“What do you mean you want to think about it? I spent time on the phone evaluating your needs. I took those needs and customized a plan around them. I showed you how you are part of our team and how being a team member will help you accomplish your goals. Then I showed you all of the systems and strategies that we will implement to minimize time while maximizing the net. Yet you want to think about it?”
Of course, that is what I would like to say; however, knowing that I just made the best competitive listing presentation in my region, I have to find out what objections I am facing. Before we cover the remaining possible objections, there is something that you need to understand – NOT ALL SELLERS ARE SELLERS!
You see, the sellers sitting before you might have received news this morning that their reason for moving has disappeared. Maybe your seller has had a life-changing event in the days prior to your listing presentation. Maybe your seller now has no need to sell but is too embarrassed to tell you that because of your time involved thus far. Maybe your seller is just crazy or lonely. Sellers with an attractive property that attracts buyers could be something that they pull out from time to time in order to connect to other humans. Maybe the seller just absolutely does not like you. Maybe you remind them of the high school bully who beat them up.
There are just some listings that you will not get. Rather than beating yourself up regarding the reasons, all I can suggest is that you do everything possible to find out what the problem is and try to overcome it. If the objection cannot be determined or overcome, you can ease all of your pain by being able to truly say “I gave it my best!”
Another item that I want you to remember is you do not want all listings. About thirty years ago, I saw Tom Hopkins. He said something that I had not heard of up until then, “Real pros turn down two out of five listings.” I think that is probably a little ambitious, but I do believe that 20 percent of all listings are low-percentage closes.
It’s simple – in good markets, you can work with higher prices and less-motivated sellers; in stagnate or depressed markets, the seller has to have a motivation in order to compete against the other eager sellers listing properties around them. There are mitigating factors; however, sometimes there just is not a compelling reason to list the property.
Now that you are aware that not all sellers are sellers and that you may not want the listing, it is incumbent upon you to find out your client’s final objections and overcome them. Let us revisit the comment — “We need to think about it.”
I never understood what this objection meant, especially because all the decision-makers were present, and the person who had the rest of the information needed to help make a decision (me!) was sitting right in front of them. The only thing that you can rightly conclude from that statement is that there is an item or are items that are preventing the sellers from feeling comfortable about you marketing their property. Of the numerous responses to this comment, I am the most comfortable with the following:
“I understand. So that I am able to address your concerns through mail or E-mail, what needs do you have that I am not yet aware of?”
This allows you, in a less sales-charged environment, to determine from the client what their additional concerns are. Because you offered to mail or E-mail further information, they are thinking that they can voice their concerns and then leave without having to make a decision. Obviously, this is not our goal.
Don’t forget that the only goal of a phone conversation is to get an appointment. The only goal at the appointment is to get the listing. Our goal is to walk away from this appointment with a signed listing agreement, and you cannot do that without knowing their challenges and overcoming them. I will spend as much time as possible requesting that the sellers give me additional information so I can present evidence to help them make a decision while I am still with them.
A sellers’ hesitancy in disclosing their objections will prevent you from helping them. By expressing the necessity of understanding the sellers’ needs in order to do a better job in the days, weeks, and months to come, the sellers will at some point disclose their objection, and then you can overcome it and close.
We’ll pick up with the rest of this series tomorrow (and the following days). So be sure to come back as we address more specifics of “We Need to Think About It.”
Be the best at obtaining and selling your listings! Walter’s Beating the Competition Every Time is a multi-media system offering what you need to get the signature.
Check out the details here: http://www.waltersanford.com/shop/beating-the-competition-every-time-book-dvds-audio-cd-and-data-cd/. Call 800.792.5837 and ask for the $50 blog special on this system!
