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You Better Know What’s Next

If you’re interested in mastering the art of working with buyers, you need to always be able to answer the question, “What’s next?”

Even though logic tells us a homebuyer will work diligently toward buying a home and only take steps toward that end, there are typically more missteps than correct steps throughout the process. Why? Because the buyer isn’t the process expert—you are. Why do we sometimes let our buyer clients get themselves so far off track in the process? The answer is simple: It’s because we don’t keep them focused on what’s next.

As an example, how often have you invested time showing homes to a prospective buyer only to learn later that qualifying for a loan is a problem? It’s only because you weren’t focused specifically on what’s next.

Below are some specific tools that will help you stay totally focused on what’s next during the process of attracting new buyer prospects.

The Magic Script. I know everyone hates scripts—and early in my sales career, I felt exactly the same—but scripts are the key to being able to focus fully on your prospect. Once you’ve mastered what to say next, you can stop worrying about that and focus instead on your buyer and their needs. At Workman Success Systems, we use a script called LPMAMA when a buyer inquires about a specific home. The letters stand for Location, Price, Motivation, Agency, Mortgage and Appointment. We believe these are the key elements to understanding enough about the buyer and their needs to move the process forward. This script works with our buyer information sheet, which is used to collect important buyer information.

A, B & C Buyer Lead Management. You should always know exactly where a buyer is in the process and have them categorized correctly. We use the following categories:

  • “A” buyers need to purchase a home in the next 30 days. These are buyers who you have an appointment scheduled with. Once you’ve finished an appointment with a buyer client in this category, you should schedule the next appointment before parting ways. It’s the only way to keep them an A.
  • “B” buyers need to purchase within 90 days. Follow up with these prospects during the weeks of the 1st and 15th each month.
  • “C” buyers need to buy in more than 90 days. Follow up with this group every single month during the week of the 8th.

These are just a couple simple yet effective tools you can use to make sure you’re always focused on what’s next. Sometimes it’s that little nudge toward the next step that can make the difference in actually closing a sale or not.

Cleve Gaddis of Gaddis Partners, RE/MAX Center learned sales the hard way, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, and now his real estate team closes $60 million in sales annually in Atlanta, Ga. He loves to share his sales strategies and to see others succeed. He’s the host of the Call Cleve Atlanta Real Estate Show which can be heard on NewsTalk 1160 WCFO every week. Contact him at Cleve@GoGaddis.com.

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