by Sean
I was looking at some real estate websites today about good questions to ask a Realtor. One that stuck out was, “What is your marketing plan?”
I know there are probably 1000 agents that have been on the other end of that question who all of a sudden got the “deer in the headlights” look.
It’s not that it’s a bad question…I’ve a power point presentation that answers that question point-by-point (or I did until my laptop melted down last week–I now have to re-build it). But it’s a bit of a loaded question.
For example, what if you went up to a Coca-Cola ad exec and asked what was Coca-Cola’s marketing plan. He or she would probably stumble around and say, “Well, we do TV and multi-media, and billboards, and I think we do this and that…” And you’d come away thinking they were morons and they had no marketing plan, but the truth would be that Coca-Cola’s marketing engine has made it into the best selling soft drink in the world.
So the better question to ask your Realtor is, “How successful is your marketing plan?” If you get an “I don’t know,” or “It does really good,” then you know you’re in trouble. Because an agent should know how successful he or she is.
But if you get, “Well, I took 24 listings last year and sold 18,” then you know you’re working with a pro.
I can tell you mine is historically 86% successful. That means I’ll typically sell 86 of every 100 listings I take, and 14 will expire. Of those 14, 13 typically received offers that the sellers rejected (nothing I can do about that, but it still counts agains the average).
