Inside the Life of a REALTOR® - Sales

Remember a few years ago when they had that special on some channel with a magician who was going to reveal the secrets of the profession? I guess they made some big show of hiding his identity to make sure that his colleagues didn't hunt him down and, oh I don't know, saw him in half or something. I didn't watch it, but I remember a little bit of talk about it.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to get sawed in half over this post, so I'm not going to put on the hood of secrecy or whatever it was they did for that guy. But I'm going to tell you a couple of things about the "dark arts" of my profession that maybe you didn't know before. Or maybe you did...

First of all, I'm in sales. Duh - big shocker there, right? But something I bet you didn't know - you probably are too. Even if "sales" isn't part of your written job description, you're probably in sales more than you know. Because when you strip it down to its essence, sales is getting people to do something. In the traditional sense of the word, we use it to mean getting somebody to buy something. But I've come to observe over a period of time that sales encompasses a lot more than that. Teachers, cops, doctors, you name the job - there's probably some level of convincing people to act in a certain way. Parents? Check. Attorneys? Oh, hell yes. Politicians? Please...

Sales in my profession might be a little different than you think. For instance, what do figure that I sell? Houses? Think again. I had a mentor a handful of years ago who observed that in all of her years in real estate, she probably never sold a single house. Never mind the fact that she'd probably worked on tons of transactions. The truth of the matter is, houses sell themselves. I can get clients matched up with houses pretty well, but at the end of the day I can't convince someone to buy a house that they don't want. What I'm really selling a client is me. I sell them my time, my energy, and my expertise. I'm selling them on the notion that they should want to have me working on their behalf in the middle of a real estate transaction.

That sales skill set - selling yourself - is a difficult skill to master. There are many in our profession that do it a lot better than I ever will. The people who do this the best are the ones who get the lion's share of the business. What you, the consumer, need to understand about this is that the skill set of being able to sell yourself is entirely separate from the skill set that is required to watch out for the best interests of a client through a real estate negotiation and transaction. Those aren't mutually exclusive skills, and I know several of my colleagues who do very well with both aspects. But sadly, I also know several who have one but lack the other.

Real estate agents who are good at looking out for their clients but lack the skills required to sell themselves don't last long. They lose business to their competitors that do a better job of convincing the client to work with them. This business is brutal - absolutely merciless - to people who lack the ability to sell themselves.

On the other hand, agents who are good at selling themselves can thrive even if they lack the skills or inclination to look out for the best interests of their clients. They know all the right things to say to get their clients to act, whether or not it's a good move for them. (I could write a whole article on sales scripts, and maybe I will someday.) It's an unfortunate reality, and some of those agents are very successful and have been for years.

So what do you do? Well, my advice is that when you are looking for the services of a real estate agent, talk to people you trust to get a referral to someone that they would use. The best agents - the ones you want to use - will be the ones who get rave reviews from their past clients. If you ask a friend or family member who they used for their transaction last year and the answer is "Oh, it was some guy over at XYZ Realty - dang, what was his name again?" - keep looking. If you get a response something like "Oh, that was a horrible experience! Never again!" get that name too. Chances are really good that they'll remember. The agent you want to use will be somebody who has stayed in contact with their clients after the transaction was over. The other ones - the ones who just railroad clients through a deal regardless of anything else are too busy to stay in contact. They've moved on to the next thing.

Next week I'll wrap up the first quarter activity in our market. I haven't pulled all of the numbers yet, but it may not be pretty...