Open House Lessons
Zak and Amanda were pretty new to real estate sales, young, eager, and ready to make some good money. And, as happens with most agents at that stage, they ended up doing “open houses” on a regular basis.
Also as it happened, their broker knew a thing or two about open houses. He knew that a good deal of the traffic came from nosy neighbours who just wanted to see inside the house and see how it compared to their own, while another significant slice of visitors would be tire-kickers looking for bargains or just learning about the market. Seriously interested buyers would be few and far between.
The broker also knew that open houses were valuable to educate the sellers and help them be more realistic about the market and the prices, but even more important, the broker knew that open houses were a great learning experience for new agents. Tough, but valuable.
Zak approached open houses with a mixture of annoyance and condescension, grumbling and grousing from the time he left home until the time he returned, and sporadically even thereafter. He made sure that everyone in the office heard about all the idiots who came through and wasted his time.
Wasting time he could have spent on optimizing his website, time he could have spent stuffing flyers in mailboxes, time he could have spent at “meet and greet” sessions, handing out business cards and fridge magnets.
Amanda, on the other hand, showed up early to each open house with flowers and a $25 coffee shop gift card for the homeowners “just to make up for having to vacate the house for the next six hours”. She brought her own high-end coffee grounds, organic teas, and all the fixings, and asked permission to use her clients’ coffee maker and kettle.
Amanda knew full well that a quarter of the visitors, or more, were nosy neighbours, and that at least a third were tire kickers who weren’t even seriously in the market. Next year, maybe, or even in three years, or five.
What Amanda did was make sure everyone who came through the door felt like a special guest, and that there was no rush. Over coffee and muffins she took the time to find out about kids and dog parks and the best local restaurants. What they really liked about this house, and what would they really like in houses in their price range. And what would that range be?
By the time each couple left, Amanda had made friends, and a profile for her ever-growing contact list. Almost all of the “tire kickers” were happy to have Amanda keep them in mind whenever she came across a gem which might interest them, and most of the nosy neighbours now had a new best friend who just happened to be in the real estate business. Why, her kids even went to the same day camp as theirs!
She also lingered long enough to give the owners a synopsis of her day, a careful blend of happy news and reality, part of the client education which every successful seller understands, and expressed how grateful she was for her day in their amazing home.
Two years later, Zak had moved on to selling cars, leaving the stupid real estate business behind. It just seemed that no matter how many meet and greets he attended, or how much he paid to optimize his website, or how many mailboxes he stuffed with flyers, he just didn’t get much business. Amanda, on the other hand, was already being written up as one of her city’s “Top Forty Under Forty” and being bragged about as someone to watch.
Just lucky, I guess.