I’d like to make a bet with you. If you take a buyer through a property, and they decide that they like the place & want to make an offer, I bet that the next question that comes out of your mouth is…‘How much do you want to offer?’
I’ve placed this bet with hundreds of agents, and not had to get my wallet out once, which is totally fine and understandable because our job is to get offers.
I did exactly the same thing myself, so there’s no ivory tower here.
But here’s the thing that has become so obvious to me in this market that has generally been harder to get buyers to commit to action.
We are so focused on getting to the part that is exciting and potentially fruitful that we assume that the buyers we’re dealing with know how to make an offer and understand the variables that are potentially applicable or available to them.
What that assumption does to the buyer, though, is leave some doubt as to what their next steps are, which creates a level of anxiety brought about by the fear of the unknown.
That anxiety is then amplified as they go through a life-defining process, while being pressured by us to put pen to paper, and what does that anxiety do?
It makes the buyer pump the breaks and step back!
Now, there’s always going to be anxiety around the process because of the scale of it, we can’t get away from that, but the assumption that we made at the start increases that anxiety, which often tips buyers over the edge.
So I want to ask…why don’t we ask them if they know how to make an offer before we crack on?
If we can remove some of that anxiety by doing so, wouldn’t that mean that we have a more amicable buyer at the pointy end when we commit to a figure, which would give us a higher chance of commitment as well as a better shot at a higher amount?
Why Humans Assume Stuff
Do you know why we assume things?
The average human makes roughly 35,000 decisions a day (according to various intelligent types), so the brain will naturally look for shortcuts to try and bypass some of that decision-making.
Those shortcuts are what we call assumptions.
The more times we repeat a certain action, the more habitual they become, and the more the brain thinks that it can whip past a few decisions because of the familiarity of the action.
It’s fair to say that, whether we are in sales, property management or admin, there are several core actions that we take regularly that would naturally lead our brains into taking some of those shortcuts.
But while we’re taking those shortcuts, we are constantly running the unconscious risk of increasing the level of prohibitive anxiety that is preventing our customers from taking the steps that we’re wanting them to take.
Now here’s the scary question…have you ever stopped to work out the amount of money & number of opportunities we cost ourselves by assuming stuff?
Or a more fundamental question may be – do you realise how many assumptions you make a day, be they big or small, especially when interacting with customers??
The Actual Cost Of Just 1 Assumption
I asked a sales team a few weeks ago if anyone could recall an assumption that they made that caused problems or cost an opportunity.
After a short silence, one of the more experienced guys sparked into life.
‘I nearly cost myself a listing the other day!’
He went on to explain that before Christmas, he had been given the green light by a vendor for the sale of their property, but because of circumstances they agreed to get the paperwork done in the new year before launching in February.
He went to meet them in January, listing form in hand having communicated with them prior to going across to get their signatures, but unfortunately was met with a rather different situation.
‘Yeah look we had a think & decided that it’s probably best that we chat to a couple of other agents first, so before we sign we wanted to go through your information again.’
The agent was not expecting that, nor did he have his listing kit with him to go through the process again with the owners as per their request.
Now did that one assumption cost him the listing? Thankfully not, but it did cost him 33% of his commission!
Is this agent rubbish at his job? Absolutely not, he’s a really experienced player who knows what he is doing, but I’d argue that his experience is actually creating a higher chance of making these costly assumptions on account of the sheer volume of business that he’s conducted over his years in the industry.
The Answer? One Word – PERSPECTIVE
What we need to accept is that we humans will make assumptions naturally, and we can’t really stop it from happening unless we consciously put ‘mental circuit breakers’ in our processes to make sure that we don’t cost ourselves needlessly.
The biggest one of these that should override any desire to make any assumptions is the simple fact that, although this could be the 5000th time you’ve written an offer or rented a property out…this may be the ONLY time your customer does this in their entire lives.
And that doesn’t just apply to the actual mechanics of making an offer either, because even though we’re bound by legislation, every single agent will have a slightly (or very) different way of presenting a process to a customer, which is an inconsistency that we hear customers have a big issue with across the board.
So before you go into any situation, you need to ask a customer if they know and understand what the process is before you move forward.
I know it sounds a bit laborious, but let’s put it this way – you either
- leave friction in the conversation by rushing them along a path that they’re not sure of, which will grind the deal to a halt.
Or
- spend 30-60 seconds explaining your process to them before talking numbers with a customer that is a lot more comfortable.
Which one do you think will give you a higher chance of success at the end that counts?!
And now that we’ve highlighted something this obvious that clearly costs us lots of money, it begs the question….how many of these assumptions are we making each day that could be costing us a fortune in both money and time?!
How much friction are we leaving in our interactions that are preventing clients from moving forward??
PM’s – you’re not out of this either, have a look at how many assumptions you’re making that cause you so many headaches because a tenant doesn’t understand the regulations, or a landlord doesn’t agree to getting something fixed?
When I opened my eyes to this really simple glitch, I got excited and concerned in equal measure.
If I were you, I’d be fine-tooth combing every process because we’ve been too distracted by tech efficiencies that we’ve accidentally become incredibly inefficient in the execution of the things we do every day.
