Real Estate Listing Presentations – Make Sure You Are Not Making These Huge Mistakes!

Just a quick marketing rant on listing presentations. Yes – you read that right. It’s a rant. If you feel particularly strong about yours – you’re better off skipping this one.

We feel lucky that our clients come to us with something as important as their listing presentation. We do not take it lightly. To be trusted with something that can either break or make their business means a whole world to us.

So why the rant, you ask?

Well, agents usually use the listing presentation given to them by their broker. Hardly ever do we see one that’s custom created. Usually it’s the broker’s generic template (and a script) that agents follow. We’ve seen quite a few of listing presentations from various brokerages this past year – and here’s the main problem:

They all start with the spotlight on the broker and the agent. First there’s some kind of a statement saying how the broker is the leader, followed by a whole bunch of  “#1” statements.

#1 in Volume

#1 in Listing

#1 Nationwide

#1 Statewide

…or ( We kid you not) Voted #1 *by grandkids

Then, there are pages and pages on how wonderful their marketing is, and speaking of industry standards as if they are their own proprietary services, something only they can provide.

Take a moment and put yourself in your potential clients’ shoes. By the time they interviewed you, they probably had interviewed at least 3-4 other realtors. They had already heard thousands of the #1_insert here_ spiel.  In fact, by the time you are done with your listing presentation, they will have probably forgotten what was the #1 You were claiming.

How about an experiment?

Next time you are called to the table, start with asking questions and listening carefully. Take notice what’s important to the people you came to wow. Put your potential client in the spotlight. Find out what are their needs, their concerns, what is important to them. Do whatever it takes to position yourself as a guide, rather than a star of the show. Your role is to guide them where they want to be.

Make it about them, not you and/or your brokerage.

How would you feel if you spent 20 minutes bragging about how awesome your advertised open houses are, just to find out that they don’t even want an open house! (Awkward…). Ask questions, listen, take notes. Top that with a pinch of bragging and a sprinkle of rock solid supporting evidence and you have a recipe for setting yourself apart from everyone else.