Or it could be titled…
‘How Much Money did You Leave on the Table this Weekend?’
Everything you read here is based on my personal opinion and not influenced by anyone. I am the author as well as the editor, so excuse some grammatical errors.
What you read here are my friendly advice and suggestions only. For your professional or personal satisfaction, I highly recommend that you verify everything first before taking my word. Thank you. Now on with the post….
The point of this exercise was not to disparage one agent from another, or even one office from another. I removed the names of the individuals, for legal reasons, and the fact is the ‘who’ here for our training purposes isn’t necessary. What is instructional is these were very real and randomly chosen open for inspections, and I wanted to comment on how we can improve our ‘front line’ service to the people who are effectively paying our wages, the clients.
Now, before you download this and analyse, I want to describe what I did, precisely, so you can judge for yourself how you might have fared with these criteria.
The ‘follow up call’ criteria (which by the way, by Monday 5pm, out of everyone studied only ONE even called) was this…
Full points – if they called by the end of the day my ‘guest’ visited the open
Half point – If they call by end of trade Monday (I understand we’re still not there yet at the time of this posting)
X – if they don’t follow up by Monday 5pm at all.
The other criteria requiring explanation is the ‘quality of take home material’ heading.
Full points if their material is – a full colour, glossy and presentable flyer or booklet AND/OR is bound so has a spine and can’t be easily discarded with all the other rubbish.
Half points if it’s a full colour, but obviously printed in the office on standard paper, and isn’t bad, but is still not quite of the quality a discerning seller might want representing their biggest asset
X – if it’s black and white, photocopied in the office, throw away as soon as you leave, rubbish.
That’s about it, the rest of the headings are self explanatory I hope.
This study is completely factual. The study was undertaken on April 17 in Brisbane. I have removed the names of the individual agents so as to avoid personal embarrassment, but seriously, the results here are not as good as they could be with a few minor tweaks and improvements.
Now, of course, my criteria might be different to other people and of course future sellers who visit your open house have their own criteria, but some of my recommendations for improvement might be food for thought for you who are reading this and want to improve.
I am putting a challenge out to all real estate agents, and I will be personally inviting these agents, who by the way, aren’t bad, this is the standard out there. Some of these agents, in fact, in many ways, are as good or better than some of their competitors. (Well, not the ones who just didn’t show up….Yes 2 out of 11 were complete no shows to an advertised Open House !!)
But I will be inviting these people to come to an event I am taking part in called
QREAS, the Real Estate Agents Summit.
click this link for more info. Because I PROMISE them, I can double their commissions if they spend just one hour with me. DOUBLE !!! AT LEAST !!!!
Ok, here’s the results. Comments welcomed from agents.
Mystery Shopper Results – click or download this file.
Note after the fact – I note on my secret shop that we had a no show (well I note we had two). I just spoke with one of the agents who wasn’t there at the advertised time, and he had on his records 2pm and the Courier Mail printed in the paper 1pm.
From the sounds of it, following the discussion, the agent seems very competent and it’s a shame a mistaken Courier Mail mix up was on the day I did my investigation. (Better it was me than a serious buyer or seller though)
Lesson here is – be brutally, brutally picky when it comes to proofing your ads and setting up ‘game day’ because if I was a future seller, that mix up could have potentially cost the agent in question a commission, potentially $10,000 +
An interview about this secret shop was played on the Radio – link is here –
http://glenntwiddle.com.au/blog/re-uncut-interview-with-kevin-turner/
Comments 6
Well, it is the following Saturday from my study, and at this point we have received a grand total of 2 follow up phone calls.
For training in how to do this a whole lot better, either come to http://www.qreas.com.au
or
go to http://www.glenntwiddle.com.au and grab the Ultimate Open Home Product from the CD store
Glenn,
What scares me the most in your report is the last column, no-one asked the most obvious question…..”so Bill & Mary, are you interested in purchasing this home?” (or however you prefer to say it).
This is the single biggest error not just in real estate but in almost every area where ‘sales’ people are employed. IF YOU DON’T ASK FOR IT YOU WON’T GET IT. Nothing ‘sells itself’ and nobody ‘buys’ anything. Everything we purchase, willingly or otherwise, is as a result of marketing – directly or indirectly. This is not a bad thing.
So if you’re going to spend you Saturday’s conducting an open as a R/E agent, for the sake of your vendor (and you own pocket) ask the question!!! and you never know, they might even say yes!!!
Agreed Gavin. There’s an agent in the Western Suburbs of Brisbane, an excellent agent called Scott Edwards, and if memory serves me correct (admittedly, I did some training with him about 7-8 years ago, so I may have some details wrong), but he asked everyone, and I mean everyone, who stepped foot in his Open House or escorted inspections, ‘So do you wanna buy it?’
And he did it in a friendly, almost joking manner. So if they didn’ty, no harm done, but if they answered, ‘maybe’ or ‘don’t know’ or something, then he could move forward, but he’d never leave wondering.
Each to their own on their methods, but I’d rather ask the question like you suggest Gav, than not.
Good Morning All,
The results from this study does not surprise Hot Property Specialists Buyers Agency here in Brisbane, as we only work for buyers of property not the sellers; we deal everyday with selling agent (Real Estate Agents). There are a lot of great selling agents but we get to see both sides the best and the worst.
I hope that when you do your training you touch on Buyer Agents and how we can help them and that they should not be scare to work with us. We are paid upfront from our buyers and never touch the selling agent’s commission. I have met Pat before and heard him as well and he gives you inspiration that you never know could be possible. I also have all his book and CD’s.
Regards Liz Wilcox
Pingback: RE Uncut interview with Kevin Turner & Glenn Twiddle | Glenn Twiddle
A copy of the interview I did on Kevin Turner’s radio show about this secret shop is here
http://glenntwiddle.com.au/blog/re-uncut-interview-with-kevin-turner/