Broker Focus: Stop practicing Sales Prevention and Start Being a Deal Maker
Proven Negotiation Strategies that work to create sales and 6 indicators you are practicing sales prevention and getting in the way.
I am always surprised at the amount of deals that don’t come together for a buyer and seller due to situations that were completely avoidable, however, the agents were not effective at negotiating or communicating to bring the deal together or to keep a deal together during the home inspection. Both parties walk away disappointed when really that negotiation should have resulted in a positive outcome and an agreement between buyer and seller.
Three Indicators you may be practicing Sales Prevention and three proven negotiation strategies that will create a win/win for you to be the most effective problem solving, expert negotiator that is more about facilitating the conversation than argumentatively trying to win. You can be a strong and aggressive negotiator while still being and influencing and powerful communicator that other agents want to sell your listings and work with you because you keep the deal together and you know how to overcome objections on both sides while maintaining less stress for everyone.
Indicator #1: Texting and email are not effective forms of negotiating. Be extremely careful when texting and/or emailing terms of a negotiation to your client. So many misinterpretations happen during email or text. All caps can indicate a nasty/yelling tone, while trying to properly understand your client’s objections without seeing them or hearing their voice tone is next to impossible.
Solution: You are much more effective when you are in person, so you can watch body language and hear their voice tone. This will help you help your client. Be sure to manage their expectations and explain at the beginning of the process that you will need to see them in person or at the very least on the phone, that trying to use technology to navigate through the negotiation part of buying or selling a home won’t be most effective and I will need to actually speak to you to discuss the pros and cons along each step of the way.
Indicator #2: Using the possessive pronoun “My Buyer” or “My Seller”. When you use the word ‘my’ during a tough negotiation it can sound like you are getting in the ring with Mike Tyson, or trying to win an argument in a courtroom instead of being a facilitator of the negotiation between a home buyer and seller. It’s also adversarial and combative sounding to the receiving end.
Solution: Replace ‘my’ with the word ‘the’, ‘the buyer, the seller’. When you do this, you are putting the clients in one category and you are putting you and the other agent in the agent side where you can both work pro-actively to problem solve and overcome one side’s objection…together. It’s a revolutionary idea and agents thank me all the time for making this adjustment in their speech pattern. You will love the results you get when separating yourself from the buyer. Because your job is to facilitate the conversation and negotiation to a win/win result.
Indicator #3: Over-Mirroring your client. We all want to be liked and appreciated especially with our clients. You won them over and they are working with you and that is great. When it comes to giving them good advice however it is vitally important that you don’t ‘over-mirror’ them when they are making unreasonable decisions that would negatively affect their negotiating ability or won’t be in their best financial interest. So we learn in sales that you should mirror your client to build rapport, that is a good thing. It does not work when they want to not accept an offer or negotiate home repairs and tell you they are offended and want to put the house back on the market and raise the price. This is usually not the best strategy and usually, the agents know it, but are reluctant to say something contrary to their decision for fear they will ‘get fired’.
Solution: Have tough conversations with sellers with empathy. Explain that you understand why they are offended but at the end of the day, their home is currently sold and we are just $1400.00 away from having this all behind you and you can move on with your lives. Telling them you understand will validate their emotionally charged decisions they want to make. Having some of these conversations way before an offer occurs will help dramatically as they will understand it is truly in their best financial interest to stay with the buyer we have and not make rash decisions when they feel the other party is not negotiating in good faith. You can diffuse a lot of the emotionally charged drama that occurs by being a good facilitator and reminding both buyer and seller the end goal is to get the home sold or bought and this is all part of the process. Keep them focused on the goal and property and not the personalities.
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Sherri is the premier, national leader offering world-class real estate keynote, consulting and coaching while delivering accelerated results. No other coach matches her distinguished 20 years of experience as a top agent and executive of a Top-3 National brokerage. She has recruited, trained & coached thousands of agents & was responsible for leading over 700 real estate agents and over $1.6 billion in annual sales volume. Sherri's relevant, real life & proven strategies coupled with her high energy produce immediate results & can triple your income regardless of your current production! Sherri is the national speaker for Homes.com for Secrets of Top Selling Agents national tour.
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