Questions Questions...

One of the spurious upsides to a reduction in the number of applicants registering is that agents can devote more time to each and do a better job of sorting the wheat from the chaff. It is clear from research that a number of estate agency firms have carried out, that less than 10% of registered applicants actually buy. Therefore the quicker and more accurately negotiators identify the "make me money" from the "cost me money" customers, the better.

However, during the many mystery shopper exercises my company carry out, the vast majority of agents fail to even establish whether the applicant is married, has children or has specific access needs for work, schools and/or hobbies. Still fewer take the time to really understand the applicant's true underlying motivation and ability - the common approach is to fill boxes in on a screen which only really scratches the surface.

Assuming one accepts that selling properties is all about matching benefits with needs, it is clearly difficult to perform that function without knowing the second half of that equation.

Much of our sales training focuses on the essential stage of qualifying prospects through highly skilled questioning and listening. The numerous types of question (including open, closed, ted, assumptive etc etc) and listening techniques (reflective statements, summaries etc etc) are the vital tools in the salesperson's toolbox.

One company we trained last year have added two simple questions into their qualification approach which have paid off handsomely - "How many people will be living in the property?" and "How much has your Financial Adviser confirmed you can pay for a property?"

It is doubtless self-explanatory what the benefits are of the information gleaned from the aforementioned questions, and with other techniques introduced via our training, the company involved has sharpened up their act considerably in identifying the right prospects to spend time with and sales results have improved significantly.

When I attended my first training course as a junior negotiator in 1983, I remember the trainer (a genius from whom I learnt so much) telling me that one of the attributes of high-performing salespeople was nosiness. His words of wisdom are as true now as they were then

Estate agency owners might be well advised to arrange a mystery shopper exercise to find out just how "nosey" their staff really are...

Julian O'Dell,

TM training & development