Here are the highlights from our Super Six session with real estate legend John McGrath.
Coach:
Coaching Links:
N/A
Key Points
- How to create a plan and nurture clients
- Client attraction strategies
- What to say while the client is pouring the tea
- Setting an agenda
- The move from amateur to professional
Quote
This is a game of inches: winning or losing in a listing via percentage or an inch is all the difference, you don’t get paid much for running second in a listing, right? You get paid zero. ”
[Tweet “This is a game of inches: You don’t get paid much for running second in a listing, right? You get paid zero.”]Video Notes/Transcript
We started with brand you, right? That everything you do 24/7, 365 has gotta be coming from positive intention.
It’s gotta be done with an abundance mentality, with caring and empathy, with interest focused on the customer, not on you – versus “I hope I get that listing because it’s gonna give me 2% of a million,” it should be: “I’d really love to help that family get moved, they’re going through a difficult time, they’re separating. I’d love to be the person that helps them move through this difficult time together.” Very different energy.
A couple things I’d do: whenever I arrived at an open home I’d park up the street. Why? Because it meant there was one extra space out the front. Just a little thing, but for me, little things are important.
I’d always be there seven, eight, nine, ten minutes early because I wanted to go through the property, get the music on, get the lights on, open it up, whatever needed to be dealt with; I never assumed the vendor would have it in pristine condition although they normally did because I prepped them as to how.
This is a game of inches: winning or losing in a listing via percentage or an inch is all the difference, you don’t get paid much for running second in a listing, right? You get paid zero. So what can you do with integrity that’s proper process that’s gonna put you ahead of the rest?
I’d also often when I’m speaking with the vendor, where I list the property one of my early questions – ‘cos sales is all about questioning not telling people, it’s all about questioning – so I’d say, “Lukas you obviously know this property a lot better than I’m ever gonna know it. Could you give me a sense of two or three things that you really love about this property that may not be obvious?” And they’d say, “Oh okay, that’s a good question … in the mornings I go and sit in that chair ‘cos the paper gets delivered at 6:00am, I go sit there and I have a beautiful coffee and the sun just comes through, and I have my favourite coffee reading the newspaper at 6:30am in that corner.”
Good for me to know. “John, here’s what you’re never gonna know is: we have the best barista in Sydney; he’s 400 metres up the road, he opens at 6:00am, good for people who go to work early, his coffees are absolutely amazing.” “Great, good to know!”
I want you to rate yourselves 0 to 10 as a prospector, as a lister, as a negotiator. Why do I do that? I like the rating system because it actually forces you to calibrate your current skill. It’s not much good for me if I say, “What are you like as a prospector?” And you say, “Pretty good.”
What’s pretty good? I don’t know. If 10 was world best, 0 was world’s worst, where do you sit on the scale?
Now then you gotta think about it, right? And you say, “John I’m a 7. Nah, actually to be honest, I’m not that consistent, I’m a 5. Yeah I’m a 4 or 5.” Okay that’s good, how do we get to a 9?
Maybe some of the questions we’ve thrown out today might be better to replace that. I would say, “Leanne, you know, when you bought the home I assume this wasn’t your first home, you sold another property to buy here. Could I ask what your experience was when you bought this home or when you sold your last home? So your last interaction with agents…good, bad, or indifferent?”
If they say, “You know it was terrible, I went through three agents, they charged me all this money, they over promised on price,” vs. someone saying, “Oh look, it was fantastic; I sold in Sydney, I moved to Mackay, the agents he knew were brilliant,” and I’d say, “Fantastic, I’d love to know what they did that you found was really brilliant.”
Who are the three people in your database or your social sphere that you really like, and deconstruct it: why do you really like them what is it about that person that you want more of? “Well, I like their style, they’re calm and considered and thoughtful and they listen really well.”
Great, well, “calm, considered, thoughtful, listen well” is a really great tip for you. How do you rank in those areas? So think about all those things, raise your standards and benchmarks, go to the next level on everything. How do I get to the next level?
I find humility is a fantastic core value and strength. I think confidence is good, but I think humility is really critical. One without the other, I think humility and no confidence is not a great thing, [and] I think confidence without humility is not a great thing. So it’s kind of like, you gotta marry them together. Quite often people call it “quiet achiever.”
They have good high energy. Balanced, humble, feet on the ground, ‘cos the people that let it all go to their head, they usually implode somehow.
Resilience; a lot of rejection and you gotta do a lot of work and get a lot of no’s to get a yes in this industry, so the ability to be resilient and persistent is key.
Attitude. I know these sound generic but they are; I’m thinking of the best agents I know and these are the kind of things that [I know], as I think about it.
Clearly product knowledge is important but it’s not the most important ‘cos someone with brilliant people skills and reasonably good product knowledge will out-perform someone with brilliant product knowledge and reasonable people skills.
Questions?
If you have questions for the coaches or for the Super Six tweet us @eliteagentmag #transform
