Sharon Miller

Educating today’s Clients and Customers

It’s of paramount importance – every top producing realtor should continuously educate today’s clients and customers. Make it a high priority – don’t allow buyers and sellers to act like two trains passing in the dead of night. A good understanding of current market trends, perceptions and human behavior, shared with all participants, will likely increase the chances of success in securing that desired purchase agreement. Don’t let out-dated information, old paradigms, or re-living the past, influence your buyers and sellers decisions – keep them up to date and actively engaged in the process.

Thinking outside the box, what actions can you as a realtor introduce to motivate buyers? What techniques will stimulate these buyers to move past the “we’re still thinking about it” stage? How about your seller’s, what strategies will convince them your marketing suggestions will go along way towards increasing that all important foot traffic?

The use of a story is always a great way to begin educating today's clients and customers. A few year’s ago, I had the privilege of listening to Dr. Stephen Covey (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People). He shared with his audience an experience which I believe is pertinent.  Dr. Covey attended a summit conference to discuss world peace. Representatives from numerous countries around the world were in attendance. As you can imagine, language barriers, societal customs/mores and differing opinions made any attempt at meaningful discussion next to impossible. Previous gatherings had ended without much progress, or a sense of direction. To overcome these hurdles, the attendee’s borrowed an ancient Indian custom. They commissioned the use of a “talking stick”. The rules for using a talking stick are simple; the holder of the talking stick articulates his position until others in the conversation acknowledge an understanding of his point. The stick is then passed to another and the process repeated. Dr. Covey stated once the talking stick was put into use, measurable progress was achieved – members of the summit agreed they could disagree.

Educating today's clients and customers should be viewed by every realtor as a work in process. For the benefit of our clients (sellers), how often do we actually discuss in detail, what today’s buyers are thinking, their perceptions and the obstacles they must overcome? Do we provide recent market sales data for buyers, helping them understand where home prices have stabilized, or the possible circumstances today’s sellers are likely to face? If we invest the appropriate amount of time educating our clients and customers, that is, articulate current market trends while at the same time understanding each other’s position, we can direct all the train’s to meet at the station. 

Have you looked at what’s on the other side of the fence lately? What are  today’s buyers and sellers thinking these days?