Aaron Hoos

You’ve probably heard the well-known, often-quoted concept that all products or services possess two of the following three qualities:

Good, Fast, Cheap.

It means that every product or service you buy will be…

• Good and fast but not cheap
• Good and cheap but not fast, or,
• Fast and cheap but not good

Every client who wants to buy a product or service will have an innate preference about which two qualities they want their product or service to possess. And they will seek out products or services that match their preference.

Knowing this, most businesses specifically sell their products in a way that fulfills two of the three qualities. For example, a fast food restaurant might offer food that is fast and cheap but not very good, or a freelance writer (ahem) might offer writing services that are good and fast but not cheap.

HERE’S WHY THIS MATTERS TO REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS

If you’re a real estate professional, you might be wondering how this applies to you. I think the answer is quite exciting and can help you become even more successful because it will help you build better relationship with your clients.

Yes, the good, fast, cheap concept applies even to your real estate practice! Here’s how:

Every client you work with — whether they’re listing or buying — wants the home listing or home purchase to satisfy two of the three qualities.

For example, they might want to buy a house quickly and with your great service and therefore they will have less concern about the cost. Or, they might want to buy a house cheaply and with great service and will therefore maybe not get a house as quickly as others.

I’m sure you read the above paragraph and said: ‘Aaron, all of my clients always want all three of those qualities and I deliver all three qualities every time‘.

Here’s my response: I believe that all clients want all three qualities in the service they receive from you but there are only two qualities that are extremely important to them (and the third is less important).

Even if you offer all three qualities all the time and with every client, you will build better relationships with your clients when you intentionally identify what is important to each of them and you highlight that aspect of your service to them whenever you interact with them.

Let’s say that you identify a client whose must-have service qualities are good and cheap and they really don’t care that much about how fast you are. You will build a stronger relationship with them by highlighting the depth of your service and how hard you’re working for them, as well as how much money they are saving. Don’t worry about talking about how quickly you can close the sale or how fast they can find a home. Those don’t matter as much to them.

It’s all about finding out what is important to your client and then making sure that your interaction with them resonates those two most-important qualities.

By highlighting the aspects of your service to them, and by going the extra mile in the two must-have qualities that are important to your client, you’ll demonstrate your value to them much more effectively than if you tried to establish your credentials and ability in all three.

Want to dive into this good-fast-cheap concept even more? My blog post Why good-fast-cheap might be wrong (and how to fix it so you can sell more) will give you an in-depth look at the good-fast-cheap model and help you use it more skillfully to work with your real estate clients.

HERE’S A BONUS IDEA TO SUPER-CHARGE YOUR BRANDING

You can construct your entire business around one of these models — which is exactly what some real estate professionals do. (The flat fee real estate agents are using “cheap” as one of the must-have qualities while other real estate professionals might use “good” or “fast” as one of their must-have qualities).

Although you’ll drive away some clients because you’re focusing on something they don’t care about, you’ll attract more clients by marketing in a way that truly resonates with the must-have qualities they are looking for in a real estate professional.

Clients have a lot of choice when it comes to selecting a real estate or financial professional to meet their needs. And just because we serve a client once doesn’t mean they’ll come back to us when they need a similar service in the future. Client loyalty is scarce.

One important way to create client loyalty is to build a relationship with them. The deeper the relationship, the more likely they’ll be to come back to you for future services. But building relationships isn’t easy – you probably have lots of clients and it’s hard to keep them all straight.

Here’s a tool that can help. It’s a simple list of questions to help you get to know your clients better. Don’t hand over this list to your clients to fill it out and don’t pepper them with all of the questions at once. In fact, not all of these questions can even be answered by the client! Answer as many questions about each client as you can. Then identify a couple of questions that you want to discover the next time you talk to them. Sometimes you can ask the question directly; other times you’ll have to communicate with your client and use clues to discover the real answer.

Use this list as a guide to understand your client better and as a foundation to build a relationship with them.

HERE’S HOW TO USE THE ANSWERS

• Use the answers to build rapport: “Your daughter is in piano? So is my daughter. I’ll watch for you at the next recital!”
• Use the answers to prompt future sales: For example, a child’s birthday might be good reminders to sell insurance or an adult’s birthday might be a good time to revisit their retirement fund.
• Use the answers to start future conversations: “Hey, how did your son’s little league tournament go last weekend?”
• Use the answers to look for referral opportunities: “If anyone in your business networking group happens to be looking for key man insurance, let them know that I specialize in insurance for small businesses.”
• Use the answers to help you understand your clientele and shape your business accordingly: If many of your clients are young families, the products you offer might shift over time as your clients’ children age.
• Use these answers to help you understand how to market your business: Once you have these question lists started for your clients, you can fill out the questions in the blog post 55 questions to answer when defining your sales funnel’s target market. (In fact, you’ll notice that some of the questions below are closely connected to the target market questions).

61 QUESTIONS TO ASK

1. What is your client’s age?




2. What is your client’s gender?




3. What is the your client’s ethnic heritage?




4. What language does your client speak as their primary language?




5. Where does your client live?




6. Who else lives at that address?




7. What does your client do for a living?




8. What is your client’s approximate income range?




9. What are your client’s hobbies?




10. What teams, leagues, groups, and associations does your client belong to?




11. What kind of music does your client like to listen to?




12. What kind of car does your client drive?




13. What sports does your client follow?




14. What kind of education does your client have?




15. What are the things that your client aspires to do? (i.e. Climb the corporate ladder? Give their children the best opportunities?)




16. What kind of house does your client aspire to live in?




17. What kind of car does your client aspire to drive?




18. If your client seems themself in a “lifestage”, what would that lifestage be?




19. What would your client say is the next lifestage that they should move toward?




20. How can you help them get to that next lifestage?




21. What does your client consider to be important to them?




22. How does your client define happiness and success?




23. What kind of personality would describe your client?




24. What motivates your client?




25. What fears does your client have?




26. What are the problems that your client wants solved in their lives?




27. What are the challenges that your client faces in their day-to-day lives? (Unlike the above question, this question forces you to consider other challenges — even ones that your client wouldn’t define as a problem to be solved).




28. What value does your client place on family? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




29. What value does your client place on friends? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




30. What value does your client place on their work? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




31. What value does your client place on recognition and status? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




32. What value does your client place on happiness? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




33. What value does your client place on fear of loss? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




34. What value does your client place on money? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




35. What value does your client place on time? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




36. What value does your client place on leisure time and activities? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




37. What value does your client place on peace of mind? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




38. Who influences your client?




39. Who does your client influence?




40. Where does your client like to spend their time?




41. What are the most important purchases to your client?




42. If your client had an extra $100, what would they spend it on? What if they had an extra $1000? What if they won $1 million dollars?




43. If your client had a week where they had no work-related commitments, what would they do? Where would they go? Who would they go with?




44. What are the top 10 tasks that fill the to-do lists of your client?




45. How does your client define the problem that you solve or the need that you fulfill? (i.e., What words to they use? What “symptoms” trigger a search for a solution? Check out this blog post, which gives a closer look at the Audience stage.)




46. What does your client consider to be risky? (Time, effort, money, and reputation are the big ones)




47. Who will your client have to face if they buy your product or service and it doesn’t meet their needs?




48. What other alternatives does your client have to solve their problem or fulfill their need? (Be sure to include competitors’ products and services as well as alternate offerings that aren’t direct competitors but still solve the problem. And don’t forget: Do nothing is also an alternative!)




49. What reasons would your client give for not purchasing your product or service?




50. How familiar is your client with the solution you’re offering? (i.e., is it entirely new and requires a lot of explaining or is it a very familiar solution?)




51. How is your client changing? (i.e., what answers to this list of questions will be different next year or in the next decade, and why?)




52. Does your client have a spouse? What is his/her name and age?




53. What is your client’s spouse’s hobbies?




54. Does your client have any children? How many? What are their names and ages?




55. What activities do your client’s children take part in?




56. What products/services has your client bought from you in the past?




57. What products/services has your client bought from your competitors in the past?




58. What products/services is your client most likely to buy next from you?




59. What would your client say is the most important reason that he/she uses your services?




60. What would it take to get your client to switch service providers and get the same service you offer but from someone else?




61. What would it take to lock your client in to working exclusively with you for the rest of their lives?

Real estate and financial advisors are under a lot of pressure to lower their fees for clients.

The pressure is sometimes audibly heard from clients who blatantly ask: “Would you consider lowering your fee for me?“. And sometimes it’s not heard at all because the prospective client doesn’t bother using your service and decides to go a “do-it-themselves” route.

How can real estate and financial professionals overcome this pricing pressure and charge what they deserve to earn for their services? And, how can you attract and retain clients who happily pay this rate instead of trying to grind you down or try to do it themselves without your help?

LOOKING ELSEWHERE FOR INSIGHT

We can find the answer by looking at businesses (in other industries) that get clients to pay higher fees:

• Movie theatres charge higher-than-average prices for a ticket to a movie… and then they charge even more for popcorn and drinks.
• Apple charges higher-than-average fees for their iPhones and iPads and yet they enjoy massive growth and marketshare retention.
• Visa and MasterCard charge controversially high interest rates (19% on the low-end) but that doesn’t stop people from running their expenses through their cards and even maxing them out sometimes.

What do all of these businesses have in common? They offer something that the customer cannot get anywhere else.

That’s the secret.

Although there are cheaper alternatives (such as renting a movie, buying a non-Apple mobile device or tablet, or paying with cash or debit), the businesses listed above offer products and services that make the cheaper alternatives pale in comparison.

Customers perceive that the theater experience or the Apple brand or the own-it-now-instead-of-later convenience of credit cards are so valuable that the extra cost is worthwhile.

For many years, the financial and real estate industries enjoyed a similar “exclusive” reputation but…

FINANCIAL AND REAL ESTATE HAVE CHANGED

Clients used to put a lot of trust into their financial advisors and real estate agents because these professionals provided exclusive high-value service that the client could not get anywhere else. But the internet transformed these industries and levelled the playing field between professionals and their clients.

Clients could perform far more of their own research and gain easier access to information and services that were difficult to access.

Although financial and real estate professionals still provide an invaluable service, clients don’t perceive the value that they used to perceive so they want to try doing the same thing on their own. Unlike the businesses we listed earlier, the difference between the higher-priced offering and the lower-priced alternative does not seem different enough (in the clients’ eyes).

Therefore, professionals need offer even more services and demonstrate even greater value than they ever have before.

It’s time to put your innovation hat on and do the following:

• List all of the services you perform (both free and paid). Then find ways to ramp them up and make them even more valuable for your client. Consider adding more information, new technology, and go-the-extra-mile service.
• Think about the information you currently provide. Chances are, quite a bit of it is available online for free. So dig deep and find additional insight you can give to your clients that they can’t get anywhere else.
• Brainstorm activities that your clients do, which are related to your service but not something you currently provide. Figure out how you can extend your services to include those related activities. For real estate professionals: Once a client buys a home, they have to make arrangements to move in. Can you extend your services to include managing those end-to-end moving details for them? For financial professionals: Clients who buy investments and insurance from you might also need accounting done. Can you bring an accountant into your office to provide a full net worth management service?
• A big part of the value difference is simply perception. People who go for the do-it-themselves approach instead of hiring you are doing so because they don’t see a difference between your services and the cheaper alternative. Revisit your marketing to see how it positions you. If your marketing isn’t positioning you as the ONLY professional for your prospective clients’ needs, find out how you can be different and rework that marketing content. If you’re not sure where to start, try listing all of the things that clients would miss out by choosing a do-it-themselves approach instead of using your approach. List as many items as you can. Then brainstorm further to create a larger list (and develop new services of your own, if possible). The larger the list, the better.