So you’ve landed your first luxury listing appointment—now what?
Meeting with prospective clients—especially ones at a higher price point you may have never worked in before—is intimidating, to say the least.
Your listing appointment is their time to ask you questions, get to know you and ultimately decide whether or not you’re the luxury real estate professional they want to work with. In other words, it’s your time to shine. To shine, though, it’s important to arrive at your listing appointment prepared.
Here’s what arriving “prepared” to your listing appointment really means:
1. Don’t Skimp on Marketing Materials
Prospective sellers want to know one thing: that you can quickly and easily sell their home at a price they feel comfortable with. To demonstrate that before they’ve officially hired you, you need to show them that your marketing skills are up to par.
With that in mind, it’s not only important to show up to your appointment with example brochures and branded presentation materials, it’s also important that the quality of those assets can compete with the high-quality marketing upper-tier clients see on a daily basis (think luxury brands like Chanel, Mercedes and Porsche).
When preparing, some materials you’ll want to bring with you are:
- A deck of images or brochures from previous listings, or “spec” brochures you’ve mocked up of the prospect’s current neighborhood or home
- A presentation of your listing strategy
- A branded current market analysis (or a branded version of The Institute’s Luxury Market report)
- A snapshot of your results over the past year
- High-quality business cards
While the average luxury real estate professional might balk at the idea of spending more marketing dollars on high-quality brochures for their listing appointment, an excellent luxury real estate professional knows that spending a bit more up front is worth the nearly guaranteed return.
2. Do Some Deep Research on the Neighborhood
According to luxury real estate marketing expert and CEO of REAL Marketing, David Collins, when prospects ask if you’ve ever sold a home in their area or price point, what they really want to know is if you can sell the neighborhood.
Your listing appointment is a chance for you to show off how well you can speak about the nearby attractions, the school districts, the restaurants and anything else that would make a prospective buyer excited to buy.
Even if you’ve never actually sold a home in that neighborhood or price point, having the ability to speak passionately about the lifestyle the home represents at your listing appointment can put sellers at ease that your knowledge will also come across in your marketing and showings.
Be prepared to do a deep dive into all of the area’s highlights and quirks so you can easily reframe the question in your favor and let your prospects know they’re in good hands.
3. Bring More Data Than You Think You Need
Ultimately, sellers are depending on you to set expectations for pricing, how long it should take for their home to be sold and to find out what movement is happening in their market. These are all topics you should be prepared to speak on at your listing appointment, and you should prepare to bring visual representations of the data as well to help your prospects easily follow along.
This all can be shown with a digital presentation, a well-assembled booklet or other printed materials.
The catch? Before you talk about data and their home’s value, be sure you’ve made a personal connection first. By the time you start talking about numbers, they should already be bought into the idea of working with you personally, rather than basing it on numbers alone.
Stay on the cutting edge of luxury real estate marketing with our live and virtual trainings
The Institute’s in-person Luxury Live events are back and—for the first time ever—we’ve introduced a Member Happy Hour to give you even more time to network with other luxury real estate professionals (or aspiring luxury real estate professionals).
The curriculum for these exciting two-day events is based on our proven Seven-Step Luxury Marketing Blueprint to help you break into luxury real estate or reach the next level in your luxury real estate career.
To learn more and see when Luxury Live is coming to your city, click here.
Diane Hartley is the president of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, a premier independent authority in training and designation for real estate agents working in the upper-tier residential market. Hartley brings her passion for luxury marketing and more than 20 years of experience growing and leading businesses to her role as president of the Institute.
