How Estate Agents can beat overvaluing and cheap fees to win the instruction (To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video)
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In this video interview with Christopher Watkin, we discuss how Quality Estate agents can can beat overvaluing and cheap fees to win the instruction!
Christopher Watkin: [00:00:00] Chris Kyriacou how do estate agents, beat agents, who over value and do cheap fees? Talk to me…
[00:00:18] Chris Kyriacou: [00:00:18] Great question. Very good question, and it’s one that really a lot of agents just don’t know how to deal with. Right? And that’s why we have this race to the bottom in terms of fee, you know, so many times students, when we have our weekly meetings on zoom are talking about fees and stuff, my answer always is this don’t blame the fee for not being instructed.
[00:00:42] Yeah, and don’t race to the bottom to get instructed. Okay. If you’ve left it down to the fee for the person, this is what I believe if you’ve left it down to the fee for the person to instruct you, you haven’t done enough. You’ve left it too late. For me and my clients and my students, what we’re trying to do is say by the time you get to the appointment, you’re already instructed.
[00:01:05] You’re going to sign the contract. That’s it, it’s yours to lose because you’ve given value in advance. And that’s why this cheap fee scenario exists because people haven’t invested in that relationship. They haven’t invested in building that knowledge, that trust and that authority in their market space.
[00:01:22] So they have to. They feel like they have to give a cheap fee to get the instruction. How do they invest in that though? Well, like we’ve spoken about in the past, you know, invest in doing some Facebook ads, invest in building your audience online so that people get to know like, and trust you in advance, put together an email nurture sequence that you send to people that gives value and helps them to understand that you really do know what you’re talking about.
[00:01:49] Okay, but all this is done in, you know, way in advance, way in advance of that person’s picking up the phone and ringing the three random agents that they’ve done traditionally. With clients that I’ve worked with now, they’re often the only agent in, because they’ve been building this relationship from the get go, you know, from way back you know before the person even knew they wanted to sell a house.
[00:02:11] They’re on Facebook. They see an ad, they see a post, they see something that gets shared. So.
[00:02:17] Christopher Watkin: [00:02:17] Okay. So that’s how you beat cheap fees what about overvaluing.
[00:02:20] Chris Kyriacou: [00:02:20] Overvaluing is a tough one.
[00:02:22] Overvaluaing is tough, I would suggest that you just go with your evidence. Okay. you’ve got your comps.
[00:02:31] You speak to the person. If they’re dead set on the higher price, because someone else’s spoke to you to your duty and show them why that price might not be the right price, but I wouldnt walk away from that. I wouldn’t walk away from that. I would be in a position of, okay, look, I’ve shown you demonstrated to you.
[00:02:51] what, I think the right price should be within reason, I’d like to work with you. Okay. but as long as we’ve got a plan of action in place, okay, I’m happy to try at your price, obviously, if it’s not ridiculous, cause otherwise you’re just going to end up doing more damage to your own brand. Okay. But if it’s within reason, you know, if it’s not a major leap, then put a plan in place that helps you to bring that price down.
[00:03:17] Christopher Watkin: [00:03:17] put it in the sole agency agreement, if we’re not sold in three weeks, the price will come down?
[00:03:22] Chris Kyriacou: [00:03:22] You know, what often is missing from these plans is, The vendor doesn’t often have an idea of exactly what you’re going to do, they just think you will do the same thing. You put it on Rightmove and hope for the best, right?
[00:03:34]Christopher Watkin: [00:03:34] That’s what most agents do though.
[00:03:35] Chris Kyriacou: [00:03:35] Right…
[00:03:36] That is what most agents do and that’s what most cheap fee agents do. Okay. So where you can beat that cheap agent is to show them your structured marketing plan, set expectations from the start, in the first week, we’re going to do this. We’re going to do that. We’re going to hit that milestone. And this is what we expect.
[00:03:53] Okay. In the second week, we’re going to do this with that. This is what we expect. If we haven’t hit your price or had offers around your price. By this time, it will start to go stale on the market. I would suggest at that point, that we re-look at the price. Okay. Mr Vendor, if I do have to come to you for a price reduction, it’s not going to be a couple of grand.
[00:04:14] We’re going to need to take X percent off to make it more interesting to people, to new buyers. What we don’t want to do is show the same people, the same property at reduced price. We want to show different people, a new property at a new price.
[00:04:29] Christopher Watkin: [00:04:29] Why do you think when an estate agent loses a listing, quite often to overvaluing that the vendor never goes back to the agent that lost it and always goes to another agent?
[00:04:42] Chris Kyriacou: [00:04:42] That probably is down to follow up, you know? Another thing I keep mentioning my clients, but another thing we talk about is like, that person is still your client. Even if you’ve lost the instruction, you need to treat that person as though they still your client. Okay.
[00:04:56] Christopher Watkin: [00:04:56] Because agents don’t do they?
[00:04:57] Chris Kyriacou: [00:04:57] They don’t, they’ve lost it and then you’ll follow up. Maybe. How are you doing? How are you getting on? Have you sold it yet? Yeah. Yeah. So I will treat them, continue to treat them as my clients. Hey, just touching base and you know, how’s the viewings going, Oh, we’ve had this feedback. Oh, well, have you tried maybe doing this, doing that. Yeah.
[00:05:17] Christopher Watkin: [00:05:17] Cause agents do take it personally, when they lose the listing.
[00:05:22] Chris Kyriacou: [00:05:22] You do and you like to blame everything else but yourself as to why you didn’t get it. And that’s why you always hear the excuses.”Oh it was the fee” or “they overvalued” well, let’s be honest, it probably isn’t. It probably, you know, you didn’t give them enough of a reason to choose you. Okay. You left it down to fee and price.
[00:05:44] It’s your fault. You left the decision as to whether they should instruct you or not down to fee and price. It’s as simple as that. Okay. So when you say, Oh, I lost it because the other agent valued higher. No, you didn’t. You lost it because you didn’t give them a compelling enough reason to choose you other than the valuation.
[00:06:07] Christopher Watkin: [00:06:07] So how do they do that?
[00:06:09] Chris Kyriacou: [00:06:09] Goes back to building these relationships in advance. Okay. And if you haven’t had the time to do that, then you’ve got to find a way to insert as many touch points as possible between them booking the appointment and actually going to the appointment. That’s why I’ll never let clients go on the same day or a lot of times the next day. Okay. It’s not like I wake up today and go, Hey, I’m going to show you my house and whoever doesn’t come to day can’t have it. Right.
[00:06:34] Christopher Watkin: [00:06:34] Yeah but I might lose it to the first agent
[00:06:36] Chris Kyriacou: [00:06:36] Then so be it. Yeah, because I need that time. You’ve got to give yourself that time. It’s like a boxer isn’t going to go into a fight without training.
[00:06:47] Yeah, no matter how well versed they are, they need a few weeks of training. At least it’s hardly ever, you hear a box boxer taken up a fight, on like two weeks notice, right? It happens. And most of the time they lose. Okay. They lose, it’s the same here. If you go in unprepped on the day of them asking you, you are not gonna get it.
[00:07:07] You haven’t had enough time to hand deliver your pack, add some value, give them a courtesy call in the morning of the valuation to say, you’re coming round. Just do stuff that makes you look good. Send them a video. Like I got my valuers, sending videos, say, Hey, just notice Gemma booked him this valuation for me, really looking forward to seeing your property on Wednesday at blah-blah-blah o’clock.
[00:07:30] If you need me before then, or if you’ve got any questions, feel free to pick up the phone. This is my number… Who does that? Right. Exactly. Which is why, when we speak about clients, like you’ve mentioned Rob in the past, why he has a 70 – 80% market share and an average fee of 1.75 to 2%.
[00:07:51] Christopher Watkin: [00:07:51] Quite easy things to do, just harder to implement.
[00:07:54]Chris Kyriacou: [00:07:54] It is hard to implement, and we’re saying it like, it’s really easy. Sometimes it takes a shift of mind. I know it’s not as easy as I’m saying it is, but I can tell you categorically that when you lose a listing to fee or overvaluing, you haven’t lost it to fee overvaluing.
[00:08:15] You’ve lost it because you were one of the random agents that was called in and you only let the vendor be able to choose you on fee or valuation.
[00:08:27] Christopher Watkin: [00:08:27] Thank you for your time today Chris.
[00:08:28] Chris Kyriacou: [00:08:28] No problem.