Sometimes as an agent, you have to get your hands dirty for your clients.

For this week’s message, I’d like to discuss the power of little fixes, the little things you can do as an agent to make your seller’s listing stand out. 

If you’re going on a listing appointment with a seller and they have some deferred maintenance, you’ll want to roll up your sleeves and tackle some of those issues yourself.  

Recently I sold my own home, and here’s a little fix you can take advantage of: For around just $5 or $6, Old English wood polish can cover up scratches on hardwood floors and other wood surfaces like vanities. 

"As an agent, you have to be willing to do the things your competition won’t in this market if you want to differentiate yourself."

For a different, $3 million listing, a painter was supposed to come and do a few touch-ups here and there, but they canceled at the last minute, so I put on some old clothes, brought a ladder, threw a tarp down, and did the touch-ups myself. 

As another example of getting my hands dirty for a seller, I recently had the opportunity to market a $1.8 million home. The homeowner was interviewing agents because the home failed to sell with their first pick; she told me that the smoke detectors needed to have their batteries changed out since the device was making a loud, obnoxious chirping noise. She said that she had asked her previous agent to change them out, as she was out of state at the time, but the agent refused to climb up a ladder to do it. The agent may have had health reasons for not getting up on a ladder to change the batteries, but I had no such barriers, so I ended up getting up there myself. In the end, that homeowner ended up hiring an agent who gave her a discount, but I was still happy to help out. 

In the end, there are over 1.4 million agents out there—what are you willing to do to differentiate yourself from them? 

If you have any questions or would like more tips on standing out from the crowd, please feel free to reach out to me. I’d love to start a conversation with you.