Negotiating is a weakness with most Real Estate Agents. It is often the Agent’s most costly weakness.  Because it can cost you sales, listings and Clients. Negotiating weakness also add stress, dissatisfaction, self criticism, and negativity.

Third party negotiating is the toughest type because the primary negotiators, Buyers and Sellers are almost  always inexperienced at negotiations. Or worse, they are jaded and fearful of negotiations. It is your job to control and keep them focused.

These are the Five Keys:
     1. Understand that negotiating in Real Estate always involves some level of compromise. 
         (At least you want both parties to feel that way)
      2. Desire to learn the skills and tactics of successful negotiating without emotions
      3. Understand how emotions, personalities and needs affect negotiating
      4. Be willing to practice and strengthen this skill in your business
      5. Desire to succeed and achieve the goals of your client. Set your pride aside.

1. Real Estate is local by nature.  A 27% drop in existing housing sales does not mean that your community is down 27%.  The seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales is still over 3,800,000 properties sold.  Those sales will happen in a lot of communities.  As I have repeated many times, “There are enough sales in your market for you to do the 2, 3, 4, or even 5 sales you need to exceed your goals.

2. Good work is rewarded.  I have coaching Clients in communities from California and Oregon to Kansas and Texas, Florida and up the East Coast to Maine.  The Agents who have been marketing effectively and building their knowledge and skills are finding the deals and often are the only ones in their office or company who is busy.  

3. For those who can afford to move, it continues to be a fabulous time.  First time Buyers would be insane not to take advantage of today’s rates.  Move up or down Buyers have the opportunity to hold out for the best possible price for their home, even though it may be disappointing while they bargain hard on their purchase; as long as they have a very competent Agent on their side.  Many, many savvy people are taking advantage. 

Yes I do tend to see the glass half full.  Hmmm, did you ever notice that the people who see the glass half full are never thirsty?  In fact they are the ones willing to share and yet continue to have a half full glass and a very full life. 

Your Clients and prospects want an honest opinion of the market.  They also want to know the opportunities that exist within it.  When you offer both you become the “go to” Agent for them and their referrals.

Sheila is angry.  She is a Real Estate Agent and one of my coaching clients.  She has a legitimate reason to be angry.  Another Agent was dishonest with her.  Sheila was in the office after a listing presentation where the owner did not yet list but strongly indicated they were going to.  She was excited about the possible new listing and told another Agent about it.  When she called the owner back to check in the next day, she found out that another Agent in her office that overheard the conversation called the owner with a story about having a Buyer and went after the listing. 
Sheila is not normally angry.  She prides herself on being nice.  I told her that I was very happy that she was angry.  Negative emotions can be bad for our health and psyche but they can sometimes be good.
It is like a pearl being formed in the belly of the oyster.  The anger is that little piece of sand that irritates and causes a layer of iridescence to form.  With each agitation another layer is added until there is a beautiful natural and valuable pearl.
For Sheila, that anger is causing her to focus, to work harder, sharpen her skills, be smarter about what she does, what she says, how she says it and who she talks to.  By the time our coaching call was complete Sheila’s anger had formed into a plan that will drive her to greater success.
Emotions can be productive or destructive.  This is a market where your emotions can be more on edge.  Do your emotions drive you or distract you?  Can you use your emotional responses to drive you to your next level of success? 

Wednesday on our live group coaching session an Agent said this very statement. "Buyers are Liars"  He went on to describe two situations in which Buyers he was working with gave him a strong indication that they were going to buy but when it came time to make a decision they didn't or wouldn't. Needless to say he was very frustrated.

The Agent and I discussed his initial Buyer presentation and distinguished two critical errors that may have been the root of this problem. 

The first was his discomfort discussing financing, particularly because they were both high-end Buyers.  The second was his demeanor as a “glad handing” salesperson.  The first, discomfort with financing had obvious drawbacks, for example working with unqualified Buyers.  The second, his demeanor was causing people to take him less seriously and feel more comfortable blowing him off.

At the initial Buyer presentation he was so happy and confident that people felt comfortable being dishonest with him.  His lack of adding a serious tone to his demeanor allowed people to treat him with less respect. 

Also at the initial Buyer presentation he was reluctant to ask direct questions about finances, motivation, time frames, and contingent properties or to probe more deeply on these issues.  This reinforced the Client’s taking him less seriously. 
We discussed the order in which he should ask very specific questions to cover all these facets before they become an issue. And the only way to get comfortable with this new approach is to practice. It needs to be comfortable for him to ask these direct questions or it will just reinforce the second issue he had with his demeanor. I hope he takes the advice to heart and works this approach into his future Buyer Presentations.

Recently one of my coaching clients forwarded me an email that I simply had to share. I teach a referral program that this Agent follows with great success but now also with great admiration. I will share my referral system in another blog shortly.

“Sometimes, I love my job. I thought you would appreciate this email from a client as much as I did.”
jennifer mallory | associate broker “real integrity in real estate”
keller williams hudson valley realty | 18 laurel rd, new city, ny 10956 
845.521.3135 |  845.323.6247 mobile  |  www.jennifermallory.com

Hi Jennifer!  So busy that I haven't had time to thank you for the gift card.  From my perspective, it was so unnecessary!  I'm always happy to recommend someone who does their job well and I know you'll take care of Holly if she calls you.  I saw your ad in the Our Town and am going to clip it out and send it to her to follow up. 
Getting back to the gift card, it didn't surprise me that you were so thoughtful but again, I felt totally undeserving!  Here's the compromise because I don't want you to think I'm unappreciative.  You sent the card to me around the 4th of July and I was thinking that I'd like to give it to a service man or veteran.  My father came here at the age of ten and instilled in us an appreciation of all that we have as Americans.  Would you mind very much if I wrote a note to my husband's cousin who served in Afghanistan, letting him know that we (all) appreciate what he has done and include the gift card?  He's starting a new life in upstate NY and I'm sure there are plenty of Dunkin' Donuts there!  It could be a gift with a second life!
Hope all is well with you - Deb

Rich Levin talks about his very affordable real estate coaching program for Agents.

You know me to post very positive blog posts.  This is not one of those. 
Yesterday a coaching Client called and was wildly upset.  A current client of his had just "Googled" him and found a very negative review posted on www.intellignetagents.com.  It accused him of dishonesty, putting his commission above the Clients interest and worse.
This is a Top Agent doing multi-millions in sales each year.  He often checks his presence online. The problem is he goes by a shorter version of his name so he never thought to check his full name with results. Let me explain.  He uses Bill (not his real name) for all of his marketing, branding etc. He had never thought to check "William Smith" and the only way this bad review would appear in Googled search results was if he specifically “Googled "William Smith Realtor"
He called me frantic because this particular review was posted on a website that he did not register to but in doing some research we discovered the site was able to add his profile under the "Public Information Act."  He has a state Real Estate license which are public records. This site is an opinion based site therefore they will not take down the bad review.  By the way he also claims the review details are very inaccurate. This posting had been there for over a year and this Agent had no idea.  He imagines that it may have lost him business. Regardless, he felt horrible about it.  Had he known he could at least have responded to the review.  We suggested that he call some friends and his satisfied clients to post their own reviews thereby driving the bad review further out of sight and  "hiding" the one bad one. 

The moral of this story is. Check the web not only for standard search terms but also all variation of your name and key words that could be associated with you.

He will get past this.  There was no way to prevent it.  It goes with having a public image.  We are recommending that you take extra care to monitor and manage that image.

Every market is a good market.  Every market is bad market.

It’s true.  There are too many Buyers or too many Listings.  People are not “pulling the trigger.”  Buyers are making low offers.  Sellers are expecting too much.  It all depends who you are talking to.

Here is what you can say depending on who you are talking to. 

Buyers: “People may look back at the summer of 2010 and say, ‘I wish I had the foresight to have bought then.  Interest rates are under 5% for the first time in our lifetimes and it is likely not to happen again in our lifetime.  With the current political landscape it is possible that after the election in November we will see that change.  Home prices are excellent.  And when things change they will change fast.  Rates will rise in the matter of days.  If we have an inflationary bump and house prices rise significantly like they did in the early 80’s that too will begin to happen in a matter of weeks and months.  You know the expression, buy low and sell high.  Buy when others are selling and sell when others are buying.  Well, it’s a Buyer’s market, people are selling, prices and rates are low.  If you are thinking of buying or know someone who is please give me their name or have them call me.  This may be a real moment of opportunity.”

And for Sellers: “If you don’t have to sell and you are not buying up, stay put.  But, if you are selling a less expensive house and buying a more expensive one, holy cow, this is an amazing time to make that move.  The lower priced houses are holding their prices much better than the higher priced ones.  So, you could get a very good price for your present home and a great price for the one you are buying.  And you will get a mortgage interest rate that is likely the lowest we have or will see in our lifetime.”

And for Sellers not buying: “If you don’t have to sell for a few years, then stay put.  But if you are going to sell in the next few years, now may be the best time.  Rates are at record lows so Buyers can buy and are willing to pay a better price than they will when the rates rise again.  Also, even though it is slow, there are flurries of activity when a bunch of homes will sell in a weekend for no apparent reason, just a burst of pent up demand.  You can’t wait to put your house on the market when it happens because it is over by the time you do.  So, you put it on the market for a reasonable price and are a bit more patient than you may have been in the past.  We position yours to be one of those that catch the flurry so you take advantage of this market.  Does that make sense?”

Successful Agents look for the opportunities in the market and express the opportunities that are available.  This attracts business directly.  It also makes the Agent amn expert in their community; a voice of optimism and reason in the midst of uncertainty.

 

 

Just completed a workshop with Top Agents on Building Teams, it seems obvious that there is a lot of need out there for good coaching and intelligence on all the topics around assistants, buyer specialists and teams. 

There are a lot of Agents in the country who are doing really well, selling forty and fifty or more homes.  On this tour in every city Agents came up to me and said some version of this.  “Rich I am making good money.  I am selling fifty homes a year.   But I see Jim over there and Don and Sally and they are selling a hundred homes or more every year.  I am generating leads like crazy.  I have web marketing handled.  I have a twelve lot subdivision I just listed last night.  I know that with the right help I could be doing more than a hundred deals a year.  I feel like the sky’s the limit if I could build the right team.”
The conversation usually goes on something like this.

“Rich, I have had two assistants and they just don’t work out.  I have had people working with my buyers and they just waste most of the leads I give them.”

I would like to tell you in a few paragraphs how to design the right job description for your best administrative person, then tell you how to find them and hire them, then how to compensate, motivate and supervise them.  I’d like to tell you in a few paragraphs how to structure a winning relationship with a buyer specialist.  As you might have already imagined and guessed, it is not that simple.
When I help someone build a successful team it takes understanding their business.  Creating a job description that compliments the Agent’s strengths and weaknesses.  Then we have to advertise and locate that assistant.  We work with you on reviewing resume’s and conducting phone interviews.  We do DISC behavior assessments on the final candidates before you do personal interviews.  We help you structure checklists and teach you how to conduct regular accountability meetings to monitor progress and ensure success.

All of this is done in our coaching session but I just wanted to share with you either that what you are experiencing is being experienced by lots of others around the country.  Or, what you can look forward to as your business builds.  Or best of all, congratulations on solving these tough issues without our help. 

Rich shares the 3 elements that are required for an Agent to be successful in Real Estate.