I heard a great quote the other day:
"Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff."
~Catherine M. Wallace~
These are very wise words and certainly can be translated into one of the golden rules of real estate: listen rather than talk.
How do you get a listing? Is it by walking into someone’s lounge room and spruiking how great you and your agency are? Is it by telling a potential vendor they will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars if they don’t sign right now with you?
I hope not.
The best listings you’ll get are the ones where you’ve listened to what the vendors are actually saying and come up with a selling plan suited to their individual needs. It’s not about a plan that suits you.
If you understand their motivation and work with them on an agreed solution, then everyone is working for the same goal.
The biggest complaint I hear from vendors about agents, is that the agent seemed to only be worried about themselves and not the needs of their clients.
It sounds easy but really listening to someone and what they’re saying, whether you think it’s important or not, will greatly increase your connection and create a lasting relationship, rather than just another transaction.