BY PAT HIBAN

Key Takeaways

What percentage of listing appointments do you close? Are you anywhere close to getting 94 percent of sellers to sign a listing agreement? In a recent podcast interview, Peter Hernandez shared with Pat Hiban how his company dominates the competition with a better than 94 percent close ratio on listing appointments.

Peter Hernandez is president and founder of Teles Properties. He oversees branch management, marketing, brokerage and transactional management and the recruiting of agents.

He took the time to give out plenty of actionable content to help real estate agents improve their closing ratio for listing appointments. In fact, he shared six steps to get you started right away.

Let’s take a quick look at those steps. (Listen to the complete podcast for a deeper dive.)

Step 1: Google the client

Take time to research personal interests and the professional background of the seller. All the information you need to find commonalities, build rapport and make a strong connection with seller leads is floating around online.

Step 2: Determine personality traits

If you are not familiar with NLP (neurolinguistic programming), then take time now to get familiar with it.

To further the connection, and more importantly, build trust with the sellers, use matching and mirroring techniques during the listing appointment.

When talking, make sure you are talking at the same pace and rhythm of the sellers.

Step 3: Identify their issues and hot buttons

Questions like, “What is your biggest concern?” and “In an ideal world, how would your home sale look like?” will help you find their hot buttons.

However, more important than identifying issues and hot buttons, you must also problem solve and offer solutions to those issues.

Step 4: Understand their motivation — inside and out

Bring sellers back to their motivation when issues and roadblocks come up during the appointment.

During your listing presentation, use that motivation as an anchor, and keep bringing the discussion back to that end goal.

Step 5: Brainstorm questions to ask them, and build a sample agenda

It does no good to create marketing material that only promotes your brand. Instead, your marketing material must directly answer a question or satisfy a need of the seller.

Anticipate questions you might receive during the listing appointment, and create your marketing material based on those questions.

Step 6: Always decommoditize yourself

Hernandez brought up the problem with consumers seeing real estate agents as a commodity multiple times in the podcast.

If you are only seen as a commodity — no different than any other agent — then nine out of ten times sellers will choose based on price.

You can overcome this obstacle by delivering unparalleled service and position yourself as a problem-solver and an educator — an asset — for the seller.

Pat Hiban is the author of NYT best selling book “6 steps to 7 figures – A Real Estate Professional’s Guide to Building Wealth and Creating Your Destiny”, the founder of Rebus University and the host of Pat Hiban Interviews Real Estate Rockstars an Agent to Agent Real Estate Radio Podcast with Hiban Digital in Baltimore, Maryland. Follow him on Instagram or Twitter.