BEST Practices for Buyer Consultations

So, previously I've recorded a best practices in the listing presentation video, and today I'm going to do the exact opposite. Best practices in a buyer consultation. Hey, my name is Chance Brown. I'm the broker owner of CB&A Realtors, and I make video content for agents because I'm passionate about helping them build great businesses. Let's talk about your buyer consultation. I think way too many agents skip the buyer consultation, and that is really unfortunate. We call those agents pop-tart agents. And trust me, I've been one. I understand it. The phone rings and you pop up out of your chair and go show a house. If that's your ticket to entry, fine. But it should be the gateway to setting an appointment for a buyer consultation where you have the opportunity to speak with that client about what their real motivations are, what they're looking for in a home so that you can actually go out and help them find the right home for themselves. If we're not doing buyer consultations, man, I can't I I just can't implore you enough. You need to be doing buyer consultations. So, what does that look like? Being the broker of over 700 agents, I get to see what a lot of agents are doing in their business. And it's fun and I get to see best practices and things maybe people shouldn't be doing and I can help coach to that. What I want to talk about today are some of the best practices that I want to start with before the meeting even starts. Are you giving somebody homework? I've always given homework. We give homework here at the brokerage because we want to a be able to make the most out of what we're going to be doing when we sit down, but b the homework also gives us some insight into who we're working with. If I give somebody homework and I get there and it's clear they haven't done it or they just started it like 2 minutes before I got there, I know who I'm working with. If I get there and one person has filled it out, one person clearly has never seen it before, I know who's driving the conversation, who the decision maker is. If they've turned my simple homework into spreadsheets, I know who my clients are and what I need to do to communicate best with them is give lots and lots of data, right? I love homework for that reason. The same script that I shared in a previous video called tying the knot is perfectly applicable here, too. Tying the knot is naturally obviously typically in OT and it gives them permission to ask you questions, gives you permission to ask them questions and gives everybody the option to whether or not they want to work together at the end. So, it goes a little something like this. You can make it your own however you want, but thanks for having me over to your home tonight.

Naturally, I know you have a ton of questions for me and I am here to answer all of them. Obviously, in order to do my job, I've got to ask you some questions also. Typically, in about 45 minutes or an hour, we're going to know if we're a good fit to work together. How's that sound? Once you get into the actual buyer, the meat of the buyer's consultation, obviously, we need to know the information about the home that they want to live in. But I always recommend to start wide and move narrow because how many times have you put a buyer into a home who loved the home, hated the neighborhood, or hated the area? as happy as they can be in their home. If they don't like the stuff around them, they're not going to be happy. And so, let's start with the area and then let's move into communities in that area. And then let's talk about the house and just go wide to narrow. Next up, I need to know the physical traits of the home.

But more importantly, I need to know why. And so, what I want to see here is more questions than the surface level. How many bedrooms do you need or do you want a pool or whatever that looks like, right? and let's talk about what those spaces are going to be used for. Let's talk about why they need those things. Let's talk about the things that are really important to them in the community that they're choosing, in the area that they're choosing, and start to see some of those underlying motivations. And we can put those to work when we go out and we start showing homes to make sure they understand we're listening and we're paying attention and we care about them. Once you've done all of those things, I think that it makes a whole lot of sense to kind of lay out what the process of buying a home looks like, even if they've done it before. Things change and we want to make sure that we're setting expectations early so that we can reinforce them all along.