Tuesday Short: How to Close More Deals by Leading with Trust and Care
Jun 11, 2024
Garrett Maroon
In this episode, Garrett discusses the three questions every buyer asks when making a buying decision: Can I trust you? Are you good at what you do? Do you care about me? He emphasizes the importance of building trust and showing genuine care for clients, rather than focusing on statistics or achievements. Garrett explains that consumers make decisions based on whether they feel they can trust and connect with an agent. He shares personal anecdotes and examples to illustrate his points.
Takeaways
The three questions every buyer asks when making a buying decision are: Can I trust you? Are you good at what you do? Do you care about me? Consumers can only understand an industry at a 2 out of 10 level, so focusing on statistics and achievements may not resonate with them. Building trust and showing genuine care for clients is more important than showcasing expertise or accomplishments. Leading with trust and care helps to close more deals and generate referrals. As believers, showing curiosity and asking good questions can demonstrate trustworthiness and care. Understanding how people make decisions can help agents tailor their approach and improve their business.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Housekeeping 03:01 The Three Questions Every Buyer Asks 06:19 The Importance of Trust and Care 09:00 Consumers' Lack of Industry Knowledge 10:28 Curiosity and Good Questions 10:57 Closing Thoughts
Help us fund the continued work of The Faithful Agent by sending us your Hampton Roads and Richmond, VA buyer and seller referrals! https://faithfulagent.com/referral
In this episode, Garrett discusses the three questions every buyer asks when making a buying decision: Can I trust you? Are you good at what you do? Do you care about me? He emphasizes the importance of building trust and showing genuine care for clients, rather than focusing on statistics or achievements. Garrett explains that consumers make decisions based on whether they feel they can trust and connect with an agent. He shares personal anecdotes and examples to illustrate his points.
Takeaways
The three questions every buyer asks when making a buying decision are: Can I trust you? Are you good at what you do? Do you care about me? Consumers can only understand an industry at a 2 out of 10 level, so focusing on statistics and achievements may not resonate with them. Building trust and showing genuine care for clients is more important than showcasing expertise or accomplishments. Leading with trust and care helps to close more deals and generate referrals. As believers, showing curiosity and asking good questions can demonstrate trustworthiness and care. Understanding how people make decisions can help agents tailor their approach and improve their business.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Housekeeping 03:01 The Three Questions Every Buyer Asks 06:19 The Importance of Trust and Care 09:00 Consumers' Lack of Industry Knowledge 10:28 Curiosity and Good Questions 10:57 Closing Thoughts
Help us fund the continued work of The Faithful Agent by sending us your Hampton Roads and Richmond, VA buyer and seller referrals! https://faithfulagent.com/referral
What is up, faithful agents? Welcome back to another Tuesday short episode. Today, we're gonna get into some tactics. The three questions every buyer asks when making a buying decision. We're gonna dive into those here in just a minute, but a little housekeeping before we dive in. If you like this show, if it's been beneficial to you, will you please, wherever you're listening, will you please leave a five -star review, write a quick review, and share this with a friend. One of the best ways. that we can grow this ministry is for you to send this to a friend. If it's impactful to you, if a particular episode made a difference, which you hope it does, that you would share this with a friend and it would start to grow because that will grow the community, it will grow the reach, and we hope by the Lord's grace, the reputation of Christ because we want the gospel to go forth in a powerful way in the real estate community and you can help us do it. Second, if you're not part of a local group, please be in... involved in a local group. Go to faithfulagent .com, click local groups, and you can get involved with other Christian agents locally. At the end of the day, the gospel is important and the gospel plays itself out in relationship. And so I hope you will go get in a relationship with others around you locally. And if there is a one around you, start one. Anyways, let's dive in today's topic. So we're going, I almost forgot to chat. story. Let me pull up a chat gpt story. Okay, so here's a funny Christian story. This is what chat gpt says. The last one I read last week I felt like, nah, it was not good. So I haven't read this one because you know, lots of preparation. Let's see what this one does. A small town had a small church with a big problem. They had a mouse infestation. The pastor tried everything he could think of to get rid of the mice, but nothing worked. Finally, in desperation, he called in a professional exterminator. The exterminator inspected the church and then said, I've got an idea. It might seem a little strange, but it works every time. The pastor was willing to try anything. What do you suggest? He asked. The exterminator smiled and said, we'll get a cat. A cat? The pastor was puzzled. How will that help? Just trust me. The exterminator said, we'll get a cat and the mice will leave. So the church got a cat. And sure enough, within a week, the mice were gone. The pastor was amazed. This is incredible. How did you know this would work? exterminator grand. It's simple. Mice won't stay where there's a big cat. Just like Christians won't stay away from church if there's a big cat. Christ always there. How is that funny? It's just, is this how you all feel when I tell my normal jokes? The joke ends and you're like, that's not funny. How would that ever be considered funny? This must be how you all feel. And I'm not sorry. I was about to say for that, I'm sorry. That's totally not true. You gotta deal with it because you're choosing to listen to this. And my jokes are funny. ChachiePT is struggling. I need you all. to go to Chat GPT and all put in the same prompt, tell me a funny Christian story, because we got to get this thing back on track. That just wasn't funny and it was just weird. Anyways, Chat GPT, obviously not a Christian, bro, you need Jesus. All right, so I don't know what that means. Let's talk about the three reasons, three questions everybody asks when making a buying decision. And I took this idea, this concept from a great college football coach, Lou Holtz. who was a famous college football coach for Notre Dame and He would always teach on this there's three questions Everyone asks when making a buying decision for him It was whether this athlete was gonna come play for him at Notre Dame I just took it and I modified it for us and it's the questions Everyone's asking and whether they're gonna hire us to represent them as an agent buyer seller doesn't matter So I'm gonna talk about those so there's three questions. Everyone asks when making a buying decision first. Can I trust you? second Are you good at what you do? And third, do you care about me? So first, can I trust you? Second, are you good at what you do? And third, do you care about me? Give you a second if you're writing those down or just to think about those. So here's why this matters. One of the challenges I've seen in our industry is that we're taught. that when we show up to a buyer appointment, we show up to a listing appointment, our job is to convince the person on the other side of the table why we're the best choice for them. Show how many deals you've sold, talk about your marketing plan, talk about how many houses you've listed personally in that neighborhood, whatever it is. How do we show that we're the best option for this potential client? Well, here's the problem, right? They've done so many studies, I've researched a lot of the psychology behind this, but they've done so many studies. that the average person can only understand our industry or an industry that isn't their own at a 2 out of 10 level. They don't know what a 10 out of 10 is. They don't understand what it means and what differentiates between an exceptional agent and a OK agent. They don't know the difference. Just like I use this example all the time. For me, I like my dentist, Dr. Archer. I think he's awesome. But if someone honestly asked me, Garrett, is Dr. Archer the best dentist in town? I would say I have no idea. I don't know what it takes to be a 10 out of 10, right? I have no concept as to whether he's a better dentist than the other dentist because that's not my field of study. I don't understand what it would take to be a great dentist. And so the challenge is, as we start to understand and unpack that, the reality is, I don't know, I'm an agent and I don't even know who the best agent is in my area. I know there's a lot of good agents, right? But we tend to lead with something that a consumer can't even... fathom or understand. But here's what's really interesting is we dive in a little bit deeper. What we are wired, the way the Lord wired our brains, we are wired to quickly make decisions on whether or not I feel like I can trust this person and whether or not it seems like they care. Right? Those are pretty similar questions. But you know, you've had that experience where you've met someone and pretty quickly like, I don't know, it's just something about him. I don't feel like I can trust him. Or you meet someone you're like, I feel like this person is trustworthy. Right? You have that instinct right away. Well, the Lord wired us that way. Well, here's the cool thing. The way our brains are wired, most people go in and they try to answer question number two. Are you good at what you do? And they ignore, can I trust you? And do you care about me? So they show up and they say, here's why I'm the best one. Well, here's the reality. Consumers can't make that distinction. And then what's even cooler than that is if I show up, all the studies would show you, if I can prove that I'm trustworthy, and I can prove that I care about you, then you will naturally assume that I'm also good at what I do. Now, you should be good at what you do, right? Of course, that's an absolutely important thing, especially as believers to honor the Lord. But if I can show you that you can trust me and that I care about you, you're going to assume that I'm good at what I do. Why? Because when I know that I like someone and when I trust someone, I want them to be good at what they do because I want to work with them, right? That's how humans are wired. Now, you can be excellent at what you do and you should be excellent at what you do. If you're not excellent at it, you might get the deal, but you're not going to get referrals, right? So we do want to become excellent because that's one of the ways we honor the Lord and one of the ways we grow our business. But the reality is consumers are making decisions off of, do you seem trustworthy? And do you seem like you care about me? That's how they make decisions. This is why in my entire 10 years of real estate, I've sold over 650 homes. I have a 95 % conversion rate with buyers and sellers. This is one of the main reasons. Why? Because when I show up, I'm not trying to talk about me, which is shocking to people because I talk a lot. But in a listening presentation, I don't actually present them anything. I literally sit down. We walk around. We might be there for an hour and a half, two hours. And I might talk for 20 minutes. And mostly it's just asking questions. Right. I'm trying to understand who they are. I'm trying to recognize and show them that I'm trustworthy and I really do care. That's why I'm asking questions like, how did you guys meet? That's why I'm questions like, what's brought you all to this point? Or, hey, I noticed you got pictures of looks like your kiddos on the wall. Tell me about your kids. Like, it's a genuine curiosity. The reality is if you want to convert more deals, show up and be curious. Show up and ask good questions. Because at the end of the day, no one knows. Well, I don't know who the best agent is, but I feel like Garrett really cared about us. So let's go with him. Right? That's how humans actually make decisions. Nobody needs to know how many homes you sold. That doesn't matter. No one can put that in context. Last time you went to your doctor, you didn't say, hold on, hold on, hold on. Before you treat me, how many people did you treat with this exact same problem last year? And they're going to say, whatever, 50. And you're like, OK, I don't know if that's good or bad. I don't know if that's a lot or a little. I have no concept. Right? And so we're leading with the wrong thing. It doesn't even make sense. I remember. In 2018, I'd done 50 deals again that year. I threw a Christmas party at my house. And I wanted to test this theory with my own people. So I put out a nice like $250 gift basket at the front door as they came in and just said, guess how many homes Garrett sold this year? Whoever gets closest is going to win this gift basket. And these are my friends. These are the people I've worked with. This is my database. They're in my house for a client event. And it ranged from two homes sold that year to 1 ,000. Right? And I remember telling them, if I'd sold a thousand homes this year, I would be buying all of you homes. And if I had sold two homes, we definitely wouldn't be having a party. Right? They just didn't have a concept. They don't know what's good in our industry, just like I don't know what's good in somebody else's industry. I have no idea. So stop leading in the thing with the way that no one can actually make a decision. Understand that you've got to lead with trust and care. That's how you close more deals. And especially as believers. when we naturally show up curious and we just ask them a lot of questions. Hey, tell me about you guys, right? I was going through a role play in our coaching call today with the buyer presentation. And the first thing is, hey, I would love to hear how you guys met. What brought you to this point? Right. And she smiled and said, well, there's a story behind this. I'd love to hear that story. Right. And I mean that in genuineness because I, we all know as believers, especially that their heart and the soul and the eternity of this person is far greater than the fact they can buy a home. So let's understand more about who this person is. Ask good questions. Listen, be responsive, be engaged, be excited about who they are and they will start to see you can be trusted and that you care about this person. Nothing else matters. At the end of the day, if you had sold 1500 houses last year, all in their neighborhood, every single house in their neighborhood, and you showed up and they're like, there's something sketchy about that dude. Guess what? You're not getting that deal. Understand how people make decisions. Can I trust you? Are you good at what you do? Do you care about me? If you can answer, I'm trustworthy and I care, they're going to assume you're good at what you do and you're gonna get the deal. Happens every time, all the time. So show up in the right way, ask the right questions, engage in the right ways. That's gonna help you take your business to another level. Faithful agents, I love you. I'll see you on Thursday.
