Ten things you should (almost) never say when talking to a
seller!
First
of all when you have things in place there is no reason to speak with a
seller for any reason, but if you are starting out - or just
starting with my stuff - then I suggest that you do to get the dialog,
timing and positioning skill set.
This
is vital.
It is
unbelievable, even shocking, what I hear real estate folks - even the
smart ones - use in dialog. Too many of them are so willing to
sacrifice authority, lose profits and let solid deals slip away and much
of this could be fixed with some simple dialog tweaks.
This
will help you do that.
It
will help you avoid becoming just another statistic.
Let's
get started.
1.) "Hi my name is... and I'm with... do
you have a moment?"
Study
after study has shown that the beginning of a conversation is littered
with the listener's interest. Socially the most likely people to
introduce themselves with 'Hi my name is' are salespeople, when a
company is mentioned immediately afterwards this further cements the
salesman image and interest dwindles. About the only time this
works is with massive authority; 'Hi my name is Azam and I'm with NBC
and we're looking for contestants for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, do
you have a moment?'
What To
say:
'Hi,
it's Azam, I'm calling about the home for sale?' or 'Hi I'm Azam,
I was calling about the sign?' or simply 'I'm calling about the home for
sale?' This subtle change suggests not only familiarity but it
mirrors the behavior of your target's ideal prospect; an actual buyer.
2.) "Is that the best you can do?"
There
is so much wrong with this, first of all now they are judging,
not you. You are genuinely asking a question without any
supposition, leading or positioning. You are also on the 'other'
side of them, not
BEside them.
What TO
say:
'Okay,
so if the price is below X, should I send these buyers to another
house?' or 'Okay, so if they want any more I should tell them
that's the best we can do?' Notice the word 'WE' as I bring myself
to their side of the conversation - us against them.
Another better version 'Okay, so if the board (or the researchers) come
back with anything less than X, should I even let you know?'
3.) "I'm a full-time real estate investor"
This
is just asking for it. You are likely to hear 'Well I called some
of the other guys and they said...' comparing you to, and putting you in
the same boat as, the 'other guys' dampens your chances of meaningful
authority. If you don't want to be compared to them, then... don't
compare yourself to them. Stop using the same word they
use to describe themselves. For example if you are teaching people
how to invest in real estate, should you call yourself a 'Guru'?
That stereotype doesn't work in your favor, I suggest using stereotypes
that do.
What TO say:
If
somebody mentions that they spoke with 'another investor', you respond
with: 'Well I work with investors, do you mean one of our
consumer counselors has already spoke with you? Oh, okay, you
spoke with an
investor, great - did you get their RF score? No, really,
okay but they explained how the PHSI works, right?'
Another example 'Oh you mean you spoke with an investor, great,
did you catch his name or RF score?'
This
is killer, and if you've gone through my stuff you know what we're doing
here - Creating the Standard. The above snippet of dialog
is followed with an explanation of the Risk Factor (RF) of working with
uncertified (by you) investors and the Pending Home Sales Index as a
basic unit of comps. So anybody who does NOT understand this
shouldn't be taken seriously and can put the seller in jail.
Here's more:
'Ok,
we partnered with Attorney General Smith (or whoever) to develop the top
10 questions that all sellers should ask an agent/investor/buyer in
order to stay out of jail - if you want I may be able to email them to
you...'
4.) "With a cash offer, what would be
the lowest price you'd be willing to accept today?"
When
you hear this you should feel like John Goodman in one of my favorite
movies The Big Lebowski as he screams at the kidnappers:
"fu**ing amatuers!"
What TO say:
See
#2, this is the same issue.
5.) "I buy houses, and I want to buy
yours?"
This
immediately puts you on on the opposite end of the seller's interests,
any information disclosed will be highly guarded and perhaps even
inaccurate. It is not generally a good idea to start the
conversation with this friction.
What TO
say:
'I
have 13 left over buyers (that don't want my house), so I'm looking for
the best house to send them to, who do you recommend I contact?'
Either you get a recommendation or, more likely, they want the buyers
sent to them - 'Oh, so you think your home would be the best, is
that right? I'm curious why do you say that?' The interview
has begun, now anytime there is friction or resistance in answering
questions; 'Look Jack, as I explained I'm just looking for the best
house to send these people to, maybe it's yours or maybe not, but if
getting X from you is a problem, then maybe I should should send them to
another house... what do you uh... what do you think?'
6.) "I can come look at the house today at
4."
There
is almost no good reason to look at a house unless you're getting
started, want to do rehabs yourself (usually a bad idea) or you want to
live in it. Your opinion doesn't matter since you'll be moving it
to somebody else anyway - so get them looking at the place - not
you. For the most part I've found that people look at houses out
of ego and the illusion that they're 'working'. It feels good,
psychologically, to have a full schedule of homes to look at that you
may purchase. It sounds good at dinner parties.
What TO
say:
More
importantly it is what to do - stay home. 'Okay, Jack so you want
me to send your home out to our list of 31 buyers for you, is that
right? Alright, well based on the price, area and terms if your
home is picked my agent/attorney/consumer counselor may arrange that for
you - but I want to make sure you know that I'm not guaranteeing your
home is going to be picked, okay?' Roughly 70% of the time the
immediate response is what a seller can do to make sure their home is
picked. This is a great time to get your paperwork back on time,
get their best offer, etc.
7.) "Let's talk again tomorrow at 3."
Much
like looking at houses, once you have this training down and Policized
you shouldn't have to speak with anybody about anything - aside from you
Team with training conference calls, but when you're starting out I
recommend getting the pace down, the timing - the overall skill.
So if you are going to speak again, you want to avoid the problem nearly
everybody has faced of playing phone tag - it is worse when you are the
only one playing because you keep calling and leaving unreturned
messages. This item and #8 will help dramatically.
What TO
say:
Give
two times that don't work first. An old line is 'What works better
for you 2 or 3 PM tomorrow?' and that works well, but it is better when
you add 'Okay, well tomorrow Noon doesn't work for me, and neither does
anything after 7 PM, but I want to do this before they're all gone so
um... how about... 3:30 or 5 PM - what looks better for you?' Or
'Does that work better for you?' I want to point something out -
NEVER LIE about this, if you have a free schedule then just use two
times that work. Giving two times that don't should only be done
if you actually have two times that don't, please don't even try and
embellish things - be transparent - because this technique alone has
increased compliance by over 100%.
8.) "Do you have an email address?"
Without proper framing this is like asking 'Can I send you spam?' and it
usually results in investors thinking that 'nobody in my area has email
addresses I guess'. This is much like the high school joke about a
man approaching a women and asking if she wants to go out for pizza and
sex, after getting slapped he walks away mumbling 'I guess she doesn't
like pizza...'
What TO
say:
Framing is so important with my stuff, and if you're not using email -
regardless of your business - you are way behind and losing at least as
much money as you're making. Even just changing the question to 'What's
your email address?' is better. But it is even better to frame
with a desired, #3 is a great example, but here's a few more:
'Oh,
so you haven't seen the homicide rates for the two areas, okay - what's
your email address?'
'Great, so you want the 421 buyers to hear about this today, is that
right? Okay, I'll see what I can do after we have your LOI on file
- what's your email address?'
'So
you have not seen the Attorney General's consumer warning, what's
your email address?'
'If we
pick your home normally there's going to be crowd fighting each other,
but to make sure nobody hurts in the stampede we have a disclosure that
you need to see - you don't have to wait for it in the mail, your email
address is...'
'I can
try and get that to you today, I think we have your email address, do
you have more than one? So your email address is...'
Notice
the two lines; 'What's your email address?' - and - 'Your email address
is...' I usually the prefer the latter and this tapering off is powerful
in dialog because it forces the party to complete your sentences with
compliance.
9.) "Would you be willing to do a lease option?"
Just
about anytime you are using the words 'would you be willing' you
are not using my stuff. The other problem here is mentioning is
the word 'lease option' and this will generally maintain the interest of
the 'Market of Awares' or people who are already looking into a
lease option or terms sale - and people who are educated properly about
it. If they fit that criteria than they would have probably
already mentioned that, but they don't so they didn't. This is a
really good way to lose interest and deals.
What TO
say:
Mentioning the end result is often better than the term used to achieve
it. For example 'There are three groups of buyers, group one pays
cash now, group two pays cash in a year or two and in the meantime they
can make your mortgage payments if that's a problem and group three are
investors that buy at discounts - which groups do you think are best for
our situation?' Generally group one is picked, now if group two is
not selected this line has doubled and tripled compliance and conversion
rates:
'Okay,
so with group two no matter what they want to put down or how much they
want to pay a month - no matter how much money you'd make, you want them
sent to another house, is that right?'
'You
know, if you're home is picked I may be able to see what the best offers
are from each of those two and we can take a look at them, that way you
don't miss out...?' (tapering off)
This
can be combined with them making their offer to you.
10.) "Anything!"
Probably the biggest mistake I see people in 'real estate' making is
thinking that they're 'in real estate' - they're not, you're not.
We're in business. For most of us the only other
alternative to making this work is getting a job. So the skill set
of building a business is totally different than the skill set of making
money in 'real estate'.
What TO
say:
Ideally, nothing.
You
want to have Policies, training and your highly trained Team in place to
help you build a business and turn into an Empire. Your team
should be trained with dialog and held accountable, I often hear people
say that they want to be in real estate full-time. Really?
Really? Or do they want to a full-time income - not
the same thing.
You're
either trained and you know what you're doing, or you're just guess.
I have
a test that'll help you determine what kind of company I train people to
build.
Do you
have what it takes to go from zero to $50+ million?
The
test is here:
http://www.eAzam.com/EmpireIQ.html
Some final words...
About
dialog -
You
want to be the judge, not the judged.
You
want to be the selector, not the selected.
You
don't make offers, offers are made to you.
You
don't fight for approval, your approval is fought for.
You
don't need motivated sellers, you want sellers motivated to work with
you.
Almost
nobody knows how to do this - your top priority should be to find
someone who does.
Make
it happen,
- Azam
Oh
yeah - I'm hiring - but thankless, lazy, un-ambitious people hate
this - see below for interview:
