How to Avoid Being “Salesy” in Real Estate

Traditional sales training usually encourages agents to steer every conversation toward real estate, focusing only on getting the business, and immediately asking people whether they are thinking of buying or selling. For many, this can feel too aggressive or  “salesy,” and understandably so. Today Matt and Garrett guide us through the process of initiating real estate conversations organically by focusing on helping people, bringing value, and being genuinely curious about what is going on in their lives, whether that be real estate-related or not. They talk about detaching from the outcome of these conversations altogether and instead focusing on building relationships. If your intention is to serve people with information, be their expert, and connect, the transactions will always follow.

Our hosts revisit the importance of F.O.R.D. topics (Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams), and Garrett shares his favorite question to open the door to real estate conversations without being “salesy.” Matt and Garrett share their best advice for keeping these conversations natural, including asking people about their dream home, having a relaxed approach on social media, and being mindful of the context of your relationships so that you can have fun with them in an appropriate way. They remind listeners that you don’t have to run away from real estate conversations to avoid appearing “salesy.” In fact, today's episode will show you how to move toward them, but with sincere interest and intrigue, rather than by shifting into pushy "pursuit mode."

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Episode Highlights:

• Part of Ninja is not bringing up real estate until the clients does
• Ninja attracts people who don’t want to act “salesy”
• Real estate and homes come up organically in conversation all the time
• You can utilize postcards and marketing to do the real estate talking for you
• Then you can just focus on connecting with people, and a lot of times, they will bring it up
• Traditional sales training encourages agents to immediately ask people if they’re thinking of buying or selling
• With Ninja, you can take that off the table completely - you don’t need to go there
• The focus should be on creative marketing and reaching out to people to build relationships
• If your business is built entirely on asking people for referrals, the minute you stop doing that, business stops
• If someone brings it up, it’s totally okay to engage - but keep the conversation natural and avoid diving right into asking whether they’re thinking of buying or selling
• Answer their questions and ask your own to keep the conversation going about real estate
• Balance between knowing you’re the expert and having a conversation with someone - you don’t want to simply lecture people about statistics and market trends
• You can make outbound calls to follow up on your conversations and give updates without being salesy
• Your intention should be serving people with information and making connections, not trying to get business
• Detach from the outcome and the transactions will come
• If you bring value and expertise to the conversation, you will establish yourself as a trusted advisor
• Focus on helping people, and they will refer you to everyone they know
• Analogy of catching a cat - you’ll never catch a cat if it knows you’re in pursuit mode
• F.O.R.D. (Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams) questions are a great way to create connection and steer the conversation to real estate organically
• One of Garrett’s favorite questions to ask is, What made you fall in love with this house?
• Then you ask what they might look for differently in their next home
• It’s fun to talk about dream real estate
• Have genuine curiosity and embrace the real estate conversation
• You can initiate a conversation about real estate, but it needs to be about their life and their world
• Be curious about what’s going on with them, bring value, help people
• If you approach it as a “Sales” conversation, a wall will go up quickly
• For new agents, asking people what made them buy their house opens up the conversation and helps you learn more about what draws certain people to certain properties without feeling “salesy”
• Have fun with it
• What you put on social media will inform the way people feel when they have real estate conversations with you in person
• If you’re coming on too strong or salesy, they may not feel comfortable approaching you in real life
• Be mindful of the energy that you’re bringing to the conversation and the context of your relationships with people
• Don’t run away from real estate conversations - move toward them, ask questions, get intrigued
• Focus on helping people, sharing your expertise, and learning what’s important to them as well
• This will help you build those relationships and become a trusted advisor

 

Quotes:

“I think that this is a really interesting dynamic that a lot of people get into, because they try to figure out, When is it okay to bring up real estate?”

“Ninja attracts people who don't want to act salesy.”

“Some people may be uncomfortable talking about real estate because you don't have a good autoflow program going on.”

“You have to have other pieces built in your business that do the real estate talking for you. But the cool part is, if you're doing it right, people will bring it up for you. And that's what we want. We want people to make that connection with us.”

“Real estate always comes up.”

“Most of us are not going to develop a strong business by asking people if they could send people our way. That's also just not a good sales strategy. Quite frankly, I'd rather see people actually come up with really creative quality marketing programs, and go out and door-knock...versus just constantly asking people for business. Because you won't be able to talk to enough people. This is why you want to build relationships.”

“If your business is built on you asking for it... the minute you stop doing it, it turns off.”

“You are their expert. Be their expert.”

“There's this balance between you knowing you're an expert and having a conversation with somebody.”

“All of a sudden, you're not being salesy. You're not pushing real estate on anybody. They're not walking away going, Well, Matt got really aggressive when all of a sudden we brought up real estate.”

“The intention there is serving people with information, with value, with connection, whereas a lot of people might be looking at, But I'm trying to get business.”

“Make it your intention to serve them and bring value to them first, then the transactions will come.”

“You'll never catch a cat by being in pursuit mode of that cat.”

“The minute that person thinks that there's a game on here, they move away so quickly. And it kills the referrals, it kills that future business down the road.”

“Everybody's got something they fell in love with about their house. So if you want to kind of go down those areas, I find that that's very fun when you can dive into that.”

“I think you can lead in with real estate, but you need to lead in with real estate about their life and their world.”

“That's the biggest thing that I want people to understand, is that it is okay to talk about real estate. It is okay to go down these paths with people. You just don't want to go into it with the intention of trying to find business... But if it's genuine intrigue, genuine interest, I think you get away with a lot. And have some fun with it.”

“Don't be afraid to talk about real estate. Just don't put yourself in a ‘Sales’ situation because the ‘Sales Wall’ will go up. And it will go up fast. Just bring value, and help people, and embrace the real estate conversations.”

“The more you do it, I think the easier it gets, too.”

“If you ask somebody, What made you buy this house? That is not a sales question at all. It's an intrigue question.”

“This is why Ninja works so well for people - depending on your relationships, there's going to be different ways that you have conversations.”

“Do not run away from real estate conversations. In fact, run towards them.”

 

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