the newspapers for homes for sale, inviting prospective buyers to phone for more
information. In most cases, prospective
buyers will telephone, ask for the very
best price and terms available for that house, and then hang up. Too often, the
real estate company won’t even get a chance to meet and talk to these people.
Answer Questions with Questions
Rather than giving facts and details on the home, we taught them to answer
inquiries with a simple question. “Thank you for calling. May I ask you a
question; are you looking for an ideal home in a quiet neighborhood?”
This question was carefully formulated. When the
person answering the phone
asked this question, it immediately triggered two mental pictures in the mind of
the prospective buyer. The first mental picture was his or her personal definition
of “an ideal home.” This picture is different for every person. But the three
words instantly caused the caller to visualize
what he or she personally
considered to be an ideal home.
The second picture this question triggered was the scene of a quiet
neighborhood. The two pictures in combination invariably elicited the answer,
“Of course. Do you have something that fits that description?”
The real estate agent would say, “Well,
as a matter of fact, we have two
houses that have just been listed that you might like to see. They aren’t even in
the newspapers yet. When would you have time to take a look at them?”
This simple approach, using
the power-of-suggestion close, more than
doubled the flow of prospects coming through this real estate office. Once
prospects had come in and gone out to visit homes with one of the real estate
agents, they typically stayed with that agent until they had found the type of
home they were looking for.
