Such an interesting question.  How do you sell anything?

You can’t ‘sell’ anyone anything they do not want to buy.

You can, however, sell the benefits of something.

• How will the person use this?
• How will they benefit from owning it?
• Will they feel better for owning it?
• Will it add quality to their life?

For someone to ‘buy’ what you are selling you need to ask qualifying questions and here is where many people go wrong with selling.  They think it is a matter of asking for a shopping list of features they want in their new home.

It is not what they ‘want’ it is what they ‘need’.

Ask any buyer what sort of house they would like to live in and you will get a long list of desires – a pool, media room, extra accommodation for visitors, plenty of entertaining areas, lots of land, room down the side for a boat (Do you have a boat? No but we will get one at some stage) etc.

Now ask them about how they live, how they entertain and how often, the size of the family, how they spend their leisure time and what they need to accommodate the family now – and it will be a different story.

For you – it is not about knowing the answers but more about what questions to ask.

Qualifying buyers is an art and it takes time.  I have seen many agents fail because they made too many decisions.  Decisions about what they ‘thought’ people wanted.

They didn’t ask the right questions and more importantly they did not listen to what they were being told.