THOUGHTS ON HIRING A REALTOR® VERSUS BEING A FSBO…

Dear Friend,

At every turn your agents are going to have to deal with the challenges of the FSBO objection. There is research that shows that the number of folks seriously considering selling on their own rises every day. They just plain think that they can. We know the number of FSBOs that really are successful is not impressive. Many who do sell are selling to family, friends or neighbors. It’s not their marketing that’s contributing to the success.

Facts are we do put as much (if not more) money in their pockets as they can, while we do it in far less time and with a great deal more security for the owner. Yet, the agents struggle with overcoming the, we want to try it ourselves for a month or so. If that doesn’t work, we’ll call you.

If you are invested in helping the agents improve their listing hit ratio, then it is very important that you work with them on this challenge. They have to master a compelling FSBO presentation even if they never contact a FSBO already listed. When someone tells them they want to try on their own, they are a FSBO at that moment. The agent must act immediately to convince them that what they are considering is not in their best interest.

If they don’t have the skill to do that, they may walk away empty handed. Worse than that, a few days later a better-trained agent will have succeeded where your agent failed. There goes a competitor’s sign where yours should have been.
Conduct a FSBO workshop in the place of an office meeting. If you could use a FSBO-dialogue refresher, buy a FSBO flipchart/CD (www.leaderschoice.com,) master it, and then teach them how to do the same. The point is, they need the assistance, and you need to ensure that your market share is well protected against the onslaught that higher rates and a slowed market brings relative to the growing number of FSBOs.

There are two times when we see lots of FSBOs; when the market is good and when it’s not…Add to that the growing number that are just there because they can, and you have the makings of a perfect storm.

One of our business partners, Warnock’s By Owner, is a service that “captures” the areas FSBOs by zip code for the agent, screens them through the No-Call list and sends them to the agent’s computer or fax each day. Agents do not have to waste time with searches or no-call challenges. The early bird will get the worm when in the FSBO hunt. You can learn more about this service at www.wbyowner.com.