First, love their home!

Today's session is all about how to show enthusiasm and interest in listing someone's home and doing that in the right order before you try to tell them what's wrong with it. And I think this is a mistake many agents make.

You are trying to give them feedback on the first tour of their house.

And so what ends up happening when you do that, is that sellers think that you don't like their house.

And what they've told me, true story, is your agent didn't like my house because she told me everything that was wrong with it on the tour. And I figured if she didn't like it, how was she going to be able to sell it. And so I've seen a lot of this. I've seen a lot of agents make the mistake of trying to argue price, argue repairs, argue improvements.

And the truth is, is that first thing you need to do is love on them and love their home. This is their home. This is where they live, work, play. This is where they've raised a family or had experiences of their life. And so what you want to do is love the home, love on them, and love the home that they've lived in and built.

And so the best way to do that is to compliment them and let them know that this is great. You love the floor plan, anything positive you can say about the house needs to be said. And so I think what, again, we make the mistake of thinking we're going to somehow stage the home at the same time we're viewing it for the first time.

And what I want you to do is wait to stage the home and talk about what's wrong with it, necessarily not what's wrong with it, but what are the decorating issues, or some of the feedback that you're thinking is not going to be good feedback.

And so what you have to do is consciously make it a point to say, “Wow, this is fabulous. Who's your decorator.” Right? Or, “Wow, this is so fantastic. Did you do this, or did you hire someone?” And be really enthusiastic.

Enthusiasm wins every single time.

I don't know where I heard this. A guy was giving a seminar and he said, enthusiasm, right, the last four letters are, “I am already sold myself.” I-A-S-M. And so that enthusiasm is going to resonate with the seller, right? They're going to say, “Wow, she's excited. He's excited about marketing my home.”

And so I want you to really pay attention to if you've lost a listing or you didn't get one, or maybe you didn't get it. And you look back and say, “Gee, I actually tried to stage the home on the first tour.” So very important, show enthusiasm. Show the fact that you love their house and that you have confidence that you can sell it.

That's what they want to know, is that you want their business and that you have a strategic marketing plan. That you have a creative and proven digital marketing plan, that you have video. And that you are excited about marketing and selling their home. That's lesson one, right? Just don't try to stage it, during the first tour.

Build rapport, build a relationship, and let them know that you love their house.

Even if it needs a hundred thousand dollars of re-decorating, right? Because, they want to hire someone who loves their house. Look at your strategy. How are you walking through a house? What are you saying? Are you saying it at the wrong time? Are you saying it just out of place? That's all that this is, is I want you to take that piece of this, where we give feedback on what we think should be done and wait until after you get the listing, of course, you can bring it up beforehand, but we want to show that we love the house. We're confident we can sell it.

And we know that there are some things that need to be done, but we'll talk about those later. Meanwhile, I love your house and I know I can sell it. That's the enthusiastic confidence that they want to see. So let's start by showing them right off the bat that we love them, and we're going to love on their house. I promise you, you'd love this strategy. It works. And you won't be putting some of the things in the wrong order, which is what I think is happening. So save the talk about what needs to be done until right after you get the listing or until you get some feedback. And you can always say, part of my process is to stage and bring up improvements and things that will help sell the house. I'm going to do that.

But in the beginning of this process, I want you to know that I am so excited to be here.

I appreciate you. I take nothing for granted and I am very excited. I love your house. I love that we're having this conversation and I'm so honored to be interviewed right now. I want to earn your trust. I want to earn your confidence. And part of earning their confidence is giving them the confidence that you think you can sell their house by telling them what's wrong with it, they will perceive that as you don't think it'll sell. So let's put this all in the right order.

First love on them, love on their house and go make it happen. I'm Sherri Johnson. Don't forget that you rock. Have a wonderful listing and a successful sales week. I'll see you next time.

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Sherri is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With 25 years of experience in real estate as an agent, broker, and executive, Sherri now offers her proven strategies through coaching, consulting and keynote speaking services nationwide. She is a national speaker for the Homes.com Secrets of Top Selling Agents tour and is the Official Real Estate Coach for McKissock Learning and Real Estate Express. She is also a preferred national coach for multiple Top-10 national real estate brokers, and has been named a RISMedia Real Estate Newsmaker in 2020 and 2021 as an Industry Influencer and Thought Leader.  Learn more about Sherri by visiting https://www.SherriJohnson.com/ Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sherrijohnsonconsulting Follow us on Instagram https://www.Instagram.com/_SherriJohnson