Hook and Story: How Do You Sell a Home?

Hooks and Stories

Selling homes is just like selling anything else. It’s like direct sales, direct marketing, network marketing, sales, cold calling, any of the old things you can think of and all the new traditional media routes and avenues that there is today. We get the question a lot. Obviously, you know, how do you sell your home? How do you market your home? Anytime we go to interview someone or we get interviewed to sell a home, whatever it may be. We are asked all the time, you know, what do you do to market a home? We will show them what we do. A lot of times where people will be asking you, it’s one of the things that the people want to know the most, right? What are you going to do to market my home?

It’s actually one of the things that for sale by owners struggle with the most. I forget the stat, I have to look it up. I just thought NAR though, the National Association of Realtors, they just had a stat recently that like the vast majority of for sale by owners don’t even market their home at all and it’s one of the problems that for sale by owners have. It’s one of the biggest questions you get when you go to interview homeowner and it is, you know, there’s cost to it, there is a knowledge that goes into it, you know. Just copywriting alone, you know, the remarks you might see on someone’s home or ad copy that’s going to sell your home. That in and of itself, copywriting is a very sought after profession within the marketing industry and direct advertising industry. That in and of itself is a very sought-after position and highly paid position.

So that just goes to show you the importance of marketing. I think the one thing that people in the real estate world, whether you’re an investor, whether you are a homeowner, whether you’re a real estate person, any type of real estate person in insurance or reality or whatever it may be, you sometimes forget that we are, it’s dissolved marketing industry. It’s all “how can I get this home sold,” whether it’s selling it to another investor, whether it’s selling that deal to an end buyer, whatever it may be. It’s all marketing. It’s all advertising.

The Old Ways are Gone

At the bottom drops out when you do the correct job with all of those different avenues at the bottom drops out of a sale. That is the important key ingredient that I think a lot of people forget. They, we, they are very in tuned to the sales part and the cold calling power. They’re very in tune to the direct sales part, the right hooking, if you will, you know, just going out for the knockout punch. We’re going to knock my client, I’ll gonna knock that customer. We’re going to just knock them out into submission and get that sale. I think the one thing that’s missed a lot of, a lot of times, especially nowadays, I mean, who likes getting called on their phone? Not many people do. We’ve done this survey many times. I’ll tell you the answer right now, not many people do. We make people raise their hands when we’re talking to a, whether it’s the Chamber of Commerce or different events, speaking events and not many people like getting a phone call, right? They’d rather get a text. They’d rather get an email because they want to do it on their time. So the traditional methods are gone.

They are, they people are still doing them. Most of the people are still trying them, but not with a lot of luck, you know, and some are because they have massive scale still. But you know, you look at companies like Toys R US, a company like Blockbuster, these companies that are going out of business because they’re not changing with the times. It’s the same thing with real estate, you know, how do you change with the times? How do you market with the crowd? How do you, you know, and what I mean by that is not blend into the crowd. I mean, how do you market the way people want to be marketed to? How do you tell stories? You tell them by telling hooks and offers and our hooks stories and then giving someone an offer. You’ve got to go through a pattern and you know, in a real estate agent has to do that to sell your home.

The How’s in a House

How are they telling a story about your home? How were they writing the remarks in your home? Are they doing Instagram stories? Are they doing Snapchat stories? You notice those different things on those different platforms have stories at the end of them because people want stories. People want to be told a story. So getting the story from a homeowner, getting their story, what they love about the home, why they picked it, why they lived there, the memories they had. That is truly one of the most important and impactful things you can do as a real estate professional to get a home sold.

Tell the Story Behind it

When a lot of times when I think about investing in a property, and I’m sure when some of you go to the after many investors that I know, they want to know the story behind what they’re buying. They want to know the story of the apartment complex they’re getting into. They want to know why these people bought it, how they bought it, what they were doing, what they were thinking at the time, who they got into it with. These are all very important stories and a lot of times people don’t want to tell those stories, but in order to have context as to what is going on and how to make more of a win-win deal for everybody, you have to know the context. You’ve got to know the story of what’s behind that purchase or that transaction. So not only is it important for context and for the purchase, but it’s also important for selling. You know, the hook story in the offer. What are we hooking someone with and then what are we selling with? Because the story is really what sells. A story is what helps other people to come to the conclusion that you want them to come to. The offer at the end is just the “ask.” That’s the part you say, “hey, you know, come do this thing” and they’ve already made that decision because you’ve told them, you’ve hooked them, you’ve created a story that sells, that tugs on them emotionally, and then you’re giving them a way to do the thing that you’re hoping that they do. You’re asking if they want your offer. You’re asking if they want your house. You’re asking x, whatever it may be.

So I hope that makes sense. It’s something that I’m trying to get better at every single day. It’s something I haven’t even done that great with, with all my videos. All the videos I give – a lot of it’s factual and content-based, but a lot of them should be hook-story offer. That’s, you know, not necessarily the offer, but leave the hook in the story and practicing their storytelling. If everyone got exponentially better at storytelling, you’d have more crowds around you at family parties. You’d have more people listening to you, you’d have more attention because people love hearing stories.

Be a Storyteller

Think about all the people that you know in your life that you love being around that are, you know, the life of the party a lot of times. You love hearing him speak, or maybe what are they all great at? They’re all great at telling stories and that is the key. That is the key to selling, it’s the key to awareness, it’s the key to branding, it’s a key to attention. It’s storytelling, right? So it’s something I’m striving to get better at every single day, all the time and trying to focus on. If there’s anything in your life and you’re trying to sell, whether it’s a home, you know, a widget, anything at all, Mary Kay, Amway, I don’t care what it is. It’s stories, you know, and it’s every industry. It doesn’t matter. It’s psychology, human psychology. It’s persuasion and influence.

So, I hope that you know, helps a little bit, maybe help some of you that are in a selling industry or your salespeople, maybe some of you are looking to sell a home and,you’re looking to do that, you know. How can you tell the story in order to sell and bring someone emotionally to where you want them to be so that they’re in the mode to purchase or do what you want them to do without you having to say it?

They’ve already made the decision in their head. They’ve already connected with you and they’ve made that decision. You haven’t made a decision for them. They made the decision, right? We’ve all heard that people don’t like being sold. They like buying. So how can we get them to buy? Will you tell stories? You get them emotionally involved, emotionally connected, and that’s it.

So hope you guys got a little bit of something out of that. Let me know if you did or if you didn’t. We love bringing these videos to you guys. That’s, it’s a passion project I guess, but it’s also how we make our living. You know, telling stories and putting out content and value for all of you that way we can stick out some way from the crowd and not be the ones cold calling all the time and doing all those old traditional methods that really just get tossed by the wayside and they’d just, you’re one in the crowd.

Hook-Story-Offer

So what can we do differently to provide value, to give, give, give, give, give, and then ask? We try not to ask too much it’s because we don’t want to, that’s not how I want to be sold, but can we give stories? Can we give value? Can we give information and then hopefully as time goes on, and we’ve been doing this for three or four years doing these videos and providing market content, market updates. Then as time goes on, as time goes on, another year, another three years, another 10 or 15 years, we’re the ones in the market have been doing it forever and people are all coming to us because we’ve been the one to prove to everybody that we are the ones that truly care and want to help those around us. So, you know, do as we do. Not always as we say, right?

So watch people’s actions, you know. I’m not always the best at talking about it or doing or telling the stories. But, you know, where’s the intent? Where is the intent? What are people doing? what are their actions? Trust people’s actions. So, hook-story offer. How are you selling something? Hook-story-offer. So I hope you guys got something out of it. Like I said, let me know, either way, I’d love to hear your feedback and we’ll talk to you guys soon. Thank you for your attention because it is the most important thing we have. So I appreciate that more than anything. We’ll see you guys soon.