We Are Selling with Lee Woodward

To Give Direction You Need to be the Director with Dane Atherton

• Realtair • Season 1 • Episode 89

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In this podcast episode, Lee Woodward interviews Dane Atherton, the owner and director of Harcourt's Coastal. They discuss the importance of taking the last 5-10 minutes of a property transaction to provide advice and guidance to clients. Dane emphasises the need for real estate professionals to give direction and be the director of the process, ensuring that clients make informed decisions. 



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SPEAKER_01:

Hello and welcome to the podcast We Are Selling, brought to you by RealTech, the home of Pick, Design and Sell. My name is Lee Woodward from the Complete Sales Person Course. Today's guest is WorldClass. Mr. Dane Everton has been a trainer, principal, sales professional, and now the owner and director of Hardcore Coastal, the number one hardcourse office in the world at the time of recording. Dane's also an auctioneer. So when it comes to communication, this is one of his greatest skills. And today we're going to get deep into the discussion. And our topic has taken a turn. It was called Take What Is Rightfully Yours. But then in the recording process, as it does, the title now is To Give Direction, you need to be the Director. And what we're talking about is so many people set up the scene, do such a great job, but then don't go that last five to ten minutes of courage where the advice and the guidance is needed. He joins us now, Mr. Dane Atherton. Welcome to the programme.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm excited to be back, Lee.

SPEAKER_01:

Dane, our agents listening to this program can do all the study, all the effort, all the sweat, all the social, all the scripts, the dialogues, the powerful listing presentations, and actually progress in their future. But for your number one tip, I'd like you to talk about people that don't take what's rightfully theirs. Meaning, in converting that business, what do we need to do to make that a reality?

SPEAKER_00:

I just think of the analogy or the example of someone who goes to the complete salesperson course, maybe wasn't listening during the keep in touch part, goes out and does, knows the residents, goes out and generates appraisals, does the appraisals, turns up to the first appraisal and says, I'm here to list, and almost written all over their faces, look, I really need a listing right now, forgetting about your personal circumstances, but I'd love the listing. They're really excited until the owner says, We're not ready until six months. And then their whole, you know, the blood drains out the face, their enthusiasm's gone, and they can't wait to get out of there. So the appraisal form goes back to the office, gets popped in the top drawer, and they drive past in three months' time, only to see a competitor's board on there, and the first thing they say is, I can't believe those people didn't tell me that they've changed their timing, or something like that. So when I think of what we're talking about here, I think of when you do all the hard work, you do all the preparation, but the most important part is the ten percent of effort at the end of the process. And really that is the end. You've done the appraisal. The end is actually the listing presentation, isn't it? That's the end of that process. So don't lose the enthusiasm in the championship round. That's when you need to regroup and actually get aggressive and not aggressive in a bad way, but aggressive in an effort way.

SPEAKER_01:

And aggressive in a directional way. Like if you look at a great salesperson and people say, How did you get that? Well, I told him to go on the market now and not wait six months. How did you get it to that reserve? I told him that what the reserve should be. How did you get so much marketing? I said we're going to need that level of marketing. And yet you realize that the last ten percentage, you don't tell them what to do. You leave them wondering. So then they say, Oh, I'll think it over, I'll get back to you because I don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm chuckling to myself here because I'm thinking of examples where I don't know how many times I've heard someone say whether it's a buyer. Okay, so a buyer, we need him to be at eight. That's where the seller is. We need him to be at eight. Buyer comes through. Doesn't talk price, but we've given them recent sales. So of course they should know. So I say, Oh, the buyers coming to the auction, where do you think they are? And the common thing I hear is, oh, well, I don't really know. And I say, well, you know, where do you think they have you asked them? No, I haven't asked them, but they know. You know, they know. No, they don't know. Have you asked them? And if you haven't asked them, then you don't know. So we rely on what we hope is going to happen, and hope is a bad strategy, rather than actually finding out. And if you can find out, that's when you can be effective. So if someone says 720, that's your moment right there, is to talk about recent sales and to build the value and to, you know, that's right there you've identified the moment, but we avoid the moment because we're fearful, or we avoid the moment because it's easier just to hope that it all falls into place.

SPEAKER_01:

So the technique that's lacking is people don't stand their ground. They think it should be okay. I get cranky with my own team when I say, Did we let that person know that? Yeah, no, I emailed them. Did you ring them? No, no, I emailed them. Did we speak to them? Did we hear their voice? Have we talked to them? Dane, the lady you were coaching in Bendor Management to better improve her own game was doing all the service side, but what was lacking in this 10%?

SPEAKER_00:

You're right, she was doing all the servicing. In fact, I'd argue she does the servicing side of it better than most. She has no kids, she's single, she's obsessed about real estate, she's up early in the morning, you wouldn't even want to know what time some of these emails are being sent to vendors with communication. So over-communicating, if there is such a thing, just keeping in touch, and her vendors loved it. Bio summaries, magnificent reports, beautifully set out, very informative, and very much, you know, the poster girl of communication and vendor management. What was missing is the results. She wasn't getting vendors shifted by communicating. So I think the shift she made is that rather than have a running commentary of what was happening, she actually had to take that commentary and take that knowledge that she's gleaned from the market and turn it into a recommendation. She was missing the recommendation at the end. Because she had this bipartisan, you know, let's just sit back and let them make their decision. And I think that's a doctor thing, you know, like here's all the information, you've got to make your own decision. Which really, I just think that's crap. I think that shouldn't be there. I think at some point they're looking for you to make a recommendation. Tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it.

SPEAKER_01:

If we're brought in for this guidance and they need to profit from our knowledge, the owner doesn't have enough time to have the experience to make the right decision. The agent's experiences fast track the opportunity to make the right decision due to guidance.

SPEAKER_00:

Great example is we had an auction a couple of months ago. We're sitting down, I'm talking to the agent, I'm saying, hey, the vendors were in a state, I was about to do the reserve call. Where do you think your sellers are at? Last time I spoke to them, they were at 600,000. I said, Okay, so where do you think the reserve needs to be in order for you to get the property sold? Well, it's a lot less than that. It's probably going to be 480. Okay, let's ring them. We get them on the phone, we ring them. Mr. and Mrs. Seller, would you like us to make a recommendation of what we think the reserve needs to be to get it sold? Or do you have firm views anyway? Have you got a price that's basically not negotiable? No, no, we would like you to make a recommendation. Well, based on the feedback we've got, we think if you want to sell today, it needs to be 480. What do you think the next response was? Big silence. Big silence? That's fine. Set the reserve at 480. Now here's the agent, and I know I love your way of explaining this, I think it's exactly what happened here.

SPEAKER_01:

What I see happening here is what I call broadcasting. And if we look at a TV series that's running for a period of time. Let's call it four weeks. Week one, there's a broadcast that's going out, and in an owner's perspective, it's I'll take no less than 800, we're gonna keep it, we're gonna rent it out if we don't get it for that. Week two, the owner's thinking, maybe we're a bit high on that. Week three, no one's even offered yet. Maybe we'd be lucky to get five hundred. Week four comes to the auction, the agents watching broadcast one. They haven't kept up with the show. They haven't had enough check-ins because that's hard and emotional and you know, there's a little bit of sweat and conflict and all that. And at the end of the day, they can't see the end of the movie.

SPEAKER_00:

And the key point here is the seller is not gonna tell you when the plot changes. They're not gonna ring you on week two and three and say, Well, just so you know, we're coming down, keep educating, keep giving us the feedback. That's not how they work. You've got to watch the show. You've got to be there and you're to listen.

SPEAKER_01:

And if we use this metaphor, to give direction, you need to be the director. The director determines the final scene. This is our job. We need to determine the final scene, and in your great example, it needs to be at 480. Okay. And the other person thinking, I'd never thought that movie would have ended like that. Because you only saw the beginning.

SPEAKER_00:

The other key point here is you've actually got to be very careful that the broadcast on week one from the seller is not being transmitted to the buyers. They can't watch the show. They actually are a separate show here. And the separate show is the right range in which we need to get buyers through in order to sell this in four weeks' time. So it needs to be where the show's ending up, not where the show starts.

SPEAKER_01:

Dani, just back to your story with the lady you did the guidance for, who was doing all the input but not getting the output. And the output's the reason we put the input in. What's been the difference in that person's career now that she's taking what's hers?

SPEAKER_00:

The difference has been she's understood that the sellers are actually relying on her to be a professional and give them direction. And as soon as she's done that, she's less attached to whether they take that advice. But the reality is, more often than not, they actually do, because she's earned the right to be the professional, and she really is just I think she just got sick of working hard and not getting results. I think she got sick of doing everything right except that last five percent. And I think there's only so many times you can have postdoc depression syndrome, there's only so many times you can look back and think, geez, I could have been a little bit more direct, and then you're sitting at home on a Saturday night with a glass of Chardonnay reminiscing on what you could have done. I think she just didn't want to have that feeling, and she wanted to get them sold.

SPEAKER_01:

The greatest salespeople in the world get their greatest results when they toughen up in the real conversations that an owner needs you to have with them. Absolutely. And Dan, as we talk about toughening up, something people don't want to talk about is the sales technique that's required for everyone in safety is to care but not too much. As soon as you overstep that boundary that you don't want this thing to happen to them for this reason, and you feel for these people, you're no longer good at representing people here now. You are too emotionally involved.

SPEAKER_00:

If you own a pet shop, Lee, you don't keep all the pets. You can care, but not too much. You obviously love animals, but you're selling animals. That's your job. So at some point, the little puppy that's been in the front window, he's gonna go. He's gonna leave. And I think that's the thing. We've got to be able to understand that they've come to buy a pet. That's part of the job. They've come to have their home sold, and part of the job of that is actually toughening up.

SPEAKER_01:

And this is some words that we've been using on air and in training rooms a lot lately is no one sells a property, they release it. And releasing it is okay, we've done all this for four weeks, this is what the buyers have said. 480 is a reserve, we want to get rid of it. They're not selling it, they're releasing it. Based on our recommendation.

SPEAKER_00:

As soon as you start using release, it takes the emotion out of it. Are you able to move on from this property? What we've got to understand is that most sellers' life is on hold until their property is sold. So this property is keeping them from their next life. So release is a wonderful word because it's almost empowering, isn't it? I can release it and move on.

SPEAKER_01:

And great words to say to an owner is to say, look, these are your options. You can say no to the offer and still be the owner. And as I've mentioned to you before, that makes you the highest bidder because you own the property still. Or you can release it and move on with the next chapter of your life, which is why we started this whole thing anyway. Are you ready to release it? Well, Dane Apperton, fantastic to have you on board today. And I know you're joining us again in the near future. But Dane, thanks for coming in. Thank you,