The most successful real estate agents place great value on developing lifetime relationships with their clients. In today’s competitive marketplace, they are aware that their clients are aggressively prospected and their loyalty cannot be taken for granted. Customer focused real estate companies recognize that relationship building and follow up service are critical components for promoting both customer retention and revenue growth.

Build a relationship
Today we have access to innovative tools such as the Internet, cell phones, faxes, and voicemail all designed to enhance our ability to communicate. Nevertheless, even with all of these technological tools at our disposal, the alarming number of dissatisfied clients, lost sales and failed relationships all reflect the fact that none of us are as effective at communicating as we would like to believe.

Temperament understanding helps to foster effective communication. Research in the field of human psychology indicates people are born into one of four primary behavioral styles: aggressive, expressive, passive, or analytical. Each of these four temperament styles requires a unique approach and communication strategy. For example, if you are working with the impatient, aggressive style, they want a quick fix and a bottom line solution. Under pressure they can be ill tempered and quick to anger. Give them options so you don’t threaten their need for control. Don’t waste their time with chitchat—stick to business. While at the other extreme, the stress-prone analytical style requires more information and is interested in every detail. Their cautious and analytical nature makes them susceptible to buyer’s remorse. Be sensitive to their need for reassurance and guarantees. Once you learn how to identify each of the four primary behavioral styles, you’ll be able to work more effectively with all of your clients.

Communicate effectively
Recognize the importance of nonverbal communication and learn to “listen with your eyes.” It might surprise you to know that research indicates that over 70% of our communication is perceived nonverbally. In fact, studies show that body language has a much greater impact and reliability than the spoken word.

Create a favorable first impression and build rapport quickly by using open body language. In addition to smiling and making good eye contact, you should show the palms of your hands, keep your arms unfolded, and your legs uncrossed.

You can develop harmony by “matching and mirroring” your client’s body language gestures. Matching and mirroring is unconscious mimicry. It is a way of subconsciously telling someone that you like them and agree with them.

Improve your active listening skills. To develop and encourage conversation, use open-ended questions to probe the meaning behind your prospect’s statements. Occasionally repeat your prospect’s words verbatim. By restating their key words or phrases, you not only clarify communication, but also build rapport. Keep your attention focused on what your client is saying and avoid the temptation to interrupt, argue, or dominate the conversation.

Little things make a big difference
Rendering quality customer service is both a responsibility and an opportunity. Often salespeople view customer service as an administrative burden that takes them away from making a sale. The truth is that customer service provides opportunities for cross-selling, up-selling, and generating quality referrals.

Clients describe quality customer service in terms of attention to detail and responsiveness. Customer satisfaction surveys consistently point to the fact that the little things make a big difference. Not surprisingly, the top two customer complaints with regards to customer service are unreturned phone calls and a failure to keep promises and commitments. Make an effort to see yourself through your clients’ eyes. True customer service is meeting and surpassing your clients’ expectations.

Successful salespeople “go the extra mile” when providing service and turn the customers they serve into advocates to help them promote their business. Your referrals and follow on business are in direct proportion to the quality and quantity of service you render on a daily basis. Want more referrals? Improve your service.

Here are five powerful ways to improve the service you provide your clients:

-Under-promise and over-deliver. Develop a reputation for reliability; never make a promise that you can’t keep. Your word is your bond.

-Pay attention to the small things. Get in the habit of returning phone calls, e-mails and other correspondence quickly. Follow up, follow up, and follow up.

-Stay in contact and keep good records. Take the time to jot down notes from meetings and phone calls making certain to record all relevant information. Maintain a written record of service. This is especially helpful when clients are reassigned to new agents. Setup a suspense system to track important contact dates such as client review calls and birthdays. Consider sending a personal note or an article of interest every six months.

-Give your clients a promotional gift. Consider sending them a letter opener, coffee mug, or a calendar with your picture and contact information.

-Establish a feedback system to monitor how your clients perceive the quality and quantity of the service you provide. Service is not defined by what you think it is, but rather how your customers perceive its value. When it comes to customer service, perception is reality.

Progressive companies emphasize commitment to customer service from the top down by establishing training standards and continuously monitoring customer satisfaction. Companies that fail to implement an effective customer service program actually do a disservice to their customers and unknowingly, leave the backdoor open to their competitors. If you do it right, sales and service blend seamlessly and you will exceed your customers’ expectations.

John Boe presents a wide variety of motivational and sales-oriented keynotes and seminar programs for sales meetings and conventions. John is a nationally recognized sales trainer and business motivational speaker with an impeccable track record in the meeting industry. To have John speak at your next event, visit www.johnboe.com or call 937-299-9001. Free Newsletter available on website.

Success in selling really revolves around doing simple activities consistently over time.

Many people get caught up in the time consuming, success draining world of invention.  They try to figure out better ways to get their product or service message across to potential customers and they forget about the simple actions that they must engage in on a daily basis to achieve the success that they are striving for.

Darren Hardy, publisher of Success Magazine, recently released a great book on this very subject.  The Compound

Effect talks about little actions done day after day result in big wins over time.  He tells the story about the Tortoise and the Hare, which my kids and other children all over the world love, but shares this tale in a completely different level of understanding that applies to your success journey.  You see, Darren shares that just in the way that the tortoise plods along daily toward his goal of winning the race, your daily completion of simple, but profitable, tasks virtually guarantee that you will get to your goal.  In fact, the Hare, with all of his boasting and starting and stopping, actually loses the race in the end.  Apparently, according to Darren Hardy and proven through this fable, the slow, steady march of simple, repeatable, profitable processes are what lead to winning in the end.

Tip #1 Continually Educate Yourself

I read a lot of books.  In fact, my library of books is somewhere between 800 and 1,000 and the vast majority of that library deals with personal growth, leadership and success.  I like to reflect on the concepts in these books, most of which remind me of the same truths written in different ways.  The last three books that I’ve read are Crush It!: Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman.  All three are great reads and I’ve written short reviews of each one on my blog.

Tip #2  Surround Yourself With Positive People

You’ve heard the saying “Birds of a feather flock together”, right?  Well, in terms of you getting to the most important goals in your life, this saying could not be more true.  If you have dreams and aspirations that you want to accomplish, you’ll have to check the people and information sources that you are spending your time around to make sure that they are people who are also looking to go in the same direction that you are.  Unfortunately your friends and family might not be very motivated to achieve more in their lives.  They might be happy right where they are.  Worse, they might not want you to move to far ahead of them and will subconsciously pull you back by distracting you from your worthwhile goals and dreams.

Now I’m not suggesting that you should end all of your relationships with people who aren’t the strivers in life.  In fact, some of my best friends have no interest in the type of business building activities that I involve myself in.  That’s ok.  Differences are what make our lives and our culture richer.  However, if I am interacting with a person who takes away from my self-confidence by ridiculing my business activities or intentions, then I must remove that type of person from interacting with me in order to stay focused and committed to my goals.

A few ways to surround yourself with like-minded people are to look for group associations locally that you can start to attend and develop new friendships and relationships around what you are interested in.  One of the new and growing tools that I like is MeetUp.com.  This is a service that allows people to post local, in-person groups that are based on interest categories.  If you’re interested in internet marketing, look for a group that is focused on that and join it.  Attend the meetings and get to know others in the group.  These associations will push you forward in your quest for success.

Another way to surround yourself with positive and uplifting people is to attend industry or company events.  If you’re involved in a network marketing company or a real estate or mortgage company, there are numerous company-sponsored and industry related events.  When I was actively building my mortgage business, I attended a Keller Williams event because Gary Keller was speaking. I didn’t work for Keller Williams, and I wasn’t a real estate agent, but I took the opportunity to learn from Mr. Keller’s success and surround myself with the other people in the local area who were looking to grow their business and their life in a positive direction.

Take Imperfect Action

This is really where the rubber meets the road.  Too many people try to get everything lined up just perfectly before they go out and get busy.  Many times that effort and energy that is put into planning and perfecting your business is wasted because of a fatal flaw in your business plan that wasn’t apparent before you started talking with clients and getting proof of your concept out in the market.

A popular saying by entrepreneurial experts is “Ready, FIRE, Aim!”  That simple saying reminds us to move forward on our goals with urgency.  Once you get your ideas out in front of people, they will give you feedback which can help to make minor adjustments along the way.  Those minor course corrections are what will lead you to the realization of your dreams and goals.  It’s never perfect and you’ll never make everyone happy.  You will, however, make many people happy when you bless them with your ideas, products, and solutions that will improve their lives.

I was reading the “What I’ve Learned” section of my Esquire magazine the other day and enjoying what Larry King had to say.  His answers were based on what he’d learned over his career interviewing the most interesting and successful people in the world on his show, Larry King Live.

There is one item that stuck out to me and is so simple to implement that it is most often overlooked.  This single thing is quite likely responsible for more failures in sales and general business than any other thing in history.  The first few words that were given to Larry were “I never learned…..”.  Larry King finished that sentence by saying “I never learned anything while I was talking.”

Wow.  Simple and profound.  How often have we seen a glimmer of interest in our prospect or customer and proceeded to launch right in to an in depth explanation of the details?

We’ve all heard it before.  “God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.”  Listen twice as much and talk half a much.  If I think back to my own sales experience, I laugh.  There are so many times that I know I talked my customer right out of the sale.  I gave them too many things to think about.  I brought up objections for them that they may never had brought up on their own.  I learned over time to clarify through asking questions and listening closely for clues as to whether they were ready to buy.

As I’ve spent countless hours in sales presentations training other sales professionals on the art of closing the sale, I’ve noticed this tendency to be the single most important and glaring deficiency of all.  It becomes almost painful watching a presentation go awry due to an overzealous presenter who wants to show all of the whosits and whatsits of whatever it is that they are selling.  When we leave the presentation and go over the details, I constantly reiterate the same thing.

Here’s the answer to the $64,000 question that I posed in the title of this article:

If the customer shows interest in your product or service, ask them what they like best about it and sit and listen to them.  Let them talk themselves into the sale.  Most motivated buyers of a product or service wouldn’t be out looking for it in the marketplace if they didn’t have an intention to buy.  If you have a quality product or service that matches what they are looking for, they’ll likely buy from you…..unless they feel like they’re getting “sold”.   You avoid them feeling that way and achieve the same end result by finding out their interest and then letting them expand on those interests until they have obviously convinced themselves that they should buy and buy right now!