With today's market being more competitive than ever, our skills need to be at their highest levels. There is more competition to secure listings than ever before. There are more Agents competing for the same listings than ever before. Many of those Agents are willing to discount their fees to stay alive.

The real answer in a more competitive marketplace is:

"Don't wish it were easier – make yourself better." -- Dirk Zeller

There will always be someone you are competing against who:

1. Has more listings than you do

2. Has more market share than you do

3. Belongs to a company that is more dominant than yours

4. Will do the deal for less money

5. Has been in the business longer than you

There will always be an effective strategy that Agents can use to sell against other Agents. As a Champion Salesperson, you must understand your Competitive Points of Difference and how to convey them to the client. We need to create points of differentiation, or we will all look the same.

When we look the same, the consumer will select the Agent they perceive to be the lowest risk individual. The risk evaluation could be based on the commission the Agent charges, the price they are willing to list the home for, or the higher probability of a sale because the Agent does more business or is with a larger company. Recently, consumers have started viewing risk in terms of the fees we charge -- selecting the lower fee Agent. There are many factors, but it boils down to a perception of risk. There are a couple of things you can do to tilt the risk in your favor:

1. Understand the needs, wants, and desire of the consumer.

   Too often, we enter a presentation opportunity without clearly knowing what the client wants. What are the initial factors of their decision? How and when will they make the decision? What is most important to them? What is second most important?

   We leave our presentation to chance and hope that we hit the "hot button" of the client. We cannot guess and win consistently. We must be willing to probe the client before the actual presentation takes place.

2. Know your competition.

   For some reason, Agents feel like knowing the competition is unethical or dishonest. I find that to be a naive philosophy. In sales, our job is to promote our product or service in comparison to the other options; to truthfully expose the advantages of our product or service over the competition. If we don't help the consumer comparison shop benefits and services, there are only two outcomes, and neither is acceptable.

• The other Agent does it for us. This is disastrous and leads to lots of appointments and no contracts.

• Allow the consumer to figure it out. This lowers our odds of success significantly.

The consumer will often evaluate the wrong factors. They can make a decision based on what they hope will happen versus what will really happen. I remember early in my career losing a number of listings to a top-performing Agent who was working FSBOs, as I was doing. He had a discount program where, if they sold it, he charged them 2%.

If he sold it, he charged 4%, and a co-op sale was 6%. I got hammered initially because I let the consumers figure it out for themselves. Most of them wanted to believe they had a good chance at the 2% or the 4% fee. The truth was markedly different than their hope. When I started to show them the actual number of times the other Agent really sold a home at the 2% and 4% commission rate based on the MLS stats, they began to see the light.

Then I further explained that he would make more money by taking the buyer he created from their home to another Agent's listing and selling them that home for the 3% he would receive from the listing Agent and waiting for their home to sell by a co-op broker. I then showed them the actual monetary difference that this Agent would make on their $200,000 home by co-oping the sale, taking buyers off their home, and working to sell other Agents' listings.

He earned $4,000 more in commission income from their home for the same amount of work. What do you think most Agents would do when faced with this decision? I would then ask them, "What would you do?"

We must know the competition. Who is the competition for each listing presentation you go on? What competitive advantages do they have over you? What are their weaknesses? We all have them. How do they sell a prospect?

3. Close for the contract at the time of the presentation

Too many Agents are leaving the presentation without a contract signed. The farther the time span from the presentation until the decision by the client and their actual signature -- the lower the probability we will secure the listing. I have never believed in the be-back-listing. I firmly believe we have one real opportunity to take the listing; that's at the presentation. Once we walk out the door without the contract signed, our odds go down exponentially each day the contract remains unsigned. At the end of a couple of weeks, we have a less than a 10% chance.

At the presentation, you have just completed your case for employment. They have the clearest picture of your Competitive Points of Difference and why they should hire you. Once you walk out the door, your benefits and Competitive Points of Difference start to get muddled with all the other Agents. The clarity they have right now, after your presentation, starts to change over time. They forget that you are better and gravitate to the cheaper commission or the Agent that will start the listing at a higher price.

The time to secure a signature on a contract is at the appointment. I can hear it now, "But, Dirk, I don't want to be too pushy." I understand, but you do want to be assertive, confident, and committed to their cause and yours. If you know you're the best – tell them. If you don't believe it or can't tell them, you should figure out what you need to learn, do, study, and perfect, so you do believe it. People are attracted to assertive, confident presentations and sales people. They are entrusting their largest asset to you, and they want to feel good about their decision. Show them that you have no doubt that a decision to list with you tonight is the best decision they could make, and they should do it now.

The industry has seen a swelling number of Agents in the last few years. The competition for business is fiercer than ever. The market will change eventually, and not all Agents will survive the change. The question is will you be prepared to survive and ultimately thrive in the future?

Published: November 14, 2008

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Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print. To learn more regarding this article, please visit www.realestatechampions.com.