Building rapport BEFORE a valuation!

You knock on the door and wait, patiently for your prospective new Vendor to open the door, already looking around to find a talking point. The type of car on the driveway, the football stickers in the window of the boy’s bedroom, the shingle driveway that your parents have also just had done. Anyone who has been out to do a valuation has been there, it is all about trying to build a rapport right?

As the old saying goes, people buy from people, so as we make our way around the property this process continues, looking out for talking points, trying to find more and more ways to engage and show that you are just like them. But what if there were a way to do this BEFORE you even set foot in the property. In fact, before any of the agents had set foot in the property?

Back in 2015 Google conducted some very interesting research that showed actually that rapport building in order to make a sale is very real, but it is not about rapport but instead it is about getting someone to know, like and trust you as people are much more likely to buy from companies or people that they feel they can trust as opposed to ones they do not know.

However, Googles research also showed that who your brain thinks you can trust and who it doesn’t is not actually a logical decision but instead is based around how much time and how many interactions you have had with a person or a brand. For instance, it is quite unlikely that you have spent much time with the CEO of Apple, Netflix or Amazon but yet there is a trust in their products or brand.

On a smaller scale and specific to our industry the same can be found with brands like Knight Frank and Savills who pick up multiple listings every week by default of just being the brand to trust for certain types of properties.

But all of these companies mentioned have multi million-pound marketing budgets and a marketing team, so what use if this to your 1 – 10 branch independent agent?

The key is to ensure that your marketing systems and CRM are all on one centralised eco system. For the past 20 years this has not been the case, as agents would conduct marketing to try and generate enquiries, then book appointments into the CRM and hope that they can build enough rapport on the appointment in order for the seller to go ahead.

Realistically if they have not given the green light after 2 or 3 chaser calls, the agent moves on.

But with a marketing system that is also your CRM there is no need for this problem.

The marketing system is pulling in leads through instant valuation adverts and useful content. The same system is then being used by the agent to book in their valuation appointment, but the system is continuing to send useful content out to that prospect in the build-up to the appointment, building the rapport for you.

The exact same system is then used to send over your valuation proposal after the appointment, continue to automatically nurture your prospect and automatically let your valuer know when the exact right time to close the deal is by tracking the activity of the seller on your website, emails and social media.

Once you have won the listing you can then perform all of the usual tasks in that same system, of uploading the property to portals, booking viewing and sales progression but once the new owners move in and you get paid, the process of nurturing will begin straight away with the new owners, ensuring that you are not only working smarter in the short and medium term but planning for the long term wins too.

Systems like these are known as Lifecycle systems and are being used by the smartest technology companies on the planet but have now made their way to being accessible by Estate & Letting Agents via www.lifesycle.co.uk – a smarter way of working.