How to Guarantee Your Real Estate Services?

Seller asked if I can guarantee my services. But I'm reluctant to do it. I cannot be 100% sure that their property will sell during the listing period, and even if I were sure, I don't know how to structure such guarantee - could you help please?

A major component of making the sales experience better is to remove the risk from the equation.

Empathize with your sellers. Realize that it is a great risk for them to list the property with you. And a great risk spells PAIN. When you boil it down, all human beings want two things: to find pleasure and to avoid pain. Sure, there is a lot more to life than just that, but these are fundamentals. Everybody wants to enjoy life, and nobody wants to suffer. Interestingly, studies prove over and over again that we do much more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure.

Back to your seller. If you think about it, I am sure you will agree, that sellers are afraid of getting stuck with a real estate agent who will not deliver on all those super promises given during a listing presentation. Can you blame the sellers? It's normal. I bet you would feel the same!

Some sellers voice those fears, some don't, but most of the time those fears exist. Those fears are as real as the real estate you are helping them sell. How effective you are in helping your sellers deal with those fears? You can pretend you don't know about those fears - as most agents do, since they have no idea how to deal with them effectively… You can just reassure people saying "no reason to fear, I will take care of everything" (good luck!)… Or you can bring those fears into open and deal with them one by one, in more logical, honest, and more effective manner.

Removing risk starts with identifying what those fears are. And let's face it, there is a long laundry list of horrors that might happen if the agent is not as professional and as committed as it appears on the surface. Traditional way of building trust through ongoing relationship with buyers and sellers, using testimonials, case studies, educating them about the sales process work very well. But quite often it is not enough. For some people this kind of fear can be a serious stumbling block and you need to do more to get their approval on the listing agreement.

Guaranteeing your service can give you that extra advantage over your competition. It is usually very effective. It can work like MAGIC!

But be careful here. Merely saying: "I guarantee that you will be happy with my services" is not nearly enough. To be effective, your guarantee must be specific. It must make clear what risk YOU are assuming if you don't perform as promised.

Make sure that the guarantee offers a remedy - something that actually will inspire people to buy. I've seen so many guarantees that don't do anything to remove risk or build trust, quite contrary! For example, one web host advertised:

If you are not happy with our service… we will give you a second month free.

Hey, that's great! Your service is junk, and if I don't like it, you'll give me another month of disconnects, downtime and broken links. Could I get some broken glass with that, too? Just grind it right into my eye!!!!

A real estate company in California offers this guarantee: "we guarantee that we will meet your service expectations. If, upon closing with us, you do not feel that we have met your service expectations, tell us about it in writing and we will give you $250." — That's rather lame…

I like much more this guarantee offered by Camille O'Brien from Executive Real Estate Inc.: "If you are not completely satisfied with my service, you can cancel our agreement at anytime, no questions asked." Very short, specific and very effective, I'm sure!

When I was still selling real estate, I offered following guarantee: "If I don't sell your house in 90 days, I will work for free". No worry, I never had to work for free, because I was accepting only very salable listings and my marketing plan was next to none!

Jim Cummings of RE/MAX Austin Associates makes a similar promise: "We GUARANTEE, in writing, that we will sell your home in 60 days or less, AT A PRICE ACCEPTABLE TO YOU, or we will pay you $1,000 cash." - Wow, that's powerful!!!! Wouldn't that inspire your trust if you were the seller?

An old friend, who prefers to remain anonymous, offers the following guarantee: "If you are not completely satisfied with the house I help you buy in the first year, I will help you sell it and you will owe me no commission. On top of that, I will pay for your moving expenses." — After years of doing this, no one has taken him up on the offer. In the meantime, his business has increased so much as the result of this guarantee, that he doesn't care if someone does….

Chances are that you don't feel comfortable offering this kind of guarantee. Don't feel you have to. You can start small. For example Jim and Linda Giordano from RE/MAX Action Realty make this commitment: "We guarantee your home will be advertised 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until SOLD!" Not bad - although it is not clear what remedy they offer if they don't perform as promised (as a seller I'd like to know this to believe that they really mean it).

You don't have to go all they way, but offer SOME kind of meaningful guarantee - you will be amazed by the results. The idea is to be competitive and to offer something that makes your service irresistible, better than what's offered by your competition.