Time for Tough Conversations

We are navigating a marketplace that feels like it requires nerves of steel. Between interest rates, the cost of living and constant rhetoric about the state of the market, everyone seems a little on edge.

Regardless of whether you’re a buyer, seller or agent, it feels like one wrong move, one missed point on a checklist, one moment of hesitation, and everything seems to fall into a heap.

Attitudes are being tested. People’s emotions are getting the better of them. People are less forgiving than usual.

For agents, this is a landscape that requires a specific professional skill set, and it’s one that’s very different from what was needed just two, three and five years ago.

The current playing field

Right about now, the best attributes you can have as an agent are resilience, composure and control. And it starts by understanding the playing field.

For our clients, they have a right to feel nervous. The past few years have seen the property market, the economy and world events defy expectations with almost monotonous regularity.

It’s not personal that people feel this way. But now more than ever, our clients - be they buyers or sellers – need us to be real. They need honesty, insight, empathy and expertise.

Above all, they need the truth, even if that conversation might not deliver what they want to hear.

It takes a well-rehearsed knowledge of ‘hard and difficult’ conversations to come out in front.

We need to say it ‘as it is,’ not by twisting words to make things look better than they are, but by delivering the facts clearly, concisely and honestly.

Those agents that can build resilience, those who understand the playing field, those who face each challenge head on, will win in this marketplace, and most importantly, retain personal composure and control.

The direct route, not the scenic route

We live and breathe real estate. We experience the market and its nuances every single day. We sell properties day in, day out.

Our buyers and sellers don’t. Instead, they hear the media commentary, talk about it with their friends, and witness it from afar…until they look to buy or sell their own property and then it becomes personal.

To help them take this personal leap, we need to earn their trust. And that involves having hard conversations that take the direct route, not the scenic route.

Our clients are seeking guidance and looking for options. They need that guidance and those options to be clear, concise and down to earth.

Don’t fumble your words, don’t allude to things, don’t be overly subtle. Deliver the information they require to make the right decision for them.

Lay it out, tell them why, offer them the options.

Be that expert that understands the current property cycle. Be the agent that asks the game changing questions that move people from interested to committed.

Bring genuine energy

To be different in this marketplace, to be the standout, requires you to do only one thing.

Bring genuine energy to every interaction.

Whilst everyone’s shoulders are drooping, be the one stands with confidence, with their shoulders back, and their posture upright.

In this marketplace, we need to do more, much more. There are opportunities. They just require more effort to find them.

The opportunity we have now is to outwork, outperform and outlast those who might have already given up.

Now is the chance to be the agent that your clients can genuinely trust.

About the Author

Manos Findikakis is the CEO of Agents’Agency, Australia’s first multi-brand real estate network, ‘the only fully integrated solution for you and your people to create an unforgettable experience.’

For all enquiries and more information on how the Agents’Agency can help you take your career to the next level, click here to get in touch.