We Are Selling with Lee Woodward

Use Vendor Involvement to Improve Engagement and Win More Business

• Realtair • Episode 11

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We explore how vendor involvement and emotional engagement drive higher sale results—shifting from surface-level selling to uncovering the invisible value that buyers can’t see. This episode shows how elite agents use questions, not statements, to build trust, connection, and commitment.

• using “invisible value” to uncover hidden features that add real dollar value
• engaging owners through questions to increase vendor involvement
• selling through emotion, not just features
• positioning the home around how it feels, not just what it has
• using the seller’s own words as powerful selling tools
• shifting from “live mode” to “sell mode” to increase price
• understanding how presentation directly impacts profit

A practical lesson in how top agents create emotional connection, extract hidden value, and maximise results through intentional communication.



Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

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Lee Woodward:

Hello and welcome back to our podcast, We Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward of the Realtair Academy, the home of pitch, sign and sell, the all-in-one platform for real estate professionals. Today we are studying a technique, and the technique is probably the biggest loss of business in the listing conversation, and that is when we lose business due to a lack of vendor involvement. Vendor involvement is a technique. Today's trigger to our words and concepts is going to be called invisible value. And again, I'm going to take you into one of my Zoom coaching sessions where we are discussing how you actually deliver this information and how it's structured. Let's jump into the role play of invisible value. Let's say you've just turned up to the property and said, Yep, come through and what do you want to do first? And you say, Then, look, I'd like to put my things down here and put your things down wherever you want to return to where the business is going to be done. I say, and now, can I get you to show me around the property? And no one knows the home as good as you do, but I and I have to become an expert overnight. So you can't leave anything out. Show me round. So they start showing you round the property. As you're doing the tour and you're picking up on nice things, and this is good. I want you to remember two things for me. First one, it's a trigger, and it's called invisible value. And I'll role play it with you. So we're walking around the property, and you said, okay, so that's it. You've shown me right around the property. And I say this to you. I say, Stephanie, you've shown me the property on the surface. Now I need you to explain the invisible value to me, which is what I can't see. And the owner may say, Well, what do you mean? These floors seem warm. Do you have underfloor heating? Yes, we do. Do you have insulation in the roof? Yeah, we do. My husband, he did all the bats himself. Great. And when we went through the garage, I noticed that big PowerPoint. Is that three-phase power? Yes, it is. Uh my son's a welder. Okay, Steph, that's like sixty thousand dollars that I can't see. So I want to walk back through because every feature in your home is a dollar value. But I can only get you an incredible price if I know what they are. So I know it's a four-bedroom brick-and-tile home, double garage, in-ground pool. That's the surface. But what can't I see? And and I'll make notes of those, but I can assure you when a purchaser's making a decision on this one and another one with Ray White, all I have to bank on is Ray White wouldn't have investigated the invisible value because they don't demonstrate that in their marketing materials, as we take such a great pride in doing that. Let's go back through and explain the invisible value. So suddenly we're using invisible value as a trigger. But stuff, the the technique is actually called vendor involvement. So in a coaching session like this, it's really important that you it's okay to hear things go, oh, that sounds good. We've got to know what that is. The only reason I do invisible value is to engage the owner in vendor involvement. And the reason I'm doing that is I want the owner to go, I really like LJ Hooker. They were more into my house. And that's the type of thing they'll say. They were more into my house than the other agent was. And it's not that at all. I'm using a technique to make that happen. Vendor involvement is so important, okay? And it's a big reason why people lose business. Questions get answers, statements get judged. So most of your competitors there are saying we're number one, we're the best, we do this, we do that, and no one cares about that, other than the agents. The consumer cares about selling one house once. You know, I did an interview the other day with Michael Kaloshi from Koloshi in and I was interviewing Michael. I said, Michael, you know, you're working on some serious homes here. Like at 20 million, they're still charging 3%. Anyway, I said to Michael, when you're in a lounge room, what signal do you send that allows them to engage you, especially at that level, because everybody else is nowhere near that? He said, you've got to make them think it's the only listing you've got. And this is where vendor involvement becomes such an important part of the process. My comment, and thank God for recording today, is questions get answers, statements get judged. That's where we are right now. You've learnt a concept, you've learnt a trigger, um, invisible value. Now we're going to look at some great questions. So, Stephanie, if if you were my potential seller and I asked you these questions, I just want you to respond, forget your nature for a moment, and think of the house you live in now, how you would respond to these. So we've done the tour, and then I say to you, can I ask you some questions so I can get some clarity about the whole move and how we can help you best?

Stephanie:

Sure, absolutely.

Lee Woodward:

Firstly, have you definitely made the decision to sell the property?

Stephanie:

It's more my husband that it's really wanting to progress with the sale. So, you know, I'm I'm a housewife, um, I love it here, but you know, he he really does have the money and he's got a new job opportunity coming through, so you know, we're we're going with that.

Lee Woodward:

Okay. Well, that gives me a good understanding, and also really important to my next question. Stephanie, when I bring the purchases through this property, they are looking at the home in a different way to you do now. Because they've never been there before, and they're looking at it, they're looking at it on the surface. I mean, when you and I were walking around before, you explained the invisible value to me, and I will explain that to them. But then there's an emotional value. Selling is a transference of feelings. And when I show the home, it's quite different to how a normal agent shows the home. So, for example, an agent will walk in the front door and say, This is the study, this is the laundry, this is bedroom one, bedroom two. I actually don't do that. When I come through your front door, I'm gonna walk straight to here, where we are right now, and I'm gonna say to the buyers, this is the 80% area of the home, meaning this is where the owners spend 80% of their time. How does it feel? And I I bring in with the showcase moment straight away. And if they say, Oh, Lee, this is amazing, we really like this one. Now I can explain the floor plan and the property. But if they say it doesn't, uh it's not for them, the laundry won't turn them around. But but I like getting to the boom, boom part of the home and say, this is the 80% area, this is where the owners spend 80% of their time. How does it feel? Now I use the word feel. I don't say what would you pay, I don't say do you want to make an offer? I have no interest in that. My first interest is to get them emotionally engaged. And I'll even say to people, if you've looked at five homes and they were all free, which one would you take? And they say, This one? I go, Great, why? What's got you attracted to this one? And and I speak to them on that level, whereas other agents are like, what would you offer? And they get it to this, I don't know, unnecessary money situation. You're not buying the property just because of the money. You're paying a lot of money. You'd want to be in love with the property. So I really work on that angle a lot, Steph. And I know it's different to others, but it's worked really well for me in getting that connection. Now, as I show them around, I'm going to explain to them five key selling propositions. Five. And right now I've got a few in my mind, but I need more, and only you know the answer. So this is my next question for you. Steph, when this property is sold for an exceptional result and you are delighted with all the work we've done, can I ask you, what will you miss most about the home?

Stephanie:

I will miss, um, you know, I, you know, I've really made this home how I love it. It's, you know, we're in Wellington Point, it's so close to everything, it's got that coastal vibe, like it just feels really, you know, tight-knit for me and the family. But then, you know, when when the teenager wants to, you know, be difficult, they just pop off downstairs and yeah, we can have our alone time as well with multiple living spaces.

Lee Woodward:

Okay. This is a powerful one for me. So when I'm showing around a family who has teenagers, I'll say to that person, and let's say that person's Helen, I'll say, Helen, this property's got some good features for you. When I was speaking to Stephanie, who's our current owner, she said the one thing she'll miss the most is it's a great family home where you can all be together. But when you need to have your alone time, the floor plan and its separation and the parent retreat and teenage area have kept the family happy for longer. And a lot of people live on top of each other. This house has got great segmentation to it, and it's one thing our owner's gonna miss most about living here, and that's how I get that across because your words are far better than mine. Now, I need five of these, and you know, I I I stay up at night thinking about it all the time because when I get a chance to show someone through, I want to make it an amazing inspection by my preparation, not just it's a four-bedroom brick-and-tire home with a double garage, what will you pay? And unfortunately, that's how most agents work. That's where money gets left on the table. People pay more when they're emotionally engaged with the property. Steph, I need to explain something to you about presenting the home for sale. And I need to ask your permission not to offend you if that's okay. That's fine. As your possible selected real estate agent, it's very important I deliver information and give guidance so it doesn't cost you money in the sale. And what I mean by that is a lot of agents don't bring certain things up because they don't want to offend someone, but they're okay to lose $20,000 in the sale price by not letting them know something they need to know. And there's something I need to let you know.

Stephanie:

Okay, yeah, that's fine.

Lee Woodward:

Okay. When I walk around the home right now, you are in what I call live mode. And live mode means you're living here, we've got all the family photos, we've got all the awards, we've got some kids' toys and things out as well, and we are enjoying living in the home. When we go to sell it, I need the property to shift to sell mode, and sell mode looks different. We need to pack everything away in the boxes and get it off site. That way the home can breathe. Because when the purchaser comes through and they're looking at how many children you've got and what awards they've won, they're distracting, and they're seeing if we're at the same schools and those types of things, and we're distracting the purchaser. And Steph, I don't want to offend you in any way, but I need to let you know this one point. When I bring a purchaser through, they're looking to buy their house, not yours. And I believe there's a $30,000 to $50,000 difference between live mode of a property and sell mode. And if you go to a display home and look at what you can't see, you'll see how the professionals do it, which is what we are. And then I see a property go on the internet, first open house, and it's in live mode, and you think, why would someone do that? Or maybe they didn't get the right guidance. The presentation is where I generate profit. And that profit's yours. This is your own principal place of residence, it's tax-free. If I can get you an extra 20, 30, 40, it's a lot of money. But to go on under prepped and let them see it with knowing those things are distracting, I'm not doing my job and I need to be up front with you like that.

Stephanie:

Okay, that's fair enough. I appreciate that actually. And no one else has actually said that.

Lee Woodward:

Like, yeah, and Steph, thank you. There's no shortcuts to a great price. And I think people lose more money in a fast market than they do in a slow market. Because in a fast market, you can actually generate extra money. In a slow market, you've got to be careful, you're on the market too long and people don't want to pay your price. But imagine selling too fast and there was another 30, 40 grand out there, but we never checked it out because we cut it all, we cut the campaign down too short, or we didn't let the international international marketplace see it. We never get that chance to get that money back for you. As soon as you sell it, if there was money left on the table, the new purchaser owns that 50, 60 grand now. And if they chose to resell it, even paying the fees, they'd probably still be ahead. So it's a very important moment that we don't undersell the asset. And that concludes another edition of We Are Selling. Thank you for all your feedback on the role play series. We have a request to do the fee objection, and I'll be doing that one in the future for you as well. I'm Lee Woodward. Thank you for listening. Anything you need training, tech, tech, and technique, call the Realtair Academy on 1 300 367 412. Thank you for listening.