Teams are growing, changing and evolving rapidly, as new agent ranks swell, prices rise and uncertainty is ever-present. May is Teams Month here at Inman. Come along with us as we delve into teams today. Follow along with our weekly email newsletter Teams Beat to stay in the loop all year, sent every Thursday, sign up now.

Your income is in direct correlation to the size of the problems you solve for your clients, according to Jason Posnick from Chinatti Realty Group in Massachusetts. Booking a showing isn’t hard; any licensed agent can do it.

To truly understand your client’s situation and their motivations, you become the solution, and they understand how a relationship with you benefits them. 

During his Success Summit, Tom Ferry said that 72 percent of consumers hire the first person they interview. That doesn’t mean the first person they talk to, but rather the first person they speak with. There’s a difference. One is an exchange of information, while the other one involves in-depth communication.

Your engagement with your client and your unique service proposition will differentiate you in a crowded field of real estate agents. Here’s how to communicate it more effectively.

Make sure your client remembers you

When I meet with clients, I send a video before our meeting and I send a pre-appointment email that reminds them of our appointment and lets them know what to expect. 

For listing appointments, this presents less of an issue, because those meetings are understood to be interviews. On the buyer’s side, however, many agents make the mistake of unlocking the door and letting the client access the house without some kind of consultation or presentation beforehand. Those meetings offer a great opportunity to learn more about your client’s situation so you can solve problems for them in the future. 

Use an elevator pitch

You must help your client move toward the decision to choose you, and an elevator pitch is the best tool possible. Every agent should have five or 10 elevator pitches in their back pocket that they can access for consultations. Some things you will want to include:

• Why clients should meet with me and my team 
• What makes our services different
• The name of a great lender or inspector
• How we make the process easier and more efficient
• Market knowledge
• The costs of buying and/or selling

Build a unique service proposition

Here is a roadmap for communicating your unique service proposition:

1. Create a hook. Present a problem.
2. Amplify the problem. Tell a story about someone else who has gone through this problem, and then use facts and data to support the story. Stories are relatable because they are about other humans, and that helps people buy in to what you’re saying. 
3. Provide a solution. 
4. Share a call to action. 

Here’s how that conversation might go:

Agent: You’re considering a house with a mortgage of about $500,000. Who is helping you with that mortgage?

Client: I’m not really sure.

Agent: Would it help you to have information about the closing costs of your transaction or the cost of your monthly mortgage payment?

Client: That would be very helpful. 

Agent: I find that clients often have an idea of how much they are pre-approved to spend, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to knowing what their monthly payment will be. I had recent clients who met with Rick at Premiere Mortgage Lending and they actually lowered their purchase price by $50,000 so they could still afford to take a vacation after they buy a home. So what time today would be best to hop on a call?

Once you have the answer, you can coordinate a three-way call with the client and the lender to help them get the information they need.

Give white-glove service

If you typically connect your clients with a lender via email, change your process. Instead of sending an email message to connect the two, give VIP-level service by moderating a phone call for the three of you. 

By staying involved in the process, you can make sure that the two of them actually connect, and you’ll likely find that you learn a lot of good information about your client during that call. 

Bring the fear forward

Buyers and sellers have fears related to their home transactions, and by bringing those fears forward, you can solve problems. You can address features and drive the point home with the benefits of the transaction. 

The number one reason that clients ghost agents is because they don’t understand how the agent can help them solve their problem. Agents must effectively and efficiently communicate the value they bring, and the best way to do that is by differentiating yourself from 1.5  million other agents with truly stellar service and communication.