Sales Skills for Top Earning Real Estate Agents
I speak to Real Estate Sales Agents nearly every day and the ones that are making huge commissions possess many sales skills but probably the most important one is knowing how to have sales conversations with anyone! They know the importance of picking up the phone and starting conversations. This activity is commonly known as prospecting, cold calling, and lead generation and without it, you won’t have a business.
These days, no one is interested in a presentation, agents with good sales skills present a really good cleverly crafted conversation and that’s it!
What is the definition of selling? I believe the definition of selling can be easily summed up by saying it is a conversation between two or more people where at the end somebody gets the opportunity to buy and money is exchanged. That’s why mastering conversations are crucial to getting more customers and making more money. More real estate agents are realising that it’s not their presentations that need work but their sales skills and in particular, conversations and crucial understanding of dialogue are paramount.
Therefore, the only thing that dooms a sale is the person’s inability to candidly and effectively hold conversations required to resolve someone’s problems. After all, without the presence of problems, needs or desires there is no sale. In most cases, people only buy or sell a property when they really want or need something.
With the explosion of information about sales skills over the internet, some basics still remain the staple diet for anyone in sales and that is eloquently described by the recognised author, Phil Polson of Sales Drive, The Definitive ‘no-brainer’ street smart guide to Sales Stardom. One of my favourite lines in his intelligent book is The Six P’s of Selling still applies, “Pre-Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.” The buyer or seller is so well informed and heavily researchers all options prior to purchase or sale of a property. Therefore, you cannot fool vendors or buyers in this technological savvy driven world. Some vendors and buyers know more than the “so called” property specialists. In real estate, particularly the agents need to be armed with deep market research and unexpected fine details that would be welcomed by prospective sellers and buyers.