We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: all the prospecting, marketing and farming you do should be to generate phone calls, the more immediate the better. But all the phone calls in the world won’t do jack for you if you haven’t come up with an effective way of converting your call-ins to appointments.

You’ll typically get calls from two types of consumers: people looking to sell a home, and people interested in a house you have listed or advertised. It is the buyer calls that come into you that are tougher to turn into appointments. And it’s these calls that, if you learn how to convert them, will end up making you tons of money.

When a person calls you about a house for sale or a listing of yours they saw, the first thing you do is thank them for calling about the property and ask them what they liked, what made them call, and they’ll tell you. Ask them their situation, are they renting, do they own a home, etc. Don’t even let them ask a ton of questions up front, you get yours in first. You just want to find out more about the person and what they’re interested in. Be sure to ask if they are contracted with another real estate agent. Let them know it is illegal and unethical for you to help them if they’re already contracted.

As you’re talking, you can be looking up different properties they may be interested in. Let them know you’d love to show them the property, but you’ve also got 10 other homes that fit their requirements that might be better. Suggest that you meet up, preferably at your office, to let the person dig around in the MLS to find some other properties to go look at.

Even if the lead just wants to go look inside the house, try and get them to meet you at a different location and show them a list of the other properties you found. Keep one thought in mind: YOUR GOAL WITH THESE POTENTIAL BUYERS IS TO GET THEM TO SIGN A BUYER AGENCY AGREEMENT WITH YOU.

People are scared of contracts. Period. And since most of them have NO IDEA what a Buyer Agency Agreement is, the fear comes from ignorance. So teach them. Explain that a buyers agreement costs the buyer absolutely NOTHING. To bring the subject up, you can start out the conversation like this:

“Before we go any further, by law, the Real Estate Commission requires me to explain buyer agency agreements to you. While I show you a property listed by another agent, I am, by law, a sub-agent for the seller of the property. Which means I’m on the seller’s side and so anything that could put the seller in a negative negotiating position, I can’t share with you. It’d be like the plaintiff’s lawyer helping out the defendant. However, with a buyer’s agency agreement, I am contractually obligated to work in your best interest, so I become your investigator, I dig out every piece of information on a property, the pay-off lef ton the mortgage, how much they paid when they bought the property, anything and everything that could negotiate prices down and work in your favor. But I can’t do that unless we’re contracted.”

“If you’re worried about cost, don’t be. When you buy a house using me as an agent, it doesn’t cost you a dime. I get paid out of the commission from the agent who listed the home you bought. So money definitely shouldn’t be an issue in this decision, only what will make this transaction go as smoothly as possible for you.”

People will still refuse to sign a contract, but hey, you can’t win them all. What’s important is that by laying out clearly the pros and cons of a buyer agreement, you’ve allowed the consumer to make an educated decision. And with those facts, that educated decision will usually be to sign the contract.