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Cost vs. Value Report
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Top 100 Companies
Take a Quiz
30 under 30
Young Professionals
REALTOR® Emeritus |
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What Makes Clients Tick? Ed Hatch, CRB, CRS®, president of Ed Hatch Seminars in Greenbelt, Md., uses this three-step approach to find out what's important to clients: 1. Observe. Pay attention to details of personal appearance and speech that offer clues to a client's values and motivations. 2. Listen. Supplement observation with information by asking open-ended questions that elicit revealing responses: "What are you looking for in a home?" or "What are your main concerns in selling a home?" 3. Create choices. To get a feel for a client's hierarchy of values, offer comparison choices. If the buyers want an energy-efficient home that's located close to their family, ask them which feature would be most important to them if you could not find a home that had both in their price range. Dealing with Emotions Both buyers and sellers have a lot at stake, so it's not surprising that they sometimes get emotional. Experts from the Harvard University Negotiation Project offer five tips for defusing emotions. 1. Recognize and understand your emotions and those of the other party. Ask yourself what is producing them. 2. Make emotions explicit and acknowledge them as legitimate. Talk about your feelings and encourage others to do likewise. 3. Allow the other side to let off steam. Listen quietly and encourage others to keep speaking until they vent their feelings. 4. Don’t react to emotional outbursts. If one emotional outburst leads to another, the situation could spin out of control. 5. Use symbolic gestures. Small acts, such as offering an apology, shaking hands, sending a short note, or eating a meal together, can smooth ruffled feelings and pave the way for positive discussions. Source: Adapted from "Getting to Yes," by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, 2nd Edition (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991) Finding Common Ground When the buyer’s position is very different from the seller’s, it may seem that the two sides will never agree. But in fact, the problem may not be that the parties have different positions, but that they have different ideas, needs, and desires. It's your job to help them find common ground.
Source: Adapted from “The Art of Principled Negotiation: A Professional Approach to Mediation,” by David E. Beson, (Real Estate Business, Fall 1987) 11 Forms of Empathy When you have to stick to a difficult negotiating position, try showing empathy with the other party by using key words and phrases such as:
Source: Excerpted from "How to List and Sell Real Estate in the 21st Century," by Danielle Kennedy and Warren Jamison (Prentice Hall, 1999) Keeping Negotiations On Track > |
Keep It Ethical Analyze, but don’t judge. Salespeople must offer equal services to all under the Fair Housing Acts. Article 10 |