This is a great approach to use before the recovery takes hold and the numbers list-to-sold ration improves for top producers. Top listers have been carrying heavy inventory loads with few sales. Once listings begin to sell, this argument won’t be as effective, so take advantage of the opportunity now!
It’s always much easier to get listings and generate sales when you’re a top producer. But, what do you do when you’re competing with a top agent to get a listing. After all, it looks to the seller like the other agent is the obvious choice because of all of the sales that agent has produced.
How do you beat the competition when it appears as though they are doing so much more business than you are?
You must remember that your competitor’s great strength, is also their great weakness. When your competition is meeting with clients, they will put their best foot forward by showing the number of sales they have had in the area or the number of listings they have had sell. Sometimes, they will impress the seller with the sheer volume of listings that they have, claiming that they are getting all of the buyers.
So how can you overcome your competition’s impressive statistics? Focus on different statistics. For example, the competition has:
The competing agent has far more sales than you do– You should identify how many listings the other agent has that haven’t sold. Include both the listings that have expired and withdrawn for that agent. Add these listings to the number of listings the competing agent has now, and compare this number to the total number of sales the other agent has had. In most cases, the big producer has a severely deficient conversion rate. They may have had 10 listings sell, but they have another 30 that haven’t sold. This means that only 33% of the time they are successful with their sellers. What seller will want to choose someone to represent them that fails over 66% of the time?? Force the big producers to own up to their conversion or success rate by changing the focus from
what has been sold to what hasn’t been sold.
The competing agent has far more listings – Once again, the volume of listings is not near as important as what the agent does once they get the listings, so use the same strategy described above.
The competing agent has had a large number of their listings sell – You should check to see who has sold all of that agent’s listings. Many powerful listing agents never work with buyers. You can argue the point that these agents spend all of their time prospecting for more listings, but never actually do the work of selling them because it’s almost always another agent that brings buyers to the table. If you have had success with buyers, you can ask whether it makes more sense to hire the agent that is actually doing the work to sell their home.
The competing agent has sold a large number of their own listings and has a great conversion rate – All is not lost when competing against this agent.
If the agent has listings in multiple areas, point out to the seller’s that this agent is very successful but has to divide their time between 10 different areas. This means that they can really only focus 10% of their time in your area. 100% of their time divided by 10 areas =10%). They may be good, but they’re not 10x better than you are.
If the agent has 40 listings, point out to the seller that this agent must divide their time between 40 different clients. Although it may make sense to have 5-10 listings, does it really makes sense for that agent to spread themselves so thin? Once again, this agent may be very good, but they can only give the seller 2-3% of their time. 100% their time divided by 40 sellers = 2.5% time for each person. Or, 40 sellers divided by 40 hours each week is only 1 hour of time they can devote to each client if they are being fair to everyone.