As we discussed in the workshop what's most agents' biggest fear? You said objections, going on the appointments, being face to face. In my opinion most agents' biggest fear is the phone.

In the workshop we gave you a track. It's the telephone track which is used in a program which I personally conduct called Sweathogs; if it ever comes to the area you definitely want to check it out. As you know in the workshop it was a five step approach. Identify, Introduce, Ask, Reason, and Ask Again. Now we roll played it in the workshop. I recommend you get with your fellow colleagues and you workshop this phone track. Why? So you can stay on track because as you noticed in the workshop as we roll played if the person said "Yes we're thinking about selling" you went way off track. Identify, Introduce, Ask, Reason and then Ask Again another way. The telephone track I recommend is the Ed Phone Track. This past year I conducted fifty-three call nights. For those of you that are listening to this CD, this might be the value that you received for listening to it is this phone track.

Now as you know we gave you a track with the dialog in it. Identify. Is this the person that has the home for sale? Now once again, you'll find out immediately if it's the person that owns the home or not. Now some people might spend hours trying to look up their names. If you have it that's great but let's don't waste time when we could be doing productive activity.

Step two is the introduction. "Hi this is Ed Escobar with ABC Realty how are you this evening? I was calling to see if your home is still available." Now when I first started doing this I just left it at that and the response wasn't that positive. So I changed it. "I was calling to see if the home is still available. Hopefully for your sake it's not." And I say it with a kind of sense of humor. And it kind of messes with their head because how many real estate agents call a home owner and wishes that their home was sold? Not many. Kind of a unique approach. Well they'll let you know real quick if it is available or not and if it is available I like to slip in there "Have you had any offers yet?" Why? Because that tells you immediately if their qualified or not. What do you mean Ed? Well if they've had no offers what does that tell you? It's a bow-wow. If they've had multiple offers they are probably going to give you a tough time but that's the one that you want because they have a need to sell their home. You see somebody out there wants to sell their house they just don't know where you are.

Then the asking question. Now this once again is a qualifying question that I like to use. Before I do that I always like to give them the reason why I called. So step one Identify. Is this the person that has the home for sale? Step two Introduce. "This is Ed Escobar with ABC Realty how are you this evening?" Step three Ask. "I was calling to see if your home is still available hopefully for your sake it is not. Has it sold yet? Oh it hasn't oh have you had any offers yet? Oh ok." Then you Reason, step four. "The reason I'm calling is to see if you're cooperating with brokers." This is where they're going to throw all of the objections at you. "Well we'll pay you two percent commission. We're not going to sign anything exclusively." It doesn't matter. You're objective is to just get the appointment. So many agents try to handle these objections over the phone only to find out that they win but they loose because they don't have anything signed. The objective is to book the appointment.

Then step five is to Ask Again. Ask a qualifying question. "Well just out of curiosity, why are you selling your home?" When I first started doing this I left it at that. Big mistake. I got a lot of negative reaction on that one. So I changed it a little bit. "Just out of curiosity why are you selling your home? Are you moving out of state?" I like to slip that "moving out of state" in there. They tell you all of the information. Try it out it works. Then on the bottom of that sample we gave you some probing questions to ask them.

So we've given you the telephone track. What do you do when they give you an obstacle? You're on the phone and they give you an obstacle. Now in the workshop we said there are three things you can do. Number one you can talk. We all agreed never talk to inattention. And remember, whenever you're asking someone questions and you ask them "Well what did you think about that?" and they say "Oh I'm sorry about what?" they weren't listening to what you were saying. You were talking to inattention. So never talk to inattention. From today on, after listening to this CD if you hear "Oh I'm sorry Ed what did you say?" they weren't listening to what you were saying. You were talking too much. You could use step two the seal technique which we all agreed was not the way to go. The "uh uh uh" are you sure you want to wait? Or third you could use what I like to call the sharp-angle or the right-angle close. Now let's take a look at that because in this right-angle close there are two types of questions. There are open-ended questions. Open-ended questions are designed to give you expanded information. Who, what, when, where, and how. Now all of these questions can not be answered with a yes or a no. Now after listening to this CD I want you to think am I asking a statement question, or am I asking an open-ended question or like I like to call it a probing question. "Did you like the house?" "Uh, yes." That told you absolutely nothing. What was it about that house that you like? Now they've got to talk to you. Because handling objections and obstacles, I can't think of a better example, I can't think of a better analogy than shaving. If you get that whisker nice and high and then you clip it off. Same way with the obstacle and the objection. You get that objection or obstacle to stand straight up and you cut it right off. So I recommend you practice. Who, what, when, and where, why, and how. And the second part of the sharp-angle close is the yes/no. "Well if I could show you bla bla bla would you?" "Well if you were going to buy a pen what price range would you want the pen in?" "Oh um four dollars." "And what color would you want the pen to write?" "Uh blue." "Ok. And how would you want it to feel? Medium, thick pen?" "Oh I want it to feel medium." What type of questions are those? Open ended questions they can't be answered with a yes or a no. "So if I could find you a pen under four dollars, wrote blue, felt kind of medium, would you consider buying it?" "Well yeah." That's called selling. Probing, probing, probing. "If I could show you bla bla bla would you?"