Do you ever listen to yourself when speaking with clients and wonder whether it’s time to change things up?
Do you find yourself thinking: “I use the same examples and the same dialogue with every client. It’s the same old, same old! I have to use something fresh”.
Well, there’s merit to refining your listing presentation and re-evaluating your ‘pitch’, but at the same time, it’s important that you don’t just change things up for the sake of it.
So, how do you find the right balance, tweaking when required but resisting the urge to switch things up simply because you’ve heard it before and are bored with your own dialogue?
Fresh is not a magic bullet
After a few coaching sessions this year, I noted that many of us may be falling into the trap of ‘getting bored with our own dialogue’.
This occurs when we start to believe and think that because we use the same ‘scripts and dialogues’ when speaking with multiple clients, the ‘repetitive’ nature of the process may become ineffective.
This phenomenon isn’t just limited to the sales side of real estate either, it can occur right across the board when we’re speaking with buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants.
And when we encounter this issue, there’s often a temptation to change things up in a bid to feel ‘fresh’.
We fall into the trap that we get ‘bored with our own dialogue’ or think it’s been ‘overused.’
And because of that we may start to believe the message that what we’re saying and doing could lose its effectiveness and develop the false belief we need to ‘mix it up’.
The trouble here is that ‘fresh’ isn’t necessarily a magic bullet. Often there’s merit to using tried and tested examples and dialogues that showcase what you do and how you can help your clients achieve the best results.
A salient example
When pitching for business, I often used to use the following ‘pen’ analogy in a bid to ensure the seller saw value in quality marketing.
“Mr and Mrs Seller, if you were to purchase this ‘pen’ in David Jones or Kmart, where would you expect to pay more?”
Of course, the answer is David Jones. The dialogue was used to illustrate to the seller the value of investing in marketing collateral – for example a premier listing as opposed to standard, or a twilight photo shoot versus one undertaken in daylight.
Now, while I might have repeated this example a number of times throughout my career, chances are it was the first time the value of quality marketing had been presented this way to the vendor.
And more often than not, using this example worked. So why would I change it simply because I was bored hearing myself repeat the same story?
The right balance
As I mentioned before, this is not to say you shouldn’t refine what you do or revisit your listing presentation and test and trial it with different approaches and examples.
It’s also critical in this industry that we are mindful of new tools and techniques.
However, just because we frequently hear something ourselves or repeat an anecdote or example on a regular basis, that doesn’t mean it is not as relevant or effective as when we used it the very first time.
So, my suggestion is to always have a repertoire of questions, analogies and examples.
These form the basic toolkit that you can use to convey your message as authentically as possible, based on the type of client you’re speaking with, their situation, and what they’re seeking to achieve.
Once you master that repertoire, then stick to those questions, analogies and examples. Have them in your toolbox and keep building them as different scenarios appear.
And then, just set everything on ‘repeat’.
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