A Sales Training Tip For Estate Agents... And Everyone Else!

Copyright (c) 2010 Gavin Ingham

I have a hobby, it's called "door-kicking". It's a little like "tyre-kicking" but it doesn't involve cars, it involves houses. When I'm not following my twin passions of motivational speaking and sales training, I love looking around houses... show-houses, old houses, new houses, penthouse flats, country cottages, farms... anything really. You could say that I am an estate agent's nightmare but then I have bought every house I have ever owned when I was on a "door-kicking" outing.

Anyway, last month I was looking around a house without any serious intention and I loved it. Infact, I loved it so much that I negotiated with the seller then and there and put an offer in. She accepted and my Sunday afternoon jolly had just become a house buying trip! Next day, I contacted one of the well-known national estate agencies and asked them to come around to value my house which they did. The estate agent was polite, efficient and courteous. He valued the house at what I thought was a realistic price in the current market and told me how they operate. It sounded fine so I asked what the market was like at the moment in the local area. He said that it was picking up, that houses were moving again and that he should have no problem selling my house.

Based on this, I agreed to put the house on the market with ABC Estate Agency and they took over the process of selling my house. This, from what I have seen so far, seems to consist of...

1.Take some measurements and some photos.
2.Write up a description.
3.Upload house onto RightMove and ABC's company website.
4.Sit back and wait for the proverbial chicken to fly into open mouth. Are you joking me? These are the same estate agents who have been moaning about how quiet things are, right?

So, as you do, I checked out RightMove to look at my house only to see that...

The house does not come up when you search my village. One of the rooms has been missed off the description of the property description altogether. Several of the measurements are wrong. The pictures are poor lousy. The room descriptions are non-existent. I could go on but I won't because it is too depressing that anyone could be so inept. If I ran an estate agency and the most junior person on my sales team had been responsible for this description I would have been kicking ass. Let alone, the most senior consultant in charge of the branch!

But hey, no-one is perfect and everyone can make mistakes...

So I emailed them... but they did not respond. So I repeated the email... no response.

So I rang them and got their voicemail, "Sorry we are not in the office..." (well, I know you're not showing anyone around my house, that's for sure!) and decided to get into my car and drive down to their offices. With my (growing) annoyance kept well under check I explained to the one agent in the office the importance of 1) getting things right, 2) making a strong first impression through the advertisement and 3) the power of words like "mature, landscaped garden", "stylish, open plan living" and "exclusive, residential area" (not just "garden"!").

He looked bemused so I left a message for the sales manager to call me.

Surprise, surprise, 4 hours later and no call. These guys clearly need a motivational speaker and some sales training! So let's fill in the gaps and put this into context...

Over the last few weeks I have visited with at least 8 estate agents. Out of all 8 only 1 took my name and contact details. The others knew that I was looking for a house but never asked for my details. Why not? I can only conclude laziness and having had it so good for so long that they do not even know how to do the job properly anymore. Our estate agent's brain should have been whirring with people he could call the moment I listed my property... apparently not. So here we are, several days weeks on the market, no update calls from the sales agent and no viewings.

Now I accept my fault in this. I am a sales training expert and I should have made the time to see several estate agencies to "interview" them as potential salespeople just like I would for a client. After all, they are going to sell my house for me and interviewing salespeople is something that I am good at!

So about now you could be forgiven for thinking, "Well this is fine Gavin, but what does it have to do with me? I'm not an estate agent!" Good question... and the answer is... "Well, quite a lot ... potentially."

Estate agents are not alone in having had it too easy for the last few years. Estate agents are not alone in cutting corners when they get the chance. Estate agents are not alone when it comes to taking the easy route. Estate agents are not alone when it comes to doing the all important "sales" bit pretty badly.

As a sales motivational speaker I spend a lot of time working with, talking to and consulting with salespeople, sales managers, sales directors and business owners from a multitude of different industries. A rare few do everything they can to succeed but a far larger majority fail to achieve their full potential due to a lack of application in even the most simple of areas.

Simply put - many salespeople fall at the first hurdle because they just don't apply themselves consistently enough.

As a motivational speaker I always strive to raise my game and challenge myself to push for the next level. I am constantly astounded by how even the slightest increase in your game can increase results dramatically. Raising your game by even 10% can make a huge difference to the sales results and successes that you achieve - both in your job and in your life.

So this weeks' challenge is to raise your game. What area can you seek to improve to get a leap in your sales results?