An apology from the for sale by owner......
I learned something rather interesting on my radio show this weekend. The usual topics on the show include things like how to properly maintain your HVAC or how to stage your home for sale. Generally speaking it is an informative show about local and national real estate related topics. As a benchmark feature on the show I have included a segment on For SALE by Owners or FSBO's as they will be called, and we actually call them LIVE with no preparation and try to discuss the importance of a real estate agent when trying to sell your home. This can prove to be quite a task. The reason that we do this is two-fold.
ONE: I thought it was interesting that this was such an important part of my business and most successful Realtors business but it was something that people were afraid to talk about and afraid to do....prospecting that is!
SECONDLY: I think there is some valuable information at the heart of the "for sale by owner" and any rational person that has could weighed their options in the market place and then decided that
"hey, I think I can do this myself." I am baffled every time....
So, this week I was up for the challenge but I was not as quick on my feet as I would have liked to been. I have my basic points of rebuttal prepared and was taken aback by my first caller. I talked to a lady named Carrie whom was a Realtor in Missouri and not in Kansas, so when she chose to sell her home in Kansas she chose to do it by owner which tells me she believes in her service SO much that she wouldn't even use it herself. That is absolutely ridiculous and an embarrassment to good real estate agents everywhere. I just asked her some basic rebuttal questions and really let her off the hook easy..a real fumble to not really nail her to the cross in hindsight.
The real issue came on the next caller who was very on guard to begin with when I asked her to be on the show. I mean hello, you people put your name and number all over the web and in the paper wanting to sell and then you treat people like real losers when they call. That is not even the point her but I digress:) So, I give her the opportunity to talk about her home a little that is a very nice home in the Blue Springs area about 145,000 and it has been on the market ALL SUMMER LONG..... We start to talk about why a real estate agent will be in a much better position to market her home and not only bring a higher price, but save her the time, stress, and hassle of going it alone. I mean the statistics prove that even the worst REALTOR will bring you 16% more than you can bring yourself. She begins to really brutalize me with the bad experiences she has had with other agents and on the air is bashing not only the profession but the entire process. I was not as offended as you would think because I thought she sounded absolutely ridiculous, but I received many calls and emails after wards telling me that I should have ripped her up and said how stupid and out of line her points were.
After the show I received an email from our caller as well that said something to the effect of "I was out of line and I wasn't sure that we were on the air, I apologize to you and your profession etc...and thank you for being merciful to me. So the question remains, what can you learn from this experience. And, what I learned is that arguing with someone who you clearly know is wrong is not always the way to make them see it. I wished our caller luck and told her on air that I had learned something from her because I had. The others that gave me feedback requesting a lynching also realized that I didn't need to lambaste her to get my point across. When someone doesn't understand the power of a Realtor they are evident to everyone else who does get it. The reason we call fsbo's is to get into their head a little bit and to learn how they tick, and when we do we find good people that are afraid to give up their equity along with their unwillingness to pay for a service that they deem unnecessary. I am not going to bore you with the 1000 reasons agents are successful and why you are not capable of doing what they can regardless of your background, because if you don't see then you are in the boat with my caller....if you do then welcome! I hope your extra time and money from your Realtor services has served you well...hope you learned as much from this as I have.
THANKS for reading the post and if you would like to listen to
Door 2 Door the show I am talking about it will be posted soon at
www.door2doorkc.com
