Agent Academy: How to Handle Price Reductions Like a Pro
There was a recent post on one of these popular Facebook groups asking if anybody out there has a template that they send their sellers with a market update on a weekly basis. Basically, the agent wants to keep the seller updated and possibly go into a conversation about price reduction when necessary.
So today I want to share with you my response to that question as I see a tremendous amount of interest on how I’m doing it.
You can also do this strategy — we are actually shooting a video, along with an attached CMA that we send to our sellers on a weekly basis!
I’m going to shoot one right now. It’s simple and I want you to get a feel for what they look like, and how we put them together that way you can do the same.
Remember we do this every week and we do it every Tuesday. Every seller gets a new CMA, just like if you were coming out to the property with on day one and a video walking them through it — that’s the most important part.
Why is it the most important part? I’m sure we all do a great job of updating people or sometimes we send a market snapshot report to keep sellers relatively updated. The part we tend to ignore is, we are not walking them through how these details relate to your seller’s home.
I’m going to do a role play and you’ll be able to see what it looks and feels like.
Take note of these important keys: The body language, Facial Expressions, and Tone. These are the things that we can’t communicate through email. And this is the reason why we like to do it this way.
I can’t take all the credit for doing this because, in fact, I learned this from somebody in my Mastermind group, Kurt Wannebo. Kurt is actually a competitor in San Diego, but because we’re linked in the same Mastermind group, he was willing to share this 100% openly with me.
It’s quite simple! You can use any system to create a video, attach the CMA, and you’re off and running. Now I have my computer up with my webcam turned on and I have the CMA so here we go.
Watch role-play (2:40 – 6:12)
And that’s it! So I created the video and sent it to them. They have the CMA and they were able to see my facial expressions.
Basically, I’m showing them through visual communication. That the current situation hurts me and is a tough thing. I’m encouraging them to heal and understand that we might need to make a change without me telling them directly to change the price. I’m letting them discover it.
Now, what’s different between this method and the price reduction call? Here’s what it looks like.
Agent: Hey, Mr. seller, Mrs. seller. Nice to talk to you… (chit chats) And I’m just going to get to what I’m really here to talk about.
Seller: Okay, great.
Agent: Now that I asked you about the kids in your weekend, how about we moved the price down 50 grand?
This way you put them in a tough spot, right? You’re saying to change the price right now. They feel backed into a corner and you got a ton of pushback. You’ll make them feel that there’s no back and forth. All they can do is just take the factual and objective information that I’m providing them.
Sure they might go through the same emotions that they might have on the phone. But with this video method, they can sit with it and digest it. Maybe get back into that CMA that market study and be able to digest it and cool off and once they’re cooled off, guess what happens?
Our phone rings… “Hey, Dan, we looked over the information we might need to make a change. We think we might need to reposition to 700,000”
Look at the scenario. We’ve taken the seller from, potentially, a very combative situation to a price reduction where the seller can see the information objectively with a cool head. They can process the emotion away from you and then come to you for a logical conversation.
We all like the “Come List Me Calls” but now you’d start getting “Come Position Me Appropriate in the Market” calls.
This is not about always trying to get the price reduced. It’s all about getting the most that we possibly can for the sale of their home.
I hope this is helpful to you. Shout out to Kurt! Thank you, buddy, for having shared this with me. Now I’m sharing it with you all here at Agent Academy.
Leave a Reply