In the sports skateboarding and surfing, someone that dresses and acts exactly like a rider, but doesn’t actually surf or skateboard, is called a “poser”. We could apply the same terminology to someone who looks and acts like a buyer, but never buys. If you’re like most agents, you’ve probably wasted countless hours on “poser” buyers. Working with “posers” can also cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

Unfortunately, no matter how long you’ve been working with clients, it’s practically impossible to make the right decision with respect to prospective buyers. Think about it, your closing conversion rate with buyers is almost always much lower that your conversion rate with listings. It’s not uncommon to work with 15-20 buyers before one actually buys. Yet, if you don’t play the numbers game and make a genuine effort with every prospective buyer, it will cost you in lost sales.

Conversely, if you apply the same determination and time to buyers, and the majority of them turn out to be “posers”, you could find yourself in the poor house. So, what do you do when you’ve spent time with someone that looks and acts like a buyer but seems to be losing interest? The answer: TURN UP THE HEAT! What does that mean? All too often, good agents behave badly by being hypersensitive about acting pushy. That doesn’t make sense. When you’ve come through as a professional, by spending time with a prospect and providing them with valuable information, it only makes sense for them to be respectful. If your prospect falls off the face of the earth or never responds, they’re not being respectful. That’s when it’s time to aggressively increase your communication efforts by contacting them via email or phone 2-3 times per week.

When you put your communications into overdrive with multiple contacts, you’ll be surprised how quickly you find out who the “posers” are. Genuine buyers can easily be prompted to move forward. If their offended, you can always apologize or back off. On the other hand, an insincere “poser” prospect will be forced to make up some excuse about why they can’t move forward. Either way, it’s likely you’ll save valuable time by identifying who is a serious buyer and who is a “poser”.