Agents from all across North America are saying that there are more FSBO's coming on the scene than at any time in recent memory. But these are FSBO's with a difference; they are willing to pay a selling broker a 'normal' commission for introducing the buyer and selling the home, but they are less willing to pay a listing agent.

The overwhelming sentiment expressed by these FSBO's is 'What value do you bring to the table?' Often, it is more plainly expressed in terms such as 'I can run ads in the paper; I can put up far more signs than you guys, because I'm selling my own property and the town won't take them down; I can create my own feature information; I can visit open houses and see what other homes are like; I can call a couple of agents to find out if my price will be realistic, and finally, I can pay my lawyer to handle the contract part of things. So, tell me, Mr. Real Estate Agent, what value do you bring to the table?'

Your ability to answer this question better than the agents with whom you are competing is the key to your success in getting listings.

Begin by asking the prospect what they want to know from you - is it pricing? is it marketing? agency? Ask, 'What do you want to know about?' You'll find that the majority of prospects want to know what their home is worth, what you will do to get them the most for their home, and what they need to do to their home to get the most for it.

Before you answer that, you need to do a tour through the home, making copious notes on the property and then you can sit and begin with their concerns.

Start with a question - how have you seen other homes marketed? What kinds of materials were you able to take away? Often, they will say, 'nothing' or 'an MLS print-out.'

To refresh the seller's memory, have some feature sheets available from some of your competitors.

Present your marketing plan. One suggestion is that you show your prospect what your plan is for the kind of home the seller has to sell. For example, the following might be a plan for a typical, upper-level entry home at $200,000:

• Placement on 10 web sites
• Virtual tour
• Full-colour feature books on the home, spiral-bound & complete with a CD of the virtual tour and some e-books on moving
• Talking House radio transmitter

Let's stop right there for a moment. It's about at this point that your seller will gawk in disbelief at the things you say you will do to market the home. Why? It's obvious to the seller that other agents aren't investing what you are investing in the presenting listings to buyers.

Your sellers will ask you why other agents don't provide the same thing. Explain that the feature books cost $12 to $15 each to produce, and obviously the other agents choose not to invest in that particular form of marketing.

Now pull out testimonials from visitors and buyers to your past open houses who were impressed by your materials. This really solidifies the value of these marketing materials in the seller's eyes.

Not only are your feature books impressive, but your seller will be impressed by your use of virtual tours. Less than 30 percent of listings have them, and it is powerful to say to a seller that 'all my listings have a virtual tour.

The same process happens for Web placement and Talking House - none of this stuff is cheap, but I'm the one in the marketplace who has made the investment. It is obvious to the sellers that I don't just take 5% of their equity and line my pockets with it, which is how they deep-down-inside feel about commissions.

By this time, it is becoming apparent to these sellers that you believe in investing in marketing your listings, and maybe, just maybe, the other agents they spoke to don't invest as much.

Now, that you have the seller's attention, go into the rest of your marketing plan.

• Your e-mails or newsletters to your sphere of influence and top 200 agents in the surrounding area
• Your brochure box with diskettes of your virtual tours
• Your feature flyers that are put into every piece of mail that goes out of your office, and other more typical marketing tools such as just-listed cards, print advertising, etc.

The seller can't help but see that you do a ton of stuff; and, they have tangible proof that you are investing your own money into getting their home sold.

But you aren't through yet.

To seal the deal, do a 'dress your home for success' consultation, to help the seller maximize equity-extraction from the home. Your consultation can include books, videos, and checklists to cover this so-important part of the marketing process.

Depending on how much you actually spend, you can tell your seller what you think your expenditure will be for the first week you market the home. This figure could approach or exceed $1,000.

Move on to pricing and market statistics. If you really want to be thorough, have the monthly sales activity for the entire marketplace since January 1st, 1996, broken down in $25,000 increments and by Units Sold, Days on Market and List-to-Sale Ratio. This is no problem for many of you, because your MLS system may give you this information quite simply. Cap it off by telling your seller specifically about the competition near his/her home. The fact that you have actually visited the homes and can report what their strong and weak points are is impressive.

There are so many ways to stand out when you are making a presentation to the public in the hopes of them buying your services, but to show them that you are investing in their success is a sure-fire winner.