You’ve spent years developing a strong base of business and finally, the real estate market is beginning to recover. You get a call from a past client or referral and they want to list their home for sale. Because you’ve done hundreds of listing presentations, you have everything under control. Nobody can tell you how to run your business or give you advice because you already heard it all before. You know exactly what you’re going to say and how you want to present your services to get the listing.

WHAT A BIG MISTAKE!

How on earth can you know “exactly what you’re going to do,” when you haven’t even listened to what your prospective seller has to say. The problem with being well-prepared during an initial meeting is that you must use a “one size fits all” approach. By doing so, you’ve just dramatically reduced your ability to provide the highest level of service to your clients as their trusted real estate advisor.  This means you must have a preliminary meeting, either in person or over the phone, to get to know your client and identify their needs. And, the best way to identify their needs is to ask questions.  Once you’ve been able to get in your clients heads, and identify their motivation, you can provide the best possible service. A critical step to really understanding your client’s situation is to “put yourself in your clients shoes.” We all tend to look at things from our own perspective, based on our past experiences. That approach is ideal if we’re developing a strategy for ourselves. It may not be ideal if we’re giving advice to others. Consider the examples listed below:

• Your buyer is from a big city and is interested in a home on a busy street. You should never advise a client to move forward based on what you like. To do so, would be a disservice to your client.

• You love living in your condo and your seller, who is passionate about privacy, wants to move from a big house into a condominium development and is willing to pay big money for a condominium. You should make every effort to explain the risk of purchasing a condo that may not provide the privacy the seller is expecting.

An agent that was using his or her personal taste to represent buyers and sellers in the above scenarios, could be an accomplice to their client’s making a bad decision. In each of the cases above, if the agent had put themselves in their buyers or sellers shoes by identifying the likes and dislikes associated with their client’s next step, the agent could be instrumental in helping their clients make the best possible decision for themselves. And, that my friends, is what being a Trusted Real Estate Advisor, is all about!