GETTING PAID ON LISTINGS

High producers know that regardless of what goes on in their personal or professional lives, SOMEONE has to sign a listing agreement with them every week. Real estate is primarily a listing business, not a sales business. Top producers never run away from sales, but they primarily invest their prospecting time and energy in finding someone who wants to sell property.

But for some reason, many low producing agents - particularly those new to real estate - allow themselves to focus on the buyer. Maybe they think in terms of "I'm going to sell real estate;" "Which house can I sell you?" "If I'm selling, ...I must need a buyer to work with!" It is also important that when you are brand new in real estate, there is an existing inventory of listings you can tap into. (Hmm, got plenty of listings there, what I need is a buyer.) But there is no standing inventory of buyers ready and available to you.

Out of a need to generate a commission quickly, new agents often presume that selling a home will put them closer to a payday than listing one/getting it sold/THEN closing the transaction. Looks are deceiving! By devoting all their time to finding a buyer who will buy, they usually go LONGER (sometimes forever) without getting paid than if they had listed the property of anyone other than a friend or family member.

There are many, many Realtors® who make well in excess of $100,000 a year and who specialize in listings. But you probably could not name more than three or four who earn as much and who specialize in working with buyers. So in real estate, WHERE'S THE MONEY? In listings, naturally!

THE REASONS
· It takes less time to work with sellers. Add it up. How much time do you spend preparing for a listing presentation and making the actual presentation? All together, it's probably somewhere between three and five hours total. That includes a short time doing a market evaluation and maybe previewing a couple of specific properties ahead of time (which you would probably be doing anyway with your other previewing), plus the time you spend actually inside the house making your presentation. However, the time spent with a buyer is measured by days and weeks, not by hours.

· It's easier to set goals while working with sellers. You can't say, "My goal today is to have a cash buyer walk into the office and ask for me." That's a fantasy, not a goal. It's difficult to say, "My goal is to have someone transfer here from another city and buy from me." The money in referrals is in SENDING them, not RECEIVING them. However, it's useful to say, "My goal today is to contact five FSBO's, five Expired Listings, distribute twenty-five of my business cards and knock on thirty cold doors." These initiative activities are ones that are more likely to put you into contact with a seller than with a buyer.

· Getting paid by sellers/clients is more certain than getting paid by buyers/customers. If you got paid by every buyer to whom you showed property regardless of who they bought from, would you make more money? Essentially, that's how it works with client/sellers. Once you get the listing contract signed, you get paid regardless of who shows it and who sells it.

· You get paid more frequently and consistently as your listings sell than as your buyers buy. That's because in working on listings, time and the numbers are on your side. If you are working with buyer-customers, you only have the chance to get paid on the days you work directly with them, perhaps two to five days a week. Time and energy limit you to only working with one or two serious buyers at a time. But when you take a listing, it can sell on any days whether you are working or not. There is nothing unusual about having twenty or more listings in your personal inventory at one time. Do the math: What if half of your two buyers bought in one month? What if half of your twenty listings sold in one month? Which side of those two closing tables would you want to be on?

· For every 100 listings you take, you'll make an additional 25 sales with no extra work on your part. It just happens; top producers have known that for a long time. Some of your sellers relocate in the same area and you sell them another house. Your yard signs are good advertising. Your reputation builds faster when you specialize in listings. But just because you make a sale, it is not necessarily true that the buyer will then list with you.

· Your inside track on selling your own listings leads you to having more closings than listings taken! All by itself, this is ample of justification to specialize in sellers/listings. Consider this example:

You take Listing #1. A co-op broker sells it.
You take Listing #2. A co-op broker sells it.
You take Listing #3. A co-op broker sells it.
You take Listing #4. You sell it yourself.
You take Listing #5. You sell it yourself.
You take Listing #6. You sell it yourself.
You take Listing #7. It never sells, ever.
You take Listing #8. It never sells, ever.

Altogether, you took eight listings; two of them never even sold, three of them you sold yourself. Total: Nine closed sides on just eight listings taken! A smart sales person could look into this!