What do you do when you’ve got a long-term seller lead?
So, you’ve got somebody who wants to sell their house in six, or maybe nine, months. Remember it's a real lead. They’re going to sell, but they’re a ways out right now.
How do you turn this lead into a listing? What do you say when you get this person on the phone?
In this post, I’m going to tell you how we handle our listing appointments to make sure that we turn that lead into a listing.
Remember long term seller leads can be valuable
Remember, these listings are extremely valuable. Don’t be overprotective with your time and push somebody out because they are not ready. If someone wants you to come to their house and talk about selling their house, absolutely go! Start to build some rapport. Build a connection with this person. Answer their questions. Become their go to realtor.
But what do I do at that first appointment?
The first step is to build rapport.
You want to answer their questions. Add value. Give them information that they might not otherwise have or found out about. Update them on the current market. You can give them a price range, but don’t get too specific because the price could change wildly between then and further down the line when they are ready to list . Be sure to communicate clearly, if you give a price, that it’s only a rough ballpark. Remind them that, six months from now or whatever range they provide, prices are gonna change dramatically. This is because what you’re doing when you give them that range is you’re pre-selling the next appointment.
The next goal you want to have is to set up the next appointment.
Once you figure out when they actually need to sell, set that appointment maybe a couple of weeks before the actual listing date. In that second appointment, you’re going to go over pricing with them once more.
The trick here is that you were pre-selling the fact that this was just a rough quote before and that you’ll really get the quote dialed in at this next meeting. This helps you land the next meeting.
At this stage, one thing to be careful of is to not disappoint. You can give them some ideas on how to get their home ready for sale, but don’t overdo this. So, the way I sometimes successfully communicate this is by drawing a line on a sheet of paper with a zero on the left and a ten on the right. I’ll tell them that zero is where you list your house as-is and a ten is if you do a full remodel with a big contractor that might cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. I do that, then ask them where they fall on the spectrum.
They can do simple things. Clean up the house. Declutter. Maybe pack some things up into storage, that kind of thing. Simple is key. And, then, if they want to go bigger, you can have a real conversation about what kind of finances they have to do that.
You must absolutely get that second appointment
Get it on the calendar. Even though we all understand this is months down the road, it doesn't matter set that appointment. You set your dentist appointment six months out — why not also do it with the sellers? Make sure to reconnect with them closer to the date of your second meeting. It’s in that second meeting where you’ll walk them through how the process of working with you Works. You’ll help them figure out a more accurate assessment of the value of their home. You don’t want to do this during the first appointment because they’re not going to remember you and you need that excuse to come back.
To sum it up..
The first meeting is all about getting the second meeting. Give them a rough quote to build the expectation. Schedule the second meeting. Follow up, then follow through!
