March
2007
The Buyer Experience0
For those of you who have websites, you probably have heard the term “User Experienceâ€. I have built many websites, within the real estate industry and out of it, I think the number now is over 40. Anyway, when you build a website, or hire a developer to build one, the User Experience (the “UXâ€) should be paramount.
If your website does not provide the user with a good experience right off the bat, they are gone in one click. This takes seconds or less.
When you sell a home, any buyer that comes to see your home has an experience, good, bad or indifferent. The job of your team (you, your family and your listing agent) is to make the buyer’s experience (the BX) a positive one, or better yet, an emotional one that results in an offer.
Killer BX
So how do we ensure a killer buyer’s experience?
Family
First is that your team needs to be on the same page. I often see situations where the children don’t want to move or participate in the process and it shows in the home, or worse, they give the buyer bad vibes if they happened to be there during a showing. The team needs to evoke positive energy and embrace this whole process knowing that the end result is a positive one. Upward and onward with the next phase of their lives.
Listing Agent
The listing agent needs to be energetic and evoke positive emotion to the buyer and/or buyer’s agent. You need a deal maker, not just an over-the-top bubbly personality that anyone can see through. See below for more about your agent.
Emotional Triggers
The marketing campaign needs to promote the proper emotional triggers that will turn on the buyer. Most agents know very little abut buyer psychology. You must hire an agent that knows this stuff cold. This is a whole other discussion you need to have with your listing agent. First time home buyers, trade-up buyers and estate buyers think very differently and are trying to serve different wants and needs. If your agent does not know what these triggers are, it is like trying to hit a target you can not see. Very difficult.
Great Theatre
We may have read my articles on merchandising and staging but this is key to the buyer’s experience; really the central point. From the moment the buyer starts to approach the property in their car and until they leave, you must create great theatre in every square inch of the property. This means merchandising and staging everything. What they see, hear and smell impact their “experience†while they are on the property. You must manage and control this like a stage production.
Negotiating Style
The real estate industry allows agents to obtain a license with very little education. This really shows up during the negotiation process. Many listing agents think they need to “win†for their client by besting the buyers and buyer’s agent in the negotiation process. This mindset causes isolation and may result in a failed negotiation where everyone loses.
The key to obtaining top dollar is more artful. Success resides in embracing the buyers’ needs and collaborating with the buyer’s agent to “solve problemsâ€. Great listing agents learn what interests that the buyer’s are trying to serve and work to get those interest’s met and is this way, will get the transaction done for their own client.
A key to this process is to treat contract issues as a third party problem that all parties need to work together to solve. It is not the buyer that is the problem, the problem is the issue of close of escrow or price or terms or whatever. The focus turns away from the opposing sides and toward collaborative problem solving. Great agents make sure that the people are not the problem. This helps maintain and ensure a better buyer experience through out the transaction.
The Weakest Link
If any of the above fall short, the chain breaks and with it, the positive buyer’s experience, which in the end, means the seller does not get the property sold.