Debbie De Grote's Expired Listing Secrets

I hope everyone is taking advantage of the great webinars from Debbie De Grote (some with Gino Blefari) and adding new tools and skills to help grow your business. I wanted to share the follow up from one of Debbie’s recent webinars with some great insights into adding expireds as a lead source for your business:

I wonder if you have noticed more expired listings popping up.  It’s interesting that in some markets, even though inventory is a bit on the low side, listings are still expiring. I was talking with one of our great coaching clients yesterday and we were discussing the fact that even if you contacted only 5 expireds a day in any given market that would be at least 100 per month.

If you connected with even 10% of these, I would imagine you could add at least one listing a month, don’t you think?  One additional listing and listing sold per month is never a bad thing.

As you read this, maybe you are all over the expired listings. If so, good for you!

I thought I could share with you in this email a few of my expired scripts that may help you get an even better result from your calls and visits. If you are not working expired listings, I would like to encourage you to do so. Why?

Because we know that they wanted to sell, we know they were motivated enough to put it on the market, and we know what they were asking and how the market responded to it. This makes them a pretty hot target, don’t you think?

I know that they are not easy to get a hold of. I also know that sometimes they are mad and difficult to deal with. I know this because of all the conversations I have daily. I know this because my husband and daughters are in real estate and face the same challenges working expireds as you do.

I also know how valuable they are because when I was actively selling I worked them diligently!  One month I listed 30!  Okay, here is the disclaimer: fixed rates at the time were 18% and it was tough to sell them, so I think no one else wanted them. I did eventually get most of them sold.

What was my secret to success with expireds?  It actually is quite simple; I got in front of them.  It would be perfect if we could get them all on the phone and close them on the spot for a qualified listing appointment.  However, we know that often this just won’t happen.

Let me share what one great husband and wife team shared that they are doing to win the expireds they win in their higher-end east coast market; it’s classic! First of all, they have narrowed down their territory to the areas they really are excited about working and the areas where they can get to easily, that are right in their usual path of travel.

They pull the expireds from home early in the morning, and then call those that they can to attempt to book an appointment. They start calling at 7:30. Those that they could not reach, they split up the packets depending on who is going to be where that day.  And then they simply stop and knock on the door, and they go back until they catch the owner at home.

They try in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening on their way home. They try Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon.  They hunt them down! Because they don’t have many in their market, and they have narrowed their territory, it makes it easy for them to focus on the few very hot ones that they really, really want.

Once they get in the door, they make it all about the seller’s motivation. They help the seller decide why the property didn’t sell and they present a powerful and positive plan to sell it and sign them up. You see, it’s not much different than what I did years ago as I worked them. They are just people, they need your help, and they are 50% nicer in person than on the phone.

Remember, your goal is to get in front of them, so stop trying to handle all the objections over the phone. And yes, you can mail them something, however I have noticed that in most markets too many agents mail, so your piece gets buried in the pile.  This doesn’t apply to every market, test it if you want, and yet that doesn’t make it any less important to get in front of them!

Great thoughts from a wonderful source of knowledge and skills to build your business! Be sure to check out the regular webinars from Debbie and her Excelleum  website: http://excelleum.com/

David M. Hassler

VP, Professional Development

Keep Those Cards Going Out!

As we start our 6th Peak Producers class, I wanted to again share some more of Brian Buffini’s approach to developing and maintaining a steady level of activity and revenue and avoiding the extreme peaks and valleys that come with the traditional approach to the business.

One of Brian’s keys to achieving that steady level of business is consistent, personal contact with our “database,” his term for that well maintained list including our clients, sphere of influence, contractors, friends, and family. He says, “Writing personal notes is the most powerful and least expensive way to grow your business!” Here are the Top 6 reasons for us to write personal notes:

1. Personal notes leave a positive, lasting impact.

2. They help you build a database of high quality relationships.

3. They deepen your personal and professional relationships.

4. Personal notes show you care enough to invest your time and make you a more likely candidate to receive referrals.

5. They can make someone’s day and they make you stand out from the competition.

And here are some tips for the Who and the When to write a note:

Write notes to:

•       Your clients—active and inactive (I don’t like to call any of them “past!”)

•       Family and friends

•       Your personal service providers; doctor, painter, landscaper, accountant

•       Lenders and title agents you do business with

•       Business owners you respect

•       Someone you’d like to meet

Write notes when:

•       To follow up a mailing, phone call, pop by, or a meeting

•       After you’ve received a referral (Remember to reward the behavior not the result!)

•       When someone does something that you appreciate or after you have received excellent service

•       Before, during, and after a transaction

•       To re-establish contact

•       To simply make someone’s day.

The bottom line is that personal, handwritten notes, with only a sentence or two, DO make us take notice when we receive them, so including writing personal notes as part of your daily rainmaking activities is sure to help you build and maintain relationships and earn more referrals on a proactive basis.

Now go fill up that trusty fountain pen and polish up your cursive!

David M. Hassler

VP, Professional Development

Five Keys to Your Strongest Year Yet: 2017!

Four years ago, we launched the Coach’s Playbook and our updated training programs under our new LEAP Training Systems banner, including the Peak Producers training and our Wednesday Wake Up and Tech Savvy Thursday training sessions live and via Go to Meeting to offer everyone the opportunity for that “kaizen” or continuous improvement in your business that Gino Blefari, CEO of our parent organization, HSF, speaks and blogs about regularly. 

So, now that football season and the World Series have started in earnest, it’s time to start thinking about 2017! Of course, it’s an undeniable truth in our business that transaction activity will typically be slowing down over the next couple of chilly months, so how do we continue to make the most productive use of our time to make our business profitable? That means it’s time to again remember those FIVE KEYS TO SUCCESS! Your management and coaching teams are available to help you do the planning and preparation you need to kick off 2017 at full speed and make it your best year yet.

First, you’ll want to MASTER YOUR STATS. You can use that information as the basis for planning your action for 2017; then hopefully you’ll find a stat that allows you to differentiate yourself in your market; and finally you may note an area you can focus on for improvement. We recommend looking not just at your sales volume or gross commissions, but digging into your average side price, your average days-on-market, and your average commission percentage rate, with a goal to average at least 3.0%!

Once you’ve captured your stats, you can CREATE YOUR ROADMAP, a detailed business plan with an updated mission statement, target market, cash flow budget, and marketing plan. The ideal plan will break things down to show you THE ACTIVITIES YOU NEED TO DO EACH WEEK to build your business for the long term based on repeat and referral business. Remember, people with written plans—and who track their progress regularly—in any endeavor, are many times more successful than those who have no plan or tap their head and say “It’s all up here!” Your management and coaching teams will be there to help you through this process between now and the end of the year.

Also, you can spend some of the cool season MASTERING YOUR PROCESS and making sure all your technology tools, your CRM lists, and your presentations, service delivery, and negotiation approach are all in fine tuned working order and up to date. Our regular training on systems and business skills are a great opportunity for you to add more arrows to your quiver!

And—most fun of all—you can PERSONALIZE YOUR TOUCHES by contacting all those friends, clients (remember, there’s no such thing as a “past” client, they’re either active or inactive!) and potential clients to spend some of that face to face time at the top of the pyramid of the 7 Levels of Communication to build your referral based business. Don’t forget that wonderful “What can I do to help you and your business” conversation opener!

Finally you can make the habit to PRACTICE ACCOUNTABILITY by completing your business plan and implementing an agenda to keep you on track DAILY so you can make 2017 your strongest year ever!

David M. Hassler

VP, Professional Development

4 Steps to Excellent Customer Service

Excellent Customer Service is the heart of our real estate business and the key to long term success based on referrals and repeat business. Everybody knows that! The question often comes down to the specific how’s of serving those sometimes difficult clients. A recent article from Inman News gives us “4 Steps to Customer Service that Never Let’s Clients Down” and it’s worth a read!

Let’s face it. Dealing with clients is challenging.

Homebuyers are emotional. They see a bedroom painted red and can’t move past the color of an otherwise perfect home. Homesellers are too rational. They need you to elaborate every bit of minutiae in your marketing plans to justify a price decrease.

So how do you provide these two very different groups of people with high-class customer service? It starts with what’s in your heart and what’s in your soul. Here are four ways real estate agents provide better customer Service to both homebuyers and sellers — 100 percent of the time.

It starts with you

To provide great customer service, you first have to want to provide great customer service. Everyone can spot a phony. Clients know when you’re just babbling a bunch of bull.

If you aren’t dedicated to delivering exceptional customer service all of the time in everything you do to everyone you encounter in your real estate career, you won’t have it in your heart and soul to give great customer service. You need to eat, breathe and sleep customer service around the clock.

Exceed, don’t just meet, expectations

Customer service isn’t something you do to meet your client’s expectations. Any average Joe can meet the needs of a client. People who want to give great customer service strive every single time to exceed their client’s expectations. Going above and beyond is the only way to remain relevant to your clients.

If you are working with homebuyers who like craft beer, don’t just show them on a map how close the nearest brewery is to the house. Drive them past the brewery on the way to the showing, then provide them with a growler of the spot’s signature brew when you arrive.

Be mindful — it always wins

Customer service is intentional. You have to be mindful because everything you say has an impact on the people you interact with. When a potential client asks you to do something for him or her, don’t say things like “no problem” or “don’t worry about it.” Elevate your customer service game by saying things like “my pleasure” and “I would be happy to take care of that for you.”

Do it all the time

Great customer service isn’t something you can do just some of the time, most of the time or nearly all of the time. You have to give great customer service all of the time. Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, brings up this point about customer service: It is easier to do things 100 percent of the time than it is to do things 99 percent of the time.

What he meant by this expression is that not giving your best every time is an easy trap to fall into. And if you don’t deliver your best just once, it’s easier to let quality slip again and again.

Thanks, Inman News, for some great tips to keep in mind to make sure we’re delivering our promise of excellent customer service.

David M. Hassler

VP, Professional Development