Transcript:
Sarah Bell: Welcome to the AREC lounge, Gavin Croft.
Gavin Croft: Lovely to be here. Lovely to see you.
Sarah: Welcome, welcome. Now, Gavin, you are fresh off being a coach in our Transform program. What did you make of our Super Six?
Gavin: The group had a good energy to it. You can see they’re all there for the right reasons. I think what will be interesting is just to follow the paths of these guys now to actually see whether they can move from taking the training and actually place and put some time into their own development.
Sarah: A lot of people who aren’t heavily invested in auctions or don’t have a lot of experience do find them scary, (both) agents and vendors. Talk to me about that, what to do with that uncertainty?
Gavin: Whenever people are faced with issues or problems and there’s no understanding behind what’s going on, fear generally sets in. People do fear auction day, depending on which stakeholder you are; buyer, seller, real estate agent, we all face it. It’s about how we actually deal with it on the day.
Sarah: You said to the Super Six, “Just be aware of what comes out of your mouth when you’re operating from fear.” Talk to me about that.
Gavin: One of the things that I’ve seen over a long period of time is, particularly in those critical moments leading into (the auction), it might be the reserve meeting or key vendor discussions. They don’t miss a word that you say. We’ve got to have comfortability that we can’t control everything.
If we’re going to tell a seller that two buyers are going to be there on the day and only one turns up, you’re on the back foot. A better way to actually put that would be to address that. “Mr. Seller, we don’t have control over the day. Here’s what we sense we’ll feel unfold. Now, but we’ve got to be prepared if both come, one comes, or none come.”
Sarah: In an auction campaign, who’s responsible for what?
Gavin: That needs to be clearly defined. A vendor for interest: they will do everything they can to pass the responsibility of the sale onto the agent. The reality is the vendors are completely responsible. There is a strategy very clearly in place and the agent’s role is to execute it.
If you’re not clear, that’s where you get some real breakdowns and you start to see, call it, a blame game, where they start blaming because no one’s accepting the responsibility in the areas that they should be.
Sarah: If you’re a young agent, hasn’t done a lot of auctions, what do you do to build your product knowledge and your process knowledge around auction so that you can deliver that?
Gavin: We talk about this thing called ‘buyer work’. We use word ‘qualification’. Those agents who can qualify and understand buyers: that’s the game.
You’re just able to play and give your vendors really high level of information when you understand buyers well. In turn, when you understand the buyers, you understand the markets.
Sarah: A by-product of that is fantastic customer service, isn’t it? Which is what they want. That’s what we’re in the business of, isn’t it?
Gavin: So well said. Yeah. Again, buyer service. If you were to go and talk to 100 buyers, if they walked through the door now and you asked them, “Tell me about the level of service.” It is hard for a buyer. In the Sydney real estate market, it is very, very difficult. It is not easy to buy property.
Sarah: It’s an emotional process. It’s competitive.
Gavin: Absolutely. The one thing a buyer will never forget: the experience that they’ve had with you. Again, in my experience, that will be a stronger motivation to be able to call an agent when they’ve got to sell. They don’t forget the experience.
Sarah: Thank you so much for coming and visiting Elite Agent.
Gavin: Thank you.
You can watch the highlights of Gavin Croft’s Transform coaching session on the Art of the Auction by clicking here.
