Practice Makes Perfect
by, Corey Wells

Once you have learned all the scripts and persuasion techniques and committed them to memory, you still have one more thing to do. That’s practice! You need to practice your prospecting techniques over and over again until you know the material backwards and forwards. It’s best to practice by sitting in front of a mirror so you can watch yourself. Do you hesitate, do you move around a lot, are your confident and so on? When you feel confident that you know the material and how you are going to present it, practice on a spouse or friend and ask for feedback.

Remember, when you make a call or presentation to a potential seller, you are basically performing and will be judged based upon that performance. The old saying that “practice makes perfect” is especially applicable to the real estate business. The more you practice, the better you’ll be. The better you are, the less scripted you will appear.

When preparing and practicing you need to work on anticipating what a prospect or seller might say. When you prepare for questions ahead of time they’re much easier to answer. Keep in mind that you’ll need to be able to handle objections in a way that doesn’t offend and still gets your point across. When you’ve practiced what to say you’ll be in a better position to respond without hesitating. Try writing down how you would respond to questions that you’ve heard often in the past and use those to practice your responses.

When making a call or presentation you’re likely to face many different types of objections. One way to prepare a persuasive response is to practice your scripts. Using scripts will help you overcome objections, but you shouldn’t totally rely on them. Sometimes you must be able to think on your feet. When practicing your scripts with family or friends, ask them to interject their own questions into the mix so you have a chance to ad-lib your responses.

Practice is good, but you need to remember that during your actual discussions with potential clients you need to concentrate on what they’re feeling and saying. Don’t start your scripted answer when the prospect is mid-way through their question. You practice scripts so the conversation will flow naturally, not because you need to memorize “exactly” what to say.

Every day you must practice your scripts and persuasion skills to get better. Practice perfecting your scripts with the proper tone of speech while incorporating your mirroring and matching skills along with pacing and leading questions. By practicing you can gradually build on all these skills, making you unstoppable. Practicing will give you the confidence and the skills necessary to handle any situation.

(c) 2008 Leading Example Enterprises Inc.

Corey Wells, is the founder of Leading Example Coaching which offers Real Estate Agent Coaching, Books, Audio, Scripts, Packages, Software & More. Visit: Leading Example Coaching This article was originally posted on LeadingExample.com/Blog