Conversations with clients can be hard! Check out these convo-tips to make your chats now, lead to dollars down the line.
1. Let’s be honest, they’re not sitting by the phone waiting for your call…
Keep it short, get to the point, add value. It is important to take a realistic approach to the call and consider the point of view of the client. We’d all like to live in a world where everyone we speak with is happy to hear from us and we get a listing, but realistically, that is not often the case. People are busy! Any call we make to a client is interrupting their day, so let’s get to the point and make it valuable to them!
Don’t let this hard truth get you down! Use this knowledge to your advantage and redirect that energy with linguistic judo; keep the call short and be concise with your message.
“I know you’re busy, I’ll keep this brief…”
Listen for opportunities to expand the conversation.
2. Mirror their behaviour
Observing a person’s energy level, tone, language, and then matching and mirroring that behaviour is an easy way to relate to someone quickly.
- Speak at a similar pace to them
- If they speak slowly, meet them so they don’t find you too energetic or hard to follow.
- If they’re a quick speaker, they might find what you have to say boring or disinteresting if you’re speaking too slowly.
- Soften or harden the tone of your voice to match them on an empathetic or authoritative level.
- Adjust what kind of language you use to meet them at the same level.
- Be more relaxed and consider casual language for the average person.
- Use posture and poise with those who hold themselves of higher regard.
I personally use this tip as often as I can and find myself connecting with clients and getting more appraisals because of it.
3. Let them answer! and the power of “or…”
We’ve all heard the term ‘he/she who speaks first loses’ – practice this skill in your day to day conversations by letting the other person fill the silence. You’ll be surprised what they spill if you don’t fill the void all the time!. You will find that they are more willing to give longer, more specific and detailed answers if they aren’t jumping off your prompts. Although it can be tempting to want to offer potential answers to fill up silences, asking a direct open question and letting the other person sit in that silence encourages them to fill the space.
Here’s an example:-
“I know when we spoke a few months ago you were thinking about buying a property at the end of the year; were you looking for a unit or townhouse? … or a house?:
“Yeah, a house.”
“Oh, good… What kind of house are you looking for?”…
Compared to:
“I know when we spoke a few months ago you were thinking about buying a property at the end of the year; what could I keep my eye out for?”
“Well we’re looking for a 3-4 bedroom two-storey house with a large backyard and pool for the kids, at least 5-600sqm…”
“Perfect and is there a particular suburb you want to stick around or???”
At the end of the second example, I used another of the tools in our toolbelt, the magical “or…”. Asking an open-ended question with ‘or’ at the end encourages the person to fill in the gaps. Give it a try!
Using these three simple tips will help take your chats from boring uneventful touchpoints, to strong, value adding chats that build familiarity with clients over time. If you found these tips helpful, check out the rest of our blogs to transform the way you approach and handle client relationships; and as always, listen for that “not yet”, as it may mean “sometime soon”.
