Leading A Client From “No” To “Yes” When You Need It The Most
When you’re a Real Estate Agent or Lender, your livelihood often depends on getting transactions to close. When a client says “no,” it can feel like the end of the world, but with a little creativity and perseverance, you can often turn that “no” into a “yes.” Here are a few tips on how to do just that.
It’s Not Always As Black & White As Yes & No
The two words that most signify someone’s motivation and commitment in regard to decision-making are the words YES and NO.
But the fact of the matter is, as you know, that the world is really a lot more like a dimmer switch. And with a dimmer switch, that means that there are levels between yes and no… the coveted “maybe”. With a maybe we’re at a “not right now”, but maybe at a certain point in time, we can get towards a “yes”.
So when you’re talking with people about things like listing their home, and they’re not in a position to be listing their home right now, maybe they will be sometime in the future.
But here’s a little secret for you…
The Path To YES
There’s actually not just three steps between the words yes and no. It’s not just no, maybe, and yes. It is more like a dimmer switch. And the dimmer switch looks more like this.
Starting all the way back at no, there’s actually this really critical step between no and maybe, and it’s called “not now”. When you lead someone to a “not now”, people are really willing to let their guard down and get into a better, deeper conversation with you.
So if somebody would say to you, “Oh yeah, we’re not going to be selling our home anytime soon. We’re going to be living here forever.” And you get to now have a conversation, “Well, of course, you’re not going to move now. If you ever did move, where would you go?”
And now all of a sudden, because we introduced not now and you made not now comfortable, they now have the ability to say, “Well, maybe we would move when our kids have graduated high school and they’re off in college. That would be a time we’d consider moving you.”
Notice, they’re not making a commitment to move right now, but they are now telling you when that time in the future would be. And the way that we got there was with a clause, which is “not yet” or “not now”.
The Key To Leading Them Down The Right Path
When we introduce the word probably, a future action becomes imminent. Here are four steps that must happen before you get to a yes.
Remember that when you want to open a door, the best words that you can ever use to open a door are acknowledging that the door is closed and it’s closed right now because they’re not yet ready to open the door. This is the little opening that you need in order for someone to shift from a definite “no” to something that’s more possible, and that is “not yet”.
Not yet will open the door to a maybe. Once you’ve got a maybe, you now know that your only job is to shift them to a probably, so they can get where it is that they’re going to. A probably can be overcome with time.
You could put a time on a calendar when a maybe can shift to a probably, and then you’ll get your goal. Then you’ll get your yes, which is what you are looking for.
If you’re looking for more ways to generate consistent referrals, be sure to check out our other training resources or click below to take a tour. And, as always, feel free to reach out if you have any questions – we’re here to help!
