The people who become the most successful salespeople are oftentimes the best storytellers. With this in mind, you'll want to have stories and metaphors available in your repertoire of responses to your clients and prospects for the appropriate moments when they may be helpful.

Stories can be great to utilize when your clients and prospects hit a roadblock in moving forward in a real estate transaction. In situations like these, it's great when you have a story you can tell of a client or prospect you've previously worked with who had similar concerns to the ones your people are facing right now. But the client or prospect in your story found a way to successfully move forward with their transaction, and they're now very happy that they did.

As an example, you might have a client who is hesitating about moving forward and closing a transaction. If you had a story you could tell like the following one from your experiences as a real estate agent, this could be the perfect time to tell it:

"What you're experiencing reminds me exactly of what was happening with Don and Jennifer, two wonderful clients that I worked with about two years ago. There came a moment in time, just before we were about to close, where they wondered if this was really the best choice they could make in moving forward. They soon realized that what they were experiencing was normal, and that all the reasons they originally had to move forward and close this transaction were still valid. So they moved forward, closed the transaction, and now the property they purchased is worth 40 percent more than they paid for it. As you can imagine, in looking back at the decision they made, they're now very happy that they moved forward and closed the transaction."

People love stories. And when you can tell a true story about clients who were faced with similar circumstances, moved forward, and were thrilled with the results, this can have a very positive effect on the minds of your clients. Having sold real estate full-time for 20 years, I know of no property I sold where the buyer wasn't thrilled with their decision to buy it when they looked back on that decision years later. But sometimes, when clients are about to commit to completing a transaction, they may not see it exactly the same way.

So when you do what it takes ethically and morally to move your clients forward in closing a real estate transaction, there's a good chance you'll be doing something they'll feel great about for the rest of their lives.

Published: August 6, 2004

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Jim Gillespie, Ph.D., is America's Premier Real Estate Coach℠. He has over 20 years of experience in real estate sales and is a past president of three different real estate companies. His FREE real estate E-newsletter with tips and creative ideas to help agents make more money is now read by over 35,000 agents nationwide. You can subscribe to his FREE E-newsletter by visiting RealEstateSalesCoach.com or contact him at Jim@RealEstateSalesCoach.com.