Just 2 Minutes - Interviews by Kamil Sarji

21-Mastering Real Estate Sales Through Empathy with Allan Langer

• Kamil Sarji • Episode 21

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 Discover the secrets behind successful selling with Allan Langer, founder of The 7 Secrets Sales Academy. In this exciting episode, Allan breaks down key strategies for sales professionals and real estate agents, sharing insights from over 25 years of experience. Learn why empathy and asking the right questions are the ultimate game changers in the sales world. Allan dives deep into the emotional aspect of sales, body language techniques, and how to build rapport with clients to close deals faster. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, Allan’s practical advice will help you sell more by selling less. Tune in to learn how to win over clients, create trust, and stand out in a competitive industry. 

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Welcome everybody. I'm Kamil Sarji, your host today for just two minutes. And I have Allan here. Allan, you want to tell us about yourself? Hi Kamil. Nice to be here. Allan Langer. I own the Seven Secrets Sales Academy, which is a consulting company that helps companies sales teams not only sell more, but sell better. I've had my own company now for about five years, but I've been in sales for about over 25 years now. Awesome. Really excited to have you here today. Thank you. So the first two minutes we're going to talk about I'm just gonna ask you random questions, and then we're gonna go into the real estate industry. Okay. And sales. Sales. Sales makes the world go round. That's right. So I got my timer here. You ready for action? I'm ready. Fire away. And go. All right. What do you think people do on a rainy day? What do I think people do on a rainy day? I think most people Um, get depressed on a rainy day and probably are not as productive as they should be. Okay. Um, so there's this video on YouTube. It was like, uh, viral and went viral where this guy asked this kid, he was like, what's nine plus 10? And the kid said 21. Any reason why this kid thought it was 21? Maybe because of blackjack, the card game? I don't know. Maybe. He's a young kid. Do you think there's intelligent life miles deep in the ocean? Intelligent life? Well, it depends on how you define intelligent. Like, um, I think all animals are somewhat level of, of intelligence. So yeah, I mean, there's definitely stuff in there that we, we don't know about for sure. And it's probably pretty smart. It's like two and a half miles in the ocean. Yeah. It's crazy. Um, they're talking about our bodies have Microplastics? Do you think it's a good thing or a bad thing? Don't know what microplastics are. Well, it's just like really, really tiny plastic pieces that are in our body. Oh, like from ingestion and things like that? That can't be a good thing. I wouldn't think that's a good thing. Like we're not morphing or evolving to something. Hope not. What do you think makes a good person? Empathy. Empathy and kindness, yeah. Nike or Reebok? Whatever's on sale at the time. What about Lowe's or Home Depot? Um, I used to work for Home Depot, so I have a little bit of an affinity for them, but I think they're both good. I think, I think from a branding standpoint, Lowe's probably has a better brand. Branding. Yeah. All right, well, welcome to planet earth. How was the questions? Those are good questions. I've never been asked any of those questions Love it. Yep. Yep. It's cool. Yeah, I love it, too. So Allan realtors use sales I know it's not really selling because people are going into homes and they like the house and like oh, yeah We want to buy this so but there is sales that go into that Mm hmm, not just that but winning people over and working with them versus you know 7, 500 agents in Rhode Island. Correct. The thing to think about if you're a realtor and sales is the beginning of the transaction. How am I going to get the listing? That's where sales really comes into play because if someone's selling their house and they sit down with three to five realtors to interview them, if it's not, most people do that, especially if it's not referred, they're going to choose you because if they like you or not, and you're going to get them the best deal. So that's all sales. And the other thing to keep in mind where I think a lot of salespeople, no matter what the industry get wrong, is that they're referred by somebody because most realtors, from what I've seen, are referred from someone else. Doesn't mean you're going to get the deal. Like they automatically think, well, I was referred by. My uncle Tony, well great, but if the people he referred don't like you, they're not going to use you. They're going to go to the someone else that, that they were referred to. So sales is, you know, we sell every day, every day where, you know, if you don't think you're in sales, you're fooling yourself, but from a realtor standpoint, brokers and agents, you have to convince the people you're dealing with, whether it's getting the listing, whether it's a referral. Or even walking in the house that you're there to solve their problem, to find what they want. And they need to like you. I mean, I've seen realtors get fired after five or six houses because the realtor is not showing them what they want. So they find somebody else. That's all sales. Excellent, and there's a lot of things I want to talk about that, but first there's the aspect of I feel it's like yeah You're getting referred someone from your cousin your family or friends saying hey use this person and they're like they use them and versus someone they don't know and There's this like distance like they don't know this person and you're trying to like win them over So that's kind of difficult, especially if they're referred someone Yeah But here's the thing, you know, you have to separate yourself. So let's say you can never assume that they're going to like the person that was referred. So I would approach that by, all right, I really have to win these guys over. Let me show them how I can solve their problem. I'm really going to show them what they want. I'm not going to show them what I think they should have. I think that's it. Again, I'm not in real estate, but I've bought many houses and I meet realtors all the time. I think to be honest and no deference to your audience, but I think a lot of realtors are lazy. I really do. I think a lot of sales people are lazy. You can't be good in sales, in real estate, in any profession, by just assuming you're good at it. Or assuming that, oh, they're just going to buy because they need a house, so I'm a realtor, I'm just going to take them around houses. You need to blow them away. And then you'll start getting more referrals. So, you have to work on the fact that they need to trust you. They need to say, I really like Kamil, he's gonna find the house that I want, or he's gonna find the building that I want. Rather than, I guess I'll use Kamil. You don't want that. You don't want, like, that wishy washy approval rating. You want someone to be like, I'm really excited about this. You know, I feel like sometimes it's, so getting referred the person, versus getting, or trying to win people over. I feel like some of the sales that happened Not just real estate, just in general, are kind of like, they feel like obligated to do business with the person. You mean the buyer? The buyer feels obligated to do business with the realtor? With the realtor. Because they were referred? Because they were referred, or there's other psychological thing going on. But they feel like obligated, like I have to do business with this person. Right. What's up with that? How do you create that? How do you create the obligation, or do you think the obligation is a bad thing? It could be, it could be bad, because I mean, they could have gone with someone. Right. Because I mean, I've done it, I've hired plumbers, or you know, contractors, and I kind of feel, I don't know what it is, I can't explain it, but I feel to fire them if they're not doing what they're supposed to do. Not that, and I know there's better, like I could go and get someone better, but I'm kind of like obligated to this person. Yeah. Weird. Well, I mean, I think it's just human nature. Most people are, they want to do the right thing, and most people are not strong enough, or have the gumption enough to say, I don't like what you're doing, get out. You're fired. But if you don't think they're doing the job, if you're the buyer, and if I'm the buyer, I'll give you an example. When I first moved to Rhode Island in 2006, I should have fired my realtor, but you're right. It was an older guy, I felt bad for him, kept showing us these houses, and it was sort of like a very wishy washy, lukewarm experience. And then finally, we bought a house. This is the crazy story, actually. He showed us this house, it was a cape in Warwick, and I was coming from New Jersey, I knew nothing about Rhode Island. I was trusting him to take us to where, what we were looking for. And he took us to this house at very, in retrospect I remember this, very specific days. He's like, I can be there, let's meet at 2 o'clock on Tuesday. Okay, so we met there. Same thing, second time. 2 o'clock on Tuesday we met there. So we bought the house, closed on the house. The day we're moving in, we're taking the furniture in, the planes are flying overhead. Like, I could wave to the people in the plane. You don't like that? There were no, no, I didn't like that. There were no planes when we saw the house. Uh huh. Oh, two o'clock. Two o'clock there's no planes. The day we're moving in and I'm like, what, I don't remember his name. I said, what's going on with the planes? He goes, well, you're near the airport. He never told, we didn't know the area. He didn't tell us we were near the airport. I said, you didn't disclose that. He goes, it's no big deal. And this is a true quote. I'll never forget this until the day I die. He said to me, you can only hear them when they take off and when they land. So we lived in a house for three years with the planes. And to this day, I'm still furious at that realtor because he conned us. He took us to the house when the flight pattern wasn't going over our house. Wow. So I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah, you know, if I should have followed my gut and fired him before we bought the house. So how'd you find them? Well, like where was he? I think we just, no, he wasn't, we didn't know anyone here. So I think we just went online and we're looking at a house and we saw him as the listing agent for the house. And that's how we found him was just by chance, really. Awesome. That's funny. So let's separate these two, cause there's two different audiences. There's the listing and the selling. And you're right, to be a real estate agent, successful, you have to be really good at marketing, really be good at sales, really be good at negotiating, good personality. So a lot of things that go into a good realtor. And so let's go into focus on the listing. Okay. We get the listing appointment, we go there. Now it's like, all right, we find out there's others that they're interviewing because we're asking the questions and it feels kind of threatening because you don't know if it's like a, you know, superstar agent in that list of people. Mm hmm. Is it better to go on the first one or the last? It doesn't matter. I guess if I had to answer that question, it's always better to be the last person. But if you suck and you're the last person, it doesn't matter. They're going to go with the first person. It's better to be the best person. And here's how you do that. If people ask me, I get this question a lot, What is the number one problem with salespeople today? And I answer that question by saying, Reps sell too fast. Let me tell you what I mean by that. You sit down with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and they're looking for a house, and they say, Yup, or they want to sell their house. They say, Yup, we want to sell this house, blah, blah, blah. And you immediately start telling how great you are, and how great your company is. Right away, Well, we can do this. We can get you, you know, we're only 4 percent commission, whatever it is. We, we, we, we, this is what we can do. And you never ask the really important questions. So my biggest advice to salespeople is shut up and stop selling so fast and ask open ended questions. Us. So as soon as someone says, we want to sell our house, don't say, well, we're good at that. We've sold 300 houses last year. You say, well, tell me more. Why do you want to sell your house? Then they answer that question. Then you ask another open question. Well, in what ways has, you know, the, your retirement affected where you wanna live? Describe for me how you feel about selling your house. All of a sudden, now you're showing empathy. Now they're feeling, wow, this person really understands me. They really understand why we want to do this. And even though we're going to give up another percent, I really like them because they're going to help us sell the house the right way. Selling, as you know, is an, it's emotional. People are selling their houses emotional. It's transactional in some instances, but most of the time it's emotional. If you don't tap into that, you're just going to be the other typical five realtors that they saw. So differentiate yourself by asking one open ended question after another, and then there'll come a point where they'll be begging you to sell them. Like, wow, this sounds great. Tell me what you can do for me. Yep And now you start to sell. It's so crazy because I've talked to people like they're, I mean, I have agents that I do like new agent training for and seasoned agents. So we have like a weekly training class and it's a different subjects, but it's insanely crazy how, you know, you're meeting someone and you do this thing and then they walk away and they're like, wow, I want to do business with them. But you didn't even tell them anything about yourself. You just ask them questions. Correct. And now they're like, they're awesome. I don't know why, but this person is great. Yep. Because you ask questions. Because they'll listen to you talking the whole time. Yeah. So that's huge. 100%. If you don't, people want to do business with someone that makes them feel comfortable. And you don't get to a comfort level by talking about yourself. You get to a comfort level by asking them about them. And why they're there. I used to sell Anderson windows, as you know, and Anderson windows is the most expensive window in the world. And I'd walk into a house and instead of saying, you know, here's my window, let me show you all the bells and whistles on the window. I would say, tell me why I'm here. And they would like, Oh, well, I have this window over here. Good. Describe for me how that's making you feel at night when the room is cold. Instead of saying, I can solve that problem. Let me show you my window. And I would just keep asking questions. I will tell you, Anderson trained all the reps to bring in a window 100 percent of the time. I told my boss after I retired, I told him, you want to know how many times I brought in an actual window? He said, how many? I said, about 30%. So only three out of 10 appointments, I actually showed the customer a window. Wow. They bought because they were comfortable with me and I got them excited and emotional about the purchase. So people, the crutch is the product. This is what it does. This is the bells and whistles. This is all of this rather than focus on why they need it. It's great being, speaking of listening. So we talked about the emotional part, get them emotional and ask them a lot of questions, but it's easy because you're face to face with them. You can see how they react to your questions and how you react to different things. And that's a great thing. It's like a cheat code in a video game. Well, it's one of my most popular workshops. By far, it's actually the most popular one I do for realtors. It's body language in sales. If you don't pay attention to non verbal communication, you're just not paying attention. It's funny. I told you this, you know, when we were preparing for this, I just did a talk up in Massachusetts for a very large home improvement company. There was about 80 people in the room. And every time I do this talk, I ask, I start the talk by asking everyone who in here pays attention to body language and all 80 people raise their hand. And then I say, okay, great. Who does something about it when they see something? And it's quiet. You can hear a pin drop. And that's the issue with body languages. We all think that we're paying attention, because we are, subconsciously. Our body does it naturally. But when you see a non verbal signal, like you just went like that with your eyebrows, meaning that showed interest to me. But I was angry at you. Now you weren't angry. I would have told her the context of your body. It's all contact. But if you don't, I use the term, the old TSA term. If you see something, say something. So if I'm selling you, or if I'm talking, trying to get a listing and you purse your lips and I just keep talking, I just lost the listing because I said something that you didn't like. Or didn't think was something you wanted to hear. If I don't address it and say, let me pause here for a minute. Is everything okay? That makes them feel heard again. Oh, well, you actually, you know what, we don't want to give 6 percent commission. We're looking for five. Now I just found that out because he pursed his lips or she pursed her lips. Many times customers won't tell you what they're feeling. They're just going to say, I'm sorry, we went with someone else and you don't know why. But if you address the body language in a very conversational way, they're going to feel like, Oh my God, this person really understands me. You can't ignore body language. You have, if you see it and body language takes a lot of practice, you can't just in a two hour seminar, learn how to do it, but you can start, read books, watch videos. And I became a student of body language years ago and that's when my sales started to take off. I'm curious, have you sat in on an actual sales scenario and not said anything, just watched? How the salesperson interacted with the seller and like, watch what they're doing and knew right away, like, this is how it works out. Hundreds of times I would go on a ride. They call it ride alongs. I would go with a rep and see how they were doing with a customer. Usually within 20 minutes to a half hour, I was able to tell if they lost the sale for sure, or if they had a chance to sell it, having a chance to sell, it still means they still had to do good for the rest of the appointment. But there were times 20 minutes. 30 minutes in where the customer's body language was so evident and they just kept blathering on. I'm like, well, this is going to be another waste of an hour cause they're not buying from this guy. It's very, very clear to me because I pay attention to it and I can see it. That's why when I do my trainings for companies, I always say, I want to ride with your reps or I want you to record your zoom call so I can watch. And not a lot of trainers do that. And when you see, I can help you better. I can help you in general, like just from the tips I'm giving you now. But if I actually see your interaction with a customer, then it's a whole new ballgame. Now I can really say, you see when he did with his eyebrows right there and you just kept talking, that's where you lost the sale. Yeah, this is very, very, very, like, very important. Yep. Now, people hate doing cold calls. They hate it. Yep. And one of the reasons is, you can't read the other person's body language. You're on the phone with this person, so you get nervous. You're like, what are they, are they picking their nose? Are they, you know, are they angry at me? So that's really tough. And in our industry, you're interacting with a lot of people on the phone. Like someone called about a listing and you're like, yeah, talking about the listing and you just don't know because you can't see the, the body language. Yeah. So from that point, you get into tonality because a body language, there's this very famous study and it's been done many, many times, but the study is, it's called the 93 percent rule, which means 7 percent of communication is done verbally, comes out of your mouth. 38 percent is done with your tone. The remaining 53 percent is your nonverbal body language. So not, when you add those two together, 93 percent of communication is actually nonverbal. It's tone and body language. Your words are just sort of like the vehicle to get out there, but they're listening to your tone and they're watching your body language before they're deciphering your words. So from a phone call, you can at least hear their tone or try to understand their tone. And if you have a good tone, then you get into the mirroring aspect of body language, where they feel obligated to mirror that tone. Meaning, if you have a very happy tone, they're, they're much more likely to have a positive response than if you have a monotone or just like a deadpan. So I tell people who are on the phone a lot, Put a mirror on your desk, because what you see in the mirror is what the person hears. So if you're smiling and you're happy, you've heard the term, people can hear you smile, right? You know, we've all spoken to someone on the phone, a customer service rep, who you know right away doesn't want to be there, doesn't want to talk to you, or the rep that's very happy to help you, and you're like, you have a completely different reaction to that. You're actually imagining their body language because their tone is so positive. So I would tell your reps, yeah, everyone hates cold calling, but if you approach cold calling very happily, put that mirror, smile, you'll just get more positive responses and you'll feel better about it doing, doing it too. Yeah. And the faster you can make your connection with that person, the better. Right. So like a for sale by owner, you're calling and you're like, Oh, hi, do you have an agent that you're working with? Stop calling me. Versus your house is for sale. Yeah. Right. All excited. Yeah, exactly. Oh man. So, okay. So at the listing appointment, and then you have your presentation, blah, blah, blah. One of the things that people do, which is a big, no, no, is. This is what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to do this and this and this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to give them the whole plan, or the whole game plan of how I'm going to sell your house. They take that, oh thanks, and then they call their niece, who's an agent, and they're like, here you go, do this, and sell my house. Oh, yeah, right, right, okay. So I say, yeah, I'm going to market your property, get it out in my network. And I don't tell, I don't give them how I'm going to do it because you're not my client until you sign with me. Right. So I'm not going to give you all my information. That's huge. Like, one of the things I, I teach is don't give out what you're going to do. Don't give the blueprints because it's not right. You agree with that? It's not. It's an interesting concept and I guess it depends on what you're doing is, different than other realtors. If it's not, then you can give your blueprint because all the other realtors, I mean, I would assume it's, everyone's fairly similar from a realtor standpoint. What's going to differentiate them from hiring you is you, but they also need to know that you have authority and you know what you're doing. So sometimes showing the steps you're going to take, people love, the brain loves steps. So showing them what you're going to do step by step. To a non realtor, it looks good because you have a plan. To a realtor, every realtor is probably going to do the same thing. But to make the customer feel comfortable, they know you have a plan. So, if you sat in front of me and you said, I'm going to, you kind of were generic, I'm going to market, I'm going to put, do this, do that. And then the next person sat down and I liked you both equally, but they actually had, here's my plan written out, I'm going to go with them. So, unless your plan is completely different and very unique, I would definitely share with the audience, or with your customer, the plan. Not give them, not give them a copy of it. No, you can tell them, but the more visual it is, the more it'll help. People like to look at stuff, especially if they're meeting with people. Cause quite often, if they feel really comfortable with you and you've got that plan in front of them, they might sign with you right there, on a first call close, and you don't have to worry about leaving this stuff. But, just know that, from a psychological standpoint, people love to know how you're gonna help them. You're not the hero. The customer is the hero. You're the guide in the story. They're looking for help. You need to guide them there. And when you guide someone there, they need to know the plan. And here's the plan. And if the plan is generic or kind of vague and someone else's plan is much more clear psychologically, they're going to go with that person. So to answer your question, I think it really depends on what you're offering, but if everything is fairly the same as any other good realtor would offer, then I would just. Yeah, put together a nice pack and say here's our plan. This is how we're gonna sell your house Interesting. So I think we've covered the listing side. Mm hmm I don't think there's anything else that I'm missing as far as sale I mean next step is for them to decide and I know really like tough sales Tactic is to kind of like when you go to the car dealership like oh, I have this car to trade in But I'm interested in this car. Oh, can we check out your car? And then some guy takes your keys, and they're gone, and you're like, Alright, I don't want to buy that, it's too expensive. Oh, the lowest we'd go is this much. And you're like, I want out of here, give me my car back. Oh, I don't know, the guy's got it. Sit down, it's okay. I want my keys right now, I want to leave. No, well the guy's just Right, right, right. Got you locked. The old tactic. You can't leave. So how do you How do you How do you create that in someone's house? You don't. I'm not leaving until you guys hire me. I'm just gonna live here. Call the police, I don't care. I'll live in this house. People will, you know, in real estate, in a listing appointment. It's a sales appointment, you know, and you get to the end, you want them to say yes to the listing and you don't want them to call you back or think about it. See, people will buy. The best time for people to purchase is the time that they hear all the information. That's when the emotion is the highest. And that's when they're supposed to get excited about you and say, we don't need to see anyone else. You know, I would do that with Windows, you know, they had three other people coming in, but I was the first guy, but they were so comfortable and everything sounded so well, I'm gonna cancel the other appointments. That's what you want. Cool, yeah. Right, that's what you want. And, but I want people to think about, like, getting to the close is not a destination. It, getting to the close is just a culmination of a really good conversation. So, you ask a lot of open ended questions. They start feeling comfortable with you. They get to the point where they say, Okay, tell me how you can sell our house. Then you go through the plan, the steps of selling the house. This is how we're going to do it. This is great. The commission number is aligned with what they want. I would recommend, I'll let you guys chat about it. Let me go outside for a minute. I got a call on another house, open house, that I've got going on right now. They chat. You come back in. So, how would you like to proceed? And they say, let's do it. So it's just a conversation, but if you kind of like, all right, let me get to the clothes Let me like, you know segment this whole thing It feels very like a pitch it feels like a script and they're not gonna be comfortable You're gonna do just another typical realtor. Remember if you do little things like this You're gonna set yourself up much in a much higher position because most realtors most salespeople I'm not picking on realtors. Most salespeople have bad training You They follow scripts, they sound like salespeople, and people don't get comfortable with them. If you become the anti salesperson, the anti realtor, the one that makes them feel comfortable, then you'll do well. And I guarantee you, you look at all the successful realtors in Rhode Island, that's probably what they do. They separate themselves from a comfort level. And you said something very, that stuck with me since the marketing camp. Yes. It was something about, it's not how many sales you've closed. That's how many people you've helped? Yes. Yeah. That's the whole basis of my book, which is sitting right here. Get rid of the mindset of, you know, I need to have this listing. I need to sell 10 houses this quarter. I need to do this. I need to sell, sell, sell. If you change the mindset to, I need to help. How many homeowners am I going to help this quarter? I'm here on this listing appointment to help them sell their house. I'm meeting these buyers to help them find the house of their dreams, not to sell so I can make my 5, 000 dollar commission. If you get rid of the commission thought process and just focus on helping, you'll be amazed on how much more you start to sell. Yep, very true. Yep. So I watched a lot of videos about selling and like how to sell, like some movies too. Mm hmm. But, so I have here the Gold Door, gold pen, okay? It's very nice. Mm hmm. And it has a little touch thing on the, on the back. So you take your phone, you can use that, and it also writes, so you can write with it. So I'm gonna sell you this for 5 dollars, okay? Ready? Go ahead. You don't wanna buy this phone. I mean, this pen. You don't wanna buy it. Do I wanna buy the pen? No, I don't. You don't wanna buy it. No. It's really nice. Sure. Looks nice. You're really missing out on not getting this pen. Well, that's it. Anyways. You sure you don't want to buy this pen? I'm positive I don't want to buy that pen. You're really missing out. It's a nice pen, I mean. It says Gold Door Realty right on it. You know, 5 dollars is a really good deal for this pen. No, I don't want the pen. I'm good. Yeah, I'm not selling it. It's really good. It's a really good deal. Yeah, I think I'm going to keep it. Okay. I don't think I'm going to sell it. It's really nice and shiny. This pen is amazing. Are you trying to sell me the pen right now? No? Am I making you nervous because you're taking a sip? No! I'm just You're like, this is going to take 10 minutes. This is taking a long time. So that's not a good way to sell. Not a good way to sell. Okay, all right. So anyways All right, so let's go into the buyer side, okay? The same thing with the buyer. They don't know you. They've never worked with you before. And they go to you for help. They go to you, they're, this is the first time buying a house, or they've bought before. So here's your time to shine and show them that you're, you want to help. A lot of the times it's over the phone, but once you get them in an appointment, once you get them sitting with you, aside from like body language, anything else that we should be doing, like, I know make them comfortable, make them, Here's what I recommend this to a lot of people who, the initial contacts over the phone. Try to make the initial contact over Zoom as much as you can. Get them both there. Oh, no Zoom. And I say, don't do, buy a consultation on the phone. Don't do it on Zoom. It has to be in person. Yeah, yeah. Even better. Yeah. But if they're, let's say they're in Tennessee and they want to move to Rhode Island and they're looking for an agent, don't do that over the phone. At least do it over Zoom. Okay. Yeah. But obviously face to face is always better. And you're going to get a lot of people pushback. Like, just tell me what your commission is. I'm just looking for this. How can you help me? And your response is, I need to sit down and ask what you're looking for. I'm working for you. So, going right back to the open ended questions, You know, if they're, I don't know, you answered this question, is it rare for people to search for realtors to find a house or they usually pick the first one that they meet? I'll tell you how. It's the person that got in touch with them when they were looking. Yes. Whoever that is. Whoever that is. It doesn't matter if they're, you know, whoever they are, they just go with them. Yeah. So, but you still want to make them feel comfortable like they make the, made the right choice. So you don't want to short on that initial appointment. You want to ask a lot of open ended questions and find out exactly, you know, what they want, obviously. But you want them to feel like you're the person to help them find the house of their dreams. And then you've got to continue that when you're going through the process. What a lot of agents do is they get a new buyer. All right, let's go look at homes. And they go take them out to look at homes right away. I think it's super important to meet them, teach them, like, how can we be better than the other buyers that are running around looking at homes? It's a way to develop a connection with the person. Yeah, 100%. And it's a way to really Dig down and find what they want, eliminate what they don't want, and things like that. I mean, I've had many friends and family members say, you know, working with realtors, took us to three houses that, you know, we said we didn't want fourth bathroom, whatever. We said this, we didn't want it, and they're taking us to a house that has that. I mean, that's pretty frustrating for a buyer. So, and I've also heard, this is just me from the outside of the real estate industry. I've also heard, you know, I could have done what they did. I found the same house online. Why is this person, what do I need this person for? So really establishing the value of why they need you, why they need the realtor, because a lot of people now with Zillow and all these things online, they think they can find their own house, call the realtor, you're the listing agent, I want to buy this house. Yeah. And that's it. You got to really explain and show your value. For sure. Now more than ever. Yeah. Yep. Because now the whole lawsuit thing about buyers, you know, sellers paying the commission for the buyer agent and all that stuff. Craziness, but yeah, it's definitely important and gaining their trust and to be able to work with them. Mm hmm. Any other thing that's important to do while on that meeting? It's there are two separate animals because it's yeah Listing you're in their home and you want to sell their home for them versus a buyer who's lost They don't know like you're educating them on how to buy a house, right? I would also say, you know, showing your value is also showing your network and the other people that you have that could help them, like real estate attorneys, title people, contractors. I've got someone that can take care of that roof for you. Like, it would make me feel comfortable if my realtor said, anything you need done with your house or whatever, I've got the contacts. Rather than, well, there's a lot of roofers in Rhode Island, you can find one. Well that, your value just plummeted. I mean, what do I have you for? So I think showing the value that you're really networked into Rhode Island with some quality people. I'm not going to get you ripped off. I know a good person to do this. You know, the old Rhode Island saying, I know a guy, but for people who need help, knowing someone is very, very important. So I think that's also an aspect that you can really bring to the value that you can bring to the table with the customer. What about facts, throwing facts at people? Like in a listing appointment, someone could say, Oh, this year I sold 300 homes over asking price sign here. Yeah, if you don't ask them why they're selling their house or those open ended questions, it doesn't matter. You're talking about yourself. Right. It's like talking about your business. It's like saying, hey, you know, someone comes into your business and instead of asking why they walked in the door, you say, well, my grandfather started this business 35 years ago and it was in a little barn in his backyard and now look at this place and blah, blah, blah. They're talking about their business and you never asked them a question. So you can say that at some point, but say it after they really feel like you're listening to them. Because if you just say, I've sold 300 houses over asking and yeah, that's a great, that's Statistic, but if I don't like you it doesn't matter and I'm only gonna like you if you ask me about me Yeah, so yeah, ask them questions Maybe throw some facts how we do as a brokerage and what do you think about when you see or you feel like their body? Language, they're like trying to like asking them straight up like I could see that you're not comfortable Is there something I'm saying or doing or is what's your objection with that? You can say, just be careful on pointing out exactly what you're seeing. So let's say you see uncomfortable body language. Instead of saying, I see that you're uncomfortable, because that might get them a little defensive. I just like to use the phrase, let me pause here for a minute. So Kamil, let me pause here for a minute. I know we've been talking a lot. How's everything sound so far? And if you're uncomfortable, you're going to say, well, to be honest, I don't like 6 percent commission or to be honest, whatever is making them uncomfortable. They'll tell you if you ask it in a very conversational way. If you say, Kamil, I just saw you purse your lips. Tell me what's going on. That's going to make me, Whoa, this guy's weird. So, but I like to use, you know, there's certain terms like sounds like, or feels like I just said something that is a little confusing. Did I read that right? Actually? Yes. I don't understand what you mean by buyer's commission and seller's commission. Stuff like that. But I love the phrase. Let me pause here for a minute. We all know the term ABC, right? Always be closing from Glen Gary, Glen Ross, greatest movie ever. Always be closing. I hate that term because always be closing is a selfish mindset. Always be closing. Meaning I need to make this sale. My ABC is always be checking, always be checking in on the customer during the conversation. Always ask them how things are going. How does that sound? What do you think about that? As an open ended question, not, do you like that? Here's the biggest tip I can give you today. All the Realtors listening, don't ever ask, do you have any questions? That's a closed ended question. What's normally the answer to, do you have any questions? Nope. No, I'm good. Thanks for coming over. The question you should ask instead is, what questions do you have? That gets them to think, and they are going to answer that, usually with a question. Or they're going to be at least thoughtful enough saying, no, I don't have any questions. This was really good. Or you know what? I do have a question. How long does it take to sell my house? Or if they didn't ask that, but if you say, do you have any questions? 98 percent of the time, the answer is no, even though they do have questions. So turn that closed ended question into an open ended one. What questions do you have? Absolutely. Let me pause there for a second. I just got to take a note with my Gold Door Realty pen. See, if you ask me why I might need a pen, I might start thinking about buying it. Oh no, it's not for sale. Can't use scarcity on me. This is a special pen though, I mean. It is a very special pen. It has our phone number on it, and our website. Just in case you forget. I won't forget. Okay, sorry, let's get serious. All right, so I want to talk about matching, this is the last thing, matching their body language and then matching their tone. Mirroring. That's a good thing. Come across as low or come across as higher than them. So, because you don't even really know until you start interacting. See, here's a couple things I'll say about mirroring. First of all, mirroring is sort of a second level body language thing. I would not worry about mirroring until you start to just pay attention to body language in general and then do something about a certain tell when you see it. Once you get comfortable doing that and understanding what the other person's body is saying, then you can start to mirror. What mirroring does is creates rapport, unspoken rapport. So for example, I have the same, I have my leg crossed like you do. Okay. That meant now at the first time I did it, I did it subconsciously, which means that I'm liking the conversation. Oh, shoot. Yup. And I did. And then I realized it didn't like, Oh, this is good. We're building rapport. We have a good rapport. Okay. So, right. So I can do this. And now we're mirroring each other. Once you get very comfortable with body language and you see that you can start to mirror, then you can do something to see if they follow you. If they subconsciously start to mirror you, then you know you're doing a really good job, that they like you and you're building really good rapport. It's the same thing over the phone with tone. If you start with a very upbeat, happy tone, it's very rare for the person to return a negative tone. It's very hard to return a negative tone when someone's talking to you positively. Very easy if they're talking to you very deadpan or very, you know, almost in like, I don't really care about this phone call. Yeah. Monotone is okay. I mean, you. Monotone is not okay, because monotone If you're mirroring them, then monotone is not How are you supposed to do that? No, so, over the phone, if you want to talk about tone mirroring, you want to try to get them to mirror your tone. If they're very monotone, you don't want to mirror that back, because that's just, that's not going to go anywhere. You want to try to get them, you want to try to get them With asking some good questions, but positive, upbeat tone in your voice with a smile on your face. It's very hard to say anything negative or monotone when you're smiling. It really is. So, but I don't want people to start focusing on mirroring because when you start focusing on mirroring without practicing the early stuff, you start missing the early stuff and you're so concentrating on mirroring that you're missing the conversation. So mirroring is something that should be done once you're comfortable with watching body language completely. So, just be careful with that. The advice I give is there's so many really good books, and YouTube now is an amazing source for watching body language videos. Make sure you're watching credible people. Just practice! Go to a bar, sit at a restaurant, go in a coffee shop and watch body language, watch conversations, and you'll start to see what people do, and you get better at it. You just get better at it. And, literally, it's almost second nature to me to, you know, When I'm having a conversation with someone to watch their body language, and sometimes I don't even have to address it, like, let me pause here for a minute. I can just adjust the conversation to fix whatever I just saw. So yeah, so I would say as a final thing, do your research, read some books. Joe Navarro is a very good, he's a former FBI agent that has two or three really good books. Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference, another great book, my book. But do your research and practice. And then once you get really comfortable with it, then you can start moving over to the mirroring stage. Awesome. Very exciting. Yep. A lot of useful information, but there's a lot more to learn. So how can people find you? So just go to my website. It's the 7Secretssalesacademy. com or allanger. com, A L L A N G E R. com. Both go to the same place. Here's my book. It's on Amazon. It's called The 7 Secretss to Selling More by Selling Less. I also have audio and Kindle copies available. All right. Awesome. Would you sign the book for me with my Gold Door Realty? Of course, but I'm not going to pay 5 dollars for the pen. I'll pay 5 dollars. No, it's awesome. Well, thank you very much. You're welcome. Great to be here. Appreciate it. Yeah. All right. Bye everybody.

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Kamil Sarji

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