Life Style Trainers: Servicing The Listing

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Servicing The Listing

So in my last two articles I talked about preparing for the listing appointment and going on the appointment. Now I want to share some thoughts on servicing the seller during the listing period.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the clients want to hear from you. They want consistent communication with you to know what’s being done to sell their home, how the market is doing, and what the feedback is from the showings that are taking place.

I can’t tell you the number of expired listing appointments I go on and the seller says, “My agent listed the house and I never heard from them again”. As a professional in this industry, that is completely unacceptable in my opinion. The client is hiring you by signing a multi-month contract for thousands of dollars. You owe it to them to provide a professional level of service and communication.

It’s really pretty simply but for some reason we allow fear to get in the way of calling and communicating with our sellers. You leave the house with the listing signed feeling all warm and fuzzy, and then when a few weeks or possibly months go by and the home is not sold, we get scared to talk to the seller.

There are many reasons for this fear and it’s justifiable. The biggest issue with this fear is that you likely didn’t set them up properly at the listing appointment. The sellers are looking to you as the professional to lead and guide them throughout the entire process. Remember, they don’t know what they don’t know.

Here are some things that you should cover with your seller either at the appointment or within the first week of taking the listing.

1. You will call each agent that shows the home to get feedback from them and communicate this with them.

2. You will update them every 30 days with a new market analysis of their home via email showing how their home is continuing to compare to the market so that they can remain competitively priced in order to sell.

3. Explain that other agents and companies will be showing the home way more often than you are. As the listing agent your job is to market the home and get the home maximum exposure no matter what agent the buyer is working with. Don’t pretend you’re going to be showing the home all the time, in fact tell them the truth, you may never show the home as the listing agent. If you have a financially qualified buyer who is looking for something like their home you will but otherwise you will be spending your time marketing the home and looking for buyers, which is what they’re hiring you for. My agent never showed the home is another huge complaint I hear. Educating them on how this works will do wonders for your relationship with the seller.

4. Discuss price reductions right up front. Tell them the truth. The longer the home sits on the market the harder it will be to sell and the worse thing you can do is continue to let the home sit on the market month after month at a price that isn’t causing the home to sell.

5. If you are not going to do open houses, let them know this. Don't allow the client to wonder about this. Either you are an agent that does open houses or you are not. There are a number of objection handlers in our book, Now What Do I Say?, to overcome this if you choose not to do open houses.

6. Ask them how they would like you to communicate with them, email, text, phone, mail. And then do what works best for them.

The future of business is in relationship and communication. Make sure your goal is to take excellent care of the client’s needs, wants, and desires first and foremost. A paycheck should come as a result of providing great service. Please don’t be the type of agent that is only concerned about getting a paycheck. Trust me, the client feels this from miles away.

Be a contribution to your client in every way possible during your relationship with them. Have form letters, checklists, price reduction campaigns in place to service the listing. It should be streamlined and the same for every listing you take. You shouldn't have to think about any of this, it should be automatic.

Remember, the consistency of your day to day activities determines the consistency of your income month after month.

Please let me know how I can support you with your real estate business. I have recently opened my scheduled to allow space for a few additional individual coaching clients. My goal is to teach agents across the United States how to sell a 100 homes a year with great service, and a personal life too! To learn more about how I can help you, please call me at 540-312-0085 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 540-312-0085 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or email me at christycrouch@aol.com, or visit our website at www.yourethedifference.com