The quality of your listing presentation can either earn you listings or cost you listings. Here’s what it takes to create a killer listing presentation that will land new listings!
What is a Listing Presentation?
A listing presentation is a demonstration of your services to home sellers in an attempt to earn their listing. The point of a listing presentation is to walk away with a new listing!
When people refer to a listing presentation, they could be referring to a brochure (digital or print) that introduces their sales services, or they could be referring to the meeting with the sellers in which they present their listing services.
We’re going to show you how to crush both!
What to Cover in Your Listing Presentation Brochure
Your listing presentation brochure (digital or print – you should have both options so you can appeal to sellers of different generations) should just cover the basics. This is the version of your listing presentation that is always ready to go when you get a last-minute meeting and don’t have time to complete a CMA to determine a price for the seller’s home.
Because this is just a dozen pages and applies to all sellers, you should have a few printed in high-quality materials so you have a professional brochure to hand out.
Here’s what your listing presentation should cover.
1. An Overview of the Listing Process
You want to give your prospective clients a general idea of what they can expect from the listing process, which is typically three things:
- Prepping the home for sale,
- Pricing the property,
- And marketing the property to prospective buyers and their agents.
2. A Semi-Deep Dive on the Marketing Plan
While you’ll have a couple of pages on prepping the home for sale and pricing the property, you’ll want to go a little deeper on your marketing plan. It’s typically the marketing plan that sets one agent apart from the rest and wins business. You need to show your sellers how you can get the listing in front of more qualified buyers than other agents can.
This could mean you show off your social media presence. Or you highlight the fact that you include professional listing photos at no cost to the seller. List all the ways you will market your seller’s home so they can see the advantage of hiring you in terms of getting their home sold.
3. A Brief Look at What Happens Once the Home is Under Contract
To prepare your prospective sellers for a quick sale, show them what happens when an offer is received and accepted. One page with a quick walk-through of opening escrow and closing day is all it takes.
4. Testimonials and Credentials
Testimonials from happy clients are powerful. Make sure you collect all your clients’ compliments and get their permission to share their testimonials on your website, social media accounts, and in your listing presentation.
Then you can show your credentials. I recommend saving your credentials for later in your listing presentation brochure because, frankly, your clients probably don’t care much. They just want to know that you can get results, and that’s why we open the presentation by showing what you can do for your clients in terms of listing and marketing. Your education, training, and stats are just icing on the cake.
So just offer a single page that lists your professional highlights. If you’re new to the business and don’t have much to offer in terms of experience or industry awards, you can share the accomplishments of your brokerage.
5. A Call to Action
Close the listing presentation brochure with an invitation to have your clients list their property with you.
What to Cover in Your Listing Presentation Meeting
In your listing presentation meeting, you’ll generally be able to follow the layout of your listing presentation brochure, but with a few interactive adjustments since this will be a two-way discussion.
The General Outline of Your Listing Presentation Meeting
- Start with a tour of the home. Include compliments and questions.
- Offer an overview of the listing process.
- The listing price discussion
- A semi-deep dive into the marketing plan
- A brief look at what happens once the home is under contract
- Your credentials
- A call to action
The Listing Price Discussion
The listing price discussion is one of the most important parts of your listing presentation meeting. You need to get the seller on board with the market value price even though they might believe the house is worth more. You have to manage seller expectations and help them understand that pricing too high can alienate buyers.
Before we get too far into our notes on the listing price discussion: You may be wondering why the listing presentation brochure doesn’t include the recommended listing price for the home. The main reason is because different brokerages have agents using different programs to generate a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis for those of you who are brand new to real estate). So you’ll likely have a program that prepares a page (or several) specifically for the subject property using recent sales as comps. And since those pages will be formatted and branded differently than your listing presentation template, it makes sense to present that separately. By the way, if your brokerage doesn’t offer a CMA, you can pay for a subscription to a CMA service, or you can make your own in Excel (or purchase an inexpensive Excel template online).
With that, here are some pointers for managing the listing price discussion:
- Do your research. Get the details on the subject property and relevant comps.
- Complete your CMA in advance so you know how much the home is worth before your meeting.
- Start the price discussion by explaining how important it is to price correctly from Day One. Too low and you leave money on the table. Too high and you alienate buyers. If they ask about doing a price reduction later if it doesn’t sell explain how the excitement of a new listing will be gone at that point and that buyers might wonder if the price reduction was necessary because something is wrong with the property.
- Explain the methodology behind the CMA.
- Allow the clients to follow the thought process, explaining why you chose those comps and how you adjusted the values so the sellers can understand how you arrived at your recommended listing price.
- Mention that some agents will over-inflate the value to win the listing, but that the market sets the price, not the agent.
Listing Presentation Templates
While you can find some free listing presentation templates online, I haven’t seen one that I would recommend. Your listing presentation helps define your prospective clients’ first impression of you and your business, so it’s worth investing some time and/or money in getting your listing presentation template just right.
If you have some time and a bit of design skill, you can create your own listing presentation template in Canva. Canva is a user-friendly online design platform that’s free to use. You also have the option to upgrade to an inexpensive paid program, which I highly recommend if you’re going to be using Canva for your social media posts, postcards, flyers, and blog graphics. If you’re not familiar with Canva, check out Canva for Real Estate Agents for a quick introduction.
Now, if you don’t have the time or design skill to create your own listing presentation, you can simply purchase one! This inexpensive listing presentation template from Key Real Estate Designs (our partner Etsy shop) follows the same outline we discuss in this post. And it’s entirely editable in Canva, so you can change any detail you’d like (even if you just use the free version of Canva)!
Other Best Practice Tips for a Killer Listing Presentation
Practice!
Record yourself giving your listing presentation and watch it back to see how you come across. The more you give your listing presentation, the better it will get!
Highlight Your Killer Offer
If you have a killer offer, like we discussed in How to Get New Leads This Week, show it off in your listing presentation. Demo your professional photos, single-property website, or social media marketing.
Ask Questions
When you get in front of clients, don’t make it about you. Show that it’s about them by asking them questions like:
- When do you need to move?
- Why are you moving?
- Where are you moving to?
- Have you already found a home there?
- What will you do if your home doesn’t sell?
- What are you looking for in a listing agent?
- Are there any issues with the home that we won’t see today?
Don’t Budge on Your Rates
You may be asked if you’ll take a lower commission rate. DON’T DO IT!
Explain to your clients that a substantial amount of your commission goes directly to marketing activities that help the home sell more quickly and for more money. You may also want to remind them that part of your job is to negotiate on their behalf. How much faith could they have in you as a negotiator for them if you can’t even negotiate your own rates?
What to Do After the Listing Presentation
- Document the presentation in your CRM. Add the seller to your marketing campaign(s).
- Send a thank you text the next day.
- Follow up soon and often. If the prospective sellers were serious enough to sit through your listing presentation, they’re likely going to sell soon. So you want to be the first agent they see when the moment to list finally arrives.
Get a Small Win
Great victories are the result of small wins. Before you move on with the rest of your day, get a small win.
Today’s small win challenge is to start creating your listing presentation brochure. We know it may take several hours if you’re starting from scratch, so you don’t have to complete it today. Just get it started, and schedule a time to finish it. Or you could take the head-start offered by purchasing an inexpensive template online and have your new listing presentation brochure ready to roll today!
