Those of us who work in real estate know that the industry offers many advantages — flexible hours, unlimited income, and wonderful relationships with both colleagues and customers are just a few examples.
But there’s one part of the business that isn’t so positive or fulfilling — dealing with challenging buyers.
Difficult buyers can be frustrating and emotionally wearing. Luckily, you don’t have to accept this state of affairs as a natural hazard of the business.
By building and developing your agent skills, you can learn how to manage challenging clients positively and make your life a lot easier in the process. Here are a few tips to help you develop the skills of a great buyer’s agent.
1. Assess the buyer’s motivation
If someone walks and talks like a buyer, then he or she must be one, right? Wrong. Assessing the buyer’s motivation to purchase at the outset of the homebuying process is critical to ultimate success.
What is driving your client’s desire to buy? Are there deadlines or red flags that you should be aware of?
Once motivation has been established, it’s then vital to clearly set out the sequence of steps required to close the deal. If you don’t have a watertight strategy and the tools in place to achieve this, the whole process can become difficult and could even fail.
2. Establish the purchasing pathway
To be good at working with buyers, you must have a systemized, not random, approach. Great salespeople are excellent teachers, so educate your client about the milestones and potential obstacles that they can expect along the way.
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Doing this makes a buyer feel more at ease and more inclined to take the necessary steps toward owning a property. If you have a game plan in place, you will ensure that you deliver a dream home to your buyer and a commission check to your bank account.
3. Manage expectations
Difficulties and conflict can occur during the homebuying process, often because a client feels that expectations have been violated. You can avoid much of this if you’re careful to manage expectations from the offset.
If you successfully flag any potentially troublesome issues that may arise, keep in touch throughout and strive to ease a client’s doubts continuously, the buyer experience will be so superior that more referrals will naturally follow.
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Working with good buyers can be an incredibly rewarding and happy experience. Not only that, but it’s also the quickest way to generate a commission check, and it offers the possibility of selling your own listing.
Who wouldn’t want to satisfy two clients in one transaction and earn twice the income? If you develop the skills of a great buyer’s agent, you can turn a difficult buyer into a great one and watch your success rate soar.
Brian Buffini is the chairman and founder of Buffini & Company. You can follow Brian and Buffini & Company on Facebook.
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