Building rapport with your real estate sellers is one of the most important ways to win more listings. In this terrific post that originally appeared on Inman, Pat Hiban explains 5 rapport-building moves you can use to impress your leads and win more listings in your city.
Pat writes:
You probably already know the importance of building rapport in real estate to win over sellers. Can you imagine, however, feeling confident knowing you will easily connect and build rapport with a seller each time you walk up to the front door for a listing presentation?
If you want to know that feeling, the feeling that you will win every listing, then you must start with an understanding of rapport building. Patrick Harvey, a recent guest on Pat Hiban’s podcast, is an expert on building rapport in real estate.
He came on the show to share actionable advice for real estate agents to begin using to build rapport with sellers and start winning more listings on a regular basis.
Step 1: Mindset
Before you ring the doorbell, you need to be in the right frame of mind and have your head in a great place. You must be in the right state — a fully confident state — because the sellers want to feel confidence from you and feel like you can sell their house.
If building rapport in real estate starts with the right mindset, how do you put yourself in that state?
Prepare ahead of time, listen to music that fires you up, use a positive anchor with an affirmation — each of these will put you in a confident mindset and start the rapport building process before you ring the doorbell.
Step 2: Matching and mirroring
Stand how they stand, breathe how they breathe, sit how they sit. The key is to be subtle. Also, when speaking, match their intonation use similar words.
Step 3: Use what they give you
When you walk in the door, be observant and pay attention to pictures, trophies, mementos, etc. Ask about those things to show interest. Find a common interest and start connecting with those sellers.
Step 4: Be of service
One sure-fire way to build rapport and win over sellers as a real estate agent is to always have an attitude of being of service.
Ask yourself, “How can I help these people? How can I be of service to them?”
Never think about how you have to get this listing. Instead, always think about how you can serve the sellers to help them reach their goals.
Step 5: Energy
Keep the energy up during the listing appointment. Feel the energy of the seller(s) and use that energy to build rapport. And here’s a secret weapon for building rapport in real estate.
Along with your attitude, you should also focus your energy on being of service. Why?
When you hold the energy of “being of service,” sellers will also feel that energy emanating from you and understand you wish to help them. Thus, they will feel confident that your goal is to serve them and, in turn, will give you the listing.
Pat Hiban is the author of NYT best selling book “6 steps to 7 figures – A Real Estate Professional’s Guide to Building Wealth and Creating Your Destiny”, the founder of Rebus University and the host of Pat Hiban Interviews Real Estate Rockstars an Agent to Agent Real Estate Radio Podcast with Hiban Digital in Baltimore, Maryland. Follow him on Instagram or Twitter.