What To Say Now: Episode 19 
3 Steps to better real estate lead conversion

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Dan Stewart (00:12): Hey guys, what's up. It's Tuesday at 2:00 PM. Eastern, so good stuff is what's up. That's what's up today. So if you're tuning in right now, you're here for Episode Number 19 of What To Say Mow, like Holy crap, 19 episodes. That's 19 weeks of a content commitment where I'm showing up every single week to drop some nuggets of goodness on you. And this week is a big one, right? This week, we're going to talk about key phrases to create engagement. So I want you to consider the situation. Wherever you are in business, right? It's likely that achieving your goals requires you to engage other people in this magical thing called conversation. And sometimes conversation goes absolutely nowhere, right? That can be frustrating. So I'll tell you a story of frustration, right? This is something that we've dealt with recently here in my company, Happy Grasshopper.

Dan Stewart (01:08): So we have this really great sales development rep, he's been with us for years. He knows his job inside and out. He knows our company inside and out. He knows our software inside and out. He knows the market. He knows the people. He knows so much that sometimes it's hard for him to keep himself contained. Right? That's a very, very important thing. Sometimes if you're having trouble keeping a conversation going it's because you're not leaving enough room for the other person to say anything. Does that make sense? If it makes sense, tell me so in the chat, I want to see it, right? So here's the thing, whether you're following up on a lead, whether you're meeting somebody at a coffee shop, whether you're out for dinner, or you're at a cocktail party, you're at a trade show or industry event, you're going to find yourself in conversation with people. And the way to keep that conversation going is to really make it about them. Okay?

Dan Stewart (02:07): So the challenge is you've got all these sources of business you could create, and sometimes you just hit that brick wall, right? You want to keep the conversation going and you can't. So there's some key lessons here that I'm going to share with you that are going to help you break through this. The first one I've already dropped on you, right? The first one is to keep it short.

Dan Stewart (02:32): So let's use a real life example. You go to any real estate website today, literally almost any one, and you enter your information as a lead, and you're going to start getting email auto responders, right? And usually there's a long form email in there that tells you how great someone is. This typically comes from the big brands, right? The Re/Max's, the Keller Williams' so on so forth, they provide their agents with technology that says things like, "I'm a true professional. I really care. I treat everyone like family." That doesn't do anything to actually differentiate you from anybody else in the market. And worse, it's all about you, instead of being about the person who's reading the message. So one of the best things you can do to create that conversation and keep it going is to express sincere concern, right? Very simple express, sincere concern, E-S-C, super straight forward. If they're searching for a home, how can you express sincere concern about that? Think about it. What can you do to express sincere concern to that family who's decided to sell the home they raised their children in? How can you express sincere concern for that person? Who's trying to build that property ladder and climb up and up, right? How can you express concern to that investor client.

Dan Stewart (04:06): The way that you would do it for each of them is different. And yet the framework is the same. So to express sincere concern, you've got to get them talking. You have to know a little bit about them, and then you need to ask open-ended follow-up questions. Open-ended follow-up questions. Keep that conversation going. That's what we have to do in order to get to that opportunity where we express sincere concern. So first: less is more. We want to keep the conversation, keep the amount of stuff coming out of your mouth brief. Be bright, be brief, be gone. Let them talk. Second, you want to ask open-ended questions, and then number three, and this is the one that's really tough, guys. This is the one that's going to sneak up and bite you when you're not looking at. This one, the third thing that you must do is stay vigilant. Stay vigilant.

Dan Stewart (04:59): This is what happened to the guy on my team. Great guy, really cares. All of a sudden, he's not getting the results that he's used to getting. Why? Because he wasn't staying vigilant. He cares so much, he has so much to offer, he wants to pack it all in there. He wasn't staying vigilant. It's so simple to create engagement. It's so simple to express sincere concern that sometimes you want to over-complicate things, right? You actually hinder your own success because you can't get out of your own way; you have so much more to share. So these three principles are really straight, right? They're really straight. They're straightforward. They're simple. It's nothing you need to be a rocket scientist to apply. And when you go out there and you apply these things, you'll see some immediate changes. So if you're struggling with having a conversation with a prospect at an open house, if you're struggling to get that old cold lead on the phone and have any kind of meaningful engagement. If you're struggling, when you're making outbound prospecting calls to FSBOs and expireds and withdrawns, what I'm teaching you here today will help you with that. So remember you want to keep your statements brief. You want to ask open-ended questions and you need to stay vigilant, so that you don't fall into these old bad habits. Right? That's important.

Dan Stewart (06:27): Now, the reason we're structuring it this way, the reason it's put together this way, is because you've got to capture their emotions before you can capture their logic. People buy on emotion and they justify with logic. This is an age old principle of sales. So when you express sincere concern, you're making an emotional connection with them. That's absolutely critical because don't forget you a professional salesperson. That means that most of the world thinks you're a jerk. Most of the people at that cocktail party are charmed and happy to meet you, until you tell them what you do for a living. And then they're like, "Oh yeah. Okay. Hmm."

Dan Stewart (07:09): So we know as sales professionals that sometimes people judge us, they might not have the highest opinion about us all the time. And when we can express sincere concern and show them that we really do care about them, we're creating space for them to see us as someone who can help them. And not just anyone who can help them, but a true trusted advisor. That's the best possible positioning you can have in your sales career is to be seen as a trusted advisor. So there's a lot here that we're covering in a very short amount of time. And what I'm going to ask you guys to do and hello, Brian, hello, Scott, love to see you guys here today. What we're going to do in What To Say Now is, continue to answer your questions. So throughout this whole next week, below this live video, I'd like you guys to post some of your content that you feel you're having trouble with. We'll go through, we'll straighten it right up.

Dan Stewart (08:10): In fact, just yesterday, I was talking with Eddie Campos. He's a with Re/Max Preferred in Toledo, Ohio, great guy, and he was referred by my friend, John Mangus, which John, if you're watching: happy birthday, brother. Today's John's birthday. And he was saying that John had some trouble with some of his recruitment content. He shared that content with me, we made just a slight tweak in the language, and all of a sudden people are engaging and responding, right? So these are really key, simple points. Sometimes the simple things are the hardest ones to do. So if we're going to boil it down: be bright, be brief, be gone, express that sincere concern, ask those open-ended questions, and you'll see that that's the pathway to creating engagement.

Dan Stewart (08:58): So I hope you've enjoyed this episode of What To Say Now, please engage in the chat below. You're welcome to share this, you can add people to the group. Would love to have you join at facebook.com/groups/whattosaynow. So I'm out, everybody. I'll see you right back here next Tuesday at 2:00 PM for Episode Number 20. Be good.