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The power of connection with Les Jarvis
With Les Jarvis, Dowling Eastlakes
Working for Dowling Eastlakes in the picturesque Lake Macquarie region, Les Jarvis knows the value in making lasting connections. At a recent listing presentation he asked the client, ‘What made you go with me?’ to which the client replied, ‘Well, you sold my house 20 years ago’. Les has worked as part of a team as a superstar lister but his love of the whole process of selling has seen him return to being a solo agent. He says, “I love the opportunity to meet people. I enjoy working with buyers and I love matching people with property. It's not got a lot to do with property, more so it's got a lot to do with people. It's marrying people with property.”
Les believes that buyers are the number one lead source. He says, “If you were at an open house and you're courteous to every person whether they're wearing a pair of boxer shorts or a three piece suit; if you treat everybody with respect along the way, they're going to want to talk to you. They're going to want to be able to field a phone call from you. When you do call someone up, they're more likely to want to listen to what you've got to say. It's mainly following up from leads from open houses, working with other buyers and just talking to people about life in general.”
Connecting not tracking
Les truly appreciates the value of the chat. He says, “A lot of people used to ask me, ‘Well, how do you sell real estate?’. Well, you know, it's having a conversation with somebody that connects and helps people understand just what it is they're buying, why they're buying what they're buying. It's selling the sizzle rather than the sausage - that lifestyle that they're going to get. Can you imagine living in this house?”
He adds, “If you can get someone to laugh, you're halfway there because you've humanised the sale. It's about people. You got to humanise it. I'm not frightened to have buyers and vendors meet. In fact, I had a house four years ago sold in Charlestown for $880,000. Huge quid at the time, but it had an outside kitchen, had a great pool, Bose surround sound system, the whole thing. I said to the owner, ‘Listen, I've got some people I really think are good’. We did a four-week campaign. I said, ‘I want you to put a barbecue on and I want them to come over and see what it's like to entertain in the house. Then I can show them through the house at night time because they can see in the pictures that we had that it looks nice at night.”
He continues, as all good agents know how to tell a story: “I had six of the best buyers on that house. Took them there. I had my wife help me out. She did a little bit of the entertaining. We have the owners there and all the buyers are saying, ‘Oh, we really love your house. What do you want, Chris? What do you want, Chris?’ He says, ‘You have to talk to Les. He's my agent. Talk to Les. He'll help you out’. I'm taking them through the house. Anyway, that was supposed to go from 5:30 to 7:30. 9 o'clock, 9:30 we're still all there, all these buyers. It was that good. We did it the following Tuesday and they all came back again. We had two barbecues. Now for that house, I had those six buyers. Each one of them put their best offer forward on a contract.”
Finally Les says, “We had an $805K, an $835K, two at $855K, $865K and an $880K was the final close. When I sent it to the buyer at the time, he said, ‘What do I need to put on the contract?’ I said, ‘Well, you need to put the best price on that contract’. He said, ‘Well, what's that?’ I said, ‘Well, when you go home tonight and you put your head on the pillow and you want to try to sleep, I want you to sleep comfortable because if you put a price on that contract and you miss out and it's sold to another buyer at a price you would have paid, you can't blame me. You can only blame yourself. What is that price? What is the price where you can feel I've given it my all?' It sold for a record price because of Les’ power and willingness to connect buyers to their dreams.
Web Books Magnify Connection
Les is a passionate convert to Web Books. He says, “I just think it's a brilliant way to communicate with people. The number one frustrating thing for a buyer is they ring the real estate agent and they say, ‘Oh, yeah. That's Mr Jarvis. He's not in at the moment. I'll get him to give you a call’. Now if I'm out on a couple of listing appointments, that might be two, three, four hours before I have the opportunity to ring them back. However, if I get an email from the office saying, ‘Hey, Mr. Smith wants to have a look at 716 Pacific Highway’, for instance, I can send them a copy of the Web Book with a message and say, ‘Listen, I'm on appointments at the moment. I will be free to give you a call in around about two hours time. In the meantime, I'm just going to send you a Web Book link which gives you some extra details on this property’."
He continues, “When they open that link, they're blown away with the amount of information that Web Books can contain so it’s a completely different conversation when you ring them back. In fact, even when I have got time, sometimes I'll delay ringing them back. I'll just text them back. I'll say, ‘I want to send you a Web Book’, and I'll wait half an hour then ring them back, giving them time to absorb what's in the Web Book. It's a completely different conversation. They want to get into the house. They're almost tearing the doors down to actually get in. It actually adds value to the property I believe.”
And there it is again - the power of connection.
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