How to Rock the Buyers Consult
Time spent now saves time later
The Buyers Consult is the very first step in your process to find a buyer a home. You should accomplish 5 things in the Buyers Consult:
- Build rapport – Rapport matters. To create rapport, you have to make sure that you are able to mirror and match your client’s. Learn how to adapt your personality so that your client feels comfortable and builds a strong relationship with you.
- Show your value – What do buyers want in an agent? They want trust, market knowledge, support, someone who can negotiate for them and with whom they can have a pleasant, productive working relationship. Remember the school activity of show-and-tell? As an agent, your job is to show, not tell. Show your value through great statistics, testimonials and recent success stories. Show them what you’re going to do that’s over and above what other Realtors do and why they should hire you exclusively to represent them.
- Setting the Expectations – The more expectations you set, and the more you let clients know about the process from start to finish, the less cancellations you’ll experience.
- Review the Home Buying Process – Go over the entire home-buying process with the buyers. Let them know how long things are going to take, when deposits are due, how much those deposits should be, how long the inspection period is, etc. Remember, most people only buy three to five homes in their lifetime. So they don’t know these things and you shouldn’t expect them to.
- Market Review – Whatever the market is doing, prepare your clients for it. Do a market review with them, so they’ll be prepared to get into a bidding war, brace themselves for negotiations, etc. Educate them on trends, your predictions, and recent sales in the area.
Make sure they sign a Buyers Brokerage Agreement!
The consultation isn’t over until you’ve gotten the buyer brokerage agreement signed! Once you’ve established your value and built a relationship with your clients, it’s time to ask them to sign on with you exclusively. Explain that you only work with a certain number of clients and that if you’re willing to dedicate yourself to them, you’d like them to dedicate themselves to you, too.