I have a coaching client who has done something very successfully over the years: When an owner is about to list their property and put it on the market with another brokerage company, my client has been very successful at getting the owner to exclude from the listing the buyers he’s already presented the property to, and sometimes even the buyers he still wants to present the property to also.

Think about this for a moment…there are many brokers out there who will not even attempt to approach buyers about a given property, until the broker has secured the listing for the property first. Now you may be going after the listing yourself, too, and you may even sense that the listing will be given to another brokerage company, but this doesn’t have to stop you from protecting yourself with respect to the people you intend to present the property to, or the people you have already presented the property to.

With this in mind, your conversation with the owner might go something like this…

“John, I’ve already been working hard to find the ideal buyer for your property, and I’ve already submitted it to five different people, who have all expressed an interest in it. Now these people haven’t even been approached by the brokerage firm you’re intending to list the property with, and I’d like to know that you will protect me for the work that I’ve already done in attempting to sell your property.”

“You believe that people who work hard for you in trying to sell your property should be treated fairly for their hard work, don’t you?”

“So in keeping this in mind, here’s all I’m asking. This is the list of the five buyers I’ve already been working with, to get them interested in buying your property. Since the brokerage company you’ll be listing with has done nothing whatsoever to even contact these people, I ask that you do the right thing, and protect me and exclude these people from the listing. This is what’s right and fair, John, and all I ask is that you do the right thing, and protect me.”

The more that you bring this kind of thinking into your consciousness as a broker, the more successful you will become. In addition, there are many other situations in your business that could benefit from having just the right kind of scripting to move the transaction forward, and the more of these kinds of situations that you can identify and write the ideal scripting for, the smoother and more successful your path will become.