Having the right response to sales objections and being able to overcome buyer excuses is an age old technique in selling just about anything. It’s not always easy to know how to overcome buyer objections, but thankfully I’m going to give you some ideas. This works for both online and offline selling – whether you’re selling a product, a service, or “yourself”.

No matter what you are “selling” people always have objections and excuses as to why they are not ready to do something right now. This applies in both offline and online marketing, since in both cases you want to call the person to perform an action. Offline, it could be getting them to sign a contract to list with you or to buy a house – online it could be trying to get them to sign up for your newsletter or picking up the phone and actually calling you when they reach your website.

The best thing to do is prepare yourself for these sales objections so that when the buyer or seller gives them to you, you’re ready to persuade them otherwise! A lot of agents forget about the basic closing sales techniques, but in the world of sales, this is something that will always prove to be useful.

Here are a few examples of common objections and what you can do:

We’re Not Ready Yet: I’m sure you’ve heard from someone who says “We’re just not ready yet” as to why they won’t list with you or make an offer after you’ve given them a tour of 200 houses. These people say they aren’t ready – but if they’re not really ready, why are they even talking to you? This is probably the most vague of all sales objections, so your job is to find out WHY they’re hesitating. Ask Them: When will you be ready? What is stopping you from signing (or making an offer) right now? Do you think anything will be different tomorrow, next week, next month, next year?

I Already Have a Real Estate Agent: This is a trickier one, because you do have to be careful of soliciting other agent’s clients. This is especially true concerning open house traffic. You might ask them questions such as, Oh, are you aware of our [insert special buyer/seller promo exclusive to your office/broker here] or ask them how happy they have been with their agent. Sometimes this can open up a can of worms, other times it can bring some interesting dialogue, especially if you happen to get a frustrated seller.

We Want to Sell Our Home First: This is another common one I get a lot from people, especially with a lot of people being upside down on their mortgages. Good questions to ask are “Have you looked into bridge loans?” (many buyers don’t even know these exist!) or “Are you aware you can often make an offer contingent on your home selling?” or “Where will you live when your home sells and you haven’t found a new house yet?” or “What marketing are you doing to sell your home as quickly as possible?”

This house doesn’t have XYZ: Let’s be bluntly honest here: there is no such thing as the perfect house. EVen those who custom build and design their houses are often surprised to realize that their dream house is still missing a feature or two. So, you need to ask a lot of questions, and be prepared to offer a few creative solutions. For example, say a house has carpeting and they wanted hardwood floors. You might ask, “If the seller agreed to give you an allowance to install new flooring so you could pick out anything you liked, would you buy this house?”

It’s too Expensive/Not Enough: Money is usually a touchy subject with everyone you meet. Buyers think every single house they see is overpriced, sellers think their house is worth more than it is. For sellers, you’ll want to focus on asking them questions about their minimum amount they’ll accept, how if they wait it could be more difficult to sell the home since markets can change seasonally, etc. For buyers, you’ll want to make sure they’re preapproved, talk with them about making offers and how they don’t have to offer the list price.

Don’t Forget About Your Website: If you have a website, you’ll also want to ask yourself whether or not your website is meeting online objections as well. Most people when they are looking online for something want to find things easily and quickly. Can they find everything they need to find on your site? Is your contact information easy to read and use? (For example, some visitors won’t bother sending you a message if you don’t have an email contact form that is easy to access and use.) It also helps to have things that can help alleviate some of the online concerns buyers and sellers may have, such as “you can cancel anytime and your information is never shared” for a newsletter subscription or “No question is too small or silly – you can contact me here or feel free to call at 555-555-5555″.

These are just a few of common real estate sales objections and what responses and rebuttals can be effective in overcoming them. Have any tips you’d like to share? We’d love to hear your comments below!

Whether we like to admit or not, real estate is a sales job – and like any sales job having closing sales techniques is vital if you ever want to earn a commission and get paid. There are many different ways to close a sale, and many wonder if an aggressive or passive way is more effective. Finding the most effective closing sales techniques will make it a lot easier to convert listing appointments to clients – as well as if you’re working with buyers drastically reduce the number of houses you look at. No matter what type of sales job you may have, even if it’s not real estate – if you can’t close the sale, you don’t get paid.

But, most closing techniques make a lot of people uncomfortable. And from an ethical standpoint, many agents (especially newer ones who have never worked in sales before) are often caught in a debate between getting paid or being nice.

Before I go any farther, I want to tell you what just happened to me that inspired this post, because it’s a valuable lesson, one I paid dearly for but got a super powerful vacuum for in exchange. A Kirby vacuum sales team showed up at my door and asked me if they could come in and clean my carpets. Well, never being one to refuse an offer for someone to clean my house, I stupidly let them in. (I knew right away they were going to end up selling me something – but, I’ve also been wanting a Kirby vacuum, so I figured I’d let them in and see what their sales strategy was anyway since I had read so many bad Kirby reviews about it before).

They were very polite at first, wasting no time in vacuuming up my rug that I thought was clean. (After all, I did just sweep it the day before Christmas!) Boy was I wrong and so very grossed out by what they came up with. So right there they did the #1 most important thing in selling anything, whether it be a product or service: You’ve got to demonstrate your value. I’ve seen so many bad listing presentation strategies where agents don’t really “prove” themselves – and if you can’t do that, you’re not going to get very far, especially in a super competitive field.

Now, from there things started to get shady. Younger generations probably do not really have any recollection of door to door salesmen and bad sales pitches, but I remembered vividly as a child the day my mother bought her Kirby sweeper and the guy pouring dirt on our carpet and sweeping it up. (She still has hers today by the way, even if it does weigh over 50 pounds – it still sweeps well and is going strong, part of the reason I wanted one in the first place.) Door to door salesmen are known for being shady and are known for being aggressive – which is why everybody hates them. (And if you’ve ever done door knocking or cold calling for real estate, you know it!) It’s the last thing in the world that you want to do is buy something from them and continue to encourage their aggressive tactics.

My husband and I were in no mood to really buy a sweeper today. In fact, nobody in their right mind, the day after a holiday, would really be interested in spending any sum of money. Yes, we both wanted one, but we just weren’t ready. The Kirby people are super aggressive however, and so you have to be kind of a sales guru to see through their “sneaky” tactics. They used a lot of good valid points arguing why we needed to buy from them today, not tomorrow, not next month.

After their “we’ll be in and out in 20 minutes” claim ended up with them staying at our house for over three hours, it reminded me something a very well respected and older agent taught me when I first started real estate but had ignored until today. When she began her training as an agent 30 plus years ago they taught her one thing and one thing only: don’t leave until you have the papers signed. The Kirby people clearly have also adopted this strategy, as they did not care that it was getting late into the evening and our three children clearly needed to go to bed.

Now, this aggressive type of closing technique works – but this is where the ethics of everything comes into play. Google “Kirby vacuum scam” and thousands of complaints come up, whether by their ex-sales team members or people who feel swindled into buying a vacuum. I will admit even I felt like I had to pay to get them to leave. Being overly aggressive makes people not like you. It makes them feel uncomfortable.

I did and I didn’t want to give these guys the sale. Mostly it was out of pity and the fact that their product kicks butt that I bought it. Their marketing strategy was the main reason I didn’t want to buy it – I didn’t want to reward their aggressive sales pitch. The fact that you can’t just buy one online also irritates me – and it goes onto the main point of this whole article.

The only way to successfully be passive at marketing yourself it to have a strong online presence.

Had those guys left after 20 minutes and thanked me, I would not have a shiny new Kirby in my house right now, and they would have gone home with no paycheck to justify the three hours they spent showing off their product.

So, to recap what I’ve learned tonight:

1. Demonstrate Your Value: You’ve got to be able to show that you are the ultimate real estate solution available. (If you’re not the best, you should get a new job that’s more suited for you or get the training you need to be the best). Customers and clients want proof. They’re trusting you with the biggest investment of their life most of them, so proof is essential. (If you haven’t done so already, make sure you Subscribe via email to be notified when I write my next post on techniques you can use to truly show your value to a prospective client)

2. Have Solutions to Objections: I was full of objections on why not to buy a sweeper today. It’s right after the holidays, so we’re not too eager to spend any more money. I hate cleaning the house. I already have a sweeper. If you want to close a sale and use good closing techniques, you need to have answers for all those objections clients are going to have for you. (Another post I have planned for the New Year)

3. Don’t Leave Too Early: The longer you stay somewhere with someone, the more of a relationship you build with them, and the more you’re going to be able to get a feel for them. If you sit there for 10 minutes, show your presentation and get out, then you get points for politeness, but chances are people are not going to remember you or feel that you’re good at negotiating. The longer you stay somewhere, the more likely you’re going to get the listing.

4. Play on Emotions: The Kirby vacuum people had some very valid emotional points – do you want your children breathing this crap in? Do you want to have dust mites in your bed? Having just taken my son to an allergist a week ahead of time for gluten intolerance concerns and hours of painful itchiness proving he was very allergic to dust mites, that alone was part of the emotional factor that came into play for me. As humans, we are naturally emotional – and relating to someone on an emotional level is going to help you instantly make more progress than if you didn’t.

5. There’s Only One Way to Be Successfully Passive: Being passive is not going to get you many face to face sales. But if you’re not the pushy aggressive sales type (and most of us aren’t, because we hate high pressure sales people), there’s a way to be passive and wildly successful – and that is to have a compelling online presence. Honestly, if there was a way to buy a Kirby vacuum online, I would have much rather preferred that approach and likely would have bought one much sooner than today. I’d probably also promote and refer their product online as well, since for a lifetime I’ve liked their vacuums. When you’re nice, and not pushy, you get more referrals, word of mouth marketing, and sales, which are all nice residual income builders – and you can focus less on those pushy listing presentations.

If you adopt aggressive closing sales techniques, then you’re going to get more closings and sales, period. You and I both know that when you go to someone’s house for a listing presentation they committed before you get there to make no decisions that night. If you know how to be aggressive, then you know how to get past that and you will get the listing.  But will you gain respect? Referrals? Will people out there think you are nothing but a ruthless, heartless, scumbag agent? Probably.

If you want to retain your dignity while still generating business and commissions, learning how to demonstrate your value,  solve objections, connect on an emotional level with clients, put the right amount of time into it,  and  having a passive yet strong online presence can help you leave the pushy sales tactics at the door.

So, tell me your thoughts. First, do you have a Kirby vacuum? Any experiences with their sales people? Are you like me and love their sweepers but hate their sales pitch? Second, what kind of closing strategies and techniques do you use? Are you too aggressive? Too passive? Somewhere in the middle? What benefits do you see of passive versus aggressive in closing a sale?

I’ve got a lot of exciting things planned ahead for the new year – so don’t forget to Subscribe via email to stay updated and learn more things to help you have an awesome 2010! Happy New Year everyone!

It’s something just about every real estate agent encounters at one point or another, and for some agents something that is more the norm than the odd rarity – the house or property that just won’t sell. Your sellers start getting exasperated, you keep dropping prices, you wait for weeks and don’t even get so much as a phone call. What’s going on?

Well, if you’re desperate, you’re ready to try anything, right? I haven’t read this, but it comes with a 100% Money Back Guarantee: How to Sell a House in 21 Days.

I’ve seen a big transition in real estate sales over the past years, especially with a housing slump and technology moving quickly in the realm of the internet – and the most noticeable thing to me that is different from today’s market than when I first started in real estate is you can’t just list a house in the MLS and expect it to sell like you used to be able to.

All the time I hear agents say “I’ve tried everything to sell this house” – but usually there is always something they are missing, whether from not thinking it as important or from sheer laziness. So, if you’re stuck sitting on listings that just won’t sell, I’ve decided to create this checklist to help you make sure you really did try just about all of it!

Call Your SOI: Agents anymore hate picking up the phone. But it’s something that is pretty easy to do and really makes a big difference over the non personal twitter messages and emails. Call up everybody on your list of friends, family, leads, and aquaintances that you haven’t talked to in the last month – it’s a good habit to start to get more business anyway – and you never know if they might know someone interested in your property. Ask your sellers if they have anyone they’d like you to call, too. More Cold Calling Tips Here

Post a Virtual Tour: Most sites now that buyers go online to search houses show virtual tours. And as more and more houses and properties start showing these, the more people are wanting to see them – and ignoring those listings without them. You don’t need a video camera or expensive equipment – they are plenty of virtual tour software companies out there that can use your photos.

Take New Photos: If you are showing pictures of a house covered in snow in June, or have pictures of a house that has green grass and flowers everywhere in the dead of winter, chances are people are going to just automatically assume the listing is old and therefore must be something “wrong” with it. In addition to making sure the pictures are recent, try shooting from different angles and make sure the lighting is good.

Try Craigslist: More and more people are starting with Craigslist to look for a house in hopes of finding a deal or bargain. It’s easy to post a listing – just try to have a headline that stands out from the rest and be sure to link to your listing page online to that virtual tour and show pictures. It’s free, what the heck do you have to lose?

Use the Right Words: If your description in your ads looks like “3BR 2BA cer tile, carpet, lvl yd, close to schools etc” that’s not going to attract people as much as say, oh “Seller Concessions $2000″ and “Seller Paid Closing Costs” and “$3,000 Credit to Buyer” – which actually sometimes work better psychologically than the desperate “Price Reduced!”

Notify Other Agents: We all know other agents are the ones with buyers in most markets, so make sure they’re aware of your house. If your market is saturated with listings it is quite likely they may have not seen it. Have an agent open house (with some nice incentives to get them there!) or send out emails to your coworkers.

Triple Check the Price: Overpriced houses aren’t going to sell, we all know that’s the #1 rule. Forget about “but it has this that etc.” – take your sellers on a tour in that price range and ask them which house they’d buy first and which ones seem like the best value. That’s the most effective way to get them to sink into reality without seeming like you’re just bad at marketing.

Blast it all over the internet: Your listings should be everywhere online. Here’s a quick and easy test – type in your seller’s property address into search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Hopefully the first result is a link to your listing on either your own or your company’s website – with plenty more links to your listing from other sites like Realtor.com and others. If it doesn’t, then chances are you haven’t promoted it online enough. (See 43 Real Estate Listing Sites

Stage It: A house needs to be clean and it needs to be move-in ready. Ugly orange carpet from the 70’s, no matter how good of condition it may be in, is not “move-in ready”. You’ve seen the TV show Design to Sell, right? A bucket of paint might be all you need and a simple rearrangement of furniture. I know you can’t control your sellers, but again, take them on a tour and show them what else is available in their price range – it should be a good wake up call. If they’re struggling, suggest professional help – most areas have a wide array of home stagers, junk removal companies, professional organizers, etc. who can make it easier for you both.

Have an Open House: People do still go to open houses – if you know how to do it right. If you don’t market your open houses effectively though yes, you’re going to have no-shows and a boring three hours. (See Get More Traffic at Your Open Houses)

Get Feedback: You are doing your sellers a great injustice if you aren’t following up with every single person who views the home for feedback. You need to know if the wall paper is a turn off or the yard is too small or the street is too busy. Even if there are things you can’t change (ie: a busy street) you can do other things to make the home more attractive. For example, on a busy street, try to accentuate ample parking or if a yard seems too small try rearranging patio furniture or changing the fence. The more feedback you have, the better you are able to get a handle of why the house hasn’t sold yet – and DO something about that quickly.

Relist It: There’s no harm in relisting a house to show up again as a “new listing” – especially if you’ve made some major changes or improvements. A lot of agents won’t even realize it’s not really new, and it will also pop up for any agent who is automatically notified of new listings as a reminder that it’s available. This doesn’t always work, but at least it gets you a somewhat fresh start.

Network, Network, Network: The more people who are aware that a house is available for sale, the more likely someone is going to be interested in it. Make sure all of your networking buddies are aware of it – you never know if that mortgage broker you got coffee with last month might have someone interested in that price range.

Hit Up Relocation: There’s a very good chance your buyer won’t be from the same area you have the home listed in. Start hitting up relocation agents and share it with anybody in areas that often frequently transfer to your area. You might even want to consider getting in touch with HR departments to see if they have anyone moving into the area.

Document Everything You Do and Convince Your Sellers You are Awesome: The worst thing in the world is to put a lot of time, effort, work, and even money into trying to sell a house, watch it sit on the market forever, and then the listing expires and you lose it. You need to be in touch with your sellers on a regular basis, give them updates, show the “proof” of what you’ve done, and keep them hopeful and realistic.

Don’t Take Crappy Listings: I had to add this one in here because of a recent discussion I had with some agents not too long ago. One agent was moaning and whining about how the house still hadn’t sold. I said, well of course not. You should have NEVER listed it in this condition. Don’t be desperate for a listing just because you want it and you hope it’ll sell. Be very clear that you want to sell their house fast and for the highest possible price – and that means only once it’s in good condition and has no major turn offs and is priced right will you list it. Your time and your money is valuable – don’t waste it trying to sell stuff you know when you step in the door isn’t going to sell. Sellers rarely change until their listing sits there for a year or expires. If they’re not willing to do what it takes in the beginning, don’t waste your time – try again after it expires after someone else agreed to list it overpriced and in bad condition.

Well, that’s my two cents, I’d love to hear yours in the comments section below – what do you do to get a house that won’t sell to finally get an offer?

And, if after you’ve done ALL of these things, you still haven’t sold the house, well, then you’re ready for Saint Joseph statues, witch craft, and How to Sell a House in 21 Days. (disclaimer: i do not in anyway shape or form endorse or recommend the book – but it does come with a 100% guarantee and the title is awfully appealing, isn’t it?)

Before I get into this list of real estate wordpress themes, I have an important question for you: Is Your Business Worth $20?

So many agents spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on tons of marketing materials like newspaper ads and everything else – only to see little actual return on investment. A professional looking website when executed properly however is worth a goldmine, advertising you and your services 24/7 infinitely for less than what it costs for an ad in the newspaper for one week.

I see so many bad real estate websites out there on a constant basis, and it’s time to give your blog a face lift. When you can have an impressive looking site that doesn’t require you to edit a single line of html or php code for anywhere between $20 to $100 (depending on which design you pick from the ones available below), why wouldn’t you do it?

As most of you know, I’m a huge advocate of Wordpress, a free open source blogging platform. Wordpress is one of the easiest ways for any real estate agent to set up a low cost and affordable website solution. While there are a number of free wordpress real estate themes, some of the best of them are paid (aka “premium”) – and many of them are just between $25 and $35. If you ask me, $25 for a professional looking website that helps you convert visitors into clients and commissions is a heck of a steal – and you and your business is worth every penny spent.

If you think you’re worth $25, then you need to pick one of these themes and do something today.

Here are some of my top picks for themes for real estate agents to use, whether you’re a commercial real estate agent or a residential one:

Our Home Real Estate Theme

This is a sharp looking light theme that gives an excellent emphasis on listings. Demo and More Info

Real Estate Theme

This is one of those incredible themes I was talking about where you could get a professional looking site for only $25. It features three possible color schemes, featured post section for listings, and an admin panel to customize everything with no need to touch a line of code. Demo and More Info

Villa Grand Real Estate Theme

What I like most about this theme is that it has a built in search function that is featured right as visitors come to your site. It also has some nice details and a good layout for those who are blogging also. Demo & More Info

Evolution Theme

While this is not a theme specific for real estate agents, it has a clean and nice layout that could easily be adapted into a theme for a real estate agent. It also features multiple color schemes so you can make it match with your company logo. Demo & More Info

Eminence Wordpress Theme

This is another super affordable theme that is not specific for real estate agents but has a nice layout where you can not only feature listings, but also sections for your services as well. It features multiple color schemes, and it’s my top pick for a commercial real estate blog. Demo & More Info

WP Pro Real Estate Theme

I love this theme too, again for its clean color scheme and design layout. Demo & More Info

Smooth Real Estate Theme

The Smooth Real Estate theme features a great clean layout and a few custom plug-ins to help you manage listings. It has a ton of advanced features such as a nice gallery for featured listings, auto thumbnail generation, and an easy to use admin panel. Click here to view more details & live demo.

Bel Air Theme

This is another elegant and stylish theme for real estate agents. It features multiple color schemes and a clean and well organized layout. Click here to visit Aloha Themes.

Open House

This is yet another awesome theme. (Are you seeing a trend here? All of these are great and affordable!) No custom fields are required and images are automatically resized, which is making it even easier than before to use a theme like this. Click here to view more details.

Homeowner Real Estate Theme

This is another great looking theme that offers features like built in map integration and again doesn’t require messing around with code or custom fields. Click here to view more details

StudioPress Agent Real Estate Theme

StudioPress is one of the most known premium theme creators, and their theme for real estate agents is a nice variation from the original Revolution Theme. Click here to visit StudioPress.

DeCasa Real Estate Theme

This is another theme many people don’t realize is available. It’s white and clean and well organized. Click here to visit ThemeShift.

eBusiness Theme

This is another great “not real estate specific but pretty dang good” theme that I like. It offers a wide selection of 15 different color options and is super affordable at just $19.95. Not only is it a good price, but you can also download unlimited copies of 20 other themes as well! I am a member of this site and can personally attest that the themes are cleanly coded, pretty decent out of the box for SEO, and there’s even a nice support forum with a lot of other members to help you out if for some reason you should get stuck. Visit Elegant Themes for more details

Thesis Wordpress Theme

For those of you looking for a wordpress theme that has more of a blog feel, Thesis is the theme most pros use. Not only is it highly customizable and probably one of the leading themes in terms of SEO, but it looks great, too. Learn More.

So that’s my round-up of the best 15 Wordpress Themes a real estate agent could use. Some of these start at just $20 and none of them are over $100 – so its a well worth it investment to take your site to the next level. All of these themes provide an option panel perfect for the person who does not want to become a wordpress theme expert just to have a strong online presence. The hardest part about any of these themes of course will be deciding between which of these you like the best and want to use!

Do you know of any wordpress themes I might have missed? Using one of these themes and want to show off your site? More importantly, is your business worth at least $25 to you? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The problem is, most people don’t understand how search marketing actually works. While most people can grasp that you want your website to be one of the first search result pages when someone searches for a term like “California Houses” – a lot of people have no idea how to get to that number one spot, especially if there are A LOT of different sites out there all trying to be number one.

In order to get search traffic, there is a simple formula you need to know:

Good Keywords + Quality Backlinks = Traffic

Keywords are the phrases that people type into a search engine like Google or Yahoo or Bing (these days I have to mention Bing or someone says “Well what about Bing?) when they are looking for something. If you go online and you need to find something, you’ll type in a few words to describe it – that’s a keyword.

There are two types of keywords – long tail keywords and short tail keywords. Long tail keywords are usually much easier to rank for, but they aren’t as popularly searched. An example of a long tail keyword phrase is “How much money do I need to buy a condo in New York?” A short tail keyword is much more shorter – such as “New York Condos”.

Obviously, you’re going to want to find keywords that get a lot of searches, and you’re going to want to rank highly for these keywords in the search results pages.

You can find basic info on search phrases from a very easy and simple easy tool – it’s called the Free Keyword Tool from WordTracker.com. You simply enter any phrase that you want and it will give you an estimate of how many searches per day. It’s not exact or entirely accurate all of the time – but I do know that it’s pretty darn close and that if you use it a lot you will never have an end of words to be targeting.

Once you research these keywords, you’ll want to add some blog posts and articles on your site that contain these words and phrases.

The next step is to build backlinks. This is the most time consuming and annoying part of getting your website to rank highly in search engines. Backlinks are when someone links to your site. For example, if I give Jay the Phoenix Real Estate Guy a link like I just did in this article, that’s a backlink for him and it helps tell search engines that his website is about a Guy in Phoenix who works in real estate.

Getting backlinks takes a lot of time, but it’s something that will continously pay off. Unlike social networking, which also requires a lot of time, once you’re ranking up there in search results pages you won’t have to do nearly as much work as often online. With social media however, typically if you drop the ball in updating all of your social sites, you also kind of drop a lot of traffic and interest.

Backlinks can be obtained in a number of ways – link exchanging with other relevant real estate websites (hit up other real estate bloggers you’ve met online that are in another target market) as well as a number of social networking sites and article directory sites. You might also want to try to swap some links with other local businesses in your area.

I know you were probably hoping for something a little more exciting or something that could be done instantly and automagically, but you’ve got to do a little work for it. Fortunately, it will pay off for itself many times over within just a few months most likely.

If you want lots of search traffic, research your keywords and build links to your site. It really is that simple.

Any questions? Comments? Share them in the comments below!