Blog / Buyer Management
Mat Steinwede, Brilliant with Buyers
One half of every property transaction is the buyer, yet agents often forget the important role they play in real estate.
The third session in The Mat Steinwede System is Brilliant With Buyers, touching on the relationships built between agents and buyers (who can also be sellers). While it is a numbers-based industry, real estate would be nothing without the actual people involved in the transactions.
It is not difficult to put some extra effort into helping a prospective buyer as it can pay dividends down the track. If they buy a property from you, great, but if they don’t they will still remember your service and will tell others - or come back to you when they want to sell. Think about the simple scenario when someone is browsing in a clothing store and the shop assistant asks if they can help with something. The prospective customer responds with the usual “just looking”. Instead, by introducing themselves and asking what the person came in to buy, the shop assistant has started the relationship and set a higher standard, more than likely eliciting a more thoughtful response.
“People want to buy off people, they really do,” Mr Steinwede said. “If you service people really well they want to spend their money with you and [even when the property isn’t exactly right] sometimes they’ll compromise to buy a house through you. You only get back what you put out. I can’t stress that strongly enough,” he explained.
Mr Steinwede tracks buyers by separating the top 15-20 who he contacts via phone or SMS daily and the rest are added to an automated 12-week buyer trail. Every week the system emails this buyer group properties that have been listed in their price bracket.
“I firmly believe that when my database becomes aggressive and great at servicing people, I’ll need less marketing. My owners will need to spend less money on marketing if my database is good enough, but I reckon networking with people properly is probably one of the strongest things you can do in buyer management,” he said.
The two most important aspects of buyer management are building an ongoing relationship and providing value. The relationship continues through your regular contact, but by giving something extra, like sending a market update or some movie passes, you are providing value and showing you are maintaining the relationship.
“When somebody buys a home, I can’t stress the emotional rollercoaster that they go through,” Mr Steinwede said, adding he often organised for buyers to see their new home before it settled.
“They can make sure that they’ve made the right decision, but also to start planning their life. It is one of the most important decisions that they’ll make in their life and we can facilitate it by going that extra mile and remove that emotion, just by even saying “Hey, do you want to go and have a look at your house again?” Even when the buyer isn’t happy because they missed out on the property or the one they bought had something that bothered them, regular contact builds value and can turn them into raving fans.
Key Questions
To avoid the “just looking answer”, Mr Steinwede has a series of key questions he asks buyers:
- What’s important to you?
- What’s the current house you’re living in like now?
- Why are you moving from it?
- Do you want a largish block or a smallish block?
- Do you need to be near school?
- Are you looking to buy pretty soon?
“How they answer those questions will determine whether they’re ready, whether they go into my phone or whether they just go into my database and I just send them emails,” he said. In an ideal week, Mr Steinwede will focus on his 15-20 “hot buyers” by following them up by phone every day, ensuring that relationship continues to tick over.
Essential Information
A buyer’s enquiry is just as much an opportunity to collect information for your database as if you were dealing with a seller. This means capturing the buyer’s name, number, email address and home address. Then you can send them area updates, notes, brochures and anything else needed to keep them on the boil. It not only keeps buyers up to date, but will also impress them.
“We’re dealing with people who are about to spend $500,000 to $1 million and we don’t even ring them back. It’s creating that universal loop about business coming back - and it all starts with that one opportunity.
“If someone walks through the door for your appointment to show them some properties, you make sure that’s the best appointment that they’ll have that day,” Mr Steinwede said.
Tracking Buyers
Many agents make the mistake of only tracking buyers they like, or those who would buy a house they like, but it is not about the agent, it’s about matching the house with the buyer. This can be done more effectively if buyers are tracked.
Mat Steinwede The Real Estate System includes his tried and tested strategies with letter and report templates, the order tasks should be completed and tips on achieving peak performance.
For more information on Mat Steinwede The Real Estate System visit: www.realestateacademy.com.au or call 1300 367 412.
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