How much time should you be spending on post-sale?
Imagine you’ve just tied up a sale. As an estate agent, you want that sale to get to completion as soon as possible because until then, in the majority of cases, you won’t be receiving your income. So how much time do you put in to making that happen vs time spent winning the next valuation or making the next sale?
Truly pro-active sales progression takes time, patience, dedicated resource and persistence. It can however, shave valuable time off the process by being the driving force, making sure every party is doing what they need to do in a timely manner and ensuring progress is happening at each point of contact. It also has the benefit of consistent and valuable contact with your buyers and sellers which can help reduce the amount of lost sales.
It’s not just the time you have to consider either; it’s the motivation, skill and dedication. How much do your sales team enjoy dealing with post-sale? Are their skill sets equal in selling and progressing? It’s not the most exciting of tasks and probably one of the most frustrating, so do they avoid it when things get a bit difficult?
In a recent survey we read about, 78% of home movers found the communication merely adequate or complained of a lack of communication. That is not the level of dissatisfaction that any estate agent or conveyancer aims for and that can lead to less repeat business and a higher risk of the sale falling through.
Once the sale is agreed, that’s only the first step. Without proper attention that sale is at risk for the next 10-12 weeks on average and (beyond in some cases) so it needs to be managed just as pro-actively as the getting the sale.
The issues you then face are the resource and time it takes to do that. For those estate agents with an in-house sales progressor; you’ve probably got that covered. For those using the sales team, you may still push for that level of dedication but what opportunities are being missed? How many additional valuations or sales could you win using their time for that purpose?
As a provider of such services, we think outsourcing sales progression can help address the issues you face and ensure that you use the best resource for every part of the process. It’s not the most suitable option for everyone, but it’s something to consider if you’re currently using your sales resource to manage both pre and post-sale.
The answer to the original question of how much time you should put in once your sale is agreed is pretty clear – a significant amount! To minimise the risk of all your hard work going to waste, along with the money you’ve spent on winning the business and marketing the property, an investment of time and energy into post-sale is extremely important. So you should ask yourself 2 questions –
Is our post-sale service pro-active enough?
and
Could we be saving more sales and winning more business?
Savvy Sales Progressors offers outsourced sales progression services to estate agents. More information can be found on our website: www.savvysalesprogressors.co.uk
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