2016 Salesmanship

The Secret to Exponentially Expanding the Impact of Your Message

 

How many times have you found yourself pulling your hair out dealing with a client who just doesn’t seem to “get it?”  The facts you’re presenting are undisputable.  You’ve told them over and over again, yet they remain steadfast in their unwillingness to accept the inevitable.

What’s an agent to do when they find themselves faced with this situation (a daily occurrence).  I’ve got an idea!  Instead of stressing out and complaining about your clients, how about increasing the power of your message hundredfold by just applying two of the success principles you’ve learned.

1. Spaced Repetition—People learn through spaced repetition. You may have to reinforce the message over and over again.  Some of you have spent months attempting to get a buyer or a seller to “buy into” your message.  In some cases, you may have repeated yourself dozens of times to no avail.
2. If It Isn’t In Writing, It Doesn’t Exist—How about working smarter and not harder? Each time you document a message in writing, you may have to verbally say it 100 times to get the same impact.  For goodness sakes, if you had a meeting with a client and made a great point, take a couple of minutes to send an email to recap your discussion that also reinforces the key points that you’ve made.  Then, sit back and enjoy the impact the email has on the recipient.

Here are a few examples of how the above approach can be applied:

1. Supervision and Delegation—when you can’t figure out why your personnel or associates aren’t getting things done that you’ve “asked” them to do, keep in mind that good instructions must always be in writing. When things aren’t getting done, ask yourself, “have I given my staff good instructions in writing?  If not, it’s not them, it’s YOU!
2. Seller Discussions—When working with sellers, especially on price reductions and offer negotiations, remember that in their mind they haven’t really lost the money until they accept your price recommendation. Denial is a great way for human beings to avoid pain.  Documenting a powerful message that has been delivered verbally in writing is an ideal way to “shock” your sellers out of denial.
3. Buyer Discussions—Most buyers have been waiting for so long to buy that sitting on the fence has become a habit. “Telling” them how much the prices have gone up isn’t near as powerful as “showing” them how much they’ve lost.  If the home is a $500,000 home, and prices have increased 5% during the first half of the year, your buyer is now paying $25,000 more for the same property.  That’s like writing a check out of their account for over $4,000 each month that they don’t buy.  That hurts when you see it in writing.

It’s easy to use this approach after important meetings.  Start each email with “per our discussion today, we identified several key points that we should keep in mind.”