Welcome back to Mike Ferry TV. My name is Tony Smith, the Vice President of The Mike Ferry Organization, and I am excited to be here for this edition of Mike Ferry TV Okay, it’s a very important time of market cycles right now. You’ve been hearing it from Mike. You’ve been hearing it from me. You’ve been hearing it from Coaches. You’ve been hearing it. You’ve been seeing it yourself. The market is normalizing. It’s changing. It’s stabilizing. In some cases, it’s getting a little stronger than that in a different direction. With that being said, there’s an area of work that we have to pay close attention to right now, and it’s the area of skill development. Let’s face it, for the last two or three or four years, when it comes to listing property, think about the skills that maybe we didn’t have to use in dealing with Sellers. Right? You know, you look at this, the skills for required, required for listing property in a red-hot market are a little bit different and a little bit easier, if we’re honest, than the skills required for listing property in a normal stabilizing or even down-decline of a market. So what we have to recognize is, are we spending the time and where specifically would be the best use of our time today if we wanted to zero in on some skills improvement? Well, you know, it’s been a challenge for The Mike Ferry Organization to introduce to the Real Estate public the value of role-play and practice and improving your skills.

For some reason, this is one place in the Real Estate industry that agents struggle with, is understanding the value of and importance of practicing script skills and dialogs. First, there might even be a total resistance to having a canned presentation. And then secondly, you have to ask yourself, am I really involved in the improvement of the skills I have? So today I want to spend a little time looking at this and looking at the skills that are required. If we got real specific about it today. If you want to take full advantage. The market has been covering up a lot of shortcomings of skill for a while because things sold so fast and for such high prices that there wasn’t really that much conflict there when it came to Sellers. Right? You know, you think about, I wrote this down, what does a Seller want to know? This is this is basic 101 in sales from The Mike Ferry Organization. What does the Seller want to know? They want to know how much is my home worth? They want to know how long is it going to take to sell, and they want to know what are you going to do to get the job done right. That’s really what a Seller wants to know if they’re truly motivated to selling a property. Right? And then we think about a hot market. How much is my home worth? A lot and more than we listed for.

Can you guys appreciate the listings you sold over asking price the last couple of years? Next, I want to know how long is it going to take to sell … seconds? That’s a pretty easy presentation. It’s going to take a day or two or three. We’re going to have multiple offers and then what are you going to do to get it done? I’m going to put it in the MLS and put a sign up and we’re going to start sorting through all of it. All I have to do is whisper, “House for sale.” and here we are. So if you think about what a Seller really wants to know in a hot market, most of it was covered by the market. Well, that’s a little different today now, isn’t it? So then we start thinking this is one of the biggest reasons I wrote it down with a major factor. Factor why our Mike Ferry agents start rubbing their hands together and get so excited about succeeding today because now we’re getting in the window. If we become relentless about our skills improvement today, we will get rewarded not only with an increased business that we generate, but the increased referrals that we receive. If we really get good at our skills now, we’re going to be rewarded at the highest level because there’s a series of conflict going on. How much is my home worth? There’s a lot of confusion about that today for some Sellers and agents. How long is it going to take? Is it taking longer today to get a home sold than it has been? Days on market is increasing in almost every market in North America? It’s taking longer. How long is it going to take to sell? And then what are you going to do to get it done? It’s taken a little more than putting it available in the MLS today, isn’t it? So now Sellers need good skill. For a long, long time they didn’t need good skill. So if we get really specific and we really work at improving our skills and are we going to reap the rewards of that?

I wanted to get specific. Here are some specific skills we need to consider addressing right away, and I want you to maybe do a little grading system on yourself for this. How strong are you in these skills? The first one I wrote down, the skill of prospecting and following up aggressively with expired and canceled listings. The skill of prospecting and following up aggressively with Expired and canceled listings. Hey, if the inventory rises and the number of home selling decreases and the days on market extends. Guess what we end up with? … More Expired Listings. Why do we end up with more Expireds? Should we have more Expired Listings? Why do we end up with more Expired Listings? Simply because agents don’t know how much the home is worth, or they don’t know how to deliver it to the Seller. They don’t deal with the Seller in terms of how long is it going to take to sell and they really have to refine what are they going to do to get it done right? What we know is there will be a lot more Expireds and when there’s a lot more Expireds and canceled, then there’s an opportunity for us. We have scripts and skills for these things. We have very, very strong skills. Many of you watching today know exactly what I’m talking about, but then along with it comes some objections, right? Are they upset? Isn’t Expired typically upset? Are they typically a little irritated or mad? Have they been listening to all of their friends for the last two or three years tell them that their house sold in seconds for massive amounts of money? Yes, they have a right to be upset. But the objections are going to be the same. Here’s what you’re going to hear all the time. You’re going to receive objections like this, “We’re just going to take it off the market.” You’re going to hear objections like this, “We’re going to list with the same agent.” We’re going to hear objections like this, “I think we’ll just rent it out.” We’re going to hear objections like this, “We’ll just sell it ourselves.” So if I’m going to really dive in to Expireds and cancel, shouldn’t I really understand and really refine my skill set with those objections handlers? Should I really refine my skill set with dealing with the fact that they’re a little upset to begin with? We think so.

The second skill, if we want to get specific, the skill of prospecting and following up aggressively with For Sale By Owners. Hey, are days on market extending? Yes. Do you have listings that haven’t sold yet? Does that probably mean that some of those For Sale By Owners time on market is extending and they haven’t sold yet too. And are they equipped are they equipped to deal with a market that’s changing, that doesn’t have Buyers beating down every door? Are they equipped for that? They’re not equipped. That’s her job. What a golden opportunity to start prospecting those. You know, we have a Virtual Prospecting Clinic a few days ago and an incredible agent, Kelly Vanocur. She was in the Prospecting Clinic and we were working on this together. A bunch of agents all prospecting away and Kelly would be the first to say this, that she really didn’t spend a lot of time with For Sale By Owner. Never called them much, never worked them. Well, we were encouraging agents in this Clinic to make some For Sale By Owner calls. So Kelly gets on the phone. She sets not one, not two, but three, listing appointments in less than probably an hour with For Sale By Owners. I think it’s her new best source For Sale By Owner. But we have to look at it. What objections are you going to get? Of course you’re going to get the commission objection. That’s why they’re For Sale By Owner you’re going to get, “We already have an agent if we decide to do it.” You’re going to get that objection. You’re going to get, “Bring me a Buyer.” Man, if we don’t learn to overcome that, you’re going to get, “We will just go ahead and hire an agent at some point way down the road in the next two or three months.” Right? Those are all objections that you’re going to receive if you’re going to actively work For Sale By Owners. Do you need to have a good follow up system and what to say? Those are skills. How about this? The third skill I wrote down if we want to take full advantage of the skill, the skill of really prequalifying a Seller and digging out motivation. This is a skill. Right now, is it probably important that the motivation of the clients we work with has to be higher and higher? Yes, they have to be more motivated. A non-motivated Seller is going to cause problems today. So we have to have the skill of really prequalifying and digging and learning to understand the questions, to ask, to find out if they’re motivated. We have to have the courage to ask those questions. “Hey, listen, so if on a scale of 1 to 10, if your home were to sell and you were to look at this. ‘One’ being you don’t care if I sell it at all and ‘Ten’ being, you have to have it sold in the next 30 days. Where do you fall on the scale?”

“Mr. Seller, what will you do if I brought you a full-price offer today? What would you do? What are you going to do if your home doesn’t sell? What’s more important to you that you actually sell your home or the number that you get, the dollars you get for your home? Which one is more important? Remind me again. Tell me in detail why would you consider putting your home on the market in the first place?” Do you have the skill set to really prequalify and understand motivation? I wrote down the next skill. Skill number four, the skill of knowing the right price and how to deliver it to a Seller in a way that they understand it and accept it. The skill of not only knowing the right price, but how to deliver it to a Seller in a way that they understand it and they accept it. Do they ever like it? No, they don’t ever like it. But what’s the skill? That is one with pricing. Get out there and preview properties. Study the stats. How about this skill? The skill of setting strong expectations. The skill of setting strong expectations with the Seller once you get a contract signed. Okay, we have to learn how to present to them that you’re not going to have 900 offers in 2 minutes. Wait for all the money over asking price. Do you have a strong way of delivering the right expectation? How about this skill? The skill of communicating with the Seller for two, three, four, five, six weeks without it being sold? Boy, this is a big one. I put a note, “That’s why properties expire.” The reason that many properties expire is the agent does not know how to communicate with the Seller for several weeks if it hasn’t sold. So guess what they do? They stop calling. They just don’t check in. Oh, boy. Is that bad service or what? We have to really work on the skill of what are we going to do and say over that window of time to keep them engaged? Right behind that is obviously the skill of getting price reductions. The skill of getting price reductions. We have to literally get sharpened up on our skill of how to approach a Seller. What questions to ask to help them see that they need to adjust their price. It’s a very strong skill. Some of you are learning it and getting relearned about it right now, aren’t you? Right? It’s interesting. And then I wrote down the skill of communicating with our Past Clients and Center of Influence. Man this is a skill. You know that most agents, when there’s not great news, the market is shifting, it’s normalizing, interest rates are on the rise. The world just stops talking to their database. Is that a good idea? No, it’s the worst thing you could possibly do. But what skills do you need to bring into the mix to keep communicating with your database, even though the news isn’t all just red roses everywhere? If you’re communicating at the highest level possible, when others are not communicating at a high level, you’re going to get more referrals. You’re going to become that agent that they say, “You have got to call this agent to list your home.” Right? You know, how strong, how consistent, how specific have you been about improving your skills? Could you lay out a little program for the next one, two, three months to really dig into a skills improvement program for yourself? Boy, if you sharpen your skills when the rest of the world is not sharpening their skills, you’re going to win. All right. I put this question down. Is there more inventory in your market? In almost every case, everywhere. Are there more homes for sale than there were? Yes. Then here’s the tough question. How much more inventory are you getting? If there’s 30% more homes for sale in the market, shouldn’t you be getting 30% more listings? I think so. It just makes sense, doesn’t it? Skill. Right? Hey, I’m thrilled to announce this is really exciting for me. We are bringing Productivity Schools back. If you want to learn your skills. Productivity Schools Live are coming back to the Mike Ferry world. Go to our events calendar on the website and you’re going to find Productivity Schools. September, October, November. This year we’re going to have Productivity Schools. We’re going to go back to really helping you improve your skills, get involved with one of them today. Thanks for your time.