In This Chapter

This chapter is about qualifying your seller prospect and making your listing presentation. Qualifying the seller is essential to cutting down on the time you spend with a seller prospect. After you qualify your seller, prepare your listing package, make your presentation, and have the seller sign a listing agreement.

The components of your listing package are of vital importance because they set the stage for your listing presentation. This chapter describes each document that should be included in your listing package and exactly how you should present the listing package. The next chapter is on representing the seller after you receive the listing. Chapter 19 covers representing the buyer, and Chapter 20 addresses what to do when you are asked to represent both the buyer and the seller.

Time is a most precious commodity. If you don’t have a clear plan in mind in the real estate field, you can easily end up spending too much of your time with potential clients who are not ready to buy or sell. You want to help them, and you understand that it takes time to prepare to buy or sell. However, your income depends on commissions.

Client inquisition is my terminology for the process of a potential client taking up far too much of my time just learning about real estate. The only way you can control your time is by setting boundaries. To do this, you must qualify your potential clients early on. If they don’t qualify, you can certainly assist them, but at least you will know where they stand so you can gauge your time accordingly.

Let’s walk through the steps of the important qualification process. Assume that through successful application of your marketing skills and your referral stream system, you are in communication with a seller prospect. Now what do you do? If your prospects are not in a seller state of mind, it will not behoove you to dedicate large quantities of time and energy to them. There is no such thing as a perfect client, but you can come close to finding one by qualifying your potential sellers. If they qualify, you give them the full-blown listing presentation. If not, put them on your list of prospects to receive newsletters.

Here is a list of questions to ask of your seller prospect. These questions will serve both to qualify a seller and to get helpful information for preparation of your listing package:

If your potential seller is ready to list the property within the next 60 days or so, you will know it from the answers you obtain through this qualification process. If the seller is ready, you can take the next step, which is preparing your listing package.

The sales trainers make a listing presentation sound like you’re auditioning for a part in a Hollywood movie. They suggest you spend two hours selling your potential client on yourself. The big to-do is all very contrived, dramatic, and unprofessional. They give you yet another inventory of fancy scripts to spew forth in order to bring the big one in for a close.

Let’s put away the script and begin anew in an entirely different way. Remember, it is a fiduciary relationship of the utmost trust and confidence we are building here, not selling a horse. The listing package you prepare will form the basis of your presentation, so let’s take a look at what that package should consist of.

But first, let me suggest that you bring your professional stager along to your listing presentation when warranted. Your stager should be prepared to conduct an onsite analysis of the property and recommend prelisting steps that will enhance the marketability of the property. I find that clients are quite impressed when a stager is brought to the listing presentation. You will have to make the judgment call for the area in which you practice and the property to be listed.

In real estate, looks are important. When preparing your listing package, make it look good. Use nice paper and a good color printer. The seller will assess your marketing abilities by the presentation of the documents in your listing package. Make the very most of this opportunity.

Every listing presentation is worth giving your all with intelligent, well-delivered information and an earnest desire to help. The listing package you prepare will serve as your calling card. The seller will review it many times over. It will be compared with other listing packages. If it is good, you may be assured it will receive the review of many eyes.

We also provide a listing DVD to our clients. It is not tailored to their particular property, but it gives them something visual to sit back and watch and once again emphasizes what you will do for them. Some offices have these on hand for agent use. If yours does, you may still want to consider having one personalized with you as the presenter.

I suggest your presentation package consist of the following, either bound or neatly organized in a professional preprinted folder and in the following order:

Your listing package will make your listing presentation simple because it will be your guide to exactly what you cover during the presentation. Have a copy for yourself and one for your client so you can review these documents together. If your stager has analyzed the property in advance of your presentation, include your stager’s recommendations and cost estimate. Your listing presentation should be no longer than one half to three quarters of an hour. Bring your laptop computer so you can show your prospect exactly how a new listing appears on the MLS.

Include a page on current market trends. This should be colorful and include graphs showing statistics that will be important to this seller. Don’t just pull these figures. Explain them to your prospective sellers.

In your marketing plan, tell the seller exactly how you intend to undertake the job at hand. Describe the broker’s open house, the frequency at which you will hold open houses, newspaper advertising and frequency, lock box use, and other marketing methods you will use. Detail the features of the property that you will highlight in your marketing. If you plan to feature the property on your website, or give it a website of its own, describe your plan. Let them know you have really thought about this, because you have thought about it.

Have your laptop set up with your website on the screen. Show them exactly how their property will be featured. Also step them through the other tools on your site which may help them with finding their next property. If you have IDX, the public MLS search feature, on your site, the sellers will be able to search for replacement homes on their own. And, as the coup de graĉe, as recommended in Chapter 10, set up your prospect’s property with its own home address website through www.iHOUSEweb.com. Pull up the site and watch your prospect’s faces. As they see their home on the internet with a website address of its own they will transform from prospects to clients before your very eyes. They will be impressed beyond words with your motivation and your competence.

Clients want to know who you are almost as much as what you will do for them. They are interviewing you for the important job of selling their valued asset. Include a mission statement that distinguishes your services from the rest of the pack.

Include information about the company you work for, but keep it to a minimum if you personally have an impressive listing history to show. If not, include the company’s listing and sales statistics, but also include information about yourself.

If you do have an impressive history, list current and past listings. Include client contact information (if those clients have given you permission). Attach letters your clients have written thanking you for your help.

I keep clients’ complimentary letters in a file called Testimonials. These letters are added to my website and my resumé. Keep your bio to one page if possible, excluding attachments. Make it look professional by using standard resumé format and impressive by using classic fonts. Include some color. Depending on your bio, it can be the most important component of your listing package.

Include your most recent newsletter with your listing package. Some agents have a mailer covering a variety of topics. If you have one tailored to the steps in a transaction or the services you will provide to the seller, include that as well. If you give free seminars, include your schedule.

Multiple listing programs allow you to prepare a professional looking comparative market analysis (CMA) of a property with the click of a few buttons. You can personalize these reports to include your potential client’s name, address, and other identifying data. Better yet, use Top Producer or some other real estate marketing program and you will impress your clients all the more.

The CMA states your recommended list price for the property. Print out a full copy of the comparable properties your package lists. The comparable listings serve as backup for your recommendation. These reports are incredibly useful for discussing the property value in a scientific, objective manner. Sellers can be highly charged over price, feeling their property, especially their home, is worth far more than the market will bear.

One of the many useful functions of the CMA is to flush out seller price issues early on. Always be prepared for a seller to have a dream price far greater than the current market price. There is a fine line between alienating a seller in love with his property and presenting an objective view of the market. Make sure you never belittle the seller’s point of view or his property. People’s homes come high up on their list of emotional importance. You don’t want to step on any emotional toes.

This document helps the seller understand how much the closing costs will run and how much they will net from the sale. It deducts loan payoff, commission, and other estimated closing costs from the recommended sales price. This simple document should be completed at your listing presentation unless the seller has provided you with loan payoff figures in advance.

It is at this point that your knowledge of tax law comes in handy, not to render tax advice, but because you want to show the seller that you are competent and aware of sale ramifications. Depending on the tax law at the time, your client may have taxable gain requiring some analysis as to how to reduce or defer it. Of course, you don’t actually want to render tax advice; however, because you are savvy enough to raise such issues, the seller will be impressed by both your integrity and your knowledge.

If you use a transaction management program, include a sample transaction so your sellers can see how professionally their transaction will be handled. If your transaction management program is online, show them how they also can track the progress of their sale online. Tell them that statistics show that transactions handled with a transaction management program have a higher incidence of closing than those not so coordinated. Explain to them how all of the professionals who will be involved in their sale will be able to follow the status of the transaction online. They will be impressed by your professionalism and competence.

Before you discuss the listing agreement, give your prospects a chance to voice their concerns, issues, and thoughts. Ask them whether they would like to change anything about your plan. Inquire as to whether there is anything you left out. They know their property better than anyone else, and their thoughts and comments are valuable.

Ask them whether anything about the sale process you have suggested makes them feel uncomfortable, because the plan can be tailored to meet their needs. They are the bosses. Are there any family issues you should consider? It is only through enlisting them into your plan that the sale of their property will evolve into a team endeavor, the most satisfying feeling for you and your client alike.

Include your agency disclosure form and a listing agreement as the last documents in your package. You will have made a thorough, impressive presentation, followed up with the agency disclosure and listing agreement that will cement your relationship with this seller.

When you get to the listing agreement in your package, ask the sellers whether they are ready to sign the agreement now, or should you just step through it and they can think about it. (The listing agreement is discussed more fully in Chapter 20.) If your prospect is ready to sign, follow the high-tech agent’s example in Chapter 14. Enter the property on the MLS while you have your client there to provide you with all the detailed information required. If the light is right, take your digital photos. You don’t have to upload them to the MLS yet, but you’ll have all your input work done. I have my stager take the photographs. She does her magic, and then she stages each photo she takes. She has a better eye for just the right shot.

If your prospects are not ready to sign up with you, tell them to take their time. There is no urgency. Real estate transactions are rushed along far too quickly. Clients’ number-one complaint is that the process becomes a mad dash to the finish. Let your potential clients know that you feel this way, if you do, and that you believe that planning and good coordination can take the crisis mode out of the real estate transaction.

A laptop is indispensable at listing presentations. The MLS database can be used to justify the listing price you recommend and to gain seller trust. Potential clients appreciate seeing how the MLS is set up and how their property will be featured on it. They trust your CMA statistics more if they are able to see them on the computer. They also tend to trust you more because you have chosen to share the coveted database that most agents jealously guard. (There is no rule against showing listings to your clients. You just can’t let them access the database without your supervision or let them view confidential remarks.)

Do not skip this step. It may not seem like an important step to you, but it provides a real advantage in gaining client trust. Remember, you’re dealing with what is possibly their most valuable asset. They want to see exactly how you come up with the value you assign. Emotionally, they want to be included and informed about the list price you recommend, and you accomplish this by sharing your database with them.

Although your affirmation will be that this client will list with you, don’t be discouraged if this doesn’t happen. The seller needs to go through the very important process of agent interview and selection. We make a lot of money from selling properties. Listing presentations that don’t pan out are just one of the costs of doing business.

Think of them as a public service. They are a part of what agents do, not just to get the listing, but as a service to owners in the community. If your presentation was thorough and it was if you followed this format, you gave the seller valuable time and information and it will come back to you. Good service always brings a priceless return.