Will you cut your commission is probably the most common objection you're going to hear from sellers when you're at a listing appointment. In this video, I'm going to share with you two ways on how you can handle this objection so you never have to discount your commission again. If we haven't met yet, my name is Brandon Mulrenin. I'm committed to helping you become a top listing agent. So if today's video provides you any value, I would ask you with much love, much respect, to subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell so you never miss anything.

First, we need to understand why the seller is asking us to reduce our commission. Most real estate agents think they're asking us to reduce our real estate commission because they just want to pay less commission, that's not the case and I'll prove it to you. If there is two agents interviewing for the job to sell a home, one charge is 7%, one charges 5%. The agent that nets the seller more money, even if they charge 7%, does the seller really care? I didn't think so. They want to net the most money possible. However, the seller believes that all agents are the same and that if they can find an agent willing to discount the commission, that they will end up netting more money just because the agent is charging less for the services that we provide. I'm going to show you in this video, how to position yourself in such a way where not only does the seller not want you to discount your commission, they'll never want to work with an agent who discounts there commission. So if you want to follow along with these two strategies, I'm going to give you, I'm going to put a link in the description for you to download my script playbook. You can follow along as I walk you through two different ways to handle the objection that we get, will you cut your commission.

The first way that I'm going to teach you how to handle this objection is what I call clarifying how real estate commissions work. So the first thing that we're going to do in this strategy is use a pattern interrupt and what we call strategic empathy. Now the seller is expecting you to respond one of two ways. Most agents are going to become defensive and start justifying why they can't discount their commission or most agents right now are going to discount the commission, and that's what the seller is anticipating for you to do as well. They're expecting you to respond one of these two ways. What you're going to do and what I teach all of the agents in my coaching program is to do the exact opposite. We're going to use something called a pattern interrupt, which is part of the neural linguistic reverse selling stress. We're going to agree, we're going to be position our response. When the seller says, "Hey, will you cut your commission?" We're going to actually agree. And here's what it sounds like, "Mr. Seller. I completely agree. Listen, if I was you, I'd probably want to pay as little in commission as possible. Quite frankly, there's thousands of real estate agents in today's market who would lower their commission in a second if it meant that you were going to list your home with them." Then you're going to use what we call gaining agreement. You're going to say, "Mr. Seller, what I really hear you saying is that you want to make sure that at the end of the day, you net as much money in your pocket, bottom line, after the home sells. Am I right?" And they always say yes. Then you're going to ask a simple question to strategically, get the prospect to actually say no. Here's what you're going to do. You're then going to say, "Mr. Prospect, that makes sense. Would you be against me explaining why it might be a red flag for you to work with an agent who's willing to discount their commission?" What do you think the seller is going to say? The sellers going to say no, please share.

The second thing you're going to do once they say no, that's fine. I'm open. Please tell me, what am I missing here? This is what you're going to want to do. You're going to want to explain to the seller how real estate commissions actually work. So you have to give a visual. On a piece of paper you have to draw out a 3% commission and where that money goes. And here's what I recommend you say, "Mr. Seller on a 3% commission, a third or about 1% goes to the real estate agent's broker. Another third or another 1% is used to market a property like yours to ensure that the property gets in front of the best, most highly qualified buyer, the buyers willing to pay the most for your home, which is what you want. Am I right? Got it. And the last percent, or the last third of the commission is typically what the agent is going to net as their income before taxes." "And so Mr. Seller, if an agent's willing to discount their commission, maybe 1%, or maybe even more, let's look at this. Do you think the broker is going to get paid in a real estate transaction? Meaning do you feel like the real estate agent can get out of legally paying their broker a commission? No, I didn't think so. Do you think that they're going to pay themselves? I mean, we don't think that the agent's going to work free, right? No, of course not. What's the only thing left that that agent can't include if they're going to discount that commission? That's right, they're not going to have the funds to market your property to the best buyers. To make sure that your property sticks out and is the obvious choice causing your home to sell for a premium, which is exactly what we want. Would you agree?" So that's one way to handle it.

The second method that I'm going to teach you is what I call hiring a strong negotiator. So just like strategy number one, when the seller says, "Hey, you know, I've been talking with a lot of agents and there's a lot of people out there willing to do it for less commission than you charge. Will you be open, are you open, to cutting your commission?" Well, just like strategy number one, we're going to do the exact same thing. We're going to use a pattern interrupt with strategic empathy. We're going to respond in an agreeable manner. We're going to say, "Mr. Seller, I totally get it. If I was in your shoes, I too probably would want to pay the least amount of commission possible. Matter of fact, there's tons of agents in today's market that'd be willing to lower their commission if it meant you were going to list your home with them. Now, would you be offended or would you be opposed if I shared with you why working with an agent who's willing to discount their commission might be a red flag?"  The second part of this now is a little different. This is where we're going to get the seller to tell you, you're not telling the seller, we're going to get the seller through a reverse selling strategy that I'm about to teach you on how to get them to tell you that not only you're the right agent but they want to hire a fierce negotiator. The first thing you're going to do after you've used your pattern, interrupt with your strategic empathy, using the agreeable acknowledgement. You're then going to say, "Mr. And Mrs. Seller, would you agree that hiring a fierce negotiator is going to benefit you in the sale of your home?" They always say, yes. No one's ever going to say, well we don't want a great negotiator, we want a weak negotiator. Never going to happen. Once they agree, I love this next question. You're then going to say, "Mr. And Mrs. Seller. So how likely is it that an agent that is unable to negotiate their own income in front of you and demonstrate their ability to negotiate on their own behalf, how likely is it that they're going to negotiate on your behalf when you're not looking? And be honest." Now we have the seller kind of thinking like, oh, that's a good point. If the agent can't even negotiate their own income, is it likely that they're going to negotiate our income or our money or our equity when we're not looking. It's not very likely. Then you're going to continue to push that bruise a little more. You're going to say, "Mr. And Mrs. Seller with much respect for you the thing that I get concerned with, when sellers work with agents that discount their commission up front, how confident are you going to be down the road when they're having conversations without you around with buyers and agents potentially writing offers on your home, how confident are you that they're fighting tooth and nail to get you every dollar of your equity? And if I was you, that would concern me because a lot of agents that are weak at negotiating are going to say whatever they can just to get a deal done so they can get paid. So the question remains, what type of agent, Mr. And Mrs. Seller, do you want working for you when no one's around? Do you want to fierce negotiator or do you want to work with an agent who's demonstrated and proven to you upfront that they can't negotiate? And be honest." And this is how you're going to handle that objection. Matter of fact, you could watch me as I handle this objection in a live listing presentation. Watch this video right here, where you can see exactly how I handle the commission cutting objection.

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