout, make speed your top priority.
If the client is an investor who wants to cash out, then the funds are going to work as a second earning. This type of client is going to want the most money possible from the sale.
You can determine your client’s motivation for selling by having an open-ended conversation with them. Top producing agents get to know their clients before working with them so that they can have all of the data to satisfy their wants and needs.
From there, it’s time to pick a price. The price determines how much money potential clients stand to make. It’s also going to be what determines how much money you, as the listing agent make.
Discuss Home Pricing Thoroughly
Since home pricing can be a touchy subject, it’s best to approach it delicately. Sometimes the seller is going to ask for a higher price than the home is actually worth. They might be hoping that by pricing their house higher, they’ll be able to make more money.
As an expert in the real estate industry, you’ll need to explain to sellers why a more realistic price might make sense. Pricing a home too high could mean that it sits on the market for a long time. Whereas creating realistic pricing means that the home will be able to move more quickly.
Be sure to share all of the convincing reasons you can come up with to let the seller know why you’ve chosen the price you chose. Consider the seller’s motivation and the data from the CMA when picking a price.
At the end of the day, you’ll have to follow your client’s wishes. If they’re not budging on the asking price, you can turn down the listing or give them what they want. Once you and the client agree on a price, have them sign a residential listing agreement.
A residential listing agreement is a type of official declaration. It’s a way of converting prospective clients into real clients. Effective residential listing agreement documents will clearly communicate the timeline and expectations for both parties involved.
How to Close a Real Estate Deal
Now let’s look at how to close a real estate deal by overcoming objections. Let’s say that you show up with all of the right data, and you’re dressed to impress.
However, after making a great first impression and wowing your prospects with your presentation, you still receive some objections. What should you do?
For starters, it helps if you familiarize yourself with all of the different common objections. Then you’ll be able to easily create a strategy to overcome them.
One of the top objections is that the home sellers found an agent who offered to list their home for less. It’s normal for clients to want to spend as little as possible. To overcome this objection, you’ll want to remind prospective clients about how your commission works.
Let them know that you’re not willing to cut your commission but that your fee is there for a reason. You give your clients a full service, and you want to make sure they have the best experience possible.
If they’d like to hire you as your agent, you’ll put your all into selling their home. You can also remind clients that they’ll get what they pay for.
If they find an agent who’s willing to cut their commission, it’s probably because they’re not going to be very involved in the home sale. Cheap agents probably don’t conduct thorough marketing, and they’re not likely to be as available.
Handling Customers Who Are Stalling
There are also going to be objections that include stalling. Stalling objections will usually happen when a home seller is at the beginning stage of the process. They might let you know that they’re trying to meet with a few agents before they make their decision.
Keep in mind, however, that these prospective clients liked you enough to meet you in person. There’s usually a hidden reason that’s causing them to stall. They might not be completely confident in what you can deliver, and that’s why you’ll need to ask open-ended questions.
Start asking questions such as what they’re looking for in an agent. Try to avoid questions that start with why since these might sound accusatory.
Instead, stick to what, where, when, and how will be your best bet. For instance, you could tell clients, “it sounds like you want to work with an agent that has your best interest in mind. How would you describe the perfect agent for you?” This type of question is non-confrontational. It’ll also help you get a wealth of information about the client’s needs.
Requests for Shorter Listing Agreements
Sometimes when clients are convinced of your qualities as a real estate agent, they want to push further to reassure themselves. In these cases, they might ask for a shorter listing agreement.
If a client asks for a short listing, simply repeat back to them what they’re asking for. “A shorter listing agreement is what you want?”. Then wait for their response and be ready to listen carefully.
Remind them that they want you to market their home to the best of your abilities. How would you be able to do this with the shortlisting agreement? Again, patiently wait for the prospect’s response.
Be sure to follow up with a friendly reply. You can let clients know that if they want a shorter listing agreement, you’ll be willing to do it. However, you won’t be able to provide them with your standard marketing plan. It wouldn’t be fair for you to invest the same amount of marketing funds into a listing that you’re only given a short amount of time to sell.
You could also let clients know that they could sign the standard listing time and change their minds down the road. If at any point they don’t feel that you’re the right fit, clients can cancel the listing at their leisure.
Get the Listings You Want
If you’re willing to do the research and present yourself in a professional manner, it’s easy to have a successful listing presentation. You’ll be able to quickly convert prospective clients into real-time customers.
Start gathering your listing data now. Be sure to complete a comparative market analysis and come up with a fair list price range. That way, you’ll be prepared to close and write a listing agreement after your presentation.
Do you need a few more winning tips? Check out the rest of our website for more success-based articles.