Sales in real estate can be an intimidating and scary situation.
That’s why many realtors and real estate professionals look for a safe haven – real estate scripts.
But why are scripts important in real estate?
At first glance, they can help you know what to say in a crucial sales conversation.
At a second glance, they can also inform you how often they don’t work at all.
This article will explain why they often don’t work, in which scenario they are more useful, and what might be a better approach.
What Is a Real Estate Script?
A real estate script is usually another term for a call or cold calling script used in a real estate business’s sales conversation.
It’s essentially a sales script.
I just explained a term using other terms, so let’s define it further.
In turn, a sales script is a piece of paper with the text you prepared and ideally practiced before a sales call over the phone or video with a potential client.
Ideally, you will have sales scripts for different sales scenarios.
But you do not only cover different sales scenarios on the macro level (e.g., cold calls, follow-up calls, etc.) but also on the micro level.
The latter means the sales script covers other scenarios in a conversation, such as typical objections, stalls, and more.
Today, software-powered solutions can pull up a particular sales script depending on the registered prospect you call or who calls you.
This technology is called C.T.I. (computer telephony integration) and is mainly used by call centers.
Suppose you have a C.T.I. system, and a potential customer is on the line.
The system can then research them by their name. It can then develop a sales script immediately and dynamically based on the customer’s already known data stored in the respective database.
The script and the additional information are then displayed on a screen, and the salesperson can go from there.
A script for a C.T.I. system is prepared by building out a decision tree to cover each possible scenario in a conversation.
From the system’s perspective, it goes like that:
- Pull out script A to open the conversation.
- If the prospect says “yes,” pull out script B to move forward
- If the prospect says “no,” pull out script C to handle objections
- If the prospect uses objection B, pull out sales script D to handle objection B
And so on…
I see great value in this type of software for call centers dedicated to technical customer support, where different scenarios don’t have a high degree of variation within the conversation.
However, I am skeptical of their efficiency in dynamic sales call situations.
Bear with me; you will later understand why I made the above statement in this article.
How Real Estate Scripts are Practiced – Does it Help?
The reason behind practicing sales scripts is easily explained when you are not the best reader and read an article or a book out loud to someone.
You can stumble over several pitfalls that will not sound like a natural conversation when read aloud.
So the overall goal is to make a script that, if you read out to a prospect, will sound as if you were conversing naturally with them.
When you don’t practice a script, the pitfalls I mentioned earlier can be the following:
- You stumble upon words and reveal to the prospect that you are reading from a script.
- Even without stumbling over words, you still sound like you are reading from a script.
- You focus too much on the script and to sound natural and miss using essential elements of good communication. These are active listening, friendliness, confidence, humor, providing and accepting feedback, empathy, respect, picking up nonverbal cues, and responsiveness.
That’s why those convinced of using (real estate) scripts recommend practicing them a lot.
How Are These Scripts Practiced?
You can practice them on your own, which is suboptimal, or try to resemble an actual sales situation by roleplaying with friends or other people.
One plays the prospect, and the other uses the script.
Of course, the next step would be a real-life sales call situation. After these roleplays, you can refine and adapt the script to improve it over time.
But I would go even a step further.
To resemble a real natural conversation, you would have to practice the different scripts so much that you actually don’t use them anymore. So that, in the end, you fly on autopilot.
Why?
In my article “How to Improve Your Real Estate Sales Skills,”
So if you want to be a top communicator, you will have to do all of them ideally, depending on the situation.
What happens when you don’t have a script basically in your blood on autopilot?
You will cognitively be overloaded in processing additionally a barely practiced sales script.
Humans are not good at multitasking (yes, women, neither, according to science).
This means you will neglect most elements that make a top communicator.
Why is it bad for a prospect to realize that you are reading from a script in the first place?
It has again to do with communication skills.
You will not come across as authentic, and the prospect will feel unworthy of a good conversation.
Additionally, they will likely not feel understood if you miss their needs, greed, and pains.
By the way, the latter aligns with the sales statistics I covered in this article.
Only a tiny number (13%) of customers think that salespeople understand their needs, and I suspect this is because of scripts.
Are Real Estate Sales Scripts Really Worthwhile?
I have used scripts in the past or, let’s say, tried them out.
For some time, as a hobby, I even did a small radio show on a local radio station and used scripts.
And I know from experience that it’s super challenging to first create a script that sounds conversational and then secondly have it ingrained in a way that you additionally sound natural.
In a one-way communication, such as a radio show or podcast, you can get away with that.
Two-way communication, such as a sales conversation, is a different story.
Now it bears the question, when you have to practice a script so much that you don’t need it anymore, why use it in the first place.
Because of the many pitfalls of being a top communicator, using a real estate sales script likely decreases your odds of better real estate sales.
Suppose you talk to a potential property buyer. Using a script will be much more challenging to listen to them.
This will lead to you missing out on their pains, greed, and needs. Which is not too good for a sales call
Or what happens if your prospect suddenly starts to tell you a sad story that your script or script software hasn’t covered in one of the prepared scenarios?
You will start to struggle and get nervous. It may cause uncomfortable silence because you will search for your correct script for this scenario.
In short, your reaction will be far from authentic and thus far from a natural and spontaneous conversation. And then your prospect will lose trust in you.
Usually, it’s not a strength of inauthentic people to gain the trust of strangers.
The problem is in each sales conversation. You will deal with a dynamic and pretty variable interaction with different personalities and characters each time.
What does this mean for the preparation for each scenario?
It means that a real estate sales script won’t prepare you appropriately for any eventuality that could arise.
In the future, you could, though.
But this is the moment A.I. takes over all sales calls.
This requires A.I. that understands human psychology, probably also transactional communication and different personality types.
It would also require that it detects and analyzes the prospect’s personality type by the phone number stored in the database and the prospect’s voice.
It could also use big data and learn further things essential for the sales conversation with the prospect.
In that case, it could pull behavioral data from past prospects’ interactions (e.g., social media, Zoom conversations, etc.).
Based on the personality type and category the A.I. puts the prospect in, the sales goals, and the live behavior on the call, it can dynamically create the right script answers, behaviors, and questions for you.
Hopefully, you can read the latter in a conversational tone better than the A.I. could.
At this point, the A.I. would be better at pretending a script to be a natural conversation than a human can.
Your real estate sales script would be pretty immense to cover all scenarios.
Imagine you having to turn many pages and causing unnatural interruptions in a conversation when you don’t know where to find answers to particular objections you come across.
An often better way than a script is, having a system with principles, and it’s similar to a script but not a script at all.
By practicing a system like that with roleplays and real potential clients, you will become more authentic and spontaneous in sales calls.
One of the best I have come across in this context is the so-called G.U.T.S. sales system by Claude Diamond.
He offers training programs for real estate professionals, including many groups roleplays.
Some of the elements of his system are the following:
- Asking good questions
- Qualifying early
- Mutual respect
- No presentation too early
- A variety of reverse psychology “moves.”
Here you can check out his website.
Coming full circle: are real estate sales scripts worthwhile?
Suppose you memorized them and practiced them ridiculously often.
So often, they have become part of you, and you can use them on autopilot, still sounding authentic as if you had a natural and spontaneous conversation. Then the answer is “yes.”
On the other hand, with the effort and time you will need to get to this point, you could also invest in learning a sales system that makes you a natural and spontaneous real estate sales communicator.
The second option will be more effective and economically sound long term.
This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.
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