- The most important of those seven words
are the first two: calm down.
(upbeat music)
- Hi, I'm Shawn Parman, producer of the Tom Ferry Show.
In today's episode Tom Ferry and Steve Harney
discuss how to properly communicate
the reality of the market, as well as brainstorming
buyer marketing ideas, enjoy.
- So let's jump right into that Steve,
because, look we're 42 days into the new year
and I think this morning I sent you
at least one or two emails,
'cause if you're reading Mortgage Wire,
you're reading anything out there today
the sensationalism of the news would have
the average consumer believing this is a horrible time
to buy or sell.
So Steve, we're 42 days into 2019
What say you?
- Alright, well first I say remember
that negative headlines get more clicks
negative headlines create more buzz
than positive headlines do.
So very obviously there are a lot of people out there
that are trying to lean on the negative.
And I think that's gonna only get worse as we get closer
to the election in 2020.
So for the next 15 months
I think we're gonna be bombarded with negative headlines.
The good news is they're not true, alright?
And the bad news is we have the responsibility
to make sure the public realizes they're not true.
So there's a lot of negative news out there.
what I tell agents very simply.
I give them seven words.
Calm down, sit down, think, plan, act.
Those are the seven words.
The most important of those seven words
are the first two: calm down.
- Yes.
- Everything is fine.
If you get caught up in the craziness,
if you get caught up in the psychology of this
then you're the only person that's capable
in your marketplace of making sure
that it's not impacted by panic, alright?
If you're panicked, they're gonna be panicked
and what I think that normally happens
in a market that's changing, and this market is changing
for the good I'll tell you about that in a second.
But with a market that's changing sometimes
that uncertainty causes concern, the concern
can cause doubt, the doubt causes fear
and the fear then can create panic.
And if we get anywhere near the fear of panic
stages of this we have a challenge.
So let's talk about agents.
Agents right now are panicked.
Oh my god, there's so many listings
coming to the market, there's price breaks,
prices are starting to level off.
It's like, well Steve, what are we gonna do?
This is horrible, look what.
And then I say, wait, wait, hold on a second.
Last year at this exact time, February 2018.
I'm out in front of agents,
You know what every agent's telling me?
Steve, there's no listings to sell.
We're going into the spring buyer's market
and we've got nothing to sell.
How are we gonna do any sales
when don't have anything to sell?
And look at the prices they're going through the roof.
We're heading for another crash, Steve.
If these prices keep on going up
we're gonna be at a another crash just like 2008.
We have to somehow get the prices down.
Alright, so now, they had prayer vigils.
I attended some of them, praying to the real estate gods
that please give us more inventory
and please make sure that prices start
to just balance out some, level off some.
That's what everyone was praying for a year ago.
- Yeah.
- The gods answered our prayers
and now we're panicking
because we got exactly what we wanted.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'e going into
a normalized market, everyone calm down.
Sales this year are gonna be better
than they were last year.
I think they're gonna be a lot better.
But the people who forecast them
say they're gonna be better than last year.
Prices are not gonna crash, as a matter of fact,
we're gonna end 2019 with still an appreciation
level higher than what the historic norms are.
Now is it gonna be six, eight, 12 percent?
No, thank God it's not gonna be that.
We're gonna get down into that.
This year we're gonna be somewhere between
four and a half and five percent and then next year
we're gonna get down to normal numbers
somewhere in the mid threes.
But there's nothing wrong with that.
What that means is we're heading
toward a more normal market where we can sell
houses and the houses we can sell people can afford to buy.
- So Steve you just shared, if everyone listening
just took that advice and just took a breather
and stopped complaining about the number of price
reductions they're seeing.
Prices are falling.
I'm like no, over-priced listings are actually
now being corrected to the reality of the market.
Everyone watching knows what I'm talking about.
But I think the bigger insight you gave,
and I think I mentioned this last week on stage.
A personal client of mine who I just hung up with and said,
so, and I'm not gonna say his name
but you could guess he's number,
I think, he's in the top 15 in the world
for Keller Williams as an agent.
- Okay.
- When I first started chatting with him he's like
Tom I haven't talked to you in three weeks.
You have no idea what's going on.
In my area right now, doom, gloom, fear, misery
doom, gloom, fear, misery.
And he had all these examples
and I finally stopped him and said,
how is your business?
He said, oh I'm having the best January of my life.
Right, but we get so caught up in the hyperbole
of headline readings, water cooler conversations
about agents in a state of panic
that don't sell any houses anyway.
Now I know we're gonna get into this 'cause I really
want you to drive home with everyone watching
today the five points you just shared
with our elite.
I wrote down, what advice do you have
for our listeners to get the word out
especially to the 25 to 35 year olds that are out there
reading the same headlines everyone else is and thinking
maybe now is not the time to buy?
So what advice do you have for everyone watching
to get the word out to that segment of the market?
- I will tell that it is our moral imperative
to get out and help people understand
how important home ownership is to them,
their families, their communities,
their neighborhoods, and the entire country.
So now I've shifted my thinking on that
and said, no, you know what, I'm gonna take this
as kind of a little bit of an electric shock
in the rear end.
I'm gonna get moving on this.
So I know we're at KCM we're putting a whole
bunch of resources together and we're taking
all of the data that's been there
and all of the research that's been done.
Both on the financial and non-financial benefits
of home ownership and we're gonna make all
that information available to realtors
across the country,
because we have to now become missionaries to the value.
We ran a stretch that people wanted
to buy a house simply because they made money at it.
They bought a house and then five years later
it was worth 30, 40% more than when they bought it.
But there's so many other reasons.
The financial reason is still there
but there's a whole bunch of other reasons
that home ownership is important to them
and to their communities.
And we're gonna gather that information,
we're gonna catalog that information,
we're gonna get it out to them.
Right now they have to take on that missionary zeal.
They have a lot of the information
just already in their head.
Just today I had somebody in LinkedIn,
an answer to this guy that said
home ownership was important.
He gave a heart felt message
to me that he put it on public.
Saying Steve, I heard when he,
he was working in the back of the room,
he wasn't even an attendee of this speech.
And I heard what you said and it gave me the courage
to go out and purchase a home.
And thank, God I did.
I went from being, a millennial being in debt,
to being in a much better position
financially and all the other benefits.
He said, that speech changed my life
from a financial basis.
And he thanked me for it.
Now, the point of the matter is we have a million realtors.
If we each went out and gave
that speech and if you don't wanna get a group
of people together let's do a one-on-one.
And we sit down and we talk about how important
home ownership is to them.
Then I think that whatever one social groupie
or guru tweets out one time is gonna mean nothing.
We have an army of missionaries
that have to spread the word, the true word.
- I love it.
Okay, so I'm gonna give you guys
a strategy and three tactics
or just some combination of the two,
then I want your feedback on it.
Ready?
So, I'm putting you on the spot here.
The first thing I wrote down if I was an agent
watching this and I truly believe in the value
of home ownership, not just the fact
that I'm a licensed real estate professional
or I do mortgages or I'm part of the Title and Escrow
and insurance industry but like I know my own story
and I know the story of so many of my clients.
What I would challenge you on is I wrote down,
start creating content, right?
Videos specifically called My First Home.
So, think about this, Steve.
What if they actually took the time to slow down,
to document the journey
of the next first time buyer that they work with?
Right?
From tell me what sites you were on.
What was the trigger?
At what point did you say, we could do it?
When did you start first saving?
We're interviewing, getting a back story, right?
And then why, did anybody else in your home own a home?
Are you the first person in your family to own a home?
To get all of that story, right?
And I don't care if it's just little soundbites
but then I wrote down,
if you documented the client's journey from the decision,
to get to start to save, to correct their credit,
to do all the things they have to do,
from their online search to the figuring out mortgages,
to finding an agent, you, to home shopping,
to selecting, to offers, to close.
That experience that they would
document could create so much viral content
that they would be seen as not the realtor
just trying to sell the house but someone
that is truly doing what so many of our friends
are watching right now do, they're trying to help people.
Right, they see their job as that person,
I'm here to help you whether buying or not, right?
That's not the factor.
Can I help you get your credit repaired?
Can I help you make the right decision?
Can I talk you out of a bad home and help you
make the right decision, right?
Maybe at a lower price.
So I think that would be awesome.
I would remind all of you.
- It's brilliant.
One of the things I was most embarrassed
about when I was an agent.
Of course I helped a lot of people
get into their first home.
One of the things I was embarrassed,
about I might be in a supermarket and a couple
would walk up to me and say, Steve thank you very much.
We moved into our house five years ago
we now have two kids
and if it wasn't for you we would have been.
And I couldn't even remember the person.
I couldn't remember their name.
Here was this person I'd changed to helped them change
their own lives and here I am saying, oh my god.
Trying to remember which house it was.
That is a brilliant strategy in so many ways.
The only thing is I'd get
the buyer involved in that with you.
- Of course!
No, no, no, I'm only thinking film the buyer.
Only from the buyer's perspective.
Show me what sites you were looking at.
What criteria, what buttons did you hit?
Right, 'cause you're showing the next wave of buyers
this is how someone that did it, did it.
This is someone that maybe, again I use the example,
maybe it's the single young woman who's buying her first
home who's a 2nd generation immigrant,
who's coming into this country,
her parents never dreamed of owning a home
and now she's in a position to do so.
Like, that kind of heartfelt truth
about the American dream of home ownership
would just be bananas.
So that's my first part but I wanna remind you guys.
YouTube is the 2nd most searched site
on the planet right now, YouTube.
No one though is searching for, like, find an agent,
instead they're searching like, how do I buy my first house?
How do I do my credit repair?
How much can I afford?
What are the best features to owning a home?
And what I would remind everybody is,
this is just a little tactic,
that if you're not going into Google Adwords
and looking for what are the keyword searches
that potential home buyers are looking for
in your area and building content
with that as the subject title.
Right?
Building just micro pieces of content
just answering those questions.
If you did that, my friends, you would kill it.
So that's number one and I'm gonna give you
super easy one number two.
When you sell a home to someone who is 28, 32, et cetera,
throw a rager for them at their house,
you pay for everything, invite all of their friends,
because you're the bridge to all their friend's dreams
of home ownership.
Like you know half their friends are gonna be like,
oh my god if these two were able
to buy a house the rest of us got a shot.
Right, I mean, that's what all my friends said
when I bought my first house.
Well if this guy could do it, anybody can.
And then the third one I would tell you
is client testimonials on video
at the end of the day and then boosting
that out and a little, you know, if you don't
know the questions to ask.
Steve I interviewed my dear friend Ken Kerry
who was the infomercial guru of all time
and it's on it's own Ferry Show,
if you just Google it you'll see.
He says these are the five questions
you have to ask to basically
get them to really express the benefit
of the experience and get those testimonials
and boost them like crazy.
So those are my three, Steve, any thoughts on those?
- The only thing that,
first of all they were all brilliant.
I really, really like all of them,
I'm gonna share with you know
the people I know in the industry.
The only thing I might change a little bit.
And this is my age.
You're gonna call them a rage.
I guess for the young kids that's the case.
If you sell something to an older guy like me,
call it a housewarming party.
Just because they will say,
a rager, I don't want anyone raging in my house.
Just teasing, teasing you.
I think they're brilliant ideas.
Anything that we can do right now to promote
the importance, we all know, being in the business
we know that look on the homeowner's face
when they first get the keys at the table.
We know that look.
We know that look at the first night
they spend in the house.
We know that we have to now get that look,
that feel, that heart felt, I don't know what to call it,
and we got to get that on film or we got to get that out.
- Thanks so much for watching.
We hope you enjoyed this episode.
But please let us know down below
how you are going to be helping by sharing
and spreading the positive news and which ideas
you yourself are going to be implementing
to be helping your business and your buyers.
Thanks so much.
We look forward to seeing you in the next one.
And remember as always,
your strategy matters and your passion rules.
Peace.