Several years ago I was interviewing a young broker on the subject of prospecting, and he told me the story of one question that he began asking during his prospecting calls, that quickly became an important, lucrative question for him to be asking.

He recognized that whenever he was calling property owners, he was zeroed-in on just the one property that he was calling on, but then he recognized that the owner may actually own other properties, too. So the broker then began asking the question, “Do you have any other properties that you’d consider selling?” And right away, when he then asked that question to one owner who had told him that he had no interest in selling the property that the agent was calling him on, the owner then responded with, “Yes, I have four other properties that I’d like to sell”. And with that, the broker then told me, “Had I not asked that question, I wouldn’t have ended-up listing those four properties for sale.”

So recognize that even though you may be calling an owner about one specific property that they own, they may own other properties that they need to sell or lease, and when you ask a question like this one, you could then end up moving towards consummating a deal on an entirely different property!