This video is from the Keller Williams 2018 Breakout Session: Effective Lead Generation that Converts presented By: Jackie Kravitz. What a power-packed valuable session this was and I was happy to be personally present. We took away some incredible scripts.
50% of new expired listings relist in 48 hours; 80% of FSBOs list the property in three weeks.
Learn how to build your own systems and scripts to maximize your incoming leads to their full potential, as well as convert leads into appointments.
TRANSCRIPT
There are so many companies selling leads and buyer leads. Just take listings, and you’re going to have more buyers than you know what to do with it.
Part 1: FSBOs and Expired Listings (Jackie Kravitz)
For sale by owner and expired listings are always available in every market. You are from all different parts of the U.S. and Canada, and it doesn’t matter what market you’re in FSBOs and expired listings are always available in every market. If you’re working in a hot market with very little inventory, you’re going to have more for sale by owners. If you’re working in a buyer’s market, you’ll have more expired listings. When I got a real estate license, I worked in both types of markets, and you may have more of one, more of the other. They’re available everywhere. So, you can consistently generate listings.
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And one thing that you want to think about when you look at FSBOs and expired listings; the mindset is critical. You know, if you’ve taken both before, you know that 90% of success is up here in your mind. Yeah. And so, maybe you’re sitting here thinking, “Well, you know, there … there not that many expired listings in my market, or we don’t have a lot of For Sale by Owners.” FSBOs and expired listings, the ones that are coming out in your market every day, they’re going. The stats I gave you early, 50% of new expired listings relist in 48 hours; 80% of FSBOs list the property in three weeks. That is going to happen whether you believe it’s going to happen or not. Do you understand that?
That’s why mindset is everything. If you’re saying to yourself, “Well, they’re hard to talk to,” “I’m not able to set appointments,” they’re going to list with another agent. It’s going to happen. So, take advantage of the opportunities you have.
Just write down a couple of ideas on critical skills to be a great salesperson. When you hear an objection, the first step in being able to overcome that objection are your listening skills. So, make sure that you listen intently to what they say, and the best way to actually be able to close for an appointment is that’s the great questions that are going to lead to an appointment.
So, if we have an opportunity towards the end, we could do a little bit of role-playing, and can give you some examples of the questions you can ask that lead to one appointment. Did you want to add something?
Richard Shulman: Yeah, so exactly what you’re saying. There’s another expression in training is that questions control the conversation, that go home or have a conversation with anyone, and if you continue to ask questions, two things happen. One, you’re controlling where the conversation’s going. The idea of scripting is that I’m going to meet you here, right? We start at the beginning, and I want to get to here, “Here is an appointment,” and I have to take you along this path.
It’s a very automatic road we’re traveling on, and that path leads to questions, right? I’m going to want to know more about what’s interesting to you. Why didn’t your home sell last time? What do you think caused that problem? That will allow me to get to a close based on that information. I won’t spoil the close. We’ll have Jackie do it later, but something solving all the problems that I discovered along the way will allow me to say, “I have a solution for your problem. Do you want to meet with me?” Right?
Questions control the conversation, and then I add in here the ear-to-mouth ratio, very simple way to remember. The other key thing that happens here with questions is that if you go and speak to someone, try this after the class. Go. Go grab someone from here. Just ask them questions for five minutes straight. They will feel great about themselves, right? There’s nothing better than talking about yourself and having someone interested or at least pretending to be interesting in what you’re saying. By doing that, not only are you controlling the conversation, you’re building?
Jackie Kravitz: Rapport.
Richard Shulman: Rapport. The best thing I ever learned from listening presentations, which is not even this class, was that rapport building was the most important thing, that people hire people they like.
Rapport building was the most important thing, that people hire people they like.
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah, absolutely. Asking questions is critical, yes. You were all at the state of your company this morning, yeah? Was that amazing? Even if you haven’t taken Bold, John called Diana up to the stage. Diana is the author of “Bold.” One thing she is always talking to the coaches about is the person who asked the questions controls the conversation. Think about that relationship of who’s asking the questions, you or your prospects or your clients. You should be the one asking questions because you can direct it. This one’s yours.
Richard Shulman: Okay. What I try to look at in scripting, what I want you to understand, is that there’s a lot of scripts you can memorize. We’re going to give you some. Jackie will give you more scripts than you can ever possibly learn, and long as I finish this by 2:15 or 2:45 or something.
The point is that I want you to also understand that there is a way to think about scripting that will allow you to answer objections that you’ve never heard before. And so, in general, the pattern of responding to an objection, now, first of all, you want to pre-handle objections as much as possible. That’s a whole other idea, but if you have an objection, you want to handle it with the format: agree, handle, and question.
If you have an objection, you want to handle it with the format: agree, handle, and question.
If the question is, “I’m looking for a discount in commission,” I would say, “Great. I understand.” I would then want to give them some type of handle, which would be something about, “I provide a really high-value service to you,” and then I want to end with a question. “If I can show how that marketing plan will generate more money for you on your sale, do you think you would hire me?” I’m agreeing with it, what they say. I validate what they say. I’m then providing a handle. The handle is going to be some answer to their question. It’s very brief and concise. The more that you dwell on an objection, the more that it validates them.
Using the commission example, just as a simple one that we’ve all experienced. Most people, when they ask a commission objection, are not looking to dwell on that objection. They’re looking for you to just tell them the answer, and then move along.
Another way to handle it would be just to move on to something that’s highly different and instead of saying, “If I showed you that way to get more money for your home, would you hire?” You could even go with something along the lines of, “Could I show you more about my marketing plan?” Just completely change the topic of the conversation.
When you’re looking at handling an objection, don’t just memorize the scripts. You have to memorize them. Don’t just memorize them. Learn the pattern of what you’re saying so that you can answer that next objection that you never heard before because I’ve done this for 14 years, and I had probably 100,000 phone calls from potential buyers and sellers, and every day I get an objection that I’ve never heard before or it’s phrased in a way I’ve never heard before, or it’s in a different situation than I’ve ever heard before. Work with that, and that will change the outcome of what you’re doing.
Jackie Kravitz: All right. Write this down. When it comes to FSBOs and expired listings, I would imagine you would agree with a lot of this, no matter who you’re talking to. In order to be a great closer and set appointments with these FSBOs and expired listings, you’ve got to have the mindset of not buying to the objections you here. Would you agree? Most of you raised your hands when I asked if you have ever called a FSBO or an expired.
When you first call, within the first 30 seconds or 60 seconds of the call, what you’re going to hear is, “I’m not selling anymore. I have a friend in real estate. I don’t want to pay a commission. I can tell it myself.” You’re going to hear one of those objections from them very early on the script. Yeah?
I think the biggest challenge that agents have is we believe whatever it is they say, whatever the objection is, and it takes away all the way. You leave this class today or this session today and you’re really excited. “Okay. I’m going to call it.” The minute you hear, “Oh, I don’t want to pay a commission,” you’re like, “Oh, I thought it was going to be easier than that.” Be right. Be expecting to hear these objections. It’s just a small screen.
What you see up there is you’ve got to be relentless, bold and aggressive. Aggressive doesn’t mean being pushy, okay, because I would imagine none of you want to come across as pushy. How I view aggressive is having the mindset and the belief that hiring you is the best business decision they can make, and you’re not going to allow them to make the mistake of not hiring you. Yeah, you’re going to be aggressive in conveying to them that hiring you is going to be of benefit to them, and really is coming from contribution. It’s not even about you. It’s about them. Okay. Yes?
Richard Shulman: When people want an aggressive, I think-
Jackie Kravitz: I hundred percent believe that. Think about a motivated seller. A motivated seller is someone who has to tell their house or really wants to sell the house. Do you not think they want someone who’s aggressive? They don’t want a wishy-washy agent, for sure, yeah.
Richard Shulman: They’re interviewing you, and if you give up easily, they validated their decision.
Jackie Kravitz: Absolutely.
Richard Shulman: The more you push in a constructive way with good scripts, the better the outcomes is going to be.
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah, so don’t take no for an answer when a yes is still possible. How many times have you talked to anyone over the phone, and you hung up, the call ended, and you knew that maybe if I knew how to handle whatever. There was a way. You knew that you weren’t able to overcome it and somebody else might call right after and be able to get that appointment. Actually in “Bold,” Diana teaches us that 80% of the time or 80% of the yeses you’ll get come after asking five times. Think about that. How often are you asking one, two, three times, then letting it go?
80% of the time or 80% of the yeses you’ll get come after asking five times. Think about that. How often are you asking one, two, three times, then letting it go?
The most important correlate of word lead generation is next, yeah, because even you’ve got to. This is the challenge, too, that we have sometimes. You go through, and it used to happen to me, also, when I was selling real estate. You talked to ten FSBOs and expireds that hang up, say no, they’re rude. It starts messing with your head, yeah? You start to doubt that you could actually set an appointment, and you’ve got to have that belief that the next call you’re making is going to be that qualified appointment that you can list right now because otherwise, we give up on ourselves, actually. Motivated sellers definitely are looking for an aggressive agent. That’s what they’re looking for, so give them what they want. Okay.
Richard talked about this already. Never disagree with them. In “Bold,” we teach that everybody wants to look good and be right. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Jackie Kravitz: Do you like being wrong? Do you like somebody to say, “Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. I completely understand” Everybody wants to look good and be right, and the challenge is that. This is why the repeat and approve the agreement. Even if you’re not able to look great, you could always acknowledge that what they’re saying is valid because you may not agree, and you could always say, “I completely understand where you’re coming from.” Is that fair? Yeah, and I could. I can see why you may think that hiring a discount agent would benefit you financially.
And so, always, always repeat and approve because until you do, until they feel like you understand them, you won’t have the ability to influence them. You know why? Because without repeating and approving, if they give you an objection and you just jump to handle that objection without them feeling validated, in their minds they’re just waiting for you to be done, or sometimes they’ll interrupt you, and you do another one or the same one. It’s going to keep coming back at you until they feel like, “Okay, you’ve heard me. You think I’m right or you understand what I’m saying, so you are not going to be able to influence them without that, okay, and you end up actually. You could end up in an argument with them.
Watch our energy and enthusiasm. Logic makes them think, emotion makes them act. That’s actually a “Bold” lock. From this thought here, I want you to take away one thing. If you put an agent right here that is full of energy and enthusiasm, and know nothing about scripts, how to handle objections, all they are is super excited, okay, about what they are doing. They’re passionate. They’re enthusiastic, and there is another one here that is a master of scripts, and it’s totally dead, no energy whatsoever. Okay? They both present to the same buyer or seller. My belief is the highly energetic and enthusiastic one will win every time, okay?
Richard Shulman: What does “Bold” say? What percentage of communication is nonverbal?
Jackie Kravitz: 93%, yeah, 7% from the words and 93% is your tonality and body language.
7% from the words and 93% is your tonality and body language.
Hey, the advantage you have with this, even if you have no clue what to so, this excitement and energy and passion, it’s within every single one of you. You could bring it out, and it’s going to cover up when you have no idea what to say. All right? Yeah.
Richard Shulman: Yeah. This is one of the biggest things when we watch new agents on the phones or scripting. We see them, and the number one problem we see is this right here. What are the solutions, go back to the previous slide.
Jackie Kravitz: Oh, yes. Sorry. Yeah, there you go.
Richard Shulman: She’s in control of the clicker.
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah, I know
Richard Shulman: Wait. We just. You’re better at it than me. Some of the simple things, I would say you’re having trouble with the conversion.
Jackie Kravitz: Take off my shoes. I like that, yes.
Richard Shulman: I take off my shoes.
Jackie Kravitz: Oh, yeah.
Richard Shulman: Oh, yeah. I can’t leave my shoes, and I can’t leave the office with my shoes on, but in the office, shoes off. I have a standup desk, and I’m on the phone. When I do my calls, I am standing up. I am energized. Standing up is the simplest thing you can do. If you have a conversion problem, I would say start just standing up when you make the call because when you stand up, your volume goes up a lot, right? We’re standing up. You’re an example right now. You’re standing up. You’re pacing around the room, and you’re bringing a kind of energy, and that’s that person you’re describing, the kind of energy and enthusiasm that’s selling to the person.
Jackie Kravitz: Yes, absolutely. Oops-
Richard Shulman: Now we have the clicker.
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah, right. Yeah, you take the clicker. Okay. Hang on, guys. I have no idea what button I … Okay, there you go. Okay, on to the next one because FSBOs and expireds, I already mentioned this in the beginning of our session today. They are some of the toughest. They’re some of the toughest prospects you talk to until you learn how to communicate with them powerfully.
[su_note note_color=”#fbfabf” radius=”4″]One of the things Diana says is it’s not that they’re difficult to talk to. It’s just that you haven’t mastered the skills that are required to be able to convert them. Would you agree with that?[/su_note]
Female: Yes.
Jackie Kravitz: They’re learned skills. Write this quote down. I absolutely love this quote. Just think about this and what it can do for you and your business.
“One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field, one hour a day within three years. Within five years, you’ll be a national authority. In seven years, you could be one of the best people in the world at what you do.”
How exciting is that? Just one hour a day, yeah?
Richard Shulman: Who is going to go home and do an hour a day of training?
Jackie Kravitz: An hour a day of practicing, yeah, your script. Skills, all that stuff, yeah? One hour a day every single day, just it’s. See, you’ve got to have a little patience with this because it’s not going to happen within a week, right? It’s saying within three weeks. Yeah, you’ll be at the top of your field. Five years, you’ll be one of the best. It’s so worth it. How many of you have practiced internalizing scripts, practicing the delivery, role playing, listening to it? How many of you have that on your schedule? Raise your hands.
Male: A few.
Jackie Kravitz: Okay, a bunch of you, probably maybe 10 or 20% of the room. How many of you, even though it is on your schedule, rarely do you actually follow that part of your schedule? Yeah, because the challenge is, it’s from what I hear from agents, is the number one thing that you have, when you’re really busy, “Okay. Well, I don’t have to do that today.” You leave it aside, and that. Just think about this quote, and don’t forget, and understand the importance of practicing.
[su_divider]
I already mentioned this. Expired, the mindset of an expired, I feel probably one of the most common objections you will hear from an expired is, “I’m not selling anymore,” or “I’m not selling it right now,” or just because they’re frustrated. I want you to put yourself in their situation. You’ve had your house on the market for six months. It didn’t sell, so you couldn’t possibly be happy about this, right? The day after it comes off the MLS, all sorts of agents are calling you and saying, “I can sell it. I can do it.” How many of these calls would you get before you’re like, right? You’re yelling and screaming, or you stop answering the phone.
That’s where they’re coming from when we call. Expect that they’re not going to be too excited, and remember, unless they think that there. They may not express it to you right away. In their minds, they have a thought as to why the house didn’t sell, okay? Unless they think it didn’t sell because of their agent, if it’s because of the market, even if they say it’s because, “Oh, my agent said it was priced too high, and I didn’t want to lower the price,” whatever it is, as long as it’s not about the agent, you want to create doubt. If they think it was the agent, then you can go along with that, okay? You can agree with that.
And then, you’ve got to give them hope. Yeah. I’m going to give you one line that’s very simple to give an expired hope, okay? Simply said, you’ve got to know your market stats. If you have, if you personally or your team sells a lot of homes, use that.
I’m going to give you a script. Even if you’re brand new to real estate, you could use the script, okay?
[su_note note_color=”#fbfabf” radius=”4″]Go in your Multiple Listing System. Find out how many properties sold in the last six months. By the way, the first week of every month, you should go on the MLS and get some stats, how many properties are on the market, how many sold last month, how many expired, because you want to be a local expert. Always know how many properties sold in the last six months.[/su_note]
Here is how you give them hope. “The good news, Mr. Seller, is in the last six months while your house was listed for sale, we have 2,500 properties,” or 500, whatever the number is, “in your market. Sell right here in our marketplace. I would like to sit down with you for just 30 minutes and show you what is it that I do differently to get houses sold in today’s market. Would 3:00 work? Would 4:00 be better?” Actually, the-
Richard Shulman: Can you repeat that so everyone can write it down?
Jackie Kravitz: Sure. Let me say this, and then I’ll repeat. This script is creating doubt and giving hope at the same time because when they hear, “My house didn’t sell, and yet x number of properties sold while my house was sitting here,” so it’s like, “God, okay. Well, maybe it could be sold,” and it gives them hope, also. “The good news, Mr. Seller,” is at some point right in the conversation, “the sooner you do it, the better,” because new expires, they’re not very patient. Okay? If you’ve called new expires, they hang up very quickly. “In the last six months, while your house was listed for sale, we had 1,000 properties sell right here in our marketplace. I’d like to sit down with you for just 30 minutes.”
It’s important that you say it like that because it’s easy for them to say yes. It’s not a two hour, three hours, whatever real estate agents do; just 30 minutes, and show you, what is it that I do differently? That’s the key word because they don’t want more of the same, so you emphasize the word “differently,” “What I do differently to get houses sold in today’s market; would 3:00 work or would 4:00 be better?” You’ve got to close because if at any point you. Do you want to know the biggest thing that gets sellers, FSBOs and expireds to hang up on you; that the number one reason in my opinion, hesitation. When you hesitate, when you stop to just take a breath and you don’t know what to say, “Okay. Well, I’m busy. Bye. Call me next week,” that’s it. You’ll lose them.
You’ve got to keep this conversation moving and close for the appointment, okay? Always end with, “Would 3:00 work? Would 4:00 be better?”
I remember in one of my Dominating The Market programs, somebody on the call said, “Gosh, you must have had a lot of appointments between 3:00 and 4:00,” because it’s always between 3:00 and 4:00, yes? Yeah. We don’t want to go appointments in the evening. If we have time, I’ll give you some other stuff later.
The purpose of lead generation is to find someone who wants to buy or sell a house. Would you agree? Preferably a listing. Did you prefer listings over buyer?
Male: Yes.
Female: Yes.
Jackie Kravitz: And so, when you think about it, that’s the purpose of what you’re doing. Why wouldn’t you call someone who’s selling their house without an agent? That’s a FSBO. You’re looking for somebody who wants to sell, and a FSBO wants to sell. Personally, that’s my favorite person to call because it’s a one-for-one, yeah?
[su_divider]
Don’t believe them when they say, “I don’t want to pay a commission. I don’t want to hire an agent.” It’s all a smokescreen, so don’t buy into what seems to be a lack of motivation. Put yourself in their shoes. Have you been waving at me?
Richard Shulman: No, no, because that was the first time.
Jackie Kravitz: Okay.
Richard Shulman: Go ahead. I wanted to know what percentage of FSBOs ultimately list.
Jackie Kravitz: 80% within three weeks, yeah.
Richard Shulman: People think, “Oh, it’s going to be so hard to make an appointment. It’s going to be so hard if the listing expired.” An enormous amount number of these properties end up with an agent, and they’re not discounting, right?
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Richard Shulman: They end up listing with a real full-service agent.
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah. They’re going to list with someone, okay? If you don’t call them, it’s just not going to be you. Just as I asked you, think about these situations with an expired. If you had your house on the market for six months without selling you wouldn’t be very happy, right? Yeah.
How does a FSBO think? If you thought that you could sell your house for the same price that an agent would sell for, would you put it out there as a FSBO? Outside of the security issue of letting strangers in my house, I totally would. Actually, the reason why I got a real estate license, because 22 years ago, I put my house for sale as FSBO. It didn’t sell, and within a month or two I went to, I got a real estate license so I could save the listing side of the commission. Okay? Yeah, and I was not to have a real estate career, so it’s interesting, like those moments, defining moments in your life, right?
I thought that I could sell it myself. When you look at the real estate industry in general and how much real estate agents know or don’t know and how the industry is, it’s fair to think that most people are “I can do what they do.” Yeah. I thought the same thing.
They don’t know what they don’t know, and we’ve got to be able to help them understand that they have problems that we can solve. The number one reason why someone would put their house on the market as a FSBO is to save commission. Would you agree? They may have some other reason. Bottom line is it if they knew that selling on their own would actually cost them money, they wouldn’t do it. Yeah. Obviously, they want to keep as much money as possible. And so, I think about it this way. FSBOs are selling the house. If you call a FSBO and you’re not able to set an appointment with them, they out-scripted you. Okay? They sold you, basically because think about it. Most of you have called at least a FSBO in your real estate career. Do they sound pretty confident that they can get it done? Yeah. They’re really confident.
How confident are you when you speak with them because either you will convince them that they should hire you or they will convince you that I don’t need you. It’s one or the other. If you hang up without an appointment, yeah.
Richard Shulman: Jackie, there’s a great quote from the movie. I’m over here now.
Jackie Kravitz: Yes.
Richard Shulman: There’s a great quote from the movie, “Boiler Room.” I only quote salesmen in my training.
Jackie Kravitz: Yes, good.
[su_note note_color=”#fbfabf” radius=”4″]Richard Shulman: The quote is, “When he was having cereal and the newspaper salesman calls him and he says, ‘On every phone call a sale is made, and it’s either you’re selling them something or they’re selling you on the reason why they’re not buying.'”[/su_note]
Jackie Kravitz: Absolutely, yeah. I think that applies really in any selling situation, and with FSBOs more than any other because their house is for sale, so it’s like, how could they possibly not? They want to sell. You just were not able to convince them that they not. You’re not going to convince them on the phone that they should sell it with you. You’re just looking for an appointment, okay?
I want you to write this down. FSBOs have problems. For those of you who’ve taken “Bold,” step three, you’ve watched Diana’s problem presentation. Yeah?
Richard Shulman: Right.
Jackie Kravitz: Here are some problems they have. Write this down quickly. A lack of exposure, they’re dealing with the types of buyers that are looking to save money. They’re dealing with unqualified buyers, which, by the way, so are every other real estate agent, right? They have no negotiating skills, legal liability and security.
Would you agree that these are problems that FSBOs have?
Female: Yes.
Male: Yes.
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah. Do you believe that these problems cost them money?
Female: Yes.
Male: Yeah.
Female: Yeah.
Jackie Kravitz: Can you solve these problems for them?
Female: Yes.
Female: Yes.
Male: Yeah.
Jackie Kravitz: That’s how you can actually benefit them financially. Did you put together the pieces of the puzzle? The challenge is they don’t think they have any problem. They think they’ve got it all figured out. Yeah, so being able to convey this in a way, right, that what are the scripts? What’s the language? What’s the evidence? How do we get in to see that these problems cost them money?
I’m going to quickly take you through some of the solutions. Exposure, simple law of supply and demand. The more demand you could create for any product you’re looking to sell, the higher the price you’ll sell it for. This is what happens in an auction. If you go on eBay and you’re bidding on something, you’re the only bidder, you … Starting bid, you pay whatever. Let’s say it’s $100. You make a bid for $100. You’re the only bidder. You’re going to pay $100. If there are three or four bidders, what happens to the price?
Female: Price goes up.
Male: Up.
Jackie Kravitz: Perfect example of how more demand equals more money, and it applies to anything and everything. When there’s more demand, prices go up, okay, and that’s what we can do for FSBOs.
One other thought I want you to write down briefly, according to NAR, 90% of all homes sold in North America are sold by agents. Did you all know that? 90% are sold by agents. That means that as a For Sale by Owner, they only attract 10% of the buyers on the market.
According to NAR, 90% of all the homes sold in North America are sold by agents. Did you all know that? 90% are sold by agents. That means that as a For Sale By Owner, they only attract 10% of the buyers on the market.
More demand equals more money. How are they going to get the highest possible price for this house within a 10% exposure? Yeah? We’ve got to be able to understand that.
Why is it that 90% of homes are sold by agents? Because we don’t charge buyers a commission. Okay? Seller pays the commission to the buyer’s agent, not the buyer.
Serious buyers only buy FSBOs to save money. Think about this. It’s a free service to use to buyers to use the services of a licensed professional experienced real estate agent. Would you agree? Free. What’s going to motivate a buyer to pass all of that up and go directly to a homeowner? It’s free, so why not? Do you like free stuff? Yeah. So why? Remember, too, real estate agents have access to 100% of the properties that are available for sale whereas FSBO is a very small percentage of properties. It’s to save money.
You learned this in “Bold,” that the different types of buyers, serious in a hurry. If you’re a serious buyer and you’re in a hurry to buy, why would you go to a FSBO? They don’t. Okay. Serious, not in a hurry, they want the services and the experience of a professional agent. Investors are the number one type of buyer that buy FSBOs. Why? Because they know they can get a good deal.
Female: Right.
Jackie Kravitz: And then, there are the ones that are just looking around. Actually, according to NAR, only 4% of all the buyers out there that are contacting you, whether it’s from an Internet lead or and they’re walking into open houses, they’re calling on signs, they’re calling on FSBOs, 96% of them are not buying anything right now. Only 4% are ready, willing and able, which means 96%, they’re just lookers right now. Okay?
[su_divider]
Is that a challenge for real estate agents to be able to determine which ones are buying or not buying? Can you imagine what FSBOs go through? “Oh, yeah, I’m getting a lot of people calling.” Yeah, good luck with that, right? Yeah, absolutely. 4% are the ones are the ones that are ready, willing and able; 70% have frozen equity. So, buyers let’s say someone is sitting in their house and thinking, “Oh, we should get a bigger home. Okay. Well, let’s go out this weekend and look at some properties for sale to see what we could buy, and then we could put our house for sale.” Their equity is tied up on the property they currently own. 11% can’t afford the house they’re calling on. They’re qualified for $200,000. They’re calling on properties that are $250, and 11% will end up renting.
And then, how you make more money, too, negotiating skills, okay? Sometimes a FSBO will say, “Well, I have an attorney that is going to negotiate.” Yeah? Yeah. There are so many aspects of the transaction.
First of all, we’ve got to be able to find the buyer that will pay the highest price. Attorneys don’t do that. Okay? Attorneys are going to look at a contract after you’ve negotiated the price with the buyer. They’re not going to get in the middle of that negotiation. There are a lot of ways in which you’re able to save them a lot of money by being a great negotiator.
The longer it takes to sell, the more money they lose. Time is money, and listings don’t have a shelf life yet. You could actually look this up. You could do a Google search and stuff, and you’ll see all over North America the houses that sit on the market longer, the list sales price ratio, the gap, okay? The gap is increased the longer they sit on the market.
I want to get to your stuff. There you go. Clicker’s yours.
Richard Shulman: I was enjoying it.
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah, right. Yes.
Richard Shulman: more on that.
Jackie Kravitz: Thank you.
Richard Shulman: No, no. Yeah, there’s a movie quote up there. One thing I noticed, Jackie, in watching your presentation, I’m sure some of you caught this, is that you ask questions probably reflexively. Everything you’re saying is a question, or you’re making a statement and then using a tie down to get agreement from them, and it’s just a habit, I assume, of yours.
Jackie Kravitz: Yes.
Richard Shulman: You’re taking them exactly on the path to where you want them to agree with your premise.
Jackie Kravitz: Yes.
Richard Shulman: You ask a bunch of leading questions to that premise.
Jackie Kravitz: Yes. You’re doing that, too, so thank you. Yes. You’re right, yeah.
Richard Shulman: All right. I’ve already had a walk around room.
Jackie Kravitz: Oh, with shoes on, yeah.
Richard Shulman: Yeah, and someone over there had his shoes off, and I was very proud of him. I don’t think I can walk without shoes. There’s a dress code here still.
All right. We’re going to talk about converting buyers right now. Like I said earlier, converting buyers is the same as converting sellers. It’s the same as converting FSBOs, expireds. All of the scripting is the same. When I teach these classes, a lot of those people are asking, “Well, are you going to teach about FSBOs? Are you going to teach about listings? Are you going to teach about this scenario, that scenario?” All of this stuff is ultimately the same, right? Everything I say is going to sound a lot like what Jackie said. Just specifically, we’re going to talk about buyers today.
I think that this is one of the, I would say a second level skill. Once you master the idea of calling people purposely once you master the idea of making appointments, I think for the majority of people setting prior meetings is a key skill that’s missing, right? We’re all trying to set seller meetings, but we’re not setting buyer meetings, so that’s what I’m going to talk about today.
[su_divider]
Who here is consistently setting buyer meetings? Right? They work with a buyer, and you’re going to have a listing presentation with your buyer, right? Who’s working with buyers without doing that? One person’s honest in the back, two people. Everyone in here is signing buyer/broker agreements with their buyers?
Male: Yeah.
Female: Yeah.
Male: Yeah.
Richard Shulman: All right, I like it. What will do better.
Jackie Kravitz: Okay.
[su_divider]
Part 2: Setting an Appointment (Richard Shulman)
Richard Shulman: Okay. We’re going to talk about a step setting an appointment for those buyers, right? Before we get started, I asked all of you to text message seven people at the beginning. I’m going to give you permission to check your phones real quick. Just raise your hand if you had an appointment. Jen?
Jen: I have five.
Richard Shulman: I’m sorry. We couldn’t hear you.
Jen: I have five.
Richard Shulman: Appointments?
Jen: Yeah.
Richard Shulman: To meet with people?
Jen: Yeah.
Richard Shulman: All right. You’re done. That was the whole idea. Who made more than five appointments so far? In the back, I’ve got me ten.
Male: Five.
Richard Shulman: Oh, five, also? All right. That’s still good. Who made at least one appointment so far? All right. Is this something you could do every day, start your day with three text messages, you want to have coffee?
Female: Yeah.
Richard Shulman: All right. We’ll circle back at the end and see how everyone did. The record for a single day, in seven hours two people did over 70 appointments in 70 hours of doing this, so keep at it.
All right. How does it buyers to appointments? There’s a lot of quotes from Glengarry Glen Ross which I do, I do use a lot. “They don’t walk on the lot unless they want to buy,” a quote which some of you heard earlier.
The other one is always be closing, right? You guys have heard that, of course. If you haven’t seen it, you should go watch it. Glengarry Glen Ross. I’ll just warn you, there’s a lot of swearing, so if anyone’s sensitive-
Richard Shulman: There’s the quote. I think the first premise I try to work with people on, and I ask Jackie a few questions about it, is I think we have all these ideas in our head that people don’t want to do something, right? I asked you about FSBOs, right? I knew that most FSBOs. I didn’t know the number, but I knew most FSBOs end up hiring a full-service agent, right? I think in our heads we’ve decided people don’t want to sign a buyer/broker agreement. We’ve decided FSBOs don’t want to hire an agent if they say no the first time, or expireds, whatever it is.
I thought of this quote. I always really liked going back to it because the minute someone picks up the phone to call you, the minute someone contacts you through your website or through Zillow or asks you a real estate question, they’re interested in buying a home.
Now, interested in buying a home and able to buy a home are different topics. We’re not going to cover that, but “A guy don’t walk on the lot lest he want to buy it,” right? They want to give you their money. Are you going to take it, right?
The idea is that we really need to think aggressively about what’s happening. When we get an invalid lead, I see a lot of the new agents. They’re not trying to make an appointment right away. They’re not trying to set an appointment with that buyer or seller. They’re worried about asking too many questions, so I’m going to teach us a better way to do that, but I want you to start with the very basic premise that as soon as someone clicks on that Zillow link they’re very likely interested in buying something, right? They may not want to buy what they can afford. They may not be able to afford anything at all. They may not want to hire an agent. Right, fine, but the vast majority of them do want to buy something or sell something or knows somebody who wants to buy or sell something.
Okay. How do we do that? The first thing I want to teach you to do is on telling the appointment, right? We used to say asking, and I think I still use the word “asking” sometimes. We don’t want to ask for an appointment. We want to tell people that we’re going to make an appointment with them. Right?
What does that look like? You call me off the sign, and you say, “Can you tell me more about your listing on Main Street?,” right? What should is say right away to that person?
Female: Is that what you’re looking for?
Richard Shulman: Was it? Great. Right. We’ve had a lot of calls about that property. What’s the next question, Jen?
Jen:
Richard Shulman: Tell the appointment. Let’s go take a look at it, and then what Jackie was using, the alternate choice close. We only do showings Wednesday at 3:00 or 4:00, right?
Jackie Kravitz: Yes-
Richard Shulman: No other day during the week.
Jackie Kravitz: Monday through Friday.
Richard Shulman: Monday through Friday, but between three and four only. Okay? As soon as someone contacts you about real estate, I believe that the first thing that you should do is make an appointment with them. That’s why we’re going to text message exercise because I think in our heads we’re thinking appointments are so hard to make. It’s not very hard to make appointments. People want to meet with a professional about real estate.
Someone calls in. The first thing I do is I make the appointment. Then I will go and qualify them. We’re not going to talk about qualifying today. That’s a whole other hour of talking. It’s not as exciting as the second day.Then we would qualify them. If they are not qualified to buy that home, then we can deal with rescheduling that appointment, right?
[su_divider]
Instead of saying, “Do you want to see the home,” and this is what Jackie did so earlier, I don’t say, “Do you want to see the home?” I don’t say, “Do you want to meet me?” I say, “Let’s meet at the house. Is 3:00 better, or 4:00? Are mornings or afternoon better?” That’s called an alternative choice close. It’s a very simple close. It’s in every training you’ve ever been to. The important thing is by structuring your close that way, the question is not, “Do you want to meet or not?” right?
Too often, I hear people ask me, “Do you want to meet with me,” right? The question is not, “If you want to meet?” Of course, they want to meet. They want to meet because they called you about a house. The question is, “What time are we meeting?” right?
When you change that around, our very primitive brains are really not very sophisticated at changing the direction of that. The only people who are sophisticated at the changing the direction are my children. When I try to use alternate choice closes on them, they just say no. Adults cannot do that.
Richard Shulman: Okay. I’ve covered this slide. I got so excited. You can see the, “Do you want to meet?” right? What kind of question is, “Do you want to meet?”
Female: Yes or no.
Richard Shulman: It’s yes or no, right? There’s really not a lot of good times to use a yes or no. Jackie was doing a few yes or nos, but they were because she knew the answer was yes, right? When you know the answer is yes, it’s called a tie-down close, and you want to use that because you want to build agreement, right? How many have you got? What’s the number of yeses, Jackie? Is that-
Jackie Kravitz: Five.
Richard Shulman: Five yeses?
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah.
Richard Shulman: Okay.
Jackie Kravitz: Get to 80%. Five closes get to 80% of those, yeah.
Richard Shulman: Yeah. You want to keep asking questions. If you’re going to do a yes, no close, there has to be a yes coming, or it has to be an obvious no, and you want the answer to be no, but it’s better if you’re building agreement with yeses. Stay away from yes, no questions. If you find yourself asking questions that can be answered with a no, remember that people will probably give you a no reflexively because they’re not thinking about it, right? We have these primitive brains, and when we think someone’s asking us for money or time or they want to bother us or they’re a real estate agent and no one likes real estate agents, they’re going to say no as fast as they can, even though they called you for information about the house.
Instead, go with, “Which day do you want to meet?” Go with, “What time is better? Are mornings or afternoons better?” There’s a lot of ways to do that. I’d like you guys all to write down the third one. The next one for us to discuss is your search, right?
I think another big mental roadblock that we have, mindset limitations, is what I was looking for. I was trying to avoid mental roadblocks. The mindset limitations are that people don’t want to meet with us, and we have to know that we’re professionals, right? We’re the professionals that they came to for information, right? We talked about this.
Does your lawyer or a doctor or accountant ask your permission to do anything? Do they ask for your opinion on the next step? No. You call your accountant and he says, “Where are your taxes? It’s February. Send me your taxes. Send me your W2s and your receipts and everything,” right?
It’s the same thing for real estate agents. We want to tell people what the next step is. I think we’re not understanding that people want us to guide them, right? They want little push. They don’t want a huge push. They still want to make their own decisions, and we can help them with that, but they want a push in the right direction. Okay.
Remember the third one there again, and this is something. This is a script. We’re talking about buyers specifically right now, so there’s nothing up there that wouldn’t work for a seller or a recruit or anyone in your world you’re trying to sell something to. Okay.
Now we set the appointment, right? Now we’ve set the appointment, and we’re going to be going. We’re going to service level qualifying. I want to warn you, there’s a lot more that you can go into and qualify. We’re going to go service level on it because as a new agent. How many new agents the room? New, newer, few years. By the way, it’s always the new agents who make the most appointments.
Female: Hello.
Richard Shulman: The two people who set 70 appointments in Portland in seven hours, one was not licensed, and one had her license for a week.
Female: Oh, my goodness.
Richard Shulman: Because the new agents don’t have all the mindset limitations on who wants to meet.
Once we make the appointment, then we want to qualify the buyer, right? Remember, there’s a lot more to qualify than what we can cover today. You don’t want to start wasting your time on bad appointments. As a new agent, the reason I asked about new agents. As a new agent, I took every appointment I could get, and I went on appointments with people who said they were working with other agents. I went on an appointment with this one awful couple who told me that they, I showed them a home. They wrote an offer with another agent, and I had shown that to them. I know. I still showed them more properties. I didn’t know any better because I worked for a real estate company that had 15 minutes of training we week.
Jackie Kravitz: Hey, Richard, could I just quickly say that
Richard Shulman: Yeah.
Jackie Kravitz: Where is the envelope with the business cards because-
Richard Shulman: Oh, yeah.
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah. Keep passing it around because at the end of the session, we’re going to take out and give the registration. Keep it moving, okay?
Richard Shulman: Yeah. You have to be here to win.
Jackie Kravitz: Yes.
Richard Shulman: All right. I’ll give you two things about qualifying. The one thing I did learn at the real estate company was that my manager was okay with the one free look, right? It’s okay to do one free showing to a potential buyer without a buyer appointment and a buyer/brokerage agreement signed, or without necessarily getting all their qualification because in reality most people aren’t going to call a stranger off the Internet and then fax over their pre-approval letter or provide personal financial information, right?
I’m okay with one free look. That’s one time going out and maybe seeing two properties, not any more than that, don’t show them five properties, but with the expectation that you’re going to set a meeting either afterward or at a separate time in your office to meet with them for a buyer agreement, right?
The preference, however, and what you’ll find that most people are happy to meet with you first because you can script them into it. Like what Jackie was saying about providing value, the way you can do that is say, “Well, I’d love to show you this house, but what I’d really love to do is sit down with you, go over your search, learn more about what you’re looking for, and that way I can find the right home for you and save you time. How does that sound?”
Richard Shulman: That solves a lot of problems for them, right? They want your help. They want you to run around looking out for them. Now, they still may want to see that house, and that’s okay, but I believe that a lot of people, even those leads from the Internet, want to have a meeting with an agent. They want to meet with you. That way you can sit down with them and put a brokerage agreement in front of them.
Here are the questions. You can write them down. It should be, are you writing them down? The questions in my mind are really. They’re a cover because there’s only two things I want to know from the buyer. Who knows what those two things are?
Female: Motivation-
Male: Pre-approved
Richard Shulman: There you go.
Richard Shulman: All right, and we need microphones for everyone here, but that works better in a smaller training environment. I heard back there. Yeah, I only really want to know if they can financially afford to buy a home, or if they’re working with another agent, right, because who’s gotten a call that, “My agent’s out of town. Can you show me properties this weekend?”
Richard Shulman: No? Just me. It happened to me a lot of times.
Richard Shulman: Yeah. Well, the problem is they don’t value us. They don’t value real estate, and so, sure, drive me around. Okay. The first question I want to answer is a very open-ended question. It’s what are you looking for, right? You could actually ask that question twice because they’ll keep talking. It’s very open-ended, and it will actually encourage them to answer. It will encourage them to answer what’s on the top of their mind.
Then, I want to know more about that. Why are you looking for that? Where are you looking for that; at what price? There’s a lot more you can go into here on motivation on what’s motivating the buyer, right?
Then I want to know if they’re working with an agent, and I want to know if they’re not working with an agent, what’s the importance of hiring me, right? Same as a listing, right? These are all identical to the questions of listing appointment.
[su_divider]
I want to make it clear to them that I’m looking for them to hire me as the agent. And then, this is my favorite one. This one I don’t allow my agents to change. I’m generally allowing them to customize their own scripts. I’m okay if they want to internalize or make it their own. This one, whenever someone makes it their own, they screw it up. “Are you paying cash or financing?” The reason that question works is that the question of financing, it makes it seem like there’s only two choices, and it makes you feel like if you’re not one of those two choices, you feel uncomfortable, and it’s not making them feel directly comfortable with you. It’s making them feel like they’re not doing the right thing.
In the longer version, I’d ask them, “Which bank are you’re approved with?,” because they’re probably going to say they’re approved for a loan. They probably went on Quicken Loans or something like that, and that’s not probably what we want to work with me.
And then, again, telling. I’m telling them my lender’s going to call them. “You know, you’re not approved. You know what? Let’s hold off on the meeting for now. I’m going to have my lender call you right after this, and he’s going to pre-approve you, and then I can show you the home in a couple of days. Sound good? Great!
I can just easily walk out of that meeting with them and allow them to talk to the lender. Now I’ll follow up with the lender and find out that they never returned his call. I just saved myself some time, right? Okay. I think we’re all clear on that.
Okay, the buyer meeting. There’s scripting for the buyer meetings I want to go over. Now, the on the buyer meeting, it’s a very simple script. It’s just asking them to meet with you, just telling them to meet you. I still do it sometimes. It’s telling them to meet with you and giving them a reason why because I think people are unused to it. I think people are getting more used to the idea. I think that when we started doing buyer meetings, I remember watching videos on. What was the old website for training, like you? I can never find the link, and I search for it and log in.
I remember watching buyer meetings. This was probably nine or ten years ago I started doing that, and no one had ever heard of them. Now they’re more common. I think the buyers are more used to them, but I still want to show them the value of the buyer meeting.
I want to show them why we’re meeting. I’ll say, “I think it’s best if we sit down and talk about your search in my office. Which day is better?” How much pushback are you going to get on that? Who’s got an objection to that question? What objections would you get to that?
Male: We’re not ready to
Richard Shulman: What’s that?
Male: We’re not ready to hire an agent. We’re just going to do this on our own.
Richard Shulman: Okay. Yeah. That’s a very common one. I think a lot of the times any objection you get will probably be something like that, or, “Why are we meeting? What’s the point of meeting?” We’re very close now.
Jackie Kravitz: That’s okay.
Richard Shulman: Do you want the clicker back?
Jackie Kravitz: Oh, no. No, I just want to see-
Richard Shulman: Yeah, I just want to see the home. Yeah, I don’t want to do that. A lot of your questions will be in the same area. “I don’t see any value in the meeting,” right? It’s the same question, right? “I don’t want an agent. I just want to see it.” All that boils to, “I don’t see any value in meeting with you.” I would re-close that, right? We have to close up to five times. I would re-close them, and I would just go back to the same thing. It is, “Well, I think it would be really important for me to understand more about your search so I can help you. Are you looking for someone to help with your search?,” right, lots of ways to close that, lots of things you can say.
The idea is what you want to say, and I can give you several more, and Jackie can give you 20 more. It doesn’t really matter what you say as long as you get across the point that this meeting is about who?
Male: Them.
Female: Them.
Richard Shulman: Right. It’s not so you can protect your commission. It’s not so you can get them to sign a document that will lock them to you so you can go on vacation and hand them off to a showing assistant. That’s a different class. It’s because you want to provide value to them by meeting with them, understanding their search, and explaining how the market works, explaining the process of the market. Now, you may have learned some things in talking to them, “Tell me more about your search,” and they might tell you, “Well, we have lots of questions about the market.” “Great. I’d love to answer those questions at my office. Is Wednesday or Thursday better, or 3:00 to 4:00 p.m.?”
And then, yeah, I put it there a lot. I use a lot of repetition and I thought because I think the same things apply over and over again. About two years ago, I scrapped all my training with my team. That’s when I started on call. We were doing lots of training. Every week was a new topic. We had a CPA come in. We’d have an attorney come in on states. We’d do commercial real estate. I realized that it didn’t matter. None of that mattered, right?
All that matters is doing the basics, the simple things, over and over again perfectly. Gary’s been saying that at least for the last two years. He said it before. I probably wasn’t listening, but the same things over and over again, right? People want to meet. Everyone wants to meet with you, right? If they don’t want to meet with you, if you give them that line and they say, “No thanks,” great, they just saved you two hours of your life. Guess what? Pick up the phone and call the next person. There’s 5 1/2 million properties we’ll sell this year. We’ve got the time.
Jackie’s bored of me-
Jackie Kravitz: No, no, no, no. We want to leave a few minutes for Q&A and be able to-
Richard Shulman: Yeah, yeah. All right, but that’s 11 million commission checks will get cut this year. That’s a lot. I’m only going to get 200, 250 of them, so it’s still 11 million left for you guys.
[su_note note_color=”#fbfabf” radius=”4″]All right, so a quick recap. Gary said we need 11 appointments a week. I promise you, you’re not all doing 11 appointments a week. I’m not always doing 11 appointments a week. Actually, go and track your appointments. Make your one thing to do 11 appointments, blah, blah, blah, all the same stuff I said before. Repeat. Okay.[/su_note]
We’ll take a Q&A now. Do you have anything to add, Jackie?
Jackie Kravitz: Just the Q&A.
Richard Shulman: Yeah, so before-
Jackie Kravitz: I don’t want to run out of time, and I’ll give you time for questions.
Richard Shulman: Yeah. Before we do that, can we get the envelope?
Female: The last slide?
Richard Shulman: This one?
Jackie Kravitz: It’s the last slide. They wanted the last slide.
Richard Shulman: This one?
Female: Yes.
Male: Yeah, that one.
Richard Shulman: This slide, all right. Who has the envelope of cards?
Jackie Kravitz: I do. It’s right there.
Richard Shulman: Oh, you do?
Jackie Kravitz: Yeah.
Richard Shulman: Okay.
Jackie Kravitz: Let’s do that first-
Richard Shulman: Oh, yeah, Jackie, before we get to that, can you tell everyone what your class is?
Jackie Kravitz: Okay, so dominate your market. FSBOs and expired.
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More on Scripts
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