As a consumer, have you ever walked in to a store, let’s say an electronics store, seeking the advice of one of the helpful salespeople and found that their lack of knowledge throttled their confidence level to the point that they were really of no use to you and as they try to muster an answer to a question about which TV to buy, you lose confidence in them?

There are pros and cons for each TV and you as the consumer need answers to make the right choice but you can’t get them because your salesperson does not have any confidence that they know the answer. As a consumer, we unconsciously pick up on subtleties of people like this salesperson and we lose confidence in them very quickly! We naturally gravitate towards those who we automatically recognize as confident about their work.

So it goes with real estate agents working with home buyers or sellers.

I encourage that you spend some time every week working on aspects of your business that can help you increase your confidence. It doesn’t matter if you are new or have been in the business a while. If you know what you are doing it will show through loud and clear to your clients in that ever important first impression. That’s confidence.

Once you have confidence, you will also lose fear and are quite easily become able to say to someone the most liberating words in sales; “I’m not sure, but, I’ll find out and get back with you.” When you are not afraid to say those words, it will show through that you believe in you. Nothing can sell you and your services better than that. You must have confidence in yourself to say those words.

As a team leader with 4 buyer’s agents, it has become increasingly clear that a large part of my role is to educate each agent so that they can grow their confidence and improve their appointment to closing conversion percentages. I believe that their confidence is KEY to winning people over and having them believe in each of them.

There are a number of things that can increase the confidence of an agent and what I believe to be the three most important items are below:

1.    Increase your knowledge of the inventory — we sell houses. We have to know the inventory. I can’t stress enough how important it is to preview homes.

2.    Understand market statistics — price, and therefore value, is a product of supply and demand. Having a strong foundational understanding of what pushes and pulls on the market will help you explain pricing.

3.    Contract knowledge -– do you know the contract like the back of your hand? Can you read it upside down on a table to a client? Understanding the intricacies of a contract will help you write better offers. Don’t you think that would boost your confidence?

If you can become a true expert in these three areas, you will increase your confidence level and win more clients and close more sales. Not only will you make more money from this, but, you will ultimately be doing your job better and representing your clients to the expectation level that they expect and need from us.

Confidence is a foundational key to success in real estate. The more confidence you have, the more business you will have.