Do You Need Sales Skills to Be Effective at Real Estate Prospecting?

Here’s an inescapable truth that you already know: To convert a lead you need to sell.

Here’s a truth you may not know: The traditional ways you’ve been taught to sell actually create resistance, making it more uncomfortable for you to convert leads.

Why Selling Is Uncomfortable?

We’re taught in sales school that we should find the need and sell to the need by demonstrating the benefit of our product or service. Along the way we’re given 101 ways to handle objections and a pile of scripts to memorize. But the reality is that when we get into a sales conversation, it’s awkward. Handling someone’s objections feels demeaning. We feel their objections are valid, but we don’t want to agree or we won’t have a sale. We feel slightly out of our integrity to “argue” with them.

A Reason to Avoid Prospecting

That kind of discomfort would make anyone want to avoid converting leads, or worse, avoid prospecting altogether.

A human being’s natural tendency is to avoid discomfort. Our brain will find creative ways to help us avoid the discomfort we feel when selling. We’ll look up properties for a prospect who isn’t really a client yet, and we’ll convince ourselves we’re working. Or we’ll create beautiful flyers and go drop them on doorsteps, convincing ourselves we’re prospecting. Or we’ll find other creative avoidance strategies that make us feel good. Or if we’re like some agents, we’ll prospect like mad, have a ton of leads, and feel frustrated that we don’t ever have enough business.

So, the answer to the title question is “Yes,” you do you need to have good sales skills to be **effective** at prospecting. The point is, “effective” prospecting is about converting leads, not collecting them. And converting leads requires sales skills.

Why Don’t More Realtors Seek Sales Skills Training?

Realtors don’t generally seek sales training for the same reason they avoid prospecting. Discomfort. They don’t like traditional sales skills (handling objections, etc.) or traditional salespeople, so why would they want to get better at something they don’t want to be?

How to Sell without Discomfort

Fortunately, there are other sales methods that work better. These are not generally taught in real estate schools because they require a bit more experience and most real estate training is focused on getting you out the door. Probably the best foundation for a real estate salesperson is a counselor sales model, like the Openhanded Selling program.

In Openhanded Selling, for example, there is an acknowledgment that a prospect has a rich and complex decision environment that includes much more than a decision about which Realtor to hire or what neighborhood to live in.

For instance, a typical open house prospect might be looking at a house and talking about it’s features, but in his subconscious he’s really worried about his quality of life by spending $3,500 a month to own a house; Or he’s thinking that he’s not sure he really wants to get married; Or he doesn’t’ like the fact that his wife’s mother in law is giving them the money for the down payment; Or he’s got a lot of packing and loose ends to tie up before he can really focus on buying. Until the prospect sorts out these issues, he’s not going to hire a Realtor.

A good Realtor will get to the bottom of these issues quickly and either help the prospect process these decisions himself, or dismiss the prospect as unqualified. A Realtor who has the ability to help a prospect sort through their “background noise,” has the ability to convert leads by being a true consultative salesperson.

Avoid the pitfalls and challenges that plague most Realtors!

I dispel the sales tactics most real estate agents are taught that actually create resistance, making it harder to grow your business!

Visit the following report—”Openhanded Selling: 10 Ways that Top Consultative Salespeople Think Differently from the Rest of Us”…and start attracting more business without “sounding or feeling like a salesperson”.

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