Readers…the following post is a continuation of last week’s post. If you did not read it, then start reading at the beginning of this post. If you did read last weeks’ start reading at “Lesson #4 –WIIFM”.
Several months ago I was approached by a real estate company to help them solve a problem. You see they had a team of agents that were assigned to families that were relocating to a different area. This agent (who was in competition with another company) would sit down with the seller and pitch the value proposition of their company and themselves. The seller would then make a decision regarding who they wanted to list their house. The problem was the team was losing more than it was winning.
This field of sales is very complicated and clearly there are multiple factors to this problem; most that were out of everyone’s control. BUT there was one thing the company could do…..help their agents become better at the listing presentation. Enter my services.
We began what I call “The Great Listing Presentation Project” or GLPP for short. At the core of this project was asking each agent on this team to perform their listing presentation in front of a reviewer. Using a check-list and a series of questions/objections the reviewer took the role of the seller. At the end of the listing presentation the reviewer would complete written feedback and send it to the agent.
Thirty-nine agents later there were clear common denominators in the weaker presentations and clear common denominators in the stronger presentations. This series of blog shares those lessons.
By the way if you are not involved on the real estate market there is still value here for you. Ironically, the majority of these lessons had no relation to a specific market but are about sales skills.
Lesson #4 – WIIFM
I have found over the years that most real estate sales people have entered the profession for a variety of reasons; they want flexibility in their business life, they want to be their own boss, they want their effort and their money to be related, they are sick of an idiot telling them what to do….any of these sound familiar? In addition they feel like they can be of service to people in need of buying or selling a house. Rarely have I meet an agent who selected the job because they consider themselves a great salesperson and look forward using those sales skills. In that statement lays the problem.
Yes, agents are service providers and important ones at that. But they are also salespeople and as such should have an arsenal of skills that helps them persuade their client. In the Great Listing Presentation Project, I found that one of the biggest skills missing was Feature/Benefit.
Before I define this skill let’s talk about the psyche of the seller. I can tell you from the many years of sales experience and studying psychology with every word spoken by an agent the seller is thinking one thing…..what’s in it for me? Many of you may know this through the acronym WIIFM. WIIFM is the nature of human beings and as salespeople we must supply the answer to this question.
So…..what is the feature/benefit skill? This is a selling technique where each feature mentioned is tied to an advantage for the customer. Let me set up a typical scenario….
One of the most used features I heard during the Great Listing Project was: “Mr. and Mrs. Seller, my company will place your listing on 40 websites.
Through the eyes of the agent this feature is an important advantage to a seller and given that buyers’ start their search on the Internet having the information available in many places is important…..no, critical.
The seller however is likely thinking, “So what?”
As agents we may believe that this feature is self-explanatory but it’s not; in fact in sales nothing is self-explanatory. We have to tell them why they should care.
In the case of the 40 websites practicing feature/benefit may sound like this…” Mr. and Mrs. Seller, my company will place your listing on 40 websites. What this means to you is your home can be viewed by many potential buyers. The more buyers excited about your home the greater the possibility for an on-time sale with the most net in your pocket. Can you see how this is an advantage to you?”
Note in the example above I told them why it was important to them by using the term “what this means to you is…”
Consider doing this exercise. Jot down all the features that you describe in your listing presentation. Beside each item write why this feature is important to the seller. Then practice using this formula:
Step 1: State the feature
Step 2: Use the bridge…..”what this means to you is” or “this is important because”
Step 3: State the benefit…specifically and powerfully.
Step 4: Ask a tie down question. For example: “Can you see why this is important to you?”
The skill of being able to help your client understand the benefit of what you are offering is a critical salesmanship tool. Think about it.