Can My Real Estate Blog Help Me Talk Like a Woman?
John Coley, still my favorite Lake Martin, Alabama blogger, sent over this gem, and I couldn’t wait to post it for your enjoyment.
Can My Real Estate Blog Help Me Talk Like a Woman?
By John Coley
I recently got rejected on a listing presentation, and it hurt.
Unless you’re a realtor that signs up 100% of your listing presentations, you know what I mean.
This one was particularly painful because it was to list a couple’s lake home and help them buy another. The combination of the two homes would have been about $2 million in gross sales, which buys a lot of groceries in Alabama. It also hurt because I felt I had a really good relationship with the husband. He contacted me out of the blue. We talked a lot. He liked the way I marketed other homes in the area. So I was surprised to hear that I had lost at the last minute to someone else.
I swallowed my pride and tried to salvage the episode by getting some good feedback.
I said, “I’ll be honest.. I am really surprised. I thought that you all had made up your mind to let me help you. Please do me a favor. Can you give me the full unfiltered truth, even if it hurts my feelings? How did I miss this one?”
And he told me, bless him. He’s one of the few people out there that will really tell you what they think. I am so glad he didn’t spare my feelings; what he said flabbergasted me as much as it helped my career.
He: “My wife didn’t want to go with you.”
His wife?? Up until then, he had been my main contact. I had offered to meet with them both in person, but they declined for the sake of time. How could she not like me if we had never met?
Me: (cringing) “Why didn’t your wife want to let me help?”
He: “I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but it’s because you’re a man.”
What? Have I just become a victim of discrimination? He’s kidding, right? No, he wasn’t.
He went on to say that his wife felt that she could not work well with a male agent. In their past real estate transactions, she liked dealing with women.
I thanked him profusely for his honesty. The conversation ended on a positive note, but I was frustrated. As a man, how can I overcome that objection? Sure, there are a lot of great female realtors in the world. I know many. But there are also a lot of great male ones, too. I really think that I could have done a great job for these folks.
So how can I lessen the chances of this happening again? Do I bashfully disclose that I am a man right off the bat, then go through some fancy Power Point slideshow to prove it won’t be a problem? Sounds silly. Do I ask potential clients if they mind if I am a man? Of course not. Who would admit to that to my face, even if it were true? It took a lot of pleading on my part to get my prospect to tell me, and even then he was embarrassed about it.
A year ago, I would have felt helpless. Now I know that I can employ my keenest weapon to pierce the issue – my blog.
I could be wrong – after all, I’m only a man – but it occurred to me that maybe she feels she cannot relate to men as well as she can to women in that situation. Maybe their rapport would suffer. So what does good rapport consist of? Mostly great communication. What is my best communication tool? My real estate blog – which can help in 3 ways:
1.) Instead of pouting about losing, I can focus on winning the next one. I can go further than merely promising good communication, I can prove it by blogging to communicate on prospects’ terms, on their concerns, not mine.
2.) I should have tried harder to talk to both spouses, or at least ensured that both had read some of my blog posts to demonstrate that I would be focused on their needs instead of my own ego or commission.
3.) I need to post more frequently, and more personally, about the selling process – so readers can feel engaged enough to know what kind of agent I will be for them.
In short, I’ll use my real estate blog to help me talk like a woman.
I know it will work, because it has already worked with people that are now clients. I have had strangers to call me and tell me that they “really like how I think.” How did they peer inside my head? My blog.
It remains to be the most effective way for me to answer the questions that people didn’t even know that they had, or are too embarrassed to ask in person.
If anyone else has any tips on how to use my blog to be a better communicator, please reply below!
Thanks John, it’s great to have you on the Vine.
John is an exceptionally professional Realtor in Lake Martin, Alabama.
His writings and real estate tools can be found at www.LakeMartinVoice.com
Voice: 334–221–5862
