« | Home | »

How to Master the Art of Persuasion in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

By Jim Gillespie | October 11, 2011

Most brokers learn the commercial brokerage business and then fall into utilizing the phrases that are the most comfortable for them. But what’s more important, utilizing the words that are comfortable for you? Or utilizing the words that are the most effective ones for persuading your clients? Because oftentimes commercial brokers say things they believe will help them to move the deal forward, when in reality this isn’t the case.

As an example, one of the worst words you can ever utilize in sales is the word "problem", yet so many commercial brokers utilize this word regularly. So why is utilizing the word "problem" a problem? Because it gets your clients and prospects focused on looking for problems that will get in the way of them moving forward.

As an example of this, don’t think of the word "carrot". But now you really have to think of a carrot just because I mentioned the word to you, before you then begin trying not to think of one.

Similarly, when you mention the word "problem" to your clients and prospects, they begin thinking of problems, and looking for them…even though your intention was to alleviate any problems and begin moving forward towards closing the transaction.

Here are some examples of how brokers can misuse the word "problem" when conversing along with their commercial real estate clients and prospects:

"What problems are you seeing with this transaction?"

"Once we take care of this for you, what other problems do you see in moving forward?"

"Do you have a problem with that?"

Notice how those statements make you feel, as compared with these statements:

"Are we ready now to begin moving forward?"

"Once we take care of this for you, will we then be in a position to begin moving forward?"

"Is what I’m proposing right now OK with you?"

Brokers can unconsciously frighten their people away from moving forward in transactions, because of the language they’re utilizing with them. In many situations your people ideally want to find a way to move forward, but they’re concerned. They want to know that they’ve done all of their due diligence, they want to feel confident that they know everything that’s important for them to know within the transaction, and they want to be certain that they won’t be surprised by anything. Keeping this in mind, you’ll need to monitor how you utilize words like the following ones to them, because just you mentioning these words gets your people to begin focusing on them:

problem, environmental contamination, bankrupt, difficult, concern, devious, shyster, bad, illegal, inappropriate, steal, manipulate, thief, weak, unknown, uncertain

In reading those words continuously like that, it doesn’t put you in the best state of mind for immediately moving forward on something you may already be uncertain about…does it? This is why you need to watch what you’re saying in every sales situation, and constantly begin utilizing words that will help your people to just naturally want to move forward.

Utilize words like exceptional, good, positive, solid, moving forward, outstanding, and exciting. And compare how you feel when reading these words continuously, as compared with how you felt when reading the other words that I’ve written above.

Your clients and prospects are engaging in what may be one of the most important financial decisions of their lifetime. They’re looking to you for guidance, honesty, expertise, and certainty. So when you choose the right words to inspire them to move forward along with you in the transaction, they’ll feel good about working with you, you’ll feel confident, and you’ll maximize the probability that they’ll end up closing the transaction.

 __________________

WEDNESDAY: Mastering How to Persuade Your Clients and Prospects

This Wednesday, October 12th, I’ll be interviewed by a Marcus & Millichap investment broker on the subject of "Mastering Your Power Persuasion Skills". You can get access to all of this information for just $19.95, including getting the audio CDs, written transcription, and written highlights all sent to you in the mail, as well as getting these all sent to you from my next upcoming interview in November also, if you’ve never been a member of my Million Dollar Commercial Real Estate Agent Inner Circle program before.

In addition, as an added bonus you’ll receive my 19-page Special Report titled "Convincing Owners to List at Your Recommended Price". So many brokers are having a tough time getting their owners to list their properties at prices that will move right now in today’s market. In this Special Report I’ll tell you all the exact words to say to overcome the 14 toughest objections brokers are telling me they’ve been facing with their property owners, around pricing their properties to sell.

If you want to learn how to persuade your clients and prospects, overcome their toughest objections, and get them to take immediate action, you’ll definitely want to be joining us for this interview.

And if you register but can’t attend the live teleconference, I’ll still send you the MP3 recording, as well as the audio CDs, written transcription, and written highlights from the teleconference, all in the mail to you!

If you’re not already registered for this live teleconference and you want to get your hands on all of this information, click here.

__________________

If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"Jim’s coaching and training has assisted our company in landing millions of dollars of new real estate business."

Pat Hall
TOLD Partners

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

 


Topics: Persuasion, Uncategorized | No Comments »