3 Steps to Build Trust When Working With Clients – Mike Schumm
When selling real estate, people work with agents whom they know, like and trust. Real estate agents often work with people they don’t know, so getting them to trust you is a big component to your success as a real estate agent. Mike goes over 3 easy steps to build trust when working with clients in real estate transactions.
Mike Schumm 0:00
All right, thanks, thanks Nazar. And yeah, I’m sure I know a few of you have been on these calls before, and some new people, as well. So let’s get started. So in preparing for the call Nazar, as you know, me, I always want to provide timely information, right, that’s just sort of information that they might use sometimes. So I wanted to just bring it down to a lot of the things I’m hearing and seeing in today’s market. And honestly, how I think you have to act differently. The market we were in, you know, during COVID, that crazy market with things where you got a client, you had you act very quickly, very fast, you know, houses were selling in hours, I think not even days back then. But we’re in a totally different market than I want to share with you how to how you got to your behaviors have to change a little bit to succeed in this market. So, so first, you got to understand, what’s the biggest challenge that a client is having right now in today’s environment? And what is their experience and maybe thinking about buying or selling a home? And I’ll give you the answer is the answer is they’re full of uncertainty regarding in progress. They’re definitely full of uncertainty right now. So the reason I bring that up is because interest rates right had been fluctuating up and down, we had no inventory. And then for a short window, we had a, we had some inventory, and then it dried up again, because a lot of the sellers who have low interest rates don’t want to put their house on the market and move into a house with a much higher interest rate on there. So unfortunately, for you guys, or any salesperson, a lot of uncertainty in the air is known as a trust killer. So your clients don’t know what to believe anymore. They don’t know what’s going to happen with interest rates. And they’re hearing all this mixed news A, how many times on the news have we heard that someone is predicting that there’s a bubble, right, the markets are going to crash and the real estate is going to be horrible, like it was back in the crash? Oh, you know, Oh, 708. Over there. The fact of the matter is, it’s really not true, in my opinion, we have more equity in homes, than we’ve ever had in this country. And there’s a whole bunch of other factors that say the markets not going to crash, but some of your consumers have heard it’s going to crash. So they’re freaked out a little bit is now the right time to buy. Same with interest rates, we heard they’re gonna come down, down. So the first thing you need to do I will share with you it’s not to try to sell a home to anybody is you got to try to build trust with them. That’s we’re going to teach you guys today on how to do that a lot more effectively than you’re probably doing now. So step one, in developing trust is you’ve got to find out where your clients is. So there’s new lead that you have today. Where are they in their, in their, in their journey to potentially buy a home, if you want to write this down, I will tell you, they’re going to be in one of three stages. And I will give you the details to help you identify what stage they’re in, then I’ll give you today the right questions to ask that will help you build trust, versus scare a client away because you’re being too aggressive in a market with a lot of uncertainty. So the first lead that you might get or the in the stage they may be in, we’re gonna call it they’re just thinking about buying a house. Right? Not every person that you run into bump into is ready to buy a house today or next week. Everyone, myself included. And Azhar I’m sure you get an idea that you know what, hey, maybe we’ll buy a house a couple months from now, six months from now a year from now. But they’re gonna have to like do some research, right? They’re gonna they’re gonna think about it some more. So the first stage is they’re thinking about buying a house. Do you want to say, hey, how many bedrooms you need? How many bathrooms do you need? How much are you qualified? Let’s go look at some houses today, tomorrow, right? You’re gonna scare that client away because they’re just they need information at this point, they need to figure out if this is something that they may or may not want to do down the road. So if you get a client before you start interrogating them with you know, LP mama type questions and trying to close them the right question to ask them on when you initially meet them is not what they want to buy, but why write this down? So what has you interested in potentially buying a house in the first place? You’ve got to learn the client’s backstory right before you try to close them or sell them you want to know what has them interested first in buying a home potentially or if you’re working with sellers selling their home on there, if you know their backstory, you will they’ll feel much more understood that you know their situation and then you can ask the right questions and then you can develop a timeline when you understand why they have this idea in the first place about buying a home. So first thing if they’re thinking about a house you ask them well, that’s great. Let me give you a an example I learned just actually from Dale Archdeacon Nizar at the event. Here’s a common common most common mistake. If you get someone who’s thinking about buying a house, when you talk in future tense meeting, how many bedrooms do you want? How many but when do you want to close on this house? You know, when do you want to, and you’re talking in the future tense to sum, it will stress them out. When you have someone who’s thinking about buying a house, you want to talk and current tense, you want to talk about today, and what they have going on, not trying to sell them down the road. So we we speak in current tense, not future tense with someone who’s thinking about buying a home. Alright, so now they’ve thought about it, I’ll write this down if you want. When they’re thinking, I’ll give you the timeframe that this thinking could happen, it’s going to be 91 days to 24 months. That’s how long the average buyer may think about buying a house before they’re ready to go looking at homes or maybe consider writing an offer on a home. So you got to pay the patience game. As matter of fact, I’ll share something else with you that I think is really important, especially if you’re newer in sales. Unfortunately, Nizar, we, when you get your license, they call you a salesperson, right? And we start to act like we’re selling things. Let me give you a good news, bad news, you’re not selling anything, a buyer will not buy a home until they’re ready to in our job.
Mike Schumm 6:29
They’re not going to buy a house until they’re ready to and if you’re working with sellers, they’re not going to list their home until they’re ready to list it. So our job is to advise them and help them achieve their goals. Not try to close them and sell them. But I always like to tell agents Nizar is that they’re not in the sales business. They’re in the relationship business, if you changed his perspective, instead of trying to sell them, but build trust with them in an environment, a lot of uncertainty, build a relationship with them, you’re gonna be a hell of a lot more successful, I promise you. Right? So I had this question, actually, from a newer agent, I’ll share just this week. He’s like, Well, I have a lead. But how do I build a relationship? Right? Because we’re so geared, but what are the right questions to ask them as far as you know, what they’re looking for? And how to handle the objection? So I gave him this example, which maybe it’ll help you guys as well. So I said his name was Tim. I said, Tim, what would you do if a new neighbor moved into your block on your block a couple doors down and became like a kind of guy a couple, whatever it is that you’d like to get to know better? What would you how would you treat them? And he was like, Oh, I would go over, maybe I would invite them out to go, you know, for a bite to eat or play some golf, right. And he’s building a relationship with the neighbor, this the same things you want to do with your clients, instead of trying to close them and, and looking, looking at them more as a commission check, right? It’s how do you build a relationship with them. That’s the goal. Because people will do business with people, you’ve heard this 100 times that they know, like, and then most importantly, I’m talking a lot about trust today. So I think in this market, you’ve got to slow it down and educate the client, because they’ve heard a lot of, I would, I would say, not accurate information between social and the news. I see this stuff every day. So first is slow it down, find out what they’re looking for, right? Understand what they’re trying to accomplish, and then educate them, right? You want to, you want to control the narrative of what’s really happening, because I’m going to tell you, they’re hearing a lot of missing information. So that’s step one. So we’re going to ask them again in step one. So why are you considering even buying or selling a house here? And here’s a, here’s a great follow up question that will help you get a lot more information. And I’ll share with you the more information you get about your client, the easier is to help them buy or help themselves. So whenever I ask a client, so those are telling me, you know, what got you interested in maybe buying a house here in our community or selling your house here in our community? They give me a little information that I was like, Oh, that’s so interesting. Here’s the coat. Tell me more about that. Right, instead of jumping right in right and trying to close them, I get some information. And then I seem very interested in them and what they’re trying to accomplish, and I say very empathetically. Wow. And is our that’s great. Can you tell me a little more about that? Right? Why now? Or why this town? Or why the school district, right? And the more this is why it’s imperative, I don’t know that the agents on this call, you’ve got to use your CRM more. Right? So while I’m asking these questions, I’m putting notes in there. Because remember, I told you about this I’m thinking to buy by buyer 91 to two years, you think you’re gonna remember all the answers to your questions of why they’re coming to the area or, or when you ask them to tell you more about their situation. You need to put that in your CRM because you are not going to remember three months, six months a year from now the answers, but imagine if you did use your CRM more effectively Li, and then a year from now you go do a follow up call, and you knew exactly why they’re moving. And maybe they told you some of the family members name, but maybe it’s because their son or daughter was I don’t, I’m going to attend a school, right? And I said, Hey, Nizar, right, your son Bobby, right? Whatever the case may be, how’s he doing? Is he still interested in going to school, whatever the case may be, and then boom, they’re like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe you remember that. And they will look at you totally different than Hey, you ready to buy a house yet? Right. And you know, nothing about him. Right? Much, much better way to approach the client. All right, that was step one. So step two, and building trust, and serving your client, my opinion at a higher level, is they’re now going to do something where they’re going to start doing more serious research into now they decided to thinking about buying now they’re pretty sure they want to buy, they’re not necessarily ready to maybe write an offer yet. But you know, what they’ve looked around, they kind of thing just could work for one reason or another. And in this phase, the second step of buying a home, they’re going to do what, what’s the fundamental difference in what they’re doing? Now, the fundamental difference is, they’re going to be calling you to actually go look at homes, right? They’re gonna say, hey, you know, me and my other person involved in this transaction, we’re gonna want to see some homes, right? Maybe on their own, they might be attending open houses, you’ll notice on a regular basis, what’s good to know, here is some of the Nard data behind their behaviors. And this will help you to understand where they are in step two. So if you don’t know, nor has shared with us, the average consumer will look at approximately 10 homes 10 homes. So here’s a great question to ask a buyer next time you meet with them. Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Buyer. So on your journey to potentially buying a home here in our community, how many homes have you seen so far? So if they tell me zero, you know, what they’re probably still thinking about, or maybe just starting to do some research. If they look at one or two homes, right? I know, they’re definitely in that second step of buying a home, but in the infancy stages, right, just one or two, I know, they’re probably going to want to see a few more before they’re comfortable enough to actually purchase one of these homes on there. So when we get to step two, it What if they told me 10? Homes, right? Wow, in my opinion, you have a hot buyer on your hands, right? They’ve done their research, they’ve kind of understood the market, they’ve seen some homes that maybe didn’t work for them, they’ve really got it narrowed down, I would be a lot more aggressive, right, and helping that person than the one who maybe hasn’t seen any houses or one home. But in step two, I always hear fundamentally, the question that’s answered incorrectly. So the question that you want to ask in step two, is well, I’ll give you the question I hear incorrectly, and then I’ll give you I’ll give you the correct one. So the question that I hear most often that’s incorrect, is Oh, so you want to buy a home? What are you looking for? What do you need? How many bedrooms? This is the incorrect question in step two. So step two, I told you, the best question to ask initially is, how many homes have you seen if they give you any number 125 1020? I don’t care. The next question, write this down. Oh, so Rochelle, you’ve seen five homes so far? So tell me, why weren’t those five homes a good fit for you? First, before you try to sell them something, it’s much easier to find out what they don’t want. Maybe the homes needed too much work, right. They want something that they learned now moving condition. I’ll give you a story about Lisa and I actually, is that when we were considering moving to Las Vegas, we had a had a ranch home that we owned in California, and we’d liked that floorplan of just having everything on one level. So we start looking at homes in Vegas, and if you don’t know the homes in Vegas, I would say 80 90% are all two story homes. Very few homes here are ranch style. Imagine Nizar if my realtor here didn’t tell me what we didn’t want. Just set me up on the MLS search and started sending three bedroom, two bath homes to Lisa and I 80 90% of them would be two stories. Would I would I feel that that agent understood what Lisa and I were looking for? No, not at all. What if that agent only sent me single story homes because they knew we did not want to stories? Would I feel that agent understood us? Heck yeah. Heck yeah. So the question is not what do you want? What have you eliminated What, what, what kind of home what areas, whatever it is that they’ve eliminated, they will feel a lot more understood. Again, just like in step one, the more understood they feel, the more likelihood they want to work with you because the other agents do not usually asked that question. Also, I’ll give you another NAR statistic, if you don’t know, as I hear this possession all the time, these are where this is my buyer, this is my lead, let me give you some bad news. You want to take a guess on the average number of agents your buyer is communicating with at any given time, especially as they go through step two, and potentially into the next step, step three, and I’m gonna teach you about in a second. Any idea?
Nazar Kalayji 15:47
The answer is 10. So you can be very, very easily one of nine agents that they’re communicating with, and you’re calling them my buyer. So this is why it’s so important to build trust. Because at the end of the day, no matter how many agents have shown them a home, eventually they’re going to find one on Zillow, your website or MLS, wherever they’re looking, like, oh my gosh, we looked at a bunch of homes. This is a home we know this is the home quick, let’s call our agent. Who are they going to call out of those 10 agents. It’s the one that feels most understood. And the man has built the biggest relationship and the one they trust the most. So stop selling and build more relationship if you want that call, and not your competitor. Because what we have said about real estate, it’s a zero sum game. What if your name is the second name that they think of not the first get so much commission you get? Zero? big fat zero guys. So you’ve got to be the first name. Imagine if you took my advice and in your notes and your CRM, you’re mentioning their children’s names or dog’s names or partner’s name, right. Whatever the case may be. You think they’ll like you and trust you more? Heck yeah. Heck, yeah. So be better at that game, because you are one of 10 people nortel’s us. So build more trust and relationship by asking them first of all, what not they’re looking for. And then you can help them serve them. And by the way, this will save you a lot of time, some time but finding out what they don’t want. So you’re not setting up searches and tours with homes that you didn’t know they didn’t want, because you didn’t ask. And then you can then ask them you know, your typical LP mama ALM right, all those questions, I would say, bedroom bathrooms. Once you figure out what they don’t want, then you could go start looking for what they might want on there. Okay, so let’s go to next step, step three. So we’ve got step one, I’ll go over it again, if you’ve tuned in late. Step one is they’re they’re thinking about buying a house. So stop trying to close them and find out why they’re thinking about looking for the house. And learn as much as you can about them, asking them a lot of open ended questions about their situation who’s going to be involved? Right? And the more they share, here’s, I’ll give you some other good news. If you take my advice today, once they tell you their backstory and give you all their information, you think they want to tell that same story to nine other agents, I will tell you know, if they you’ve asked the right questions, and they’re comfortable with you, and they’ve given you all the information, especially I’ll share, if you can find out if there’s some challenge with their story about why they might be buying home. Let’s just say they’re going through a divorce, right? The divorce rates over 50% in this country, and a lot of people to get they split up and they’re going to have to define new homes. Imagine if that consumer came to you and they gave you this story. Oh my gosh, you know, for me, and I was married for all these years or whatever. And now I’m getting divorced. Right? Do you think they want to tell another agent sad, sad story? No, they will be much more loyal to you if you can get the story out of them. But if they never shared that story with you, and you don’t even know they’re going into that situation is think you’re handling their transaction or helping them most effectively. No, you’ve got to, I’ll give you another ism, if you will. You’ve got to meet your clients where they are, not where you are, right. And sometimes what I see in this market is I’ve heard markets around this country are down as much as 40%, which probably means you are selling less homes. So what happens you making less money, you get more aggressive, you get more salesy, because you need that check, you want that check, the harder you push, I’ll give you the bad news, the less sales you’re gonna have, not the more sales you have. So try not to change, you’re the only one thing you could change that and let me share this with you. If your market is down 40%. And as our I’m going to tell you, good news, bad news. There’s only one way to hit your goal this year. There’s only one way to maintain your income. You’ve got to make 40% more calls. You got to meet 40% More people because the buyer of today is not like the buyer of a couple years ago that’s going to say hey, I’m ready to buy get in the car, write an offer in a couple hours. They’re gonna hear a lot more information on the news, like I said earlier and social media and they’re going to be They’re going to be much slower to, to maybe transact, they’re going to need more time to think about it, if you will. And if you push them, you will be pushing them away, not helping them to buy or helping them to sell, which is your primary goal in working with with a client. All right, number three, oh, let me help you with number two, I didn’t give you the timeframe. So number two, when they are in this, we’re doing research. And now they’ve kind of committed to this is something they want to do. This will be somewhere between 31 and 90 days 31. And 90. Ma’am, I told you, they’re gonna look at approximately 10 houses according to Nar, they might do that, in a month or so it might take up to three months, depending on your personality style, depending on how much inventory your market has and the type of home they’re looking for. So again, I think you had to learn in sales, the patience game, right, we always want that sale, we want to close them, we want to write the offer. But you’ve got to work at the speed of your client. And in this market, I will tell you, everything’s just a little bit slower on there. Alright, let’s go to the third and final stage of how a consumer actually buys a house. And you can see already I hope, if you’re treating all your clients with one approach, how many bedrooms, bathrooms, and when you want to buy, you’re going to be at a rapport with your client, I would say 66% of the time, right two to three times, because there’s three different steps they could be in and you’re treating them all like this step I’m about to share with you now. This is what I would call the transactional step right? This is when they’ve decided remember step one, we’re thinking we’re thinking, okay, yes, we want to do it, then there’s that too. Okay, we’re thinking, let’s go look around, let’s online offline, let’s just see what’s available, and maybe narrow this down a little bit on there. So after that step, you’re going to be in step three, this step you’re going to write down is going to be 30 days or so. Right? This is when the, the job gets more interesting for you guys, and just the part you liked the best. Because let me tell you how you know that they’re in step three, when they’re ready to transact stage, they’re willing to write an offer. Before this point, you may push them you may want them to, but unless they’ve seen enough houses, unless you’ve created enough certainty that this is a good thing for them to do, it’s going to help them achieve whatever goals they’re trying to achieve. They’re not gonna be ready to write. So when once you’re committed to I mean, you’re working with a consumer and they either list maybe list with you or buy a house from you. They’re ready to write on them. And you know, they’re going to be in this last phase. So this is why I was telling you earlier, it’s imperative, you ask better questions, you get more information personally about them. Because this transition from doing their research to writing the offer, they’re gonna wake up one day and you know, you don’t know between that the 30 day window, what day they’re gonna decide today’s today, and what should we call and every time they go to an open house and sign in that agents calling them every time they log into a different portal. I don’t care if it’s realtor, Redfin, Zillow, whatever and they register there, some agents going to be calling them right on there. So you’ve got to cut through the noise and stand out. I will also another one of my most favorite things to do when I’m in sales is create differentiation. There are what approximately is our 1.6 million realtors in this country. And you think because you’re so enamored by this client, they’re a great client, they’re gonna buy that you remember everything about them. They’re busy, they have lives, they have kids right there talking to 10. I’m always surprised how often the consumer didn’t remember me, and I thought I was so focused on them because I thought I could you know, help them buy or help themselves. So how do you stand out from those 1.6 million realtors in your marketplace? Right? There’s hundreds, maybe 1000s of agents? How do you stand out? How do you become the agent of choice? How do you help them to choose you over the 10 other agents they’re most likely communicating with? So create some differentiate differentiation, right? Say things the other agents aren’t saying as these quiet, I will tell you, if you ask these questions and slow down your process, I’ll guarantee you 99% of agents in your marketplace, they get a lead and they’re trying to close them hard. Be the opposite, right? Work on the relationship. First ask ask better questions, ask more questions before you try to sell them something right or list their home. Alright, so step three, they’re writing offers. It’ll take approximately 30 days. So this is the first time I’ll share is when you should be asking the questions that you’re most likely asking all along. So now that you decided you’re going to buy a house now that you’ve eliminated all these things, because I’ve asked you what you don’t like at home because you’ve seen about 10 of them so far. So what is the ideal home look like? And I’m going to share something interesting and bizarre that I found through my when I was selling real estate that actually surprised me. And after this pattern happened a few times, I realized it wasn’t a fluke. And here’s the pattern that I noticed. So every buyer you work with is going to give you a laundry list of must haves. And I would like to have, right they’ve got to have usually the bedroom bathroom count is the must haves, right? And they might have something like, I don’t know, central air conditioning or pool or a fenced yard if they have dogs, as their must haves. And then they’re gonna give you that laundry list of Oh, yeah, we’d like to have this that and the other thing like that. I was surprised really, really surprised. When a couple buyers, I’ll give you a story.
Mike Schumm 25:38
Said, Hey, Mike, you know, this house online, we told you, we’re looking for a gourmet kitchen. And this house online has the best gourmet kitchen you know we’ve ever seen. We want to go take a look at this house. We think this might be the house. And I said great. Let’s go take a look at the house. We go in the house and it had the best gourmet kitchen I’ve ever seen. But then I realized that one of the deal breakers, one of the things they definitely didn’t want in the house was to be on a busier road, right. And I noticed this home sits on a double yellow line Road, which would indicate you know what, this road is pretty busy. And of course, I know the marketplace. I know it’s fairly busy. So as a good realtor, I educate my clients and I say Hey, Mr. Mrs. Buyer, I noticed the best kitchen in the world. But I do recall when we met and you told me some of the things that were important to you. Because maybe you have children. Being on a busy road wasn’t a good option for you. And he didn’t want to buy a home on a busy road. Here’s where I got surprised. They will justify the busy road. If you find the one thing, they give you a lot of things I’ve learned almost every buyer has one thing that’s super important. And if you can nail that everything else that they told you is negotiable. So here’s what they were telling me this. Yeah, Mike can we know is kind of busy, but it’s not that busy. Because their emotional mind wants that kitchen so darn bed, they will they will eliminate the busy road as an objection to buying the house. So yes, ask them all the questions about what they must have, what they would like to have, and all that good stuff. But more importantly, find the one thing that is most important, and find a home that has that feature. And you will be surprised how many of those other things will disappear. If you can nail that. I was always surprised by that. Because we all get that list. And this has happened to me. Matter of fact, I’ve had them buy homes, like in a different school district and a different town. And they told me because they like gourmet kitchen, for example, most important thing, and it’s just a pattern I’ve seen over and over. So don’t worry about trying to get them everything on the list. If you find the one thing you will be their agent of choice for sure. Mike on that do you flat out ask him like What is your most important thing? Are you finding that thing through trial and error? combination of both? So yeah, it’s very good to be direct. I’ve noticed that they all have right. In this day and age I’ll share with you a lot of times they need a home office right on there. So having that house that has a space that’s you know, maybe off from the main living area and the bedrooms, they could work and it’s right, that could be a feature of a home that would be most important to them now. And if not, I listened carefully, right when we’re doing showings and stuff to what they’re pointing out is what’s most important or, or what could cause them to purchase a home. And then I start keying in on that, and I find other homes. And I’ll give you a little one more little pro tip that worked for me. So I know the client will use my kitchen example. Right? I know that kitchen is the most important thing for the client. So they’re I’m looking in their given marketplace, town or school district. And there’s no house with a kitchen like that in there. But I noticed the neighboring town of school district has the great kitchen, but I know they told me they weren’t necessarily interested in that town or school district. So here’s my script. If you want to steal it, I will tell them Hey, Mr. Mrs. Buyer. You know what, I really just want to understand this kitchen that you’ve been talking about. And there’s a listing that came up recently. I know it’s not for you because it’s not in that town or school district. But would you be willing to come with me to take a look at that house so you can tell me if this is the kitchen that really fits your needs the best this way I can maybe find that in the town or school district that you’re looking at. And I will tell you this Are I’ve done this a few times. You show them that house that has the kitchen even though it’s not in the right town or school district and they see it this town and school to become negotiable. Well, Mike, you know, this school districts not that bad, right? You know, this town could work too. And here’s why. Every buyer you’re working with doesn’t buy on logic, they buy on emotion, and when you can find the right emotional lever to pull. It gets a lot easier. It gets a lot easier on there.
Nazar Kalayji 29:52
Do you live in a single level two story home?
Mike Schumm 29:56
Here’s the irony. I live in a two story home.
Nazar Kalayji 29:59
I knew it!
Mike Schumm 30:03
Nazar knows me, let me share with you. As I’ve gotten older guys, the number one factor for me in life is convenience. For me, it’s convenience. So when we were offered this particular townhome, it’s not even a house Nazar. We’re looking for a house, we’re in a townhome with stairs. Why did Lisa not buy this? Because literally across the street from my house is every amenities store, whatever, that Lisa and I could ever dream of, like, I have a Lifetime Fitness. Across the street. We have a movie theater, and we like movies across the street, my wife can go to Sephora, spin class, Whole Foods yoga, we have a whole bunch of great restaurants across the street. I will climb stairs and live in a townhouse for that kind of convenience. All day long. So right, yeah. If you knew that about me, and you were my realtor, I told you to stairs. Yeah, you listen to me. But then you say, Hey, Mike, I know this house isn’t gonna work for you. And I see the locations across from everything I ever dreamed about. I will forego the stairs just like your buyer will on their let me give you an ism. That I think is important. And it’s probably a if you understand this and you approach the your next client is way you can be a lot more successful is I find that most agents and Nazar we tell them their salespeople, we give them the script, and they think that’s their job is to start hammering them with these qualifying questions on there. I will tell you, that feels like an interrogation to your consumer. And it’s not a not the best way to go. So what I would highly recommend is when you get your next lead, think of that interaction the same way. Last time you went to your doctor, right? When you went to your doctor last time, let me tell you what happened. And I want you to create this similar experience for your client, and you’ll be a lot more successful. So when you walked in, because something was ailing you, right? You went to the doctor? Imagine if you walked into the office, and you looked at the doctor, the doctor looked at you and he said, Wow, you don’t look good. You need three pills, take these three pills, and see how they work. And then let me know. How would you feel about that? Doctor? You’d be a little freaked out. Why? Because he didn’t ask you any questions about what was wrong. So what really happens when you go to the doctor before they make any recommendations on what you should do or not do? Oh, Mr. Patients and Mrs. Patient? Oh, my gosh, what brings you into the office today is always their first question. Is that similar to what has you interested in buying a house? Yes. Number two, right. Oh, you’re not feeling well? How long? Have you been feeling this way that similar? How long? Have you been looking for a home? Right? Or how many homes? Have you seen very similar question. And what is the doctor continue to do? Right? Tell me more about that. Tell me more about it. Tell me more about it. And after he asks a whole bunch of qualifying questions to learn your situation, and understand your ailments and how long and all that then he prescribes his recommendation of you know, whatever exercise or pills, or whatever the case may be, you need to be more doctor like, right, ask a lot more qualifying questions to understand their situation, understand what they’re trying to maybe accomplish, and then give your advice. The advice only about one or 2% of the time I will give you the bad news is I want to buy a house now. I find nationally for years and years about 2% max of those leads you’re getting are going to need to transact in the next few weeks or so. So that means all the other ones need to be understood. They need to be nurtured a little bit longer, they need more relationship building, they need more trust building an environment of enormous uncertainty on there.
Nazar Kalayji 33:52
I just want to add real quick, even if you are in that position where you’re the doctor, and the patient is there and they’ve got these issues. And you are a whole bunch of tests and bloodwork and all this stuff, guess what they’re doing in the background. They’re going on their phone, and freaking googling everything that you’re saying. And second guessing what you’re saying. Until they get to the point where you’re congruent with what what the general population is also saying or what they what they find online. And so if you’re saying the markets, amazing, the markets awesome, and everything else, they here says otherwise. Unless they have an immense amount of respect and and believe in you. They’re not going to believe anything you say. So I think that’s why what’s you know, from anything you’ve said today is like, if you cannot establish a friendship and a relationship with them, and help them understand that you are the person that has the knowledge, then you’re just gonna be a door opener, and they’ll go on to the next person.
Mike Schumm 34:49
Yeah, and let me let me segue from that and as our so write these down, this is imperative that you get this right next. So remember, I told you the uncertainty you need to build more trust. Let me give you the three levers. That will cause you to build trust really quickly or not, if you’re not pulling these three levers. So these are the three things now all all buyers will decide whether they like you or not like you on a subconscious level. No one decides consciously if they like you or don’t like you, I will promise you, if you do these three things really, really well, they will like and trust you, and they will do a lot of business with you. Number one, most important to the consumer is responsiveness. Speed to lead determines how a client will choose to work with you or not work with you on there, because they’re in something called modality not to get too deep with you guys. But when they remember they told you they wake up and they’re like, Oh, we today’s the day we’re buying a house, we saw this thing on whatever website and today’s the day, let’s call our agent, what happens is our if they call you and you are not responsive, you take some time to get back to them. How long you think they’re gonna wait before they call one of the other nine agents because they love the way this house looks? I will tell you not long at all. And I’ll give you the good news, bad news, you guys are exactly the same. Last time you Googled something and you clicked on a link and the page started to load slowly, how long did you wait for that page to load? seconds before you clicked on the next link, you’re you’re a buyer that you’re calling your buyer is going to wait not too long to call that next agent if you’re not responsive. Now, say you’re working with the consumer, and they’re reaching out with a question or maybe they want to schedule an appointment, you know, see at home, same thing, the quicker you respond to them, the more they like you and eventually will trust you be more responsive. I’ll give you a hack that I use all the time, because my schedule is ours, you know, is usually crazy, crazy busy all the time. So when I can’t give my other who’s reaching out to me the time they deserve, I stole them. And if they reach out with a question, I set an appointment, I say, great, you know, I’m either you know, with a client or, Hey, I got your message, let me check on the status of the house. I’ll give them some stall tactic. And I’ll get back to you. Like, I know, I can’t converse with them now. But I let them know that they’ve been heard I’m working on it. And when I will get back to them. If they if I do that, they won’t call the other agent. If I don’t do that, they will call the other agent on there. Number one be more responsive. Number two, is our touched on this. You got to be smart, you got to be knowledgeable, you got to know your stuff. And why Nizar nailed it, they have to go. How long do you think buyer is going to work with you? How long do you think you’ll be the agent of choice. If you don’t prove to your buyer that you know more about the process and buying a house, then they do. So I will share with you, you have to be super knowledgeable, you have to be super smart, because they have Google. And now you got to impress upon them. I’ll give you a hack that I use personally bizarre, because whenever I meet a new client, I purposefully whether buyer or seller will share two to three things. I know they don’t know, that they can’t find on Google easily or they’re not researching. And this is no joke. It’s not hyperbole, I’m not trying to impress any of you guys on my skills, but I will share with you more times than not Nizar, after I do this, the consumer looks at me and says, Wow, you’re so smart. We’re glad we found you. Because why I’m creating differentiation. The other nine agents didn’t give him that information. Right? It didn’t feel the same because I was super knowledgeable about what they were trying to do. And they felt like I knew more than them. They felt like, they better stick with me because I was what adding value to their process, I want to write this down. Your success in real estate will be directly proportional to the amount of value you provide to your clients. These are how much value is in unlocking a door. Not much. Right. And this is part of the reason you see these commission rates, especially on the buy side, slipping and slipping. Because if you’re just unlocking a door and writing an offer, that is that much value, and your consumer doesn’t see you as the agent of choice, I will tell you, if you could provide them with a heck of a lot of information and knowledge that they don’t have. That’s providing value that’s improving their, their experience and their process, you’ll do a lot better. So get smarter advice. So responsiveness get smarter. Number three. This is all to build trust. Remember, you have to do these three things extremely well in this environment, or you will not have nearly as many sales. You have to be transparent. create transparency. And by transparency, I’ll share some of the things you could do is give them a little view into the future of all the things that’ll need to happen in a transaction. Give them a some transparency on what needs to how they need to perform. Give them transparency on how you communicate how you work, right, spell it out. My real estate team back east used to have something called a roadmap to success. And we would show the consumer exactly the 10 steps that were required to purchase a home in our market. And what happened, I was creating certainty. Because first time homebuyers don’t know all the steps, right, this is not usually found on the internet. And the average consumer, as you guys probably know, if they’re buying more after their first home, it’s seven to 10 years, they don’t remember. So the first thing I want to do what I need to call it, let me show you what’s required. Let me show you the steps to buy, buy a home in today’s market, and it creates certainty because now they’re not walking into the abyss, right? Kind of with this anxiety, the more certainty you can create, the more trust they’ll have in you. So share everything. This is like one of the reasons like sites like Zillow became so popular back in the day because they were more transparent with all the information about houses than most brokerages are. So the consumer said I want transparency, right? And they went but they they control nearly half of all the real estate traffic now why? Because they’re more transparent. Even today. There’s our I just did this yesterday, I went on Zillow site and I went on like any brokerages site, and it’s twice as much information and more so much more transparent like this one site, they sent me a listing price reduction. You know what, they don’t tell you how much the price reduction flights, they didn’t tell me what the previous price was right? It just says house reduced. So don’t you think I would want to know, as a buyer, did they reduce it 5000 or 50,000, that will show me how motivated they are right on there. If I go to Zillow site, they’ll tell me all the prices, how much the price reductions are when they happen. So transparency is much more important than you think to consumer craves it desperately. So transparency, responsiveness and knowledge. If you can impress that upon your next lead as quickly as you can, when you meet with them. Trust will go through the roof, and you will cut down your ghosting, you will increase your loyalty and you will sell more homes.
Nazar Kalayji 42:15
Mike, that was awesome. Thank you so much. I think that you know, as salespeople, we do sometimes think it’s all about sales, but it’s it really is all about relationships. That’s why most of our transactions are done through our sphere because they naturally, you know, that’s it’s a natural process, right? But when you’re when you’re dealing with leads, when you’re dealing with people that don’t know you, which is obviously the bigger group of people, that people that from the people that you do know, and you want to be able to stay in some more homes, you have to tap into that market of people that don’t know you. And so half the battle is just getting them to know like and trust you. And then the rest of it’s just simple. It’s just easy.
Mike Schumm 42:55
You know that I couldn’t have said it better myself. So know what I would say. Just go do it. This. There’s no rocket science. It’s really that easy. I will tell you, if you focus more on his building relations and try to sell and all that other stuff. You will enjoy this business so much more. Your clients will love you so much more and you will make so much more money. Stop selling and build relationships, folks.
Nazar Kalayji 43:14
That’s it. Mike, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate ya!
Mike Schumm 43:19
Love you guys. Bye bye for sure.
Kristina Kendig 43:23
Thank you Mike!
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