Boost Your Prospecting Game: Scripting Tips for Real Estate Agents

Phone prospecting is one of the most challenging aspects of real estate lead generation, especially for new agents. The challenge can most accurately be tied to one phenomenon: “call reluctance.”

In this post, we’ll explore how real estate prospecting scripts can help real estate agents of any experience level overcome call

CALL RELUCTANCE

What’s stopping us from calling?

There are myriad reasons real estate agents shy away from picking up the phone to make real estate prospecting calls. Let’s look at the three most common:

• We don’t want to bother someone. Agents often use this negative self-talk to avoid working the phones. Instead of looking at yourself as a “bother,” it might be best to reframe this excuse as: “I’m calling to help them realize their dreams.” After all, the reality is that you are in the service business.
• We don’t like confrontation, or rejection. This is a biggie!! The vast majority of people are, by nature, non-confrontational, and rejection-adverse. But if you’re going to be in sales, you have to learn how to embrace rejection.  In fact, many top-producing agents make a game out of rejection, meaning they see multiple rejections as a sign that they are doing their job.
• We convinced ourselves that something passive, like a letter or postcard mailer, can do a better job of “telling our story.” Some might call this the “spray and pray” approach to sales. As long as you’re putting a lot of “content” out into the market, perhaps something will click and a prospect will CALL YOU!!

All understandable, but obviously not a path to long-term success.

Top producing agents-yes, even the best-often grapple with the same fears and anxieties. They’ve learned how to push through their fears. But, perhaps more importantly, they’ve come to learn that reliance on well-crafted real estate scripts is often the difference between success and failure.

WORKING WITH SCRIPTS

Understanding the benefits.

You can experience myriad benefits from working with lead generation scripts. Here are the most important ones:

• Consistent delivery: The more you work with real estate prospecting scrips, the more focused and consistent you’ll become with your delivery. Consistency will help you become comfortable when making your prospecting calls.
• Confidence: The more comfortable you become using real estate scripts, the more confidence you’ll exude to the prospect on the other end of the call.
• Professionalism: Confidence translates to professionalism. Homeowners, especially those with expired listings who may have had a negative experience with their previous agent, need to feel confident that they are working with a pro (you) who can get the job done.
• Handling objections: Proven real estate prospecting scripts like those you’ll have at your fingertips as a VULCAN7 CLIENT, are an ideal tool for helping you handle and deflect the inevitable objections that come with being a prospecting real estate agent.
• Building rapport: The more comfortable you become with scripts, the more effective you will become at connecting and building rapport with your prospects. Remember: people want to work with people they like.

REAL ESTATE PROSPECTING SCRIPTS

Building your story.

There’s an old adage: facts tell, stories sell.

When you call someone and don’t use a script, the natural tendency is to jump in with a (nervous) litany of facts about yourself, your experience, your success stories, etc. You might be so thrilled to have somebody answer that you don’t want to give them an opportunity to end the call. Keep at it at all costs!

Well, the reality is, success in real estate sales is driven by two complimentary strategies:

1. Learning how to ask effective, probing and, most importantly, open-ended questions.
2. Learning how to truly listen to how your prospects answer those questions in order to better understand their dreams and motivations.

In other words, instead of droning on with “facts that tell,” you are helping your prospect “build a story that helps you to sell.”

The data varies, but the overwhelming evidence is that real estate agents who use real estate lead generation scripts vastly outperform agents who choose to wing it.

One of the excuses non-scripters often identify is the notion that “scripts sound mechanical.” Of course, there’s truth to that statement. The idea of mechanics is to make things simpler, more predictable, and efficient. But a good script serves as your foundation, not the end-all. Everyone sounds different, has unique voice modulation and inflection points.

The more you practice with your scripts, the less mechanical, and more comfortable you’ll become at BUILDING YOUR OWN STORY.

Again, the script is a framework upon which you help create a story with your prospect. With time and practice, you will be able to transform a rigid script into your own, natural approach to engaging potential clients.

GUIDING THE CONVERSATION

The importance of asking solid questions.

One of the most important reasons to use proven scripts is that they help steer you away from the tendency to ask “yes or no” questions. Nothing can squash a phone call like giving the prospect the reflexive opportunity to say NO!

Scripts guide you in the art of asking effective, open-ended questions. Such questions often begin with how, when, where and why:

• How long have you lived in your current home?
• When do you think you’ll be ready to move?
• Where are you thinking you’d like to live next?
• Why do you want to live there?

So, for example, with the first question above, if someone responds by saying: “I’ve been in this home five years,” a good response might be: “where were you living before that?” This line of questioning takes you down a path of understanding more about the prospect: Is he/she working at a job that requires frequent moves, for example?

The more you probe with open-ended questions, the more you begin to construct a narrative about your prospect. Perhaps, more importantly, the longer you keep them engaged on the phone, the more rapport and trust you begin to build.

Successful agents understand that effective scripts bolster their confidence, and minimize the chances for awkward silence if the person with whom you’re speaking is not forthcoming with information.

A FEW CLOSING TIPS

Practice, practice, practice.

In closing, we’d like to share two tips to help you get the most out of your script strategy:

• Memorize and absorb your scripts to maximize your confidence.
• Record yourself when prospecting. It’s valuable to listen to yourself in order to identify strengths and weaknesses in your delivery
• Find an accountability partner and role play with your scripts-every day if possible.

Of course, there is one time when a “yes or no” question is completely acceptable. That’s when you’ve worked your scripts, have built some excellent rapport and are at a place when you feel it’s comfortable to ask: “Are you available Thursday afternoon at 2 PM to meet?”

Check out these posts for more information on working with real estate prospecting scripts:

Anatomy of a Script (includes video featuring Texas-based agent Corey Daniel)

Four Tips to Get More Out of Your Scripts

To learn more about Vulcan7’s industry leading lead generation system (including scripts) CONTACT US HERE.

Doug Spak

Doug Spak has over four decades of experience as an advertising copywriter, agency creative director, blogger, and content creator. He joined Vulcan7 as a Content Specialist in 2016. In addition to ongoing website copy refreshes, Doug has produced over 300 blog posts while developing content for Vulcan7’s social media platforms.