As a real estate agent, the frequency of presenting your business and yourself as the agent of choice is high. As you do more prospecting in your local property market, you will be presenting in front of clients and prospects at least once a day. Your success in the process is therefore critical to your listing conversions.
In most listing situations there will be at least one or two other real estate agents presenting to the prospect on or about the same day. You will only have a short time with the prospect to convince them that you are the best choice of agent in the current market.
Preparation is the key to a listing presentation and sales pitch. Your ability to connect with and involve the other person is also critical. Here are some rules that should be adopted:
- Before you start the listing presentation, converse with the other person(s) to understand their focus and concerns. Draw out their comments and ideas that can impact or challenge what you may have to say in the presentation.
- Remember that the prospect will enjoy being the centre of attention in any presentation and will generally talk openly to you if asked. Open questions are the key here for you to use.
- Pick the character of the client or prospect at the earliest stages of the presentation. You will have to adjust your conversational style to suit their character.
- A listing presentation has to be about the needs of the prospect and their property; it is not about you, your business, or your knowledge. Always bring your presentation focus to the client and their property.
- Inspect the property before you meet with the client, so you can bring the property into the conversation in a relevant and interesting way. Your personal awareness of the property and the location will give you leverage in the presentation.
- Have a group of facts and details to use that are relevant to the sales and enquiry rate of the current market. As part of that process use newspaper clippings and other third party supporting evidence to influence the clients thinking.
- If you have a camera and laptop computer that you can use in the presentation, take a number of photos around the property, the location, and the competing properties before the actual presentation. These photos can be used as a slide show running automatically as you present your listing strategy to the client or prospect. Well-chosen photos of their property and location are most important and of the greatest interest to the client.
- Understand where the competing properties are located in the area that can impact the subject property, and then have a pricing and marketing strategy set to solve that competition.
- Define the target market clearly for the prospect so they can see how their property will be promoted, to whom, and why. Give current facts and figures relative to the activities and enquiry in and from the target market.
- Develop at least 5 selling advantages or property focus points that you can build your marketing campaign around. Those points will have relevance to the target market.
- Have 3 alternative marketing campaigns designed for use and the selective choice of the prospect. Run through all campaigns explaining the differences but give the prospect an opportunity to decide what campaign they require based on market impact and price.
- The presentation is best undertaken with at least three of the senses active for the prospect. That is sight, sound, and touch. Give them something to feel and review as you talk (a proposal will be ideal), speak about the property from the prospects base of need, and show the prospect things about the property that you see as relevant to the marketing strategy.
- Create some draft marketing material to show the prospect how their property will look in some of your most important marketing methods.
The sales pitch and presentation strategy that you use should be as natural as possible to your character. For this reason use words and the conversational style that you are comfortable with. The most successful sales people in the industry practice their words and their presentations so they are visibly confident and relevant to the prospects to whom they present.