Lucas Cannan: Welcome Think Tank, episode #6. With me today I have Andrew Coulson and Brian Cannan. Hi, gentlemen.
Brian Cannan & Andrew Coulson: Good afternoon.
Lucas: We're going to look at, obviously, bridging the gap between the buyer and the seller part 2 today. So we looked at well, you gentlemen looked at part #1 a couple of weeks ago. But let's give all those out there a bit of a recap. What did we talk about?
Brian: Set the sale meeting. And that's what we want to have in the first 48 hours after you listed the property.
Lucas: Okay, and we also spoke about you know, a little bit of an agenda that can go with it. Some tips and some ideas in and around those set for sale meetings just to briefly cover a couple of points what were they?
Andrew: We want to talk about what sort of communication we were going to have with our sellers, how often we were going to meet with them, what we were going to be what they were wanting, whether it was regular, distant, whatever the arrangements were.
Lucas: Come up with a specific plan for that vendor.
Andrew: Yeah
Lucas: Good
Brian: Open for inspections, how important they are to the vendor, how they want you to help them or give them advice about presentation. And we also had talked about fact sheets and fact sheets for the children a lot of reaction about that a lot of people like that idea and that does work.
Andrew: As well as what might go wrong. What are we got to be careful of? What are we prepared for few little tips that can help them out for their opens.
Lucas: Good. So that's going to obviously set the scene from our seller's perspective from the very start of the campaign. In terms of part #2 today, we're going to look at what we what we named the On Track Meeting. Okay. So that comes into what you're mentioning Andrew about setting up a bit of a communication plan. An on track meeting would be part of that. Let's give everyone out there a little bit of an idea of what an on track meeting might be a little brief definition.
Andrew: What we're going to be looking at, obviously, with their communication, we look at how regularly we are going to meet with them. Ideally, you're going to be meeting every week. But probably after two weeks, you're going to sit down and have a slightly different meeting, add a couple of little things to your agenda there, just to make sure that we're on track. So that way, there's no obstacles, no objections that are starting to creep into our vendor's minds, that could create a bigger problem further down the track.
Brian: We've called it an on track meeting to make sure and clarify that the vendor is on track and you're on track with the vendor. And it comes two weeks into the marketing campaign, but you have a meeting with them anyway, and you're going to use most of what we're using on track meeting, it's just a couple of things at the end of the very, very important.
Lucas: Okay, so let's go through it. Okay, because we have, you might be able to have an agenda similar with the set the sale meeting, when we were talking about an agenda that were as the the marketing campaign goes, the marketing campaign goes on, I should say, what might be in that agenda, where's a good place to start?
Brian: The first thing we do every meeting is to sit down with the owner, and really ask them the question, are you happy with everything that I'm doing? And my company's doing? And you'll be surprised at some of the answers you're going to get. Hopefully, there'll be yes, we're happy with everything. But you know, little things really count. And the reason we do this, and it's such an important psychological reason is because if the owner is a little bit upset about something little, then they're going to blame you rather than the market for the house not selling. So if we can get that out of the way and we make them happier if we do and make them showing that we are there to get in this possible price. Then it's got to be the market that's doing it not you. This is such an important part of the meeting. It's a hard question to ask at times, but you have to ask it.
Andrew: That's right. I mean, if you turned up five or 2 minutes late for an open for inspection once, and they saw a buyer drive away, that could be an excuse for them to blame you for not selling the property, or if you haven't put the pointers out early enough in the morning, little things like that could fester away in our seller. And all of a sudden they're using that to blame you.
Brian: We had one seller that when you have a sign up front, and you can put brochures in front of that sign. The brochures were being emptied all the time. And they were concerned that they didn't have enough brochures and they weren't being filled up every couple of days.
Lucas: On the sign on the signboard you mean?
Brian: On the signboard. So it was a very simple answer. All the agent did was take all the brochures over to the owner they could fill up three times a day, made them very happy to do so little things really do count. And because you know we we're in this all day, every day we sometimes forget about the little things and the little things really do count to your vendor and they appreciate it a great deal.
Lucas: And as you said, Andrew, it's rather you'd rather deal with them on a week to week basis, then particularly an auction campaign, you know, at the reserve set meaning or the day of the auction. So you want to get those overcome them in any way you can throughout the course of the campaign. Certainly a good way to start is to set the scene and ask how happy they are. And is there anything we can do to certainly meet any objections they might have.
Andrew: Exactly right, and it breaks the ice, means everybody's now on a level playing field. Now let's move forward to get the result that we're all looking for the best possible result. So then we move into the feedback, what's been happening, and you give a bit of an activity report on how many internet hits how many people coming through...
Brian: Contract, pest & building reports
Andrew: all those sorts of things, the feedback, any indications on price, all that sort of thing, in regards to what's happening within the actual week, week by week, sale of their property.
Brian: Offers.
Andrew: Yep.
Brian: Or opinions on price. Changes to contracts, all those sort of things.
Lucas: Issues. Any issue with a strata report or building or pest. Whatever it may be, we're able to get that and that's we're gonna do that hopefully throughout the course of the campaign. But we also should look at once we've looked at the activity report is the Market Report. What's so important about the Market Report?
Brian: When the owner lists the property with you, a lot of people think that they've looked at the market before their list. Once they've signed the document with you that you're the listing agent. They go on steroids as to what learning about the marketplace, they start looking at everything, what's on the market, what's been sold, and start comparing to their property. Now, the point is, if you don't have a market report, in this meeting, then the owner is going to start making decisions about pricing of the property without you. If that happens, you may not have the sale.
Andrew: It's amazing how many vendors or people you'll have come into your open for inspection, say are my properties on the market. I'm selling at the moment, that sort of thing and they're out researching and seeing what's going on comparing those properties that are on the market or selling to their property.
Brian: Yeah, they'll go and see a property and say look, that one's got three bedrooms and one garage. I have four bedrooms and a double garage. I've got to be worth $250,000 more, and you need to have the conversations around, is it worth $250,000? Or what are the buyers saying about price and they've been to that other property, and they see the difference in price mainly being $100,000, not the $250,000. So that's why if you don't have this Market Report, the owner starting to make decisions and getting opinions around price of their property without you. And that's not a good thing.
Lucas: No. So and they don't like you said they don't work, you know, exclusively from each other, they work together.
Brian: Absolutely.
Andrew: And you said you just tied them in just then yourself. You would say this is what come on the market. And this is what the activity reports in the buyer feedback they mentioned. They may have mentioned how they probably kept pace with the one that's just come on the market I just saw earlier in the day.
Brian: Yep, yep. The Market Report is what's come on the market. What competition has happened. And what's been selling? And how long does it take him to sell? It's really talking about the marketplace, the demand and other properties in competition and what has been sold and at what price.
Andrew: It's all keeping us focused on the prize that we want getting the best possible result for them. And we're keeping them on track as far as focused on on what's important for their property, and not being distracted by what else they can't influence.
Lucas: Exactly right. And really focusing on the market, rather than anything else that may be you know, emotionally really want to tell them, you know, get rational as much as we can. Do you guys obviously, is the better place to hold it at their property each week. Is that a good idea? Or is it maybe better do our office? What are the pros and cons?
Brian: Well, we mentioned it last week. We'd like the idea of having it in your office. It's a business transaction, if you can get the owner to come to your office they'll feel like more of a business transaction and hopefully might take a little bit of emotion out of it.
Andrew: If you've done your set to sell meeting, usually at their home, your second listing meeting, you can do that in the comfort. But that's where we set the guidelines of, okay, here's how these transactions going to shape out, we're going to do meetings, we'd like to do that at your place, get them through, show them the information, much better to do it at their place.
Lucas: Next on the agenda, we bring up these strategies, okay? Not every time a campaign works according to plan, and, you know, week one, week two, or whatever it may be, we might not get the interest we were hoping for. So when we're talking about strategies with the owners, how do we handle those sort of those sort of conversations.
Brian: If the campaign isn't going as well, which normally means you're not getting as many people at the opens as you would like, the owners are going to bring that up with you. When you ask, Are you happy with me and my company and what we're doing for you? Well, we're really concerned about the number of people coming through, that's going to come up when you ask that question, and you're going to be able to answer and say so am I and I've got some strategies around how we're going to improve that over the next two weeks. This is two weeks in a campaign, which was more of an auction campaign, a four week auction campaign. You can use this in private treaty as well, the same concept, but we're saying with an auction campaign two weeks in the on track meeting is really important. If we're not having enough people through, then we need to change strategies to get people through.
Andrew: It's important that you're demonstrating to them that you've got the skills and ability to be able to achieve the results that they're looking for. And so through your skills, you're enabled to interpret, okay, this hasn't worked. So maybe we change direction and market to a different area, or we change the style or we we change the photos. Or we might do some things to to bring in some different buyers.
Brian: You've got their best interest at hand, and that is to get the best possible price. And the only way we're going to do that is by trying to get more people through and convert them into being a buyer. And that could be changing it from a seller's ad to a buyer's ad. And we explained that on a video that we have in our CPD at the moment you can go online if you haven't done your CPD and do that. But a buyer's ad to a seller's ad will attract more buyers into your property.
Lucas: And it's also important to know, you know, where the break in the chain is, you know, we spoke about, you know, marketing and advertising might be where the problem is. But there are times when that's working with lots of people through the opens, but now I'm getting to that second inspection stage or even making an offer, or maybe there's a problem with the building and pest or the strata who work out what it is. And then we can have a strategy to handle that to get the price the result they want. Like we said, like you said, the idea is you want to show them that you're trying everything that you can, because, you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Brian: Absolutely.
Andrew: We don't want them to come up at the end of the program and say, well, you could have done this, or you could have done that. We need to approach that at these on track meetings to be able to say, well, we've tried this, we've done that. We believed this would work and and you've given everything what else could we do to achieve this, what are we going to do differently if it doesn't sell that we haven't already done? That might get you an extra $30,000 or $40,000? We exhausted everything. We've done everything we can.
Brian: You want them to come up and say, after the campaign, you've done everything you can to achieve us the best possible price. That's the attitude you want the owner to have. Yep. And that's why you've got to ask that first question to get everything out on the table. Make sure we're on board. That's why it's called an on track meeting.
Lucas: And what you said is really important, Andrew, is that you know, if they're not specifically happy as you can look at their motivation again, you know, ask them what their plan B is. If things really aren't going that well and what you can carry me out in a box before I leave this place they say all those sorts of things.
Andrew: This is where it's really important. Once we've gone through the the marketing report, the activity report, all that sort of thing. It's a wonderful opportunity for you to do a trial reserve sit and say Where are you now if the auction was tomorrow. What would your reserve be? Much better to do that after two weeks and make sure we are on track, rather than doing it two nights before the auction and finding their expectations are a little bit beyond what we thought. So do that trial reserve set, if we can see, yes, their expectations are in line with where we'd like them to be. We're good, we're on track. If they come up with something different, well, then we examine, what's your plan B, what are we going to do?
Brian: Plan B is a motivation. And motivation can change. You know, and you need to take them back to why they were selling in the first place. And making sure that they understand that this is where the market is at the moment. You know, we get we've got the opportunity of selling it. I can't give you a price as yet. We're putting a new campaign in place to get more buyers here. But let's have a look where you want to be and where you want it to be once you sold the property.
Lucas: You want to be able to always check back to their motivation. And and it's, you know, sometimes in a difficult campaign, it's they might not necessarily realise, you know, the one on track meeting, it might take them two or the third, to start realising it's the market, you've got to be prepared for that. There's no doubt about that. But you can give us that trial, reserve set.
Andrew: It's all part of this communication that we've set up, the more that you talk with them, the more that you explain it, and they are onside. They're following you through the process. You'll get to the right finish line.
Lucas: So we're going to start with are they happy with the campaign. They want to have an activity report a market report with strategies. And then we can do a little bit of a trial reserve set, or even an offer if it was a private treaty, what might be you know, the offer they'd be willing to sell at, if we've got one.
Brian: And then we conclude the meeting by coming an agreement of where we're heading. And then we're going to review how we've gone in our next meeting, which is in 7 days time.
Lucas: And create that plan of attack. So if everyone's on the same page in that regards. Now, when we're talking about bridging the gap between buyers and sellers, you know, we can certainly look at the the sellers, particularly who might have high expectations and hopefully trying to bring them in line with the market. Buy we've also got buyers.
Brian: Yeah, we need them.
Andrew: I love the scenario an agent wants painted where, when you bake a cake, you don't just throw all the ingredients in a bowl, and then put it in the oven, turn it on, and hope that you're going to get the result that you're looking for. We've got to get the oven at the right temperature and set that up, right, we're going to have the ingredients in the bowl correct being the buyers and the right motivation and that sort of thing. So when we bring them both together, you get the results you're looking for. So that's why it's important to work with your buyers. It's very, very hard to turn up on auction day and ask the buyer to do something. If you've built no relationship with them.
Brian: How many cakes have you baked?
Andrew: Haha I tell you, I'm a whiz, come over, come over.
Lucas: So how do we build this relationship? Because, you know, in previous years, you know without a database and without the internet, the relationship between a buyer and an agent and even agents in an area was very, very different compared to how it is nowadays. So what can we do to show the buyers that we're actually trying to help them as much as we can.
Brian: Ok, the first thing is why are we doing this? Well, it is going to help bridge the gap. But also, the person that buys the home is going to be vendor somewhere down the track. So you want to build a rapport with them anyway. So when they do want to sell, they are going to come back to you. And that hasn't been happening sometimes. And that's been upsetting some agents. And so we want to build this rapport with them. So we have this buyer meeting to help them purchase real estate.
Andrew: Yeah. Just go through with them. Have you got a strategy for your auction? Have you got a strategy on how you bid? Can we pre-register you so that you're set and ready? Then come along and watch what happens? Maybe introduce a staff member so that they've got to know somebody else in the team that they can work with to help them get the result? Show them that you're not working against them that you're also working with them to get the result that we're all looking for?
Brian: Yeah, so let's go over some of those points in the moment. But, you know, you can offer buyer meetings, that doesn't mean everyone's going to take it up. Okay, you know, so that don't get upset if they don't. But a lot of people will, you know if you've been to an auction you've been at an auction. I don't care who you are. It's traumatic. You know, you get nervous.
Lucas: It's stressful.
Brian: It is stressful. So to get help from a professional, who could be on their side, I mean, we're here, you know, I want you to buy you want them to buy, you know, you tell them that I'd love you to buy it. So let me give some strategies around how we can do that for you and help you. So the first one was the tactics the auction, what tactics would they have? And some people are going to say, I'm gonna wait. Well, that's not gonna help you buy the property.
Andrew: No. We often demonstrate how the first bidder takes control. Yep, usually will end up being the last bidder. But they won't believe you if you just tell them that story and not built any trust earlier.
Lucas: That's right. You can even you know, take out the old bidding sheets and show a couple of auctions. The last three auctions have unfolded and particularly if that is the case, if the first bidder ended up being the eventual purchaser.
Brian: It's important again, just to teach them that they can take control of the auction that's the important part. Buyers can take control. And by making the first bid and making it with a lot of confidence, that can put other buyers off.
Andrew: Yeah, we know a buyer's agent will turn up usually be smart dressed, stand at the front of the auction and take control as soon as somebody else bids, they'll come in quickly. They're taking control and we can help our buyers to get into that scenario.
Lucas: And we can also help ourselves in these meetings as well by saying, you know, particularly if they haven't bid ever or in a long while, you know, set themselves up. How are you planning on paying the deposit? Okay, are you doing an electronic funds transfer? What is your daily limit, we should be looking to set it up before the auction so there's no problems come auction day.
Brian: You know, it's nice to have a buyer meeting face to face. Sometimes it's nice to have it face to face and invite them to give it a private inspection before the auction. But sometimes you can't do that. You can do them over the phone as well. Okay, it's just building that rapport, finding out what they're thinking.
Lucas: And following them up is a big part of it. You know, if you say you're going to do something follow up whatever it you make sure you follow through with that word.
Brian: So that's the tactics around the auction, but who's going to do the bidding? Who's gonna do the bidding? That's and how strong are they going to be? Are they going to, you know, as we say you put $1,000 bid in someone's putting $10,000, meaning $1,000 is not going to scare them, it's going to encourage them. So we need to show the psychological part about auctions for them. And if they're not comfortable, as you said, Andrew, before, we can have one of our agents be standing right next to him and help him all the way through, but they need to meet them beforehand. Don't make it all happen on the day. It should be building that rapport and meeting them beforehand.
Lucas: You're even able to formulate an idea of what's going to happen come auction day, before you get there because you know exactly where your owners are, where your buyers are and how big the gap is, if it is and the likelihood of you going to be able to bridge it come auction day or how close you're going to get.
Brian: One of the questions you ask them when you have this buyer meeting is where would you like to see the auction start? And they might say, a certain figure you say, Well, if you wanted to start there, why don't you start it, because we can start if you start it makes it more comfortable.
Lucas: So for anyone out there who hasn't yet done their CPD, we have a topic online at the moment or in our workshops for sales at the moment, which is called managing your vendor where we give not only some agendas for the set the sale, and the on track meeting, but we also give live role plays a real life example of vendor not too long sold before who was going through exactly the sorts of things so if you're interested and you need to do your CPD, log onto our website, https://www.thinkrealestate.net.au/ and we'd love to have you on board and we'd love to get your feedback on what you think of those those role plays as well. So that's it from us for Episode Six. On behalf of Andrew, Brian and myself. Thank you very much for joining us. And we look forward to seeing you in a couple of week's time where we're going to talk about auction case scenarios, aren't we, we're going to talk about the blueprint on how to handle auction day. Guys, thank you very much for joining us. I look forward to seeing you next time.
