If you have communicated both personal likeability and professional competency in your marketing plan, there are only a few things that will get in the way of you earning your potential client’s business.  The first is friends and family.  Not yours… theirs.  Do they have a close relative or friend that they feel obligated to do business with?  This kind of hurdle is nearly impossible to get over, and you should be very careful in trying to do so.  Make sure you say NOTHING negative about the agent they feel obligated to use.  Play up your experience, your professionalism and your track record of success.  If the client is just “playing” with the idea of buying or selling, you likely will not get their business.  But, if the client is really needing to buy or sell, the more experienced you are the better chance you have of overcoming those feelings of obligation to friends or family.

The other reason you might still not get their business once you have got your marketing system firing on all cylinders is their perceived risks of doing business with you. 

Most clients will not tell you what it is that they fear about doing business with you, so we have to put ourselves into our clients' shoes and figure out what their fears might be.  Then we have to go to work eliminating those fears.

Some of the common fears (because they actually do happen all the time to clients of poor agents) are…

• Fearing that you will put your sign in their yard and then disappear.
• Fearing that you will not be in regular contact with them and that they will have trouble getting in touch with you.
• Fear of being tied into a contract with someone who may not do the job they have promised to do.
• Fear of their circumstances changing and needing to get out of a contract with you.
• And, especially if you are new in the business, fears of what their friends, neighbors, and family might think of their decision to hire you.

This might seem like an intimidating list, and there could be many, many more depending on the client, the property, and their particular situation.  In order to get them over their hesitations to becoming your client, you must be prepared with techniques and real solutions to eliminate these fears.  The way you solve these issues for your clients can go a long way in defining how you are different and unique from your competition, so cookie-cutter answers are not given here for you.  But some examples are…

• A guaranteed communication program (i.e. I will call you every Friday afternoon so we can talk about what has been happening with your home and its marketing.)
• Risk-Free Listings – If you are not satisfied with my services for any reason, you can get out of the agreement at any time.
• Trial Listing Periods – Offer a 30-day “trial” listing to prove to the client that you do what you say you will.
• Testimonials – Letters, thank you cards, and “How did I do?” questionnaires from previous clients specifically addressing areas of their concern.

Some of these may sound pretty aggressive, and some of them you may not even be able to get your broker to approve of.  These techniques of risk removal rely on one thing to be successful.  That you do what you say you will do, and usually a little more.  My whole philosophy behind using these techniques, which have all been highly successful for me, is this:

If I serve my clients to the point that they have no need or desire to take their business elsewhere, I can give them every ‘out’ and they will not be inclined to use it.

Once they are convinced that they have made the right choice, that I am out there working hard for them, and that I am living up to the promises that I have made to them, all thought of getting out of contracts or changing agents has left them.  And, on the very rare occasions when someone has used one of these ‘outs’, I have been able to identify where I may have dropped the ball with them in my service. 

You must start looking at your customer service as if you have no contract at all.  Serve your clients to the point that they will have no desire to ever leave you.  That is the greatest and most solid contract you will ever have, and it is founded on trust and responsibility, not on signatures on a paper. 

Begin to identify the risks that your clients feel they are taking by doing business with you.  Write them down and be honest with yourself about them.  We like to fool ourselves into thinking we can be everything to all people, but of course we cannot.  Begin to explore what makes people nervous about doing business with you.  Then, once you have identified these things, begin to find creative ways to eliminate these perceived risks and fears.  This will be a process you will have to return to regularly, as the perceived risks change over time.  A common risk for a new agent is a client’s fear that maybe you do not know what you are doing.  As you get established in the business, gain name recognition, and start selling a lot of homes, that perceived risk or fear changes to the perception that you are too busy or too successful to have the time to help them.  Even a change in where you live or what you drive changes perceptions of you, introducing new fears or hesitations from potential clients.  

I worked with an agent who did extremely well in lower-end home sales.  He started out with next-to-nothing, but found success rather quickly.  He traded up from his older Buick sedan to a flashy new BMW… and lost his current clients.  When I worked with him in finding out why, his current clients felt that he had “moved on” to bigger and better things and no longer wanted to fool around with smaller, less expensive homes… the bread and butter of his business. 

We must learn to see through the façade of success and self-confidence that we try to project to others to see how others really view us.  What fears might they have of doing business with us, and how can we remove those fears?  Answering those questions will set you apart from your competition.  Just the fact that you are asking yourself those kinds of questions will begin to make you unique in your marketplace.