Making Your Service "Real"

So how do you give a potential client a real test drive of your business? If you look at the challenge in this for your client, it's frustrating. It's why they don't interview a lot of Realtors. It's why we know statistically about 75% of the time, as long as you can chew gum and walk in a straight line and form a sentence, you're probably going to get the business because the client doesn't know what to look for. They want clarity, though. They want to know that this person who's in front of them is going to do two things. Number one, be their guide. Number two, make sure they don't make a money mistake. These are the things that we know without question our clients want from us because they tell us that every single year in the NAR profile of buyers and sellers.

For you, the feeling can be just as frustrating. You have these scripts you've practiced, you've worked on how you market yourself and your system, you know how to overcome objections, you've learned all of these things in your training. Maybe you have some reviews. Maybe you have some testimonials you can show. Maybe you have a listing presentation that's probably mostly bullshit and probably talks about more things than they really care to want to know, right? They want you to be the guide. They want you to make sure they don't make a financial mistake. Let's focus on that and give them what they actually want because doing so is going to give them the clarity they look for.

It's going to show them that you can be that guide. It's going to answer their questions and it's going to give them some level of assurance that you're not going to mess up financially for them, right? So, think about that as you put this system together. Yes, you hear me talk about systems and processes all the time because anything that you do in your business repeatedly should have a system or process around it. You're going to hear me say that over and over again because I truly believe that the more reliable systems you have in your business, whether it's your CRM, whether it's your communication plan, or whether it's this plan of making your business tangible, is going to help you be successful, right?

So, we need a system that's going to take our promise and turn it into a product, a product that can actually touch and feel and see, right? So, let's jump in. There are five musts, five of them that you have to do for your system to be successful. Number one, name it. In our brokerage, we call it the CB&A way. You can call it whatever the heck you want. You can call it your super selling system, your badass buyer system, whatever you want to call it. Take ownership of it. Create a brand around it so that it differentiates you from the rest of the crowd who's not talking about it, even if they do these things.

Number two, it has to have a deliverable. If you're going to make your service tangible, you need something tangible that spells out your service. This isn't a marketing plan. This is a step-by-step description of what you're going to do for them from the moment you hand that deliverable to them to the moment you hand them the keys. What's going to happen step-by-step? The next part of this is important because it ties into this deliverable. Number three is it has to set expectations. The beauty of this system is it's going to set those expectations with that deliverable day one. Right?

You're going to meet them. You're going to hand them this CB&A way, super seller system, badass buyer system, whatever you want to call it, deliverable. It shows exactly what's going to happen. You have, by virtue of that, especially if you take some time and go through it, set expectations that you can then reinforce as you go through the process. Right? So, as you go through the process, you can continuously go back and say, remember when we talked about this? Remember when we talked about this? So, the expectation is here's what's happening. Here's what's going to happen next. And here's what I'm doing for you during that time. Number four, it should include some social proof. It should include reviews or testimonials.

When was the last time that you went online and purchased something and didn't check the reviews? I know I do. I won't even look at the product until I've gone through and done the filtering by number of stars. There you go. Get that proof in there somehow, whether it's a link to a review page or you just have some printed ones in your deliverable or whatever that looks like. Make sure they know that you're legit. Number five, it should extend beyond closing. Listen, we are, as an industry, shit at referral business. We're just bad at it. If you look at the statistics of the number of people who loved their Realtor at the time they went to the closing table to the same people using the same Realtor the next time they do real estate transaction, it's pathetic.

So despite the number of agents who brag, oh, my business is mostly referral based, we're bad at this. We are bad at this. Let's be different and be the exception. By being exceptional and having this service plan last forever. In today's day and age, this is really simple or should be anyways because of the technology we have. Use your CRM. Come on, man. Those are your five musts. But wait, there's more, my friends. There are five shoulds. So I got five musts. There are five shoulds. And I'm going to let you know a little secret right now. There's probably 50 more coulds that you can go through and figure out as you really think on this and expand on it, right?

The five shoulds. It needs to communicate your value. I mentioned earlier, here's what's happening now. Here's what happens next. Here's what I'm doing for you. This is such a serious issue. I've been harping on this, harping on this, harping on this for years. We do a terrible job of proving our value to people. It's why people think that we just go, open a door, and then go to closing, collect a check, and all the rest of the time, we're happy with our friends. Because that's what we post on Facebook. But what we really ought to be talking about are all the really boring things that we do. So whether you're doing that in that deliverable, whether you're doing that in communication pieces that go out throughout the process, which we'll talk about in a second, you need to be talking about the things that you're doing.

All the boring stuff. All that boring stuff. Talk about it. Make sure they understand how hard you have to work between opening that door and handing them the keys for them to get there. Not only does it make it less likely for them to try to negotiate on your commission that you set, it also helps them say, man, you really earned that money. I'm going to go out and tell all my friends about it. Right? Number two in the shoulds. It should minimize bad surprises. I was recently in an interview with my state senator, and he said, there's a difference between a bad surprise and bad news.

Do you know the difference? I was like, no. He's like, bad news we can work with. Bad surprises, they just crop up and happen, and nobody likes a bad surprise. And once they hit, the damage is done. We're getting rid of bad surprises, okay? Nobody likes it when a lender forgets to do something and drops the ball. Nobody likes it when a seller doesn't get the repair done correctly. Nobody likes it when appraisal doesn't happen. But guess what? Sometimes those things happen. If we don't have a plan in place because we've set expectations, here's what's happening. Here's what's happening next. Between the deliverable and our communication system, it makes it an easier pill to swallow when we say, hey, remember when we talked about appraisal and what would happen if it came in low?

Unfortunately, it has come in low. Here's what it came in as. Here's what I'm going to do to try to combat this, but we need to have a plan of action moving forward here on what we want to do. Now, instead of a problem causer or a problem bringer, you're a problem solver. It goes back to your value. Number three on the shoulds is it really, really needs to emphasize communication. There's a lot here. Number one, your client wants to hear your voice. Like literally, actually your voice. Even the ones who text all the time, want to hear your voice during a transaction. We know that.

We've done research on it. You should be talking to all of your clients once a week, at least. As you reach major milestones, you should communicate with your client. As you get to those points where you say, okay, here, here, here, here, here, here. This is what's happening. This is what's happening next. Reiterate that with an email or a video text or a infographic or something like that, that goes back to the remember when we talked about. Be creative with it. You don't have to be fun with it. It doesn't have to be a boring email. It can be whatever you want to with it, but it needs to be very communicative. Number four, if it doesn't drive referrals, what are you doing? If you're going to do this great work, do this great job, create this relationship with your client, make it easy for them to refer you.

If you're a believer in ninja selling or a lot of the systems that are out there in the world, guess what? They will tell you over and over again that your next transaction is embedded in the one you're doing. So let's go and grab that transaction. Everything from your voicemail to when you're having those weekly phone calls should emphasize the fact that you love referrals and you want those people to refer. More so, the expectation is if you're going to do all this work, your client should be referring you. Set that expectation with them. Set it early. Reinforce it often. It's the same thing. Five, last one. And I think this is huge. And I want you to think about this. Outside of the normal confines of how the industry kind of throws this box in, right?

It ought to seek feedback. It ought to seek feedback that makes the system better. I don't like the way that Zillow or local associations, Real Satisfied or anybody else, does reviews in our industry. I just don't like it because it's good for social media. It's good for a bragging piece. It's good for whatever. But it doesn't move the ball forward in your process or your system. You need real feedback. So, if you listened a couple episodes ago, I talked about stealing from other people. I'm going to tell you that I have stolen my feedback system from a couple of people. First, my Realtor before I was a Realtor. They did a great job. And they had a really unique and easy feedback vehicle.

So, the feedback vehicle was a two-sided piece of paper. On one side, it had a lot of personal information that they had filled in most of it. But they wanted me to go in and fill the blanks. And they had highlighted the blanks. Some of those things were, hmm, what's my favorite sports team? What's our favorite restaurant? What's our favorite thing to do when we're not working? Those kind of things. So, that when they got a referral from me, they could thank us in a personal way. They could take us to our favorite restaurant. They could take us to see our favorite sports team or get us tickets for that. Or whatever that looks like. On the back, we're a series of questions. I have adapted those questions from something I got from Scott Stratton, who's one of my favorite business authors.

Really funny guy. If you're a Realtor, he loves making fun of Realtors because we make it easy on him to do so. But it's always in good fun. And he has a survey that he does called Start, Stop, Continue. And it's really simple. It's, what did we do that you really liked and we should keep doing? What did we do that we shouldn't keep doing because you didn't like it? Or didn't find value in it? And what didn't we do that you wish we would start doing? Three questions on the back. But give them a self-addressed stamped envelope with that piece of paper in your closing folder and ask them to be really, really honest. Tell them that you need them to help you build your business.

And please take some time to sit down once all the craziness of the move stops and then have a system for asking them to do it again when they forget. Right? Having this system is going to help you do a ton of stuff. Before I get into that, there's one huge asterisk. Huge asterisk before you get to see the return of the system. If you put in your deliverable that you're going to do these things, if you build the system to make this tangible product a reality, you actually have to execute on it. You have to do it. Otherwise, what an enormous letdown. And that is the scary part, right?

You're going to have to discipline yourself to carry this product to the market. And the market is every single client, every single time. So, let's talk about the payback. The payback is it's going to make you easier to sell. Instead of this abstract promise of service, the potential client now is a concrete product that they can use to decide. And especially when they're comparing it to somebody else who doesn't do this. You're going to differentiate yourself from your competition. Number two, which makes it even easier to sell. It's also going to establish implied expertise. No matter how long you've been an agent. If you're a brand new agent, it's going to help you build credibility.

If you're an experienced agent, it's going to really submit your expertise. Number four, it's going to provide you with tons of content for marketing. Every step in this system should be a different marketing piece. And in some cases, there might be more than one that you can really build on to explain using explainer videos, to show and differentiate using graphic images or video. There's a ton of opportunity here to market yourself through the content that you're promising the market, the product that you have to sell. Last but not least, obviously, it's going to help you build a more profitable business because you're going to get more referrals off of it.

So, there you have it. Three top fives in one episode, right? You got five musts, five shoulds, five returns. Woo! There you go. Your clients are going to gain the clarity they want. They're going to see exactly what they're going to get and they're going to love it. They're going to feel confident that you're not going to allow them to make that financial mistake because you have your crap together. Here's an agent that's not going to let me mess up. It's not going to make me lose money. Here's an agent that's already started showing me the way through this process. This is somebody that I can trust. This is somebody that I will feel comfortable referring to my friends, family, co-workers, anybody else looking to buy or sell real estate.

That kind of system is incredibly powerful if you do it. Go set it up. Turn your promise into a product. Thank you for tuning in to Top 5. Have a great day, y'all. Top 5.