Solid interpersonal skills are necessary to consistently do business with the most desirable clients in your territory. Agents who are lacking in these skills can be out there pursuing business with prospects while for the most part being completely unconscious about what they are saying and doing with these people that is actually hurting their chances of doing business with them.

Sometimes an agent can feel that he or she is doing a great job with a prospect but the subtle mistakes that the agent makes can cause the prospect to hire another agent for the assignment instead. And after this happens the agent who loses out on the assignment will often have no idea why.

Let’s say that an agent is talking to a property owner about listing their property. In discussing how thoroughly the agent intends to protect the owner’s best interests in a transaction the agent might say something like, “Mr. Jacobsen, I want you to know how thorough I will be at protecting your best interests in the sale of your property. I want you to know right now that I would never do anything that would cause you to end up in a lawsuit.”

The agent’s choice of words in this situation has caused the owner to now think of the possibility of a lawsuit when this was not in the owner’s mind at all just a few minutes ago. Even though the agent’s intention was to assure the owner that he would not end up in a lawsuit if he selected the agent to list the property, the agent’s choice of words here has produced the opposite effect. The agent should have stopped with "I will be protecting your best interests in the sale of your property."

If someone were asked to not think of a red Corvette what’s the first thing that the person will think of? That's right, the red Corvette! Your mind has to first identify exactly what a red Corvette is before it then tries not to think of it. This happens with everything we say in our conversations with other people each and everyday. So in its simplest form we need to become more aware of the language we are utilizing with our clients and prospects. Each and every word that we choose has its own meaning attached to it which will cause our clients and prospects to think and feel different thoughts and emotions.

If right now if you're using some words in your presentations with your clients and prospects that cause them to think about undesirable things and feel undesirable emotions, you are probably at times pushing these people away from wanting to do business with you. And up until now this may have been completely outside of the your conscious awareness, too.

Imagine for a moment the owner of a property interviewing an agent as a potential candidate to list their property with.

The agent is making their presentation and utilizes the following words throughout the presentation: Harm, damage, litigation, break-in, liability, dangerous, steal, thieves, bad credit, bad reputation, undesirable, flake, bankrupt.

Now having just read those words did you notice how they affected you? When most people read these words they begin to feel the negative, undesirable states associated with them. They do so either with these words individually or with the combination of all of these words put together. Keeping in mind the state that these words tend to induce would probably not be conducive to an owner giving the listing on their property to you as an agent. People don’t want to list their properties with agents who cause them to experience negative, undesirable states.

This is exactly what happens in many real estate sales situations. Agents say words and phrases without recognizing the impact that they are having on their clients and prospects. So you need to make sure to utilize words that will have your clients and prospects associate great, positive feelings to you being their real estate agent.

Every single word in the English language has its own characteristics that cause people to associate certain thoughts, beliefs, and feelings with it. Make sure when you are talking with your clients and prospects that you choose words that have them associate positive thoughts and feelings to you being their real estate agent. In the end it is the sum total of everything you present to them that has them feel like working with you....or with your competition instead.

So make sure that the words you utilize when talking with your clients and prospects have them feeling good about you and wanting to choose you over any other agent in your territory!