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Better Than the Others – Or the Best?

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I was chatting with a couple Realtors (both new agents and a couple experienced ones) in our office about where “the bar was set” in our industry, and it struck me that even though it was aleader good discussion, it is one that we probably should have been looking at from a different perspective.  My belief in both business and in aspects of my personal life (coaching, sports etc) is that if you focus too much on where the bar is, you will have a tendency to “just clear it” (to continue the analogy) and be just a bit better than your competition, rather than being the best you can be.

In sports, this is often referred to as “Playing to the level of your competition”, or if you are playing a strong opponent, you play well, and if you are playing a weaker opponent, even if you win, you have played not as well.  The ideal for all teams and players should always be to simply play to the best of your ability – not simply barely beat your opponent.

So where are the chances that we get to be our best – vs. just better than the competition in the business of Real Estate Sales?  Here are some thoughts:

  1. Buyer or Seller Presentations. Is your CMA and Listing presentation the absolute best it can be?  I thought of every single CMA and Listing presentation, and more recently even buyer presentations, as a job interview.  I prepared my entire “resume” as an agent, including stories of past successes, statistics, a deeply detailed Market analysis, a full marketing proposal… and I made it look great!  There is no excuse any more with the level of desktop publishing technology that your presentations shouldn’t look exceptional.
  2. Your marketing material. Are you running the same ads as everyone else in our business? Small Classified ads?  Flyers with the pictures of a listing?  What could you do to take your marketing efforts from ordinary to exceptional.  This is the first impression that your potential clients are getting of you, so don’t waste that opportunity with something that you argued “is like what the other guy is doing”.
  3. Your Service Level. Showing houses?  Everyone brings listing cuts…  Not everyone has snacks and beverages in the car.   Writing an offer?  Everyone goes over the offer with their client – not everyone has a reading copy for their folks.  Maybe you deal with a lot of clients who speak another language – is it worth the couple hundred dollars to get a translated version of the agreement for your clients to follow along with as you fill out the official one?

These are just a few places that immediately jumped to mind, but there are hundreds of touch points that we have with clients, both during the transaction and during their times as homeowners.  Set the bar high, stretch your thoughts, and if you ever hear yourself saying that you do something because “that’s what everyone does”….  rethink what you are doing.  You owe it to yourself to do it best!!!

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