When a Seller hires you to represent them, they’re not hiring you to give it a shot. They are putting their trust and confidence, perhaps even their future happiness in your hands. It goes without saying they believe you are the person that will make it happen.  This is why it’s so critical for you to represent each Seller to the best of your ability.

A recent survey completed by one of the major internet companies found that nearly 50% of the population doesn’t believe they need to hire a realtor to sell their home. This is an alarming statistic, but it points out a serious problem with the industry as a whole. If it’s just a matter of MLS and internet exposure on the major websites, a sign in the yard and continuously reducing the price until the home sells, does the Seller really need to give away 6% of the commission?   On the other hand, If you as an agent are aggressively representing your clients to the best of your ability, in the same manner as other professional groups such as Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants and Financial Planners, then you are entitled to fair compensation.

What should you do as a Trusted Advisor to your clients?

1. Use ISIT to find the answer to selling the home.  This includes doing the following in writing:

• I- Identify  your goal of successfully representing your Sellers
• S- Develop a Strategy on how you expect to accomplish this goal
• I- Implement your strategy each week by identifying the Next “best” Step to selling the property.
• T- Track your results on a weekly basis and refine the strategy for the coming week with a new Next Step.

By continuously tracking the progress of your Strategy in writing, you’re Strategies will improve dramatically and you’ll be surprised as how creative your thought process will be in achieving your goal.  If this isn’t done in writing, your Strategy doesn’t exist!

This process can be very frustrating for many agents, because they find it impossible to give this effort to all of their buyers and sellers. That’s a valid point. This is why it’s so important to Focus your efforts an inch wide and a mile deep.  What this means, is you can’t be successful spreading yourself too thin by working with too many buyers and sellers. You must be able to focus heavily on the 20% activities that are going to lead to the greatest success or income from your business efforts. If you have too many buyers and sellers there are four possible solutions:

• Select your top clients and be sure to create strong strategies for them and eventually get to the next tier of clients. If you can’t get to all of your clients or projects, at least you’re completing the most important one’s by prioritizing.
• Don’t develop full strategies for each client. Instead, start with the Next Step for each client every week. Over a period of several months, your next steps for each client will take the shape of sophisticated strategies, so long as each next step is being tracked in writing and recorded as part of the strategic plan for that client.
• Refer the lower priority clients or business to another agent and collect a referral fee for little additional effort.
• Hire or co-partner on a 50/50 commission split basis and have your partner do all of the leg work. There are many agents that make very little money but are fantastic with clients. Their weakness is usually in selling because these agents do not have aggressive or strong personalities.

 

Ultimately, it’s important to realize that it isn’t fair to agree to represent a Seller and then make a minimal effort. Be sure to give each Seller the effort and courtesy they deserve and you would expect if you were in their shoes. Use the ISIT philosophy and you may just be pleasantly surprised at how quickly your reputation and income will grow.