There are a few things real estate professionals should be doing at listing appointments for impressing and winning over their clients.

In the past I’ve managed real estate offices.  Many of the sales reps who worked at these offices told me they weren’t very good at listing appointments, and they often didn’t even know why.  So I would tag along with them on their next listing appointment, and I did this literally thousands of times.  The first time I came along I’d ask them to present as they’d normally present and I’d just observe them.  I wouldn’t interfere, even if I saw ways I could help them along with their presentation.

Over time, after attending many of these appointments, I found that most of the presentations were virtually identical to one another.  They all presented current and sold comparables.  They all showed the seller where they advertised their listings.  They all presented feature sheets.  Many had personal brochures with them.  Occasionally they’d offer copies of their sold listings for the area.  I saw this exact presentation time after time after time.

When I got into the real estate business in the early 70’s, your key selling skill at listing presentations was your ability to speak persuasively.  The more you demonstrate passion and energy through your voice, the more likely they’d list with you.

It doesn’t work like this anymore though.  Today’s home buyer and seller is far different from those of yesteryear, even those from as little as 5-10 years ago.  Probably the biggest reason is the internet.  Real estate professionals are no longer the gatekeepers of real estate information as they were in the past.  So since consumers are so much better educated due to the internet, they won’t be impressed when you use the tools you used 10 or 15 years ago for presentations.

The key thing you need to ask yourself is, “What’s is my listing package intended to do for the seller?”.  There’s only one thing it should be doing: justifying the commission they’re paying you.  You need your sellers to really feel you’re worth the tens of thousands of dollars they’re paying you to sell their home.

Many real estate professionals, especially the more experienced ones, make the grave error of starting to take their commissions for granted.  When they do that, they stop trying as hard to justify the commission to the seller.  That’s a surefire way of losing listing appointments, no matter what kind of track record you have or years of experience.

Find out more about the finer points of listing presentations and how to win them by taking my course Advanced Listing In A High Tech World.  This course has been approved by the Registrar, REBBA 2002 and qualifies for 12 Credits.