Success in real estate sales and leasing primarily comes down to being very good at these two activities -- identifying the prospects you want to work with, and successfully enrolling these prospects in working with you exclusively.

At first glance, it may look like building good rapport only pertains to the second activity above, but this comes into play in your prospecting also. The reason I know this, is both because of my own experience as a real estate agent, and because of my own experience in having real estate agents solicit me for business, too.

Whenever agents have contacted me, wanting to know whether I'm interested in buying or selling a home, I'm quickly sizing-up whether or not I'd be interested in working with the agent. And most of the time I feel they lack the professionalism of really being someone I'd want to work with. This is primarily because there are simply a lot of mediocre agents out there doing business, and I want to work with someone who is professional, knowledgeable, and really communicates to me that serving my needs is their number one priority.

Others may feel this way also. If you were in the market for insurance, and an insurance salesperson called you, whom you felt was pushy and overly-aggressive, don't you think you might politely try to end the conversation instead of opening the door to potentially, having them become your regular agent? This response is probably very natural for quite a lot of people.

With this in mind, your presentation and rapport-building skills will definitely affect how successful you are at finding new prospects. And the more that people like you, and feel that you're someone they will want to work with, the more they'll open up to you and tell you the truth about when they'll be looking to buy, sell, or lease in the future.

If you've been in the real estate business for a number of years now, you may have even experienced the following scenario: You connected with a prospect within the past few months and they told you they had no plans to buy, sell, or lease in the near future. And now, either weeks or a few months later, you've found out that a competing agent has signed an exclusive agreement to represent the exact same prospect.

While it's possible that there was some sudden change that necessitated the prospect now taking action, it's also possible that the first impression you made didn't convince the prospect that you were the agent they should be working with. And if this is the case, you may really need to work on your presentation and rapport-building skills with your prospects.

Here are two methods for doing this:

1. Get on the phone with someone you know and role play a typical prospecting call, where you're talking with the prospect for the very first time. And record the conversation so you can listen to it again later on.

2. Videotape a typical presentation you might make to one of your prospects when you're meeting with them for the first time. And just as in the first exercise above, have someone you know role play with you as the prospect you're meeting with.

What's true in building successful business relationships, is that people want to do business with people who share the same beliefs, ideals, and opinions that they do. They also want to work with people who communicate that they provide great service, and that the client's needs will always come before their own. In addition, people want to feel that you're someone very similar to who they are themselves.

So the way that you look, dress, talk, and move your body will communicate whether the prospect feels you are someone they will want to work with... or not. With this in mind you'll want to vary the tone, tempo, volume, and timbre of your voice to match that of your prospects, in addition to matching their body language, too. And in the process you'll want to look and dress in the best way imaginable for the type of meeting you'll be having, the location where the meeting will take place, and the person you'll be meeting with.

And finally, when you listen to and watch the recordings of how you're presenting right now to your prospects, you'll learn much that will enable you to take your presentation skills to a whole new level. And when you learn to match and mirror your prospects' voices and body language, you'll soon find a lot more of your prospects deciding that you're simply the best agent they would ever want to work with.

Published: April 27, 2005

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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.