A Floyd Wickman blog by Mike Pallin, Floyd Wickman Team, LLC Just back from a 3 day listing presentation workshop with some of our best students, some new friends, and many long-time followers of The Wickman Method.

We were there to sharpen our listing presentation skills, learn how to knock out our competition and better serve our clients.

Why would salespeople who are already Wickman trained, and who are already really busy, take three days out of their work life and leave home to go to a listing presentation workshop?

At the beginning of the workshop, the most common reason I heard was, “My inventory is way down and I want to find out what I’ve been missing.”

At the end of the three days, the most common realizations I heard were,

• “I’ve been winging it. What a relief to know I’m not the only one.”
• “Things got too easy. I became complacent, my competitors didn’t, and they left me in their dust. Now I know what I have to do to get ahead again.”
• “I’m not missing anything. I already had the best listing presentation. I just haven’t been using it.”
• “I’ve found the reason why my listings are down. All I have to do is use what Floyd taught me.”

Here’s the #1 most popular dialogue we reviewed, fine-tuned and mastered in the workshop (using a $400,000 market value as an example):

Take out your talking pad.

“Mr. and Mrs. Seller, as you know there are three prices on every house.

“There’s wholesale, and that’s the price an investor would pay for your home, not to live in it, but to resell it and make a profit.

“In your case, that would be in the neighborhood of, ohhhhhhh, $280,000.

“You know, I just had a thought. What if I could get you 280, all cash, immediately . . . would you even consider it?

“I don’t blame you, I wouldn’t either.

“The second price on every house is retail, and in your case that’s right around $400,000. And the third price on every house is your price, and your list price is determined by how much time you have to sell.

“May I show you how most successful sellers choose their list price?

Show them the Time Pyramid.

“This triangle demonstrates the relationship between timing and price. For instance, this little part here at the top indicates a price of $280,000 and a sale time of ‘immediately.’

“At the bottom, this part indicates a sale price of $400,000 and a sale time that’s a combination of three factors: average days on market; plus adjusted marketing time for the for sale by owners, expired, cancelled and withdrawn listings; plus processing time.

“Our current average days on market until sale is 59 days. Today is March 15^th, so that means May 13^th before we find the right buyer. Then we have to add 29 more days for the adjusted marketing time, and we are really at June 11^th. And finally, processing time is normally up to 42 days, but with the new regulations, it may take as much as 10 days more, so to be safe we should add 52 days, or August 2^nd before you move.

“So the only question at this point is, How soon do you want your money?”

Convert time to price and price to net.

But you knew that already.

See, you're not missing anything. And while it’s true that skills don’t have a shelf life, they do need to be renewed regularly, just like your driver’s license or your library card. Because if you don’t, then you would be missing something.