Are your sales people complaining about the market? If so, Leanne Pilkington, General Manager at Laing + Simmons suggests you get them focused on what they can change and watch the impact it has on your business. Here are 5 things to implement today that will have immediate results:
1. Focus on your saleable listings: Go through your listings and assess the motivation and price of each of them. Any listings that are over-priced and unmotivated need to be sacked – you are wasting your time. Focus on the motivated vendors and then help them become realistic about price. Meet with them to go through an updated CMA, show them what has sold recently, detail what is on the marketing competing with their property. Drive them around if you have to! Point out what has sold and go through open for inspections. Well priced property sells!
2.
Talk to the buyers: Most agents STILL don’t take the time to communicate with buyers. Yes, you do need to work out some time effective ways of doing this, but you do need to talk to them, particularly if they are interested in one of your auction properties. Take the time to have a face to face meeting with everyone that has asked for a contract prior to auction, educate them on what to expect on the day, the importance of actually bidding and the advantages of buying under auction conditions. Too many agents just let the buyers turn up on the day and hope for the best.
3.
Talk to your vendors often: Some of our more successful agents are doing this on a daily basis! The more you communicate what is happening in the market the better your rapport is going to be with the vendor and the more realistic they are going to be in relation to price.
4.
Stop quoting prices: Agents don’t want to see prices drop any more than vendors do. Sometimes they quote prices to buyers that are unrealistic simply because the agent themself thinks the property is “worth it”. Let the market dictate the price. At a recent open for inspection we heard some powerful dialogue when a buyer asked about the price. “The vendor has specifically asked me not to influence the market.” Obviously you need to communicate this strategy to your vendor and explain the benefits of buyers understanding that there is a genuine intention to meet the market.
5.
Train and role play: Regularly role play the communication in Points 1-4. Agents need to be comfortable with what they are saying to clients during difficult conversations – why practice on people that are paying you when you can practice on each other. Talk about these strategies at your next sales meeting and gauge the reaction of your sales people. If they are negative and start giving you excuses about why this won’t work, maybe you have another issue!
