Buyers Need Coaching And Agents Need Rhythm - John McGrath

We tackle what to do when the market changes and uncertainty creeps into every conversation between buyers and vendors. We lean into buyer management as the practical lever that creates offers, builds trust fast, and sets up future listings through real relationships. 
• keeping calm and taking immediate daily action in a shifting market 
• Treating real estate sales as a contact sport built on connection 
• Using buyer management as one-to-one prospecting: attract, engage, commit 
• Building a weekly rhythm for A-buyers with one to two contacts 
• Tracking the wider buyer pool with a proper buyer database system 
• Qualifying with empathy, signals, and staple questions about readiness and finance 
• Increasing face-to-face appointments to lift commitment and offers 
• Improving property matching and refusing to decide for buyers 
• Aiming to “sell 50” through lifetime service and referral thinking 
•Learning from a real story where poor buyer servicing cost a listing 

Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

Brought to you by The Agency Portal 

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Transcript

Welcome And Platform Support

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello and welcome back to the podcast We Are Selling. My name is Lee Woodward, your coach and host. This program is supported by Agency Portal, one platform with six powerful tools. This platform is now saving 7 to 12 hours of administration time per listing. It has two outstanding finance products allowing you to win business, even allowing commission on exchange. AML is completely inclusive of the platform, and the sign product acts as your doorway to activating the property. AI is driving the real estate experience, and the agency portal is delivering that platform. Let's cross to this week's podcast. Hi

Keep Calm In A Changed Market

SPEAKER_01 0:52

everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. Firstly, thank you for all the feedback and voice notes that are coming through for your requests from the marketplace. And the top request we have from the marketplace is this what do we do now in a changed market? And for those of you that are less than 10 years in real estate, I can understand and appreciate the impact you are feeling. And for the rest of us who are 10, 20, 30 years plus, this is not new, this is not different, it happens in cycles all the time. So the first coachable moment is keep calm and carry on. It's very easy to panic as an agent by being in the grandstand watching the game, not knowing what's going to happen versus being on the field and make it happen for you. Real estate sales is a contact sport. The contact, the connection, the relationship has got to be deeper than ever and a marketplace that is confused. So today's focus is buyer management, and just why buyer management is the key to one-to-one prospecting, attract, engage, commit, and how buyers need the coaching required

Buyer Management As Prospecting

SPEAKER_01 2:05

to engage and buy the property. And our very nervous vendors in the marketplace need a structured plan of if this doesn't happen, this is what we'll do next, and this is what will happen on this date. You can't just watch the marketplace and hope it will come together. Every day is about immediate action. And to illustrate my point that these marketplaces come and go, I'm going to do a segment today called A Chat with the Greats. I'm going to bring in one of the greatest real estate brains of all time, but in a time when he and his team were going through a very difficult time in the marketplace, and even a tougher time than we're seeing now.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Let's cross to John McGrath.

John McGrath On Hot Buyers

SPEAKER_00 2:49

But I guess now we uh we are back to a point where you've got to work hard to make sure that you know your buyers and your pricing and it and everything are looked after and properties are priced at the right price. So I think it's a it's going to be a very pleasant change for the consumers out there because the focus again going forward is going to be back on buyers, and and buyers are the first people to get neglected when the market is hot. So I'm actually looking forward to this time. And from our point of view with our agents, and I think that we have a very high focus on customer experience, but I've got to say, during those heady times, our agents also would have dropped the ball a little bit with regard to buyers. So I'm very happy from as a principal moving forward that we're going to have a much stronger focus on buyers. And the agents that are going to be putting the deals together are going to be those that have good quality relationships with buyers and a large number of qualified buyers. So, John, let's get specific. What would a great agent need to do to have good buyer management from the McGraw opinion? Well, I think the first thing is you've got to be working with, I guess, a highly qualified group of core or what might people might call A-buyers or hot buyers. Who are the people that you know are in a position to buy a property today or tomorrow or next week? They're ready to go, and what is your communication strategy with them? Now, with us, we call them our hot buyers or our A-buyers. Our strategy is every single week you've got to be in contact with these buyers once or twice during the week. For a lot of people, they don't have a bias or their bias strategy in terms of communication is oh when you find a property, give them a call. I don't think that's enough because buyers' requirements can change, uh, they can be seeing different levels of property, and you need to know and you need to be close to them. Because there's two things here, Lee. One is obviously being able to sell these buyers a property, but the other thing, of course, is today's buyers are tomorrow's sellers, and today's buyers are going out tonight to dinner with other people that are about to sell, and they'll be spreading the word on who are the good agents. So there's a it's a two-edged sword here. It's very much about servicing the buyer to try and help them find a home in the first instance, but it's also a great listing strategy of being very good at buyers. So the first thing would be work out how many buyers you can work closely with, where within your ideal week are you going to keep in contact with them. For me, when I was selling, it was twice a week. It was Monday after the open home inspection on the weekend, because I wanted to see what did they seen with other agents? What did they like? Were they still looking for the same sort of property? And then there was normally Wednesday or Thursday halfway through the week as well. So it's really important to keep that communication up. Second thing, of course, there are going to be some buyers that may not be quite as ready to buy, but they're still a genuine buyer. And you're going to have to have some way of tracking them. Now we have a buyer database system here, a software program, and we currently have, I just checked it this morning, over 27,000 qualified buyers that are logged into that system with the specific details of what they're after. And I think it's it's absolutely critical for an agent now to have a buyer database where you can also handle a larger volume of buyers at the same time. So you can have your core, 25 or so hot buyers, and then you also need to accommodate the other people that you come across during your job as a sales agent. And in qualification of buyers, what do you feel is crucial? Well, I think empathy is going to be a really critical thing. Listening to what are they after and not just the words they say, but the body language and you know what are the hidden messages within that? Because some buyers may not want to tell you everything about their criteria or why they're buying or why they're selling, if it is a vendor. So I think it's really important to connect with the buyer. I would always say, Lee, that if whether I'm with a buyer for 30 seconds or 30 minutes, I'm really focused on that buyer in that time and I'm picking up signals and I'm trying to look for buying signals and what are they after. A lot of agents have not traditionally, because of the market predominantly, focused on the buyer relationship. So I think it's really important that you lock on and you get that focus when you're with them. And then of course you need to have a series

Qualify Buyers And Go One To One

SPEAKER_00 6:22

of questions that seem to be your staple questions that you will ask them. And could be everything from uh how long have they been looking, how many properties have they looked at, have they made any offers, have they bidded any auctions, is their finance in place? Those sort of questions I think need to be a part of a staple diet for an agent dealing with a buyer because they'll pretty quickly tell you, are they an A buyer, are they a B buyer, are they ready to buy this afternoon, are they financially qualified? They're the things that are important as a professional agent to know that information.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

I agree with you, John. And a couple of benchmarks that I'd like to add is I'm gonna use the word benchmark because I think we've got to get business about working with buyers now. It's not about just opening a property and hoping they buy it. Personally, I think no one should work with a buyer, and I mean work with, continue to work with in a relationship unless they have their home address. Yeah. Like what a simple thing. But their full name, home address, and email allows you to identify who you are working with. Because as you mentioned earlier in the program, no one goes out and just buys a house. They check out destination, then sell their own. Money's very good to buy at the moment, so they're prepared to take that risk. And if they're in a good home that they're going to price correctly, they will sell. And unless you get eyeball to eyeball, you won't build the relationship to list or sell. You'll just be another agent who's got their number and you call them back once a month.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Yeah. And you use the word filter beforehand when we were talking, and I think that's a great filter. There's those that are prepared to come down and see you are probably those that you're actually going to want to invest more time working with because they're prepared to more invest more time looking for homes. So I think that's a great filter too to really qualify the buyers. A lot of people would just sell by open home inspection. And I think, by the way, it's a very effective way of getting a lot of buyers through your listings. But I also think that private treaty selling or by appointment selling is also an excellent way. I used to have far more success in the people that I took one-on-one to homes, as opposed to those. So I might have a hundred through an open house and get two or three expressions of interest. I might have ten qualified one-on-one appointments and I might get four or five offers. So the statistics are pretty solid to say that if you get that buyer and you look after them and you show them a number of properties that could suit, I think that's really key. And the other thing, the other moral that comes out of that story for me, is very much around don't make decisions for your buyers. So many agents I know have said, oh look, I'm working with the Smiths, but I know they wouldn't like that. If it comes close to their criteria, even if it's a little bit left field, give them the opportunity to say yes. You must give them a chance to say yes and get interested.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Agents that think it won't suit them, they don't want a main road. Who on this earth goes out looking for a main road? Yeah. Millions of properties on main roads are sold every year due to price. If it was one street back, that buyer couldn't afford it. As a real estate agent, you are not God. You are to facilitate the owner's homes, you put people to properties and see if they like it. And yes, you put some tactics on there to show them that they love it, but you are not God. You will not make every pick every time. And it's a numbers game. You mentioned that you'd had you went really well yourself with one-on-one appointments. I can tell you as a real estate salesperson on the northern beaches, I made 95% of my sales between Monday and Friday. Yeah. Because anyone who would take time off work and come and see a home at one o'clock on a Wednesday when it's all quiet, everyone's at work and school, was keen about buying property. My weekend buyers were the worst. They weren't sure what they were doing. They had a cappuccino on one hand, they were checking out the papers, but the committed would stay with me over a period of time. I remember once I was having a really good quarter and I was asked, geez, why are you making sales? You know, all the inquiries dropped off. And I only understand this now. The only sales I ever made were people I worked with for about ten or twelve weeks. The people who rang in that day weren't any good to me for about another ten or twelve weeks.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

But all the other salespeople are waiting for someone to buy it today. They'll ring in, want it, see it, and do it. You've got to work with people to build a relationship and understanding of what they're after before true conversions. And it's only then you do 12 sales a month as the standard. Yes. Because you know who to put together.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

The other thing, Lee, is is on the buyer servicing, which comes off the back of all this that we're discussing. I used to have a belief system that, you know, most agents, if I say, when you take a buyer out, what's your goal? And most people would say, Oh, my goal is to sell them a property. And my philosophy would, my goal is to sell them 50. And I'll explain that. Because I not only wanted to sell them that home, I wanted to be their agent for life. And I wanted to sell their families' homes, I wanted to sell their work colleagues, I wanted to sell the friends of their colleagues, and so forth. So I would see every single time I came with a buyer that I would treat them so well

Service Buyers For Future Listings

SPEAKER_00 10:49

and give them so much quality information and have total integrity in my dealings with them that they would become a part of my PR machine out in the marketplace, telling everyone there is one agent to deal with, give John a call, he'll look after you. And I think that's important because a lot of people say, well, I know I've got to deal with buyers, but they're a bit of a distraction, but I'll I'll look after them anyway and I'll take them. But if you really focus and say if you give the buyer the royal treatment and really look after them a thousand percent, then they could well unlock many more sales for you down the track and many new key relationships as a result of you looking after them in a specific manner.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

John, I couldn't agree more. Something like 77% of my referrals came from people who didn't do a transaction with me. They met you as a buyer, you took some time with them, you had an appointment, you got eyeball to eyeball, which is the key benchmark of any prospecting strategy. Do you get face-to-face? And they would refer you or sell with you. People would buy a home off somebody else and you let that go, that's fine. But one reason why buyer relationships are such a good prospecting method is for most agents, it's the only time they are their true self. Like when they're in a listing appointment, hang on, John, there's a bus down past your office. This is the beauty of live recordings right on the street front. I know that was a helicopter before. But John, one of the classics of any buyer relationship is the agents more themselves. Whereas in a listing presentation, most agents are quite superficial. They become a bit of an imposter part of their personality. Versus with buyers, the rules of relationship are look, if you're okay, I'm okay, fine. If you're buying off somewhere else, it doesn't really matter. Yeah. Well, that calmness is a great way to meet someone.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah, absolutely. No, I think it's really important, and I hope the listeners recognise that now is definitely the time to be honing your buyer skills because buyers, there's no doubt they're just as valuable the relationships you develop with the buyers as those that you're developing with sellers. So whether or not you're personally making the call or perhaps an email shoots out to them showing them what's come into the office this week that matches their buying criteria, for most buyers it probably doesn't matter too much as long as they get the information and they find a home through you or they feel you're servicing them. A friend of mine uh recently sold a house through us, which was worth over two million dollars, and it was amazing. It was a home that he had bought about three months before, and circumstances changed, he decided that he wanted to move areas and he couldn't stay there any longer. But it was interesting, he told me the story that he'd been looking for about six months before, and it was a fairly small market and a very upscale market that he was looking at. And he said, you know, I went to the three or four agents that were the only agents to handle all the listings, and he said I made a point of going into each office, meeting the principal or the top salesman personally, and talking through, and he said I actually gave them a written brief as to what I was looking for. So, you know, four bedrooms, two million dollars, two garages, and so on and so forth. And he said he was amazed that he would sit in his office week after week and he would open the paper and he would see properties advertised by those very same agents that he actually win. And he would ring them up and he'd say, Look, I'm not really sure what part of my brief was unclear because I don't I did write it. But he said, That home that you've got, what sort of price range? And they'd be saying, Well, probably about two million. He's saying, I can't understand why you wouldn't have rung me. And then a lot of them said, Oh, actually, I probably should have, or I was about to, you know, you should come to the open home, which is really providing lip service or no service. And in the end, he ended up buying from one of them despite them, not because of them. When he decided to sell, they'd heard the rumour that he was thinking of selling. So they rang him up and they said, Look, could I list your home for sale? And he said, This is just incredible that he said for six months I tried to get some service from you as a buyer, and now you found out that I'm selling and you're knocking on my door. But he said, You gave me no service when I was a buyer, even when I made it very easy for you to service me, and therefore you gave us a listing. Now, that listing which we sold it for just over two million, it's about two and a quarter million. So that was like a sixty thousand dollar mistake because that buyer didn't pick up the phone. So I say to agents that are listening, you know, this is one of your core activities. If you can't make quality time during your week to alert good quality prospects, or if you haven't got a system that does it for you, you're really falling behind the game.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

But it's time to be a salesman as well, ring people back, work their criteria, and offer the service that will get you or keep you in this industry for longer.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

And there you have it, our chat with the greats, John McGrath. That was 2016. And you could even hear my younger interviewing voice.

Action Checklist And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 15:12

But if we look at an action checklist from John's interview, establish your buyer management system. Qualify each buyer, know their story, create a weekly communication plan with rhythms so they get used to you calling and the coaching opportunity. Increase face-to-face contact. I think this is the biggest one out of everything. You can't watch and wait. You've got to get out, connect, and get these offers. And yet distracting offers is very different to receiving offers. Improve your property matching was another key point from John, and build long-term relationships. You want to sell 50 homes connected to the person and the relationship you have and measure your performance. Well, that concludes another edition of We Are Selling. I hope you enjoyed our segment, A Chat with the Greats, as that's something I will bring into the podcast into the future. Thank you for listening. I look forward to seeing you at the Complete Salesperson course on Lee Woodward chat next week.