Entry by Kim Loredo

My First Consulting Appointment

  3 Comments

Hi All,

I wanted to let the group know that I had a meeting today with a lady in my neighborhood who has been working with "Buy Owner" for the past YEAR (yes, since December 05), and needless to say, this lady's about ready to list her home.

Anyway, the meeting went well, I had done some research on the neighborhood and neighboring pendings and solds as well. I also very hastily prepared a schedule of services and what the associated costs of each were and also bundled packages. But I didn't really show her any of that stuff, I just mainly went through the exercise for my benefit. I told her that I'd recently been certified as an Accredited Consultant in Real Estate, and that I work differently than 99% of the agents out there, because unlike them, I can offer her choices to fit her individual situation. I briefly explained that there are a whole litany of services that we as agents provide, and that we could sit down and talk about which ones she might feel comfortable doing, and which ones she would want me to handle. I also explained that each task had an associated cost, and that I also had bundled services into packages that we could talk about too.


Additionally, I told her that I also utilize the traditional commission based model. I also explained to her that with the fee for service consulting model, that the fees would need to be agreed upon and paid up front, but that with the regular commission model, she wouldn't be paying until she closes. At this point, a good thing for me to have said would have been that she really can't lose either way - because if she opts to go with the consulting model and sees that it's not working, she can switch over to the traditional commission model and that I would refund her fees that she'd already paid to me up front for the consulting model at closing. I reiterated that the nice feature about using a commission model is that the seller isn't out any money at all until closing, that the agent assumes all the risk for the house selling. [I could see her twitching a little bit when I was talking about paying up front -- remember this lady has already paid "Buy Owner" almost a year ago with zero results. I also could see she was relieved to see that her house is probably going to sell for more than where she had it priced with the "Buy Owner" folks.]

Lesson learned: I should have sent the "Seller Needs Analysis" to the seller either manually or preferably by email (think "drip" campaign) before we met, and that way, she would have already been familiar with the concept of separating out the tasks and evaluating their importance to her.

So I am going to email the "Seller Needs Analysis" to her tonight and follow up with a phone call asking her to please complete it, that it will help guide us as we decide how to make this work for her.

Since this lady doesn't want to list her house until the first of the year, I am going to go into my database management system and set her up on a "drip" campaign so I will be who she selects to list her house. I will also be sending her a card, calendar, newsletter, etc.

Sorry for the long post, but thought I'd mention about the importance of sending the "needs analysis" ahead of time.

Hope everyone's having a great day.

LOVING this consulting model!!!

Kim Loredo

3 Comments

Wow, Kim!

A great first experience! It seems to me that if you keep in touch, you will get this listing!

The Needs Analysis is a VERY important step NOT to miss. If you are going to design a marketing plan that is based on their needs, you need to know what those needs are, right?

Congrats Kim for taking a step in the right direction! Now does anyone else have anything to add, subtract or delete to this? Do you have your "Needs analysis" up and do you give it to them ahead of time? Do you get an email address and tell them you will be doing this?

This is a great diffrentiator, and an awesome USP.

I'll be intersted in hearing what happens Kim, and you are so right in the drip campaign - followup is everything!

Paula Bean

I called two more people today and they were really excited about the consulting model. I'm going to email them the "Seller's Needs Analysis" and get face to face meetings set up in the next few days. Will let you know how it goes!!

It's amazing, but once you start telling these people that you're different from all the other agents out there because you are a real estate consultant, offering both traditional commission plans and fee-for service plans, you can just almost immediately feel them start to melt! I think 2007 is going to be a great year for all of us ACREs!!!!!

Kim

Kim Loredo, Realtor

I love that "melting" comment! I've noticed the same thing.
It is so nice to be able to talk to someone and not feel like you are pressuring or begging for business.

Whether they choose traditional (no risk) commissions, or the other consulting options, they view you as more professional, and listen to what you say with more interest.

Yes, everyone, get your calls made, start practicing with this now and by the New Year, hopefully you will have it figured out and you will take your area by fire. Remember that because each area is different, you may have to do some tweaking.

I especially recommend taking the seller needs analysis and adding or deleting from it. ie: my area doesn't have a two step process for conracts, so I had to reword that, also, we have transaction brokerage, not so much single agency, so that would need tweaking. Check it over and see what it is that you need to tweak as well.

Good luck and keep posting the questions, comments and feedback!

Paula Bean

This page contains a single entry by Kim Loredo published on November 29, 2006 1:43 PM.

Update - My First Appointment is the next entry in this blog.

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