To prepare for a listing presentation, most agents research a neighborhood and create a detailed CMA for the homeowner.
While those are both solid ways to prepare, you can do more to set yourself up for success.
If you put in enough work before the presentation, you can win before you step in the door.
Taking proactive steps and making a good first impression before your presentation is your ticket to winning the listing. Research is the first step. Make an amazing CMA. Know what’s in and around the neighborhood.
These are the standard steps to prepare, but you can go above and beyond. The more knowledge you demonstrate about sales in the area and potential buyers, the more they’ll trust your opinions.
When you book the appointment, ask them about their expectations and desired selling time frame.
Get as much detailed information as you can when you are setting up the appointment with the homeowner. You should build your presentation around their answers but let them know you can address their needs beforehand.
Send them an email or a letter before the meeting thanking them for the opportunity. In that email, talk about the important information they told you. The owner will expect the listing presentation to contain that.
This shows them you listened and understood their needs. The key here is that you've proved your worth before the meeting. Most agents try to showcase their abilities at the meeting — not before. You're already ahead of the average agent.
Send them your successes, statistics and positive reviews before the presentation, as well.
You can include this in your thank you email/letter, or send them separately.
This part sets the owner up to consider those successes — but again, before you meet them. If you have sales in the area, mapping them out is a good way to grab a seller's attention.
Make sure each testimonial and review demonstrates your strengths and what specific skills made the sale.
Add a print-off of any online reviews of those sales. You already know how crucial these are to your success, and printing them out is better than telling a seller to visit a link.
Reviews do more to establish your worth than anything else. If you want to include statistics, limit them to one per page — just as you would limit them to one per slide during your presentation. It strengthens each statistic and prevents any type of confusion.
If you don’t have a long history, use your broker's history. Include your total volume of career sales, your listings' average days on the market and the average listing price to sales price.
The average listing presentation includes these things. It’s normally the first time the homeowner can imagine the exact services you offer by reading reviews and looking at examples. Your goal should be to have that homeowner wanting to list with you before your meeting. If they do, you’re already closer to a listing before you ever meet them.
In this letter or email, mention three or four services that you provide. But keep it brief.
A common mistake agents make is going into way too much detail. Your reviews and research speak for themselves when it comes to your selling success and style.
If the homeowner follows up and asks you to go more in depth, you can do so during your meeting.
Include a short bio.
If it seems like you are sending them something like a listing presentation in the mail, you’re not far off. You want the owner to be as ready as possible to list with you right when you walk in the door. The more material you give them to connect with, the smoother the meeting will go.
This part should include: who you are, why and how you got into real estate, what sets you apart from other agents and what you enjoy about their area/hometown. Add a picture of you or you and your family.
Provide a picture of their home and incorporate a listing preview into your meeting.
Before your listing presentation, pull a photo of the home from Google. Having an actual example of what their exact listing will look like goes even further into helping the owner envision working with you.
You can take that another step further if you want. Create a URL and online listing for their home and include it in your presentation. The owner will be impressed, and you could even email them the link a few days before the meeting.
Make this a vital part of your presentation, even if they’ve already seen the URL and page. This could be the potential final product, so put as much time as possible into talking to them about it.
By making these efforts before you walk through the door, the owner will have time to consider the benefits of working with you.
You’ll be so far ahead of other agents meetings with the seller. They’ll be extremely impressed and excited to welcome you into their home.
You'll still need to go over most of these things in the presentation. It’s just much more effective if they have the general idea before you show them in person.
The owner will know what to expect during the presentation. Any research you do or materials you send ahead of time will only make your meeting go more smoothly.
Hopefully, they’ll be ready to list with you — only waiting for the face to face meeting to finalize their choice.
And if you really want to seal the deal, consider sending them your personally authored book as part of your pre-listing presentation.
Our MyBooks membership includes:
I bet no one else will come into the presentation as a published author.