Valuation Mastery | How to Win Instructions Without Dropping Fees

In this episode of The Elite Agent Masterclass, James Humphries-Stone sits down with Jack Durkin to reveal exactly how top-tier estate agents prepare for, deliver, and convert valuation appointments—without dropping their fee or compromising on quality.

This episode is packed with real-life insights, including:

• How to use a 40-step nurture sequence before a valuation
• The “Know, Like, Trust” psychology and why most agents ignore it
• Structuring a 7-step appointment that builds rapport, authority, and trust
• Understanding your client’s mindset—logical vs. emotional decision making
• Pricing collaboration: how to offer clients a choice, not a pitch
• The MSN Framework (Marketing, Strategy, Negotiation) explained
• The truth about upfront marketing fees—and how clients are saying yes

Whether you're looking to close more listings, increase your average fee, or build a more premium personal brand, this episode is an absolute must.

Packed with golden scripts, strategy, and psychology—this is how elite agents dominate their markets.

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Transcript

So we are back for another episode of the Elite Agent Masterclass. And so today me and Mr. Jack Durkin are going to be discussing all things valuation prep, valuation delivery and valuation conversion. But first off, how are you Jack? Good, mate. Very good. How are you? Yeah, good. Busy day. Do you know, it's a bit of a tangent, but I'm going to share it nonetheless because it's valuable to those listening in. A little while back, part of our mastermind group, do you remember there's a chap in the group that shared the time audit template with us? Yeah. Do you remember? Off the back of Dan Martell's principle of buy back your time. That's it. That's it. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got into the office today and I thought, do you know what? Recently I've been getting quite a lot done, but I do feel like I'm jumping around tasks quite a lot and what have you. So I decided to implement the process of using the time audit. So I've had it open on my iPad next to me while I've been working away. I can't even tell you how much more focused I've been because I'm tracking every fifteen minutes what I'm doing on the iPad. So for anyone listening in, do a time audit of what you're doing, because it's already bearing on. We're recording this at lunchtime. day one of me doing the time audit. And the idea is you do it over fourteen days and I'm already looking at it and going, I can already see where I can buy back at least an hour. And I've only been doing it for five hours today so far. It's very interesting, isn't it? See, I'm getting a lot of tasks could be outsourced or even we spoke recently a lot about automations. I mean, being able to automate a lot of tasks and maybe that's a whole separate pod that we discussed a little further in the line. But yeah, I'm sure there's lots. If you actually look at what you're spending your time on, there's probably a lot that... probably a ten-pound task that you can outsource or, yeah, build some form of automation into. A hundred percent automation delegation, just eradicating certain aspects of the day-to-day that I probably don't need to do. But it's interesting, as soon as you've got it logged, it's like, huh, I could save time there. So anyone out there that kind of thinks to themselves, I've never got enough hours in the day, The reality is we've all got the same amount of hours in the day. It's how you're using them that's potentially the problem. But that's a little bit of a tangent. Today is all about when we onboard a new agent at The Avenue, we go through the foundations week. Day one is with me, and that's very much about the business planning aspect, and we talked about that on the last episode. Day two is spent with you, Jack. And so the idea behind this episode recording was about getting underneath the bonnet, so to speak, of the sales day, what you go through with onboarding new agents and what that looks like and what value our listeners can take from that. So just give us a bit of an overview. Give us a bit of a flavor. What is the sales day involved? So, yeah, so I think as part of the sales, there's a lot that goes in. In fact, there's a lot that goes into the week of onboarding, which, as we know, we believe is really, really important as part of the brokerage. It's our responsibility to make sure the agents get off to a really, really successful start. And they have all the tools and resources that they need, not just to become a great agent, to become a great business owner that operates as an agent in the local area. So as we spoke about on the last episode, the first part is building the plan, building the processes, building the system to get you launched. The next part that we like to go through on the day that I look after and carry out is all about the actual mainly about the valuation itself as soon as that lead comes in and as soon as they capture an opportunity it's how they're gonna what they're gonna do with that opportunity how they're gonna be able to build rapport relationships with those clients really be able to promote what they offer as well and and being able to show the client's value. Essentially, it's all about really extracting and being able to provide as much value to the clients as possible to make them the number one choice for their clients. So part of that, there's kind of three main processes that we go through. One is the lead up to the valuation, so warming the client up and building the trust with the client when they first get the opportunity, right up until the time that they step through the door. The next part is the actual valuation process itself. And we had real great experience and a real great process that we followed at a previous business that we were at, Purple Ricks, which we've kind of taken little bits of that, little bits of what the high street, our experience at the high street used to offer, but put a completely more personalized one-to-one service, advanced marketing package together and built on top of that to be able to show clients, so the agents can show their clients what they can really offer and why they're so different. And the final part of that is if that client isn't ready to go ahead straight away, it's what the follow-up is after that and how they can continue nurturing and looking after that client. So those are mainly the three-part process. And there's a lot more that we go into on each part of that process as well. Quite a lot to unpack in one day. But we tell all of our partners that we're on board, like it's going to be quite an intense week. But after the week has concluded, we don't go away. So if ever we need to recap on any elements of it, then we can obviously go back over certain aspects. But starting at the very beginning then, now I'm just going to try and I suppose tell this as a bit of a story. So imagine I'm a client looking to book a valuation on my home and I go on the Avenue website and I put the details in. And surely it's as simple as just once that valuation has landed, you can just pop an email back to the person and say, oh, what day and time would you like me to come and see you? where it's what most agents would do isn't it um whereas if you want to very very facetious on my part I had to do it sorry if you if you want to be the best and you want to give yourself the best opportunity of securing that business and building a relationship with that client and then we've got what we call a four-e step process to nurturing supporting providing value to that client right up until the moment that the agent steps through the door um jack how many steps a four-step process, so quite detailed. Four zero. Four zero, yeah, four steps. And it sounds like a lot, but in actual fact, they're just very small, very small touch points, very small conversational things they can send out, little things that the client can see as to why they're different and just pronounce, try and differentiate themselves from the competition. But yeah, forty steps, it sounds like a huge amount, but in actual fact, when you break it down, they're really simple steps to follow. And as long as you've got a bit of time, as long as you're not booking an appointment for the same day and you've got a bit of time in the lead up to the appointment to start warming and nurturing the client relationship, then there's plenty of time to build out forty steps, even more if you wanted to add to it as well. And it kind of starts with a no like trust process. But for some agents, a lot of new agents, especially coming into the business, launching their new business fresh into their area. They've got to build their people knowing who they are first. They've got to start to get people to like them. And that comes with being able to show a little bit about them and who they are. And then also the trust element. It's about building authority and showing that they are the professional they are the expert and that the client can really understand why they're the expert as well and that comes with giving them some facts and figures and information um around their knowledge around the property itself or the location as well so lots that go into the voice set process but as I said it is a very simple process to follow they're very simple steps very small micro commitments to the client And when you start to do it, it's very easily implemented. There's two things that spring to mind when you talk about a four step process pre appointment. And the two things are because you've said they're only they're not massive things that you have to do. So it's not massively time consuming. But the two things that spring to mind is the one percent. So it's the little one percents that can make the difference. Not one percent fees, but one percent difference makers. And the second thing is choosing your hard because it's harder to implement a forty step process pre appointment than it is to just show up and hope that you can build the relationship on the day. But actually, it's actually harder to try and build the relationship on the day if you haven't done the pre work. So it's choosing your hard, right? Yeah, I also think as well, there's two ways you can win an appointment. You can build loads of reports to start and make it really easy when you get through the front door, or you can do all the hard work in the actual appointment. The challenge that I think you've got when you do that is you're going to have to spend that much time building the relationship with the client that it's going to make it more difficult to get it done. You might win the instruction, but are you going to get it on the right terms, on the right fees, on the right price, on the right strategy? Or are you just getting there to just try and win the business no matter what? And I think you can only win the business on the terms that you decide once you've built enough trust and authority with a client that they believe and listen to the advice you're going to give them. And that takes time. I don't believe you can do that in a half an hour or an hour appointment. Our appointments last a lot longer than that. But there's also hours of work that I've gone into prior to the appointment that is also building a relationship with a client and building the trust with the clients that when you get there, they're ready to listen. won't mind me sharing it chris had a conversation with chris paul one of our agents um some time back and some of the things that he mentioned that he does in the lead up to the appointment we've really tried to take away and help our agents adopt in their own way one of the things that really stuck with him that he mentioned is one of the things he does in the lead up to the appointment is does something that he knows no other agent's going to do something that's going to make him stand out in in the right way um but something that's going to make him stand out as a thing different to his competition and really rememberable um And that really stuck with me. I had a client where we'd taken, I've been introduced and recommended by someone, but I hadn't really spoken to or met this client before. So we started the four-step process. One of those steps in there was he'd renovated the house completely. So we decided to take an old photo, street view of the property before. And when we was driving past, we took a photo of the house as it was completely renovated. And it looked completely different. We put those two photos together, put it in a nice little Canva graphic, sent it over to him and just congratulated him on what an amazing job he'd done. And as soon as I got to the appointment, that was the first thing he brought up was it was incredible to see the difference and he hadn't really sat down and actually thought about how different it was before and you know he'd forgotten what it looked like previously um and it you know it just it was nice to see all his hard work and the difference of what what he'd done but it also made us stand out and show why we're different as well so um those little one percents can make a huge difference that actual valuation appointment wasn't that long it was about forty five minutes but I was like he was ready to sign up as soon as I walked through the door because of the what we've done in the lead up to the appointment Amazing. I feel like we could do a whole episode talking about the pre-appointment process because there's so much. There's so much that agents could be doing that they're not that actually would make such a significant difference. But with relatively low effort and to be quite honest, even if it took a lot of effort, the impact it has is monumental overall. on not only winning the listing, because I think what's really important to convey here, this is the elite agent masterclass, not the listing masterclass. And so the reason I say that is that we're not here to talk about how to simply win business, because we could just say, lowball your fee and highball the valuation and you'll win the listing. That would be really easy, and that's very, very common. We're here to say, actually, get it on your terms. Get it at the right fee. Get it at the right price. Get it so that the client is getting a win from the relationship as well, so that you feel like you're working with the client, not having to try and work against them simply because they've got unrealistic expectations or they've beat you up on your fee, so you feel bruised and battered. And so... We could do a whole episode on it. And I suppose I need to move it on ever so slightly. But there's one more part to this pre-appointment piece, which I think is really important, is that not every client and not every client situation is created equal. And we always coach our partners, don't we, through the onboarding process to visualize every client on a scale of zero to ten. And for example, if someone has Googled estate agents in their local area and you just happen to be a name near the top because we're called The Avenue, That's a really cold lead. So at this point, all they do is they know who you are. So that might put them at like a one on that scale of zero to ten. And that scale being from they know absolutely nothing about you to a ten where they're a raving fan already. They've been recommended. They've seen your marketing. They love everything about you. And our attitude is you need to determine where they are on that scale of zero to ten before you go. It's point one. Then it's a case of how much effort, how much legwork, how much time can I invest pre appointment to get them a little bit further along that scale? And then finally, what do I do in the appointment that tips them over the edge? And I don't know about you, Jack, I don't know if you agree, but my humble opinion is you only have to get someone to a seven and a half or an eight on that scale and they're ready to list with you. If you can get them to a ten, not only are they going to list, they're a raving fan, they're recommending you to their friends and family and you've only just put the house on the market. But a seven and a half to an eight wins the listing. So the question I would pose to people is have that in your head. When you speak to someone on the phone booking an appointment, where are they on the scale? How much do they know about you already? And so then it's like, okay, if they're at a four, how do I get them to a six pre-appointment? Because I'll be honest, if you can get them to a six pre-appointment, it's a relatively easy job once you're there to take it over the line. Yeah, it's getting them to spend more time on that trust timer, isn't it? And that's why we talk about four steps, you know, four touch points of just trying to build relationships. And a huge part of that is essentially getting the agent's name and face in front of them, showing the agent's personality as well and showing who the agents are. And that just helps build the relationship with the clients. They start to understand the agents. They start to like the agents. And then there's also additional parts that then start to build the trust to show why the agents and the expert and the right person for the job as well so so we so we've done a really robust pre-appointment process we've had a great solid conversation with the client on the phone we've then locked in these little one percent touch points between booking the appointment and the appointment itself so is there any advice or steer that we would give listeners around okay if we're going to get these touch points in how long should we leave between booking the appointment and attending the appointment Personally, I think it's down to the agents to decide what length of time they need to put that together. Personally, for me, I think anything from three to five days. If you're rushing out to an appointment the following day or the same day, Personally, I feel that that doesn't show that if you're wanting to be premium, if you're wanting to be elite, if you're wanting to be the best, does that represent that if you're so quick? And does that also give you the time to actually research the property? Does it give you the time to build a relationship with the client and the leader of the appointment? Or are you going to have to spend a lot of time really building the client's trust and Yeah, building that within the actual valuation itself. So for me and for a lot of the agents in the business, we spend so much time in the leader and that could be three to five days before we actually carry out the valuation appointment. But the client knows that We want quality over quantity. We don't want to rush things. We want to make sure we get things right. So we need to take a bit of time to make sure we can do the research, we can understand what their motivations are and what they're looking to get out of their move and what's most important to them. And then we can then tailor the conversation to suit them and make sure we've got the result that they're looking to achieve at the forefront of what we're going to put together. But surely, Jack, if you leave a gap of three to five days, one or two things could possibly happen. You could get cancelled. And surely, if you can get out to the client the very next day, it's going to be like a real show of how eager you are and how intent you are to do business with the person, no? Desperation for me. I guess I'm playing the part of being a bit facetious here because there will be people listening thinking, well, surely you need to get out quicker. By the way, for any of those listening, I'm not challenging Jack because I disagree with him. I'm doing it to give context as to why we believe that having the three to five day gap is important because I'm totally with you, Jack. I feel like being able to get out too quickly is it doesn't show that you're in demand. It doesn't show that there's the desire for people to want to work with you because I'm readily available. I'm here for you. And even if you have got room in your diary, you've got to create the perception that there is a reason for the delay. And that's because we're in demand right now. Yeah, I think as well, if you're so, I say, I mentioned desperate, if it comes across a client as though you're desperate to get to them really quickly and you're We talk about it when we're booking viewings. It's if the client wants you to come out tomorrow at three o'clock and you say, great, I'm going to do that. That's no problem. I'll move my diary around to make sure I can get out to you. It's on their terms. And when you're going out to pitch to them and explaining the process and what's important and what they need to think about and what they need to consider, are they going to listen to you? It's been on their terms up to this point so far. So you need to make sure that you control the situation. The same when you get to the appointment, you need to make sure that you explain to the client what you're going to go through and what the steps are. And you're not just getting in there and doing the tour straight away. It's just making sure you can lead and take control and explain what process we're going to go through. And it isn't a case of coming out straight away. We need to do some research about the property and make sure we've got the time to actually build a relationship with them. And I think people respect that. I think the right clients do respect that. Totally, totally. I'm thinking about scenarios myself where if, for example, recently booking an appointment with the dentist, I know it sounds really silly, but we were looking at changing dentists and there was one dentist in particular who was like, oh, we've got space to see you this afternoon. And Hayley came up and I'm like, That makes me a bit uncomfortable. They've not got any clients. Why are people not wanting to use these people? Why are we able to get in so quickly? I expect to have to wait at least a week to get to the dentists. And actually, he chose different dentists for that exact reason. Yeah, is it same as a nice restaurant? I'll always look at a restaurant where they're busy or they've got limited availability because even if they don't, they're not really busy, but if they've got limited availability, then you think they must be busy. So therefore, it must be a really big place because loads of other people are choosing to work with or use that particular restaurant. So yeah, I think it's really important that, like I said, you control the narrative. You're not rushing to get out to them. You've got the time to actually follow the process that you want to deliver and And not cut corners. I think that's the main thing. If you are rushing to get out, then you are going to have to cut some corners. And we're, I suppose, a business at the avenue. We're not willing to do that. We want to make sure we uphold the highest standards. And I think that's what elite agency is all about. Yeah, I think anyone listening into this would agree that they're listening in because they're not here to work out how to list houses, they work out how to make their business more elite, more premium and attract better quality clients. So moving forward then from that pre-appointment process, we then move into the appointment itself. Now, I know that in your day when you spend it with the agents, there's quite a large section that talks about psychology and talks about how the client may well interact to different things. So what does that look like? Give us an overview there. Yeah, so I think it's, again, really important to understand the client's needs and also understand the client. We've spoken on previous pods around this profiling and understand different personality profiles. We use a slightly different strategy around clients, and it's more if people are familiar with it, the left and right brain, those that are more emotional thinkers and those that are more logical thinkers. So. And when we're going out to speak with clients and when we're looking to explain what we go through, it's all about telling a story, but telling a story in a way that's going to resonate with the clients and that they're going to understand it well. So for those that are familiar with it, left-sided people are more logical thinkers. So if we're dealing with a more logical client, then we need to explain things in facts and figures. We need to explain the results in facts and figures. to them as well and what result they're going to get. Whereas if we're working with a more right-sided brain client and they're more an emotional thing, then it's all about the storytelling. It's all about how great the market is going to look and how they're going to feel and the experience they're going to go through and the results they're going to get, but how the journey is going to be for them is more important. It's making sure that you can understand what the client needs and how they think and then being able to deliver to the particular client they were in front of. And I think it's really important to just understand that. And, you know, the appointment isn't going to change drastically, but maybe the way that you explain things might change a little bit depending on the client that you're in with. So I suppose one of the questions that would be on the tip of the tongue of a lot of people listening is, okay, cool. I really respect and appreciate the explanation around the difference between left and right brain, logical and more emotional. How does a person establish that? How do they work out that the person is either more left or right brain? And by the way, it's not binary, is it? It's not they're either completely left brain or completely right. They could be just slightly one way or the other. So how do they work that out? I think it starts with just building really good rapport with your clients and asking some really good, powerful questions. So one of those questions could be around what made them reach out to this company? What have they seen? What do they like? What is it that attracted them to the company? What is it that they're looking for from their estate agent? What's the most important thing for them? Also understanding what job they're in. So what job they do or what their hobbies are, because that will very quickly give you an idea as to which side of the brain people are. We've got our marketing team who majority of them are all very right sided brain people because they love creativity. They love being creative. Whereas if you're an accountant or if you're a lawyer or you're in a job that is much more methodical and much more logical, then you're going to be left side of the brain. So, yeah, I think it comes down to really asking the right questions and really building that rapport with a client, but understanding, you know, what they're looking for and also, you know, what roles do they carry out and what is it they do themselves, which will give you a good understanding as to whether they sit on the left or the right side. Yeah, totally. So when you first arrived, obviously, this is one thing you alluded to when I asked you, what's the process? What do we go through? You then talked through having a structure to the appointment. And so what does that look like? Should an agent, when they arrive, they knock on the door, they do the meet and greet, they off with the shoes. Some might not, but I'd highly recommend you do. The other thing I'd say personally, I don't know about you, Jack, never park on someone's driveway. I mean, it feels like the rudest thing to do, but I could be completely wrong. Should they just lead straight into the tour and have a good look round? Certainly not. I think we've got a seven-step process. And as I briefly mentioned earlier, it's about the agents taking control because ultimately, I suppose a client's expectation is the agent's just going to come and provide them a valuation. And I suppose industry talk is that you're booking a valuation, not a market proposal, and you're not there to talk about marketing. So the first thing they want to understand is, okay, so what are you going to value the property at? Which to do that, you need to have a look around the property. Whereas to make sure that the client, firstly, again, you're recapping, you're going back over the things you spoke about before. So the first thing that is really important in our opinion is to sit back down with that client at the very start and make sure you can build rapport with them. Because although you might have spoken to them a few times over the phone, it's the first time you've actually met them. So you want them to feel comfortable, that you're comfortable in their home. And that will just form a much better conversation further down the line. So recapping on what you spoke about previously, recapping on what their motivations are, what's important to them before you do the tour, then going off to do the evaluation tour. But there's some really powerful phrases that we go through on the sales day that just help with the segues into different parts of the seven step process that we go through. And each time we have a new agent join us, there's always a new phrase that we take away from each of the agents. So it's great because it's great that the agents get to see how kind of the structure that we suggest or that we deliver as agents, our samples. But it's great for us to see what other agents are doing as well. Like I said, every time we have a new agent come in, there's always a new phrase or something new that we can look at adding into the process that just works really, really well. Absolutely. So we sit back down, we've caught up with the owner. I feel like the piece that's really important to that recap is we've really demonstrated that we've listened to what they've shared with us beforehand. I always used to find this, that when I met with people, it's a case of, you know, Hey Jack, so when we spoke on the phone, you told me that the plan is that you and your wife are now looking to downsize because you've been here for over twenty years and the kids have flown the nest and the garden's becoming too much and so you want to downsize. I just want to understand a little bit more around that. What sort of timeline are we working to here? Have you seen anything that's of interest to you? You really start to demonstrate that you've paid attention beforehand and one of the biggest traps that estate agents fall into is falling into that commission breath. You know that I'm only here to sell. I'm only here to win a listing. And people can smell it a mile away. And at the end of the day, moving home is a very emotive process. No matter the situation, it's almost always going to have some emotion attached to it somewhere. And so if the person that you're talking to feels like they're heard, you've actually listened to them, you've understood what they want and they need, you've already got such a huge advantage when you get to the challenges that some agents face, which is overcoming overvaluations or overcoming low ball fees. You overcome so much of that by having a relationship with a client. So we call it rapport, but you're building a relationship. And people that feel heard, people that feel seen, people that feel listened to are far more likely to want to do business with the person that's actually done the listening. I think we've changed a lot of phrases as well. I think it's phrases that can often get misunderstood or misunderstood. well one of the phrases that we use rather than it being because a lot of clients are going to think you know we've I've had clients you know sit in front of and they'll say look give me a presentation give me your pitch and rather than it being a pitch or a presentation or a sales pitch it's an advice meeting we're here to give you advice if you believe the advice that we've gone through and the strategy that we've gone through is right for you then great we're a good fit um if we go through everything and things aren't aligned and that's totally totally fine and understandable but you know it might just not be a good fit at the time so rather than it being a sales pitch it's about it being an advice meeting and you're there to give the client the right advice which I think is really really important and people respect honesty and transparency and if you can pitch and deliver things in the correct way then people will really understand and want to do business with you. Whereas if you are just going in and providing them a sales pitch as to why you're the best agent for them and why they should work with you over anyone else. I think people can see through that nowadays. So I think giving them, calling an advice meeting over a presentation, I think just gets you in a different mindset that you're here to give the client advice. Totally. And you can't give advice without first understanding what they need. So therefore, the questions at the beginning become critical, not just a nice part to have to build a bit of rapport. Right. Because it could be very easily misconstrued. Oh, you know, just building rapport to sell to you later down the road. No, I need to understand what you need in order for me to give you the right advice to make sure that what you get from this process is what you need, not what I want. Because all I want, if I'm a typical estate agent, is for you to sign this contract and for me to palm you off onto my negotiators in the office. That's all I want because I get paid on that. And I'm sorry for anyone listening in that takes offense to that statement, but I'm sorry. That is the reality of most businesses. typical estate agency operations. And so we need to break that mould. If we want to build and develop, a lot of people that listen into this podcast are people that are wanting to either go on that self-employed journey or already in the space. And so it's more about a personalised approach. That therefore helps. Yeah, I think it's not, in my opinion, it's not down to the agents. They're just in an environment that educates them on doing that so you know the previous businesses we were part of it was all about market share and that meant getting as many listings as you possibly could whereas now it's it's all about making sure that the listens we take on they're they're taking on the right price with the right marketing the right strategy behind them and we're actually going to help the old clients results rather than just taking on anything and everything um so and you know the rapport building really One of the main key parts of it is really understanding the motivations of the client, what they're looking to achieve, why they want to move, what they're expecting to get out of the relationship. And I suppose it's really not just for the clients to understand whether you're the right agent for them. It should really be for the agents to understand whether they're the right clients for you as well. So, yeah, it is a bit of a, you know, you've got to ask the right questions to make sure whether you're a good fit for that client and vice versa. A hundred percent agree. So we've kind of, that initial part of the meeting, that can be twenty minutes, it could be forty minutes in some instances, can't it? So once we've kind of really got underneath the surface of the key drivers, the motivators, the key reasons, what they want from the process, all of that really great important stuff, then what? The next part is really to do the tour. But there's a segue to build authority. So we're explaining basis of everything we've gone through. This is the reason why I think we could be a good fit. But we'll go through that in a little bit more detail and giving a bit of information about the background. also when when we're doing the tour it isn't just about looking around the house it's about explaining to them what's important and what the reasons why we are actually looking around the property reasons like looking for um who the ideal buyer is going to be looking for any advice or suggestions that we could give them around improve the saleability or the value of the property if they're open to that as well um it's things like understanding what we need to do from a marketing point of view to make sure we can attract the right the right buyer the right client and and also of course it's trying to have a look around to see you know how we can make sure we can determine what the right marketing price is to go to market at but I think it's really important that a number of things that you're looking for when you come to do the tool that isn't just focus on price um so yeah doing the tour and it comes on to sitting down and I think it's really important to get the pricing out next so that you can actually deliver to the client they are waiting for the price so delivering the price to them giving them the idea on the price before we go through the the market in the msn strategy um looking at the market in the strategy and the negotiation that goes behind that um after the pricing Awesome. And from a pricing perspective then, so we've done the tour. I suppose once post-tour, because you've got those four things that we suggest we're going to be looking for, we fill in the gaps on some of that stuff that then leads to the value, don't we? So then it's the delivery of pricing. What would be your top tip to anyone listening around how to make sure that pricing is delivered in a way where it's collaborative rather than you being... Because many agents get caught on the back foot, don't they? They're really fearful based on an assumption that they've had another agent out that might have overvalued it or the owner's expectations might be higher than the reality. So what's the best way in your mind for someone to deliver it to remove those challenges? I think firstly, it's explained to the clients that. The price we're gonna market at is a marketing price. I suppose the market, the buyers, they're gonna determine what the property's actually worth or what they're willing to pay for the property. What our job as an agent is to do is to market at a price that's gonna attract the right level of interest. And there's a phrase, we'll share it, one of our agents shared it with us, it's to promise a process and not a price. And that process is to extract the best price from the market. But the pricing strategy that I would certainly recommend and what's worked really well for me and other agents in the business is offering a couple of pricing strategies. Essentially, it's likely they're going to lead to a similar outcome. And previously, you'd offer with corporate agency or you'd offer three pricing strategies and it was a case of, you'd have a really high price and you'd end up having to reduce it this is different to that there's an offers overall offers in the region of strategy now I believe personally offers over works really well are finished really well and don't need a huge amount of doing to them because you can create the competition and people aren't going to expect to have to do any work or anything to them offers in the region of works really well on properties that need that little bit more work because people are going to expect to offer a little bit under if they've got a change kitchen bathrooms or do some renovation work so they'll factor that into the into the what they do um But explaining that to the client and making it a choice for the client, I think giving your client options and choices will make it a much easier way of doing business than trying to go at a really hard sale. Someone shared this with me a little while back. selling a pen um analogy where there's a new version I saw this a little while back um where rather than trying to sell one pen he presents two options two pens and asks the client which would you prefer and as soon as the client says they prefer this one they've already given them an idea that they actually want to buy that product so it's given them options to understand what's most important or what they prefer And then you can lead into that a little bit further as well. And so having a couple of pricing options when it comes to pricing strategy, that also leads a little bit further down into fees and how to pick and deliver fees to clients as well, giving them options I think is a really useful. Well, that's the thing, isn't it? It's like a part of our human DNA is nice to feel like you're doing something in collaboration. You've got a choice in the process rather than it being told what you're going to do. You've got choices. So You touched on it just now. We've now we've locked in the price. The client is in agreement. We're all in agreement that this is the pricing strategy. This is what we're going for. You touched on it just now. Then we lead into what we've labeled the MSN strategy. And that isn't the old messenger platform for those of a similar age to me back in the day is how we all communicated because we didn't have iPhones. And it's also not Messi, Suarez and Neymar, the greatest trio that Barcelona have ever had. What is it, Jack? Well, it's almost as good a trio as Messi, Neymar and Suarez. But yeah, marketing strategy and negotiation, a framework that we put together, which kind of covers what we believe is the three core elements of how to pitch, market, promote a property to get the right level of interest and how to make sure that you can negotiate to get the very best price as well. I'm sure Ben will go into a lot more detail around the marketing on another podcast in a few weeks. But it's about making sure we put the right level of marketing together for that particular client and make sure we can put it in front of the right audience. So that kind of forms the strategy. It's also how we deliver viewings. And I mentioned very briefly earlier around not giving into clients in terms of the exact day and time that they want to. that they want you to go and see them. Same when it comes to viewings, making sure the buyers are willing to work with you and your sellers in terms of what's suitable for them and building up the competition to make sure you can extract the best price for the market. That's all part of the strategy and there's so much more that goes into it as well. By doing that and creating the right level of competition, that's how you're going to be able to negotiate the very best price for your clients too. So there's loads more that goes into it. However, a brief overview of what an MSN strategy looks like. And when you explain it to clients, they really seem to get it. They really seem to understand it. And I know you've delivered it a number of times as well. And it just seems when you explain it in that way to clients, they just seem to really understand it. It's a really simple way of explaining it. This is the marketing approach that we're gonna deliver. And this is the strategy connected to that marketing. So the idea is we wanna get lots of eyeballs on your marketing. This is how we're gonna do it. We're gonna do the X, Y, and Z. This will include social media, include meta ads, include X, Y, and Z. then it's like this is the strategy this is how we're going to manage the process this is how we're going to make sure we extract the best opportunity from the market from the best buyers and then finally once we've got the best buyers and we've got the most eyeballs this is how we're going to get the best price through our negotiation process and so Exactly right. So many clients, when they're on the receiving end of that, this is robust because you've also got to bear in mind that there are so few other agencies and businesses out there that are going to deliver anywhere near that level of detail. Even in the very short explainer that I've just given, that would be more than most to giving a client. And all you're doing is simply reassuring the client that you're the right choice because you've got a plan. You know what you're doing and you know what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. You're not promising a result. You're promising a process that's going to get the result and focus on how we're going to get there. So, yeah, for me, I think the MSN strategy and framework is such an important part to build in. So the client's not just making a decision based on the valuation and the fee. They're making a decision based on, OK, this person is going to get me a better outcome because they have an actual robust process. Yeah, I think you've just touched on it. We've only given, I suppose, a small brief of some of the things that we go through. And this is coming to forty minutes. So this would be a forty minute client meeting with one of our clients. And we haven't even really gone into the nitty gritty and the real finer details. So these appointments sometimes can last for hours. you know, an hour and a half, two hours in some cases to make sure that we're really giving the client everything that they need to know and understand. We've had an appointment last of five hours with one of our agents. It was a ten acre, huge mill, which did come to market actually, which is no surprise if they've spent five hours there. I think he nearly packed his overnight bag. But there was real detail that goes into these appointments and really making sure that the clients understand and have the right advice and a tailored marketing plan that's really detailed for them and their property. Totally agree. I think the other thing that needs to be said on that as well is that some people might be listening into this and go, blimey, you spend upwards of an hour and a half, two hours, five hours even with a potential client. Like surely they must be getting bored by the point that you've been there that long. And I think it would be a fair challenge for those that don't understand how to deliver a really robust appointment. Because if you simply just sat and talked at someone post tour and you talk at them for two hours, blimey, my God, the blinkers are going to drop. So it's really, really important that it's an engaging, collaborative appointment. You're getting feedback. I suppose in old sales language, you're getting soft close signals. You're getting agreement from the client. I don't necessarily believe that to be the right mentality, but people will understand it if they've been to any old sales guru training that you're looking for soft closes. But it's more about interaction. It's more about getting their feedback. Does that make sense to you? How do you feel about that? When we put your property on the market, how would you feel about us doing a launch day campaign, which by the way, you and I haven't even touched on. We'll do that on a different podcast. But how would you feel about that? Would that make your life easier? And all the while the client's sitting there going, absolutely. Yeah, I love it. Show me more. I think as well, we do a lot of, we send our agents out on a, we've got the sales day as part of our onboarding process, but the agents that join us even get the chance to go off a few weeks later to go and meet with our sales coach. That's part of the coaching, part of the coaching company that we're a part of and really spend some time understanding some really powerful patterns, which I think is really important. And I do believe that I suppose prior to us setting the avenue up and getting into team and launching team, I personally didn't do a lot of coaching or education and spending time with Matt Alwell and his team, Matt Salby and the rest of the team at the Elite Aging Clothing Academy has really helped us build some more powerful questions in and help build a lot of this framework out. So I think it's really important for anyone listening to practice, to have coaching, to speak to other people, other industry experts, either within the property sector or outside of the property sector that are in sales as well. and really make sure you can provide a really strong offer, detail down your processes and ask some really, really powerful questions that are going to give you the information that you need. Now, final piece on this, Jack, final piece, because I appreciate we're coming up to nearly forty five minutes in this episode. And this has been stacked full of value. But at the same time, I also appreciate we could probably break this up and do separate episodes. The final part, we're near the end of the appointment. We've gone through the process. We've agreed on price. We've talked them through the MSN strategy as to how we're going to get them the result and make life easy for them. Talk to me about fees. The dreaded delivery of fees. Now, I suppose people in the UK hate talking about money, don't they? So when it comes to fees, I think a lot of people get hot, get sweaty, get nervous. And it's either the fees spat out or, you know, it's not clear enough. And you leave that appointment either not having given the client, you know, to close that appointment, know the next steps. oh it's just a little bit rushed so um again coming back to what I said earlier I think giving clients options and choice is really important um obviously you want to make sure that you've thought about the fees and I believe it's important to have a minimum expectation as well like going into that appointment having a minimum um standard that you're willing to take this client or take this property on the market for because there's going to be a lot of time and um a lot of time, money and investment into making sure you can get this kind of result. So, offering a couple of options. We like to give our clients an option of having either an upfront fee and a slightly smaller backend or a higher fee and we invest all the money into the marketing. So, giving the clients options I think is really, really important. and allowing the client to choose what they prefer because if you are if you've got two options when it comes to fee and they've had two other agents out they've got three agents they've had out you've given them four sorry you've given them two choices they've had two from the other agents combined you're now fifty percent of that choice rather than thirty three percent what you were before so you've increased your odds you've increased your odds haven't you yeah I think really important to make sure that I think firstly making sure that the you ask the clients that everything you've gone through is well understood they've got the confidence in what you've delivered and the approach is the right approach for them and and then start to deliver on the fee and make sure they have a clear understanding of what the fees look like but giving them options for them to choose from I think um is really important Totally agree. And we've seen a significant uplift across the business for the agents because obviously we coach this with all of our partner agents. And there's two things that I've spotted because obviously we run a scorecard that we track how the business is performing. And the two things that I've noticed are that the conversion rate in the business has skyrocketed. So so far, quarter two so far, we're converting nearly sixty percent of the appointments we attend. So that's across the board. That's including people that aren't quite ready yet. So the conversion is very, very strong. But secondly, the amount of clients that are prepared to pay an upfront marketing contribution is actually higher than those that aren't. So anyone out there that believes that clients won't make an advanced upfront contribution, it's a limiting belief. I promise you we've got agents all over the country now and all of them are delivering an upfront marketing contribution model. And it's working and people are paying an advance payment. And so it's all about the psychology. Jack, it's been great meeting you. Here's how the fees work. There's two options. You can either pay X percent plus VAT on a no sale, no fee basis, or you can pay Y percent plus VAT with an ABC upfront marketing contribution plus VAT. Jack, which would you prefer? And so all of a sudden, the language has changed. It's not a challenge around fee. It's not a wait and see what they say to see whether they bulk up my fee or scoff at it or spit their tea out. It's which would you prefer? Again, it's a soft close, isn't it? I think that I would say looking across the whole business now, the majority of our agents are charging up front market fees. And that just shows how not only... know how they're presenting well and showing the value to the clients it shows how committed their clients are as well it shows that their clients are committed to actually investing as well into the market and making sure um they achieve the right results so um and I do think a big part of that is being able to offer two free options and give the client choice um and of course you know if you would prefer them to to take it from marketing contribution make that make that the more attractive attractive offer so it seems like a no-brainer to go for that particular um option Yeah, absolutely. You've got to think it through beforehand, haven't you? But whenever I'm talking to our partners, I generally say, look, aim to put a half a percent difference between the higher fee and the lower one, because you're then more likely to get the client aiming more towards the upfront contribution. But if there's a scenario where you think that actually the upfront contribution won't be necessary, then make the gap slightly smaller. You can tailor it according to which way you want the coin to land. It's been a great episode. I think there's so much that people listening in could take from this. I'm pretty confident that people will be listening back to certain parts and trying to capture certain aspects of what we've shared. But equally, if there's anyone out there who is in the land of a state agency, employed, self-employed, it doesn't really matter. that you want a little bit more of an insight, you want some help, you want a little bit more of an idea, you believe no matter the environment you're in, you believe you can deliver better and you'd like a little bit of a steer from Jack or I on how to do that, then feel free to drop us a message. You can get us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. We'd be only too pleased to help. It's been a great episode. It's been stacked, in my opinion, full of gold, loads for people to take away. So until next time, Jack, that's a wrap.