13 Questions to help you get more listings

Welcome to Mike Ferry TV. It is the week of June 19th, and today I want to talk about something that everybody should be learning more about, and that is how I take more listings starting today. So I was thinking about this and I was wondering if I were to hold myself accountable or have someone hold me accountable to taking more listings, I’d want to ask myself a series of questions. So I wrote down a ton of different questions, which I’m going to get to in a minute. And don’t worry, I numbered them for all of you analyticals out of there. So there were a total of 13 questions that I was going to ask myself and that I would want a Coach to ask me. There are probably more than that, but these are the ones that stood out to me.

Before I share with you those 13 questions, I want you to realize that experts are saying that somewhere between 4.2 and 4.7 million homes will be sold this year. That is a lot of homes. That is a lot of business that there is to be done. That means somewhere between 4.2 and 4.7 listings, 4.2 or 4.7 million listings have to be taken. If they have to be taken, why not take some of them? Now NAR is also saying that over 90% of all listings are being taken by less than 10% of Real Estate agents. That means in order for you to compete in that world, you have to be good. You have to have a defined system on how to take a listing. So that’s kind of what my thought process was when I was thinking about what would I want to be held accountable to. So how do we compete?

Number 1: How much time do you spend looking for listings?

Here are the 13 questions I wrote down. Number 1, how much time do you spend looking for listings? Folks. It’s common sense. If you don’t spend any time going out there and finding someone who wants to sell their home, how are you going to find one? Are people knocking at your door saying, Hey, will you please list my home for me or do you actually have to go out there and talk to people? So how much time are you actually spending?

Number 2: Where are you spending your time looking for listings? 

Question number 2, where are you spending your time looking for listings? That I think is something that’s very controversial right now with a lot of Real Estate agents. To me, it’s not because it only makes sense that if you want to list homes, speak to homeowners, makes sense to me. What’s everybody else doing? They’ve got their cell phone out and they’re making 3, 4, or 5 videos per day. Why? Why are you spending time by yourself versus going out there and spending time with the people who would want to list or sell their homes? Ask yourself that question for a minute. What are some of the other methods? Okay, let’s say that we want to do farming. Why would you spend your time in one neighborhood when there are millions of people that have to do it? 4.2 to 4.7 million people are going to sell their homes this year. And you only want to talk with one neighborhood. Does that make a lot of sense? Okay. Let’s talk about any of the other methods that are out there. For the most part, for the most part, most of them restrict you from going out and speaking to people. Talk to more people, and you’ll find someone that wants to sell their home. It’s not rocket science.

Number 3: What are you saying to a potential prospect when you make your initial contact? 

The third question I wrote down is, what are you saying to a potential prospect when you make your initial contact? What are you saying? Is what you’re saying enough to find out whether they’re interested or not or is what you’re saying ego-based? This is why I love the Mike Ferry scripts. There is no ego involved in the Mike Ferry scripts at all. They’re all questions. They’re engaging. And when you learn how to perform them, it becomes really easy to get into a dialog with people.

Number 4: How do you should when you’re performing the scripts? 

This leads me to my next question, of course. How do you sound when you’re performing the scripts? If you’re going to prospect, whether you’re going to go door knock or you’re going to pick up the phone or whatever you choose to do, how do you sound? Do you sound weak? Are you using a lot of upswings and are you second-guessing yourself a lot? What are you doing? How is somebody going to have the confidence to give you their equity if you don’t sound strong? How do you sound when you’re making an initial contact?

Number 5: How aggressively are you following up with the people that are interested?

Question number 5 that I wrote down. How aggressively are you following up with the people that are interested? Are you truly being aggressive? Now, again, this is one of those things that gets a little bit controversial with people because we say, “follow up aggressively.” And a lot of people feel like, “I’m not that aggressive of a person. I don’t know if I could be that aggressive.” Well, let me ask you something directly … If somebody needs to sell their home. Are they going to list the home? “Yes.” So what if somebody else is more aggressive than you and their follow-up? Who’s going to get the appointment and who’s going to get the listing? You must be aggressive. Why? That’s actually one of the things that are going to separate the people who are ready from the people who are not. The people who are not ready are going to tell you, “Ah you’re a little too aggressive. You know, we don’t need to sell the home. We don’t necessarily have to do all that.” Well, then is that who you really want to spend your time with or do you want to spend the time with people who say, “Okay, come over? Yes, I know you’ve been calling me a lot. Come over. We’ll take care of it.” Those are the people that you want. Be aggressive in your follow-up.

Number 6: How do you determine a prospect’s level of motivation?

Question number 6 that I wrote down, how do you determine a prospect’s level of motivation? So when you’ve set an appointment, how do you determine whether they’re really going to list their home or not, or even if they’re realistic or not? There are a lot of people who say they need to sell their home, but then when it comes down to the price, the price is more important than why they need to move. And they’d rather keep the home than move when it comes down to the price. How do you determine that? As you know, the Mike Ferry system has talked about prequalifying everybody 100% of the time since 1975.

Question 7: What do you prepare for your presentation?

The next question I wrote down number 7 was, what do you do to prepare for your presentation? Do you have a pre-presentation routine? Do you send out a package? Do you confirm? Do you show up early? Do you rehearse your scripts? Do you practice your objection handlers? Do you take what you learn from the prequalifying call and start learning how to implement that into the presentation? What do you do? Do you just wing it? I mean, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do that. So do your best to be prepared ahead of time. Practice and rehearse your scripts. Practice with somebody who’s listed a lot of homes. Tell them the scenario that your customer is in and let them role-play as if they’re that customer.

Question 8: What kind of first impression are you giving? 

The next question I wrote down number 8, what kind of a first impression are you giving when you show up to the home? Do you show up looking like a professional, looking like someone who can get the job done or forgive my language do you show up looking like a slob? That’s up to you. Do you show up a well-rehearsed, well-practiced, big smile on your face, and a firm handshake or do you show up looking lost like a tourist out in the middle of nowhere, trying to figure out where you are? How do you look when you first show up? You may consider, you’ve heard Mike Ferry say this, “Upgrade everything.”

Question 9: How strong is your presentation?

Question number 9 I wrote down is, how strong is your presentation? How strong is it? Can you get across what you’re trying to say to the customer in a positive way? Can you get them to see what you’re trying to say? Do you ask enough questions that cause the customer to think, or are you rambling? How many times have you seen an agent or role-played with an agent and all they do is ramble? The rambling doesn’t get contracts signed, have a stronger presentation, more contracts will get signed.

Question 10: How knowledgeable are you about your market?

Question number 10 that I wrote down is, how knowledgeable are you about your market? When you present the price, are you guessing on the price? Did you just pull a really fast CMA or have you spent time learning and understanding your market? Knowing what particular neighborhoods sell for about how much. Do you spend time learning and understanding your market so that when you do present the price, you present it with strength, you present it with volition and with purpose? When you do that, the customer is more likely to believe you in terms of the price.

Question 11: How confident are you when it’s time to ask for a signature?

Question number 11 that I wrote down. How confident are you when it’s time to ask for a signature? Do you pause? Do you take a deep breath? Your handshake? “Oh, will you sign the contract, please?” Or do you have the strength within you to just ask? Great. “Will you sign the contract, please?” It’s not that hard. When the strength and quality of your presentation is up at an elite level, you feel confident, you feel good, you’ve stuck to the scripts, you’ve asked great questions and the customer understands what you’re saying. “Will sign the contract, please?” Is not a hard question to ask.

Question 12: What do you say to your most common objections? 

Question number 12 I wrote down is, what do you say when you get the most common objections? Again, do you have a rehearsed response or do you wing it? If you have a rehearsed response and you say it confidently and quickly with power in your voice, it becomes very easy to handle objections.

Question 13: Are you disciplined enough to do these things every single day?

And then the last question, number 13, I think is the most important 1. Are you disciplined enough to do these things every single day? For the most part, most agents struggle with that discipline. They’ll do parts of it here and there. Some days they’ll do a little bit of this. Some days they’ll do a little bit of that. But they’re not disciplined enough to do what needs to be done every single day. So the question for you, are you disciplined enough or could you use a little more discipline?

Folks, I’m glad that you had me here to share this message with you. Thank you for watching Mike Ferry TV and hopefully we’ll get back to Mike Ferry soon. Thanks.