What if Scripts Don’t Work For Me?
Summary
This video is my response to a new agent’s questions about scripts and FSBO’s after his first day of prospecting.
1) They repeated the same objection 2 or 3 times, and I couldn’t just answer the same way that I answered them before – what do I do about these issues?
2) I’m not a fast talker by nature, and that seems to be working against me… not sure if this works with my personality?
3) People generally don’t have an interest in answering so many questions – what are the important ones that should be focused on?
4) What about just asking them if you can preview the house, so that you “get your foot in the door”, and they get to know you – would that make it more likely to get a listing agreement in the future?
SHORT ANSWER:
This is the gap between starting a new skill and mastery.
Just like it takes years to master the game of golf…don’t expect to be getting stellar results your first day on the course (or on the phone with FSBO’s). This is how you learn. The better you get through training, coaching, and practice…everything changes. Go pro. Do the work of training and achieving mastery and it can be worth millions.
For detailed answers to his questions, watch the full video.
Full transcript
I can shift a little bit, how do I do it, and even though they threw the same objection at me the second time that they threw the first time, I’m just spinning it a little more, but it’s really the same answer. If I can help you get a better result, would you maybe wanna talk to me about it?
Hi there, it’s Kevin Ward, the founder of “Yes Masters Real Estate Success Training” and the creator of “FX Extreme Training,” the world’s best training on how to master for sale by owners and expireds and I just say that because I received a great question from one of my online members about for sale by owners.
Mastering for sale by owners and expireds is understanding that the process of mastery actually takes some time. So, here is the conversation, the question from Mr. Shneur Sterman, and it’s a great question, I love it. So, this is no way making fun of him, I just want you to think about the thinking, okay?
“I just made my first for sale by owner calls today.”
So congratulations on that, that’s awesome. That, right there, is a huge victory because for an agent to start calling for sale by owners, takes a lot of courage, a lot of grit to actually put yourself out there.
“I’ve been practicing the scripts.” Thumbs up.
“I have all the pre-appointment objections on the wall in front of me.” Great job, that’s awesome.
“But some of the objections caught me off guard, as they weren’t on the scripts. Additionally, they repeated the same objection, two or three times and I couldn’t just answer the same way that I answered them before. What do I do about these issues?”
So this is a great question, now that’s just the first part of his question, there’s four parts to it, this is the first part. So, an answer to the question, what do I do whenever they ask the same three or four things? They bring up the same objection more than one time?
It depends. It depends on why they’re saying the same things two or three times. So, for example, here’s one of the conversations.
“How much time do you think it’ll take before you might consider hiring the right agent to get your home sold for you?”
“Well we’re gonna try it for at least a couple of months.”
“Okay, great, so when the house sells, where are you going next?”
“Well like I said, we’re not gonna really interested in hiring an agent, we’re gonna try it on our own for a couple of months.”
“Got it. So right now you’re really just planning to do it on your own, excellent.”
And then I go on, and they go, maybe they answer a few more questions, they go, “Well, like we said, again, we’re not really interested in meeting right now. Just give us a couple of months. If it hasn’t sold, then we’ll be interviewing agents.”
His question is, “I can’t just answer the same thing every single time and just say the same exact script.” And the answer is, No probably not and yet, you probably can. You just have to, they’re probably saying the objection a little different, and you respond, “Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, however, if can help you get a better result, would you maybe wanna talk to me?”
In the for sale by owner scripts in “The Book of Yes.” The number one, best selling book, “The Book of Yes,” one of the questions that you ask them is
“If I could help you get the results that you need, get the help, get the money that you need in your pocket and get your home sold, would you consider interviewing me now?”
“Well, like we said we’re going to try it a couple months on our own before we interview an agent.”
“Right, and I understand you’re wanting to try it out on your own a couple months, that’s totally cool. However, if I could help you get a better result whether that is now or it’s sixty days would that matter to you at all, would you be willing to talk to me about it and at least take a look?”
I can shift a little how I do it and even though they threw the same objection at me the second time that they threw the first time I’m just spinning it a little more, but it’s really the same answer.
“If I can help you get a better result would you be willing to talk to me about it?”
“Well, how are you going to do that?”
“Well, that’s a great question when we meet we will go over that specifically.”
“Well, like we said we want to try it for at least the thirty days because we just don’t want to pay the commission and all of that.”
“Got it, so the commission matters, commission is important to you obviously, because it’s just economics and you want to try it for another thirty days or so on your own, great. So, again, if I could help you get more money in your pocket, would you at least be open to a conversation about that?”
Just going back and literally asking the same question again, why, because that’s the main issue, they want more money in their pocket.
It depends on what the objection is, on the scenario, and the flow of the conversation. If they throw the same objection two or three times and they are not going to budge, you’re not going to get anywhere with me then maybe it’s time to go “Okay, great, well, listen, if anything changes and I can help, let me know.”
It just depends on the conversation, so, this is why beyond the scripts is the practice and the training and the experience and the coaching and the mentorship, so, it’s way beyond right here is the game plan, but how to execute the game plan is more than just, okay, I got it, I got the game plan then post it up in front of me. I love that you’ve done that, but there’s going to now take a level of mastery.
Here’s the next thing, the next part of the comment or question. “I’m not a fast talker by nature and that seems to be working against me at this time.”
I’m going to respond to that by saying what’s important is being interested in their situation, not how fast you talk. I’m not sure what fast talker means because some people be like well, you’re just a fast talker, meaning you’re a slick sales person. Being a fast talker is not an advantage. Is it bad? No, I talk really, really fast and yet sometimes talking really fast actually causes people to resist you more. It’s not how fast you’re talking, what matters is, and what’s important, is being authentic and conversational and being interested in their situation.
Here is what he said and remember, he says “I’m feeling pretty down about this right now as I was really looking forward to making this happen, but I’m not sure if this works with my personality.”
Notice, go back to the beginning, how long has he been doing this?
“Today I made my first for sale by owner calls today.”
It’s your first day and he’s like I’m not sure this works with my personality because I thought I was excited about making this happen. Well, you did make it happen, you just didn’t get the results you wanted on day one.
Another thing he says, “I’m finding that people generally don’t have an interest in answering so many questions, what are the important ones that I should be focused on?”
Well, again, yes, for sale by owners are not interested in answering a bunch of questions, what they are interested in is having a conversation that can help them get a better result. That’s the only thing their interested in, they don’t want to talk to you, right? They’re not excited about an agent, what they’re excited about is getting the best results. Again, this is about the process of mastery.
Then final question that he asks is “What about asking them if I can preview the house so that you get your foot in the door and they get to know you, would that make it more likely to get a listing agreement in the future?”
The answer to that is yes and no. Yes it may make them trust you, it may make it more likely that they would eventually list with you, but know just getting your foot in the door is not going to work if you are competing against someone who is a master, against an agent that’s got skill that’s going to go in and have a real conversation with them and say, “Hey if I can help you get more money in your pocket would you at least talk to me about it and be willing to interview me?”
“Well I don’t know how you’re going to do that, but, yeah we’ll interview you.”
Then that person, if they know what their doing they’re going to go out, their going to get the listing and their going to get business while you’re still getting your foot in the door.
Preview appointments is the easiest way to get into a home of a for sale by owner. I’m not opposed to preview appointments, however, what I am opposed to is thinking that the slow painful approach of letting them try and fail, try and fail is going to get them a better result or it’s going to eventually get you the listing. Because somebody whose better than you is going to come in and get the listing before they get around to trusting you. When you’re better at getting them to make a decision that says if you can get them a better result, wouldn’t it make sense for them to talk to you about that? And the answer is absolutely! Well, how do I help them get a better result? That’s the process of mastery.
Here is the main thing, and the most important thing I want to communicate about this question. What if scripts don’t work for me? What if for sale by owners not cut out for my personality? I tried it, it didn’t work for me. What I want to do is I just want to kind of shift this and say the gap between Mr. Sturman’s experience, his first day of calling for sale by owners and the results that he wants to get is the gap between skill and mastery. Just starting out and being a mastery of skills, okay, and that means it’s simply going to take some time.
I thought just for fun, I took his questions and I kind of rewrote them and I like “What if instead of being a real estate agent calling for sale by owners, what if I had just decided I was going to play golf and I just went out and bought me a brand new set of golf clubs, brand new pair of golf shoes, got me the glove, the golfing glove. I got my golf balls and I go out and play my first round of golf and this is how I felt after my first day of golf?”
“I was really excited about playing golf and having a good time, however, I missed the ball more than I hit it and when I did hit it, it never went where I wanted to go, so, every time a club didn’t work for me the first time I swung it, I just decided to throw it in the lake because that club just doesn’t work for me. Sometimes, the ball went into the trees and that really threw me off because I wasn’t expecting to have to hit it around trees, no one told me that. I’m not a good golf club swinging by nature and it seemed to be working against me every time I swung. Maybe golf isn’t a fit with my personality or maybe the golf clubs don’t fit with my style. Oh, and the golf balls, they just don’t seem interested in going in the hole or even going in the right direction. What about just picking up the golf club and carrying it to the green and putting from there and maybe someday I’ll get around to playing a real round of golf later?”
Now, how crazy would that be if someone goes out and they play their very first round of golf with brand new golf clubs, brand new golf ball, got all the equipment they got all this stuff and it doesn’t go the way they expected?
And they’re going like “I don’t play like Tiger Woods, I don’t know what’s up maybe golfs not for me.” Really? No! It’s because it’s brand new for you. Swinging the golf clubs not natural, neither is using a script, neither is talking to for sale by owners, it’s not natural, it’s not automatic, it simply takes some time. Just like it takes years to master the game of golf, don’t expect to get stellar results the first time you call for sale by owners, the first time you call expireds. The first day you’re on the golf course don’t expect to hit below par. The first time you call for sale by owners don’t expect to get a bunch of appointments and it all to go great, you’re going to hit the ball into the rough, you’re going to swing and you’re going to miss, here’s how you get better.
You commit to mastery and you go through the process of training, of coaching, of practice, and you do it day after day after day after day after week, after month and as you do that, everything changes. The difference is try the amateur approach or you go pro, when you do the work, when you’re committed to doing the work of training, when you get a great coach, when you get the right training and you’re willing to do the rehearsal, the practice, you’re going to miss, you’re going to fail, that’s going to happen. Every time you fail you go, okay, let’s break this down, what should I have said? What could I have said? How should I approach that different? That’s when you learn.
Listen, I have listed and sold hundreds and hundreds of for sale by owners and hundreds and hundreds of expired listings in my career, but I have taken thousands and thousands and thousands of no’s. Of people who have hung up on me, people who wouldn’t set an appointment with me, people who didn’t want to talk to me, people who threw objections that stumped me. I’ve taken those thousands of times, if I was unwilling to take the thousands of objections I would have never got hundreds of listings. It’s part of the journey, don’t expect to get results today.
Now, I want to say one other thing. This is just the playbook, it’s not going to give you everything that you need, like, all the skills the nuances, and all of that. To do that you need more, you can get in my coaching or you can, I’m actually going to put the link in this video below for my online course FX Extreme online and it is a deep dive online course on how to master talking to, getting leads, setting appointments and getting listings, sellable listings with for sale by owners and exprireds. If you’re willing to do the work, it will be an absolute game changer for you, don’t expect signing up for its going to give you the results you want, it’s when you take and are willing to do the training, go through it, implement it, practice it, fail at it, it can be worth millions for you.
If you have questions on this, I wanted this video to be a just a little encouragement when you think, “I don’t think this is going to work for me.” Nothing works for us until we master it. Give yourself some time. Be patient, don’t give up hope. You can do this. If you have some other questions, be sure to post the questions below. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. If I can help with anything make sure you put the comments below and you can click on the link below to go to FX Extreme online. Check it out, it’ll tell you all about it. About the guarantee, about what’s included in it and I’ll look forward to seeing you on the next video.