One of the drawbacks about working with Internet Leads is that a lot of people are just looking. They are somewhat interested in buying but its more of a wish than a reality. One of your jobs, as a top rated Agent, is to master the ability to recognize who is who. If you don't, you could find yourself missing out on the buying customer while spending your time with the tire kicker. Of course I teach an entire course on this, but by asking four simple questions can make or break your online business. Remember, if you don't take control of your business and your customers you have nobody to blame but yourself.
- Are you buying a primary residence or a second home?
- When do you want to move into your new home?
- Why are you moving?
- Do you have a home to sell before you can buy?
These four questions, if asked, will save you a ton of time and more importantly today with these gas prices, a ton of money. With gas prices over $4 per gallon all over the country, it's important to be sure that the person you are driving around in your car, is a real buyer and not a person just thinking about buying.
With that said, it's important that you give all buyers your time. It's just a matter of how much time you spend with the right buyer! If you don't know your customer and their needs, then you have to figure this out fairly quickly and preferably prior to them coming to see property.
Just look at the numbers. If you show 8 people in a month property, it's pretty certain that only half are in a real buying mode. This means that you have to decide which 4 are serious and which 4 want to enjoy a tour of the city and homes at your expense. I don't know about you, but I hate when that happens. Again, that doesn't mean that these current tire kickers won't be buyers at some point. It just means if you spend to much time with them you could be missing out on the other 4 serious buyers.
Our business is all about numbers. Know your numbers, ask the right questions, help your serious buyers now while helping your tire kickers enough to keep them as customers in the future.
All this information can be found in our training manual called Listening and Evaluating Your Customers.
The only problem is that sometimes they aren't even certain if they are in tire kicking mode. I've had clients insist that they are serious buyers only to drop out, but just had clients in who had already made up their mind about a condo project and done everything but sign on the dotted line, when an agent that is a friend told them to check out their options and sent them to me. They walked in comparing everything else to this condo project, making me think that they wouldn't change their mind even, and walked out with a contract on a totally different complex.
Hey Chris! I actually took a weekend off this weekend...well except an hour on Saturday morning. It was awesome! I didn't even get on my email at all today...until now. I think that's a record! You are 100% right. I have had customers who told me they weren't going to buy for a year buy a home in a week. I have others that were buying now not ever buy a house. If a Realtor is only dealing with a couple of customers at any one time then you can devote as much time to even the tire kickers as you like. However, if you are really busy and showing 10 different couples homes per month, you have to prioritize your customers. If you don't know their motivation, at least what they tell you their motivation is, you may be devoting too much time to the wrong person. Is it always cut and dry? Absolutely not. It also takes a ton of practice to become good at evaluating your customers, but when you finally do, you will become much more productive, have more transactions and actually have a little more free time to spend with your family. Speaking of family, if I stay on here any longer I may not have a wife left! :)