“Hi, my name is Steve and I’m calling to see if you are interested in buying a house.”

This statement is exceptionally boring and instantly communicates the fact that you are making tons of calls a day and don’t have the time or motivation to really understand this specific lead’s situation. You can improve this statement in several ways. First, instead of just starting with “hi”, use the lead’s name. Say “Hi Mike” or “Hi Ashley”—assume the person you are calling is the person who answers the phone.

Next, add something that lets the lead know that you know at least something about their situation. Something like, “Hi Mike, I saw you were looking for homes in Downtown Savannah”. By tailoring your message to the interests and behavior of your leads, you increase your chances of a positive sale. In fact, you’re 51% more likely to achieve your sales numbers and be 80% more productive.

Conclusion: Real Estate Cold Calling Isn’t So Bad

Despite many opinions to the contrary, cold calling can still produce results. The key is, if you can get a lead to answer the phone, to prove that you are someone worth talking to as quickly as possible. Once you show them that you are relevant to their real estate situation, then you can get into how you are able to help them and take on any objections they may throw you at you.

This is better than a simple no for two primary reasons. First, by explaining the situation to you they are choosing to stay on the phone a bit longer and are willing, it seems, to invest a bit more time in talking to you. Second, they are laying on tons of information about why they are buying or selling a house, what their goals are, and how they hope to achieve those goals. This is exactly the ammunition you need to make the sale.

Now, not to beat a dead horse, but the way you overcome this type of objection is by using what we call the PPO technique. That stands for Perspective, Process, Outcome. We talk a lot about this technique to closing on real estate calls because it is VERY important.

• The prospect’s perspective is their past experience, knowledge and speculation
• The prospect’s process is their own plan that they have for their situation
• The outcome is the unique result or benefit the prospect believes their process will deliver for them

Conclusion

Real estate objections can be scary, but they are not the end of the world…or the call. On the contrary, overcoming objections is how you will close on more calls and make more sales. Understand the different types of “no’s” and how to correctly respond to them.

3. You Can Highlight the Winter Side of Your Home – Show off your home’s winter-readiness. Have the fire going, showcase the hot tub, highlight the design and features that will make their life easier during winter, like an easy-to-shovel driveway, new roof and furnace, south-facing windows, and well-insulated pipes, among other things. These features, however simple, will show that your home can handle the harsh elements.
4. Building a Connection Is Key – Critical to finding the right buyer when selling your home is having potential buyers develop a connection to your house. And the holidays can often make this easier to do. When people enter homes during the holiday season they can’t help but imagine their own decorations, tree, and their entire family all together.

Perception Is Everything

At the end of the day, the biggest thing you’ll have to overcome as a real estate inside sales agent or outside agent is the perception that people have that they can only buy and sell homes during the spring and summer.

You are inevitably going to hear objections ranging from “I don’t want people trudging through my house during the holidays”, “I’m too busy with family coming in for the holidays”, “I’m just going to wait until spring because there will be more buyers”, “My husband and I want to wait until spring to buy a house because there will be more inventory”, and so on and so forth.

The key to overcoming these objections is essentially the same as overcoming any other objection. You just have to understand the lead’s perspective, process, and outcome. Next, you have to recognize the five aspects of dealing with an objection once they tell you it:

1. Acknowledge – Listen to what they say and let them know that you understand it.
2. Paraphrase – Restate what they said without leading and without interpretation.
3. Inquire into their perspective, process, and outcome – This is where you dig into their thought process how they see it. Get them to walk you through their knowledge, plan, and the unique thing they hope to accomplish. These are the three things you need to know in order to counter their objection, so ask questions that get you the answers.
4. Determine the unique benefit or result they hope to achieve – this is their sought after outcome.
5. Close if appropriate – Close if the lead does not bring up another objection as a result of the PPO process or if it becomes obvious that meeting is the next logical step in your conversation.

Conclusion

The most important thing to remember is that you are working with the lead to find a solution to their problem. If you both determine together that it is in their best interest to buy or sell their home before and directly after the holidays, given their unique situation, then you just need to convince them that you’re the agent or team that can get it done.

There’s no denying that there are some certain seasonal trends, but none of them should prevent someone from buying or selling if they actually really want to get in or out of a house now. There are advantages to selling and buying houses during both the winter and holidays.