Blog / Vendor Management
Lee Woodward, 5 Reasons for a Face to Face Vendor Meeting
When working with your current vendors during the selling process, there are times when there is no substitute for a face-toface meeting, and there are 5 key reasons for this:
1) To continue building the relationship
Face-to-face meetings allow you to clear any blockages and provide warmth in the relationship.
They provide an open framework for discussion and allow a dynamic meeting space where you can draw diagrams, demonstrate case studies and read your clients’ body language to gauge how the relationship is going. Watch here for tonality, pace and the language used as these can offer significant clues for you to work with.
2) To confirm the stage in the selling process and the clients motivation
Things change dynamically throughout the selling process and often, as time goes by, vendors lose sight of the level of activity they desire. Meeting face-toface with the vendors allows for open communication and feedback, and therefore gives you the opportunity to confirm where things stand in the selling process, while at the same time reassessing their motivation to sell.
Some questions you could ask at this time are:
- “Have you found anything to purchase?”
- “Has your situation changed since you placed the property on the market?”
- “Did you think we would see a result by now?”
3) To reconfirm the price
Which properties have recently sold in the vendors’ area? What new properties have been placed on the market that are now competing with the vendors’ property?
Often vendors take an opportunistic approach when setting a price with you at the time their property enters the market. As the market changes however, relevant feedback from purchasers may help to guide where the property should be priced in order to sell. Before you are able to confirm the pricing strategy, you must do some research by assessing the following:
- Previous inspections of the property
- Results from open homes
- Any possible offers
- Any interested parties
- Recent sales in the area
- Comparable properties that are new to the market.
4) To re-establish the marketing program/activities
How much of the property’s marketing budget has been spent to date? How many open homes have been conducted? How many private buyer appointments have been made? What results have been achieved in relation to possible offers?
Re-establishing the marketing program gives you the opportunity to re-engage your vendors’ interest in the campaign. Are the vendors happy with the current promotional program? Given the level of activity to date, what changes and additions could you make to the program to attract further buyer interest, whether it be new photos, larger advertisement sizes, overhead photos etc.?
5) Key recommendations and go-forward plan
If it was your property on the market, what would you do given all the circumstances? You could quite easily use this idea in conversation: “Mr & Mrs Vendor, if this was my property, and I had it on the market today, I would ......”.
By demonstrating your professionalism and empathy towards the vendor’s situation, you can offer key recommendations on what needs to occur in order to achieve a positive result. This would allow you to come away from the meeting with a mutually agreed go-forward plan.
← Go back
