The Apple Iphone 3G rollout went poorly this weekend, they had technical problems that drove some of their most ardent fans up the wall and tarnished the Apple brand in the process.
Seth Godin, one of the great thinkers we have today, wrote a great post on how to handle scarcity using some of the Apple issues for fodder. It got me to thinking about how real estate agents handle scarcity.
And I can hear you now, Tom, scarcity, real estate. Don’t you know that we have millions of excess homes? Are you daft man?
But real estate has scarcity. If there are too many buyers, we have too few homes. Prices run rampant and irrational exuberance ensues.
And when we have too many homes, we have too few buyers. Scarcity is now on the buyers side. If I was an agent, I would take this principle by Seth to heart.
Principle 3: Treat different customers differently. Apple, for example, knows how to contact every single existing customer. Why not offer VIP status to big spenders? Or to those that make a lot of calls? Let them cut the line. It’s not fair? What’s fair mean? I can’t think of anything more fair than treating the people who treat you well, better. via Seth’s Blog
When buyers are plentiful, treat the sellers like gold. When buyers are scarce, treat them like gold.
So what are you to do if you are a listing agent? My best advice is to treat the buyers like gold also, for the sellers sake.
Go the extra yard with well qualified buyers coming to look. Get their early, find out what they like to drink (soda, coffee, tea) and have a snack laid out in the kitchen for them. Let them sit at the table and feel like it is their home.
Follow up extra hard with the well qualified buyers agent making sure they are valued. They took the time after doing their research to come see your listing in a market saturated with other listings, you go out of your way.
Spend a little extra developing a target buyer and build your marketing for that type of person. Instead of generic one size fits all marketing, find out the demographics and build the marketing for those people. For example, is it a family house you are listing? Talk to the homeowner and get some of the neighborhood kids to come play on the swing set, or go to the local park and take a picture of kids playing. You will be amazed at the subliminal message being sent.
But do not ever believe that you are marketing in the same environment as 10 years ago. You need to micro target the buyers and when you get one that fits the profile go all out to show that they are appreciated.
Face it, they took time out of their lives to come see a home you are listing and mostly likely drove by 10 other homes to get there.
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