REM Mastermind: Listing presentations that win in competitive rooms

From the REM Mastermind Series | Moderated by Andrew Fogliato | Presented by Real Estate Magazine | Sponsored by REMAX

Featuring: Brandon Wasser (Richmond Hill/GTA), Tom Storey (Toronto) and Tamara Stone (Stone Sisters, Kelowna, B.C.)

Watch the full session: https://youtu.be/39b2nygieEM

 

Most agents have a listing presentation. Fewer have one that actually wins when the room is competitive. At the April REM Mastermind, Andrew Fogliato sat down with three agents who have earned listings the hard way: Brandon Wasser from Richmond Hill, Tom Storey from Toronto and Tamara Stone of the Stone Sisters in Kelowna. Nearly 1,200 people registered for the session. What follows is everything they shared, organized so you can actually use it.

This is not a motivational overview. It is a tactical breakdown of what happens from the moment you book the appointment to the moment you walk out with the listing — or the lessons you take home when you don’t.

 

Before you walk in the door

 

The listing presentation does not start when you sit down at the kitchen table. For the agents on this panel, it starts the moment the appointment is booked.

 

Brandon Wasser: Build the relationship before you arrive

Brandon’s approach is deliberate and disciplined. By the time he walks through the door, he has typically spoken to the clients three to five times already. Not all of those are full conversations. Some are quick texts. But the goal is consistent: he wants to arrive as a familiar, trusted voice, not a stranger making a first impression.

The way he creates those touchpoints is intentional. He purposely leaves questions unanswered in the first call so he has natural reasons to follow up — a call a couple of days later to gather more detail about the home, a confirmation the day of, a few extra check-ins depending on the situation. The point is not to be salesy. The point is to be warm, present and consistent before the appointment even happens.

“I want an established relationship before I even walk through the door. I just find it opens up conversation, opens up dialogue, opens up trust a lot quicker.”

 

Tom Storey: The seller questionnaire that pre-qualifies motivation

Tom has a different mechanism, one that has become one of the more effective pre-listing tools in his business. After booking the appointment, his assistant reaches out to potential sellers and asks if they would be willing to fill out a short seller questionnaire before the meeting. The ask is framed carefully: would you be open to filling this out so Tom has all the information before he meets with you?

The questionnaire, built in Typeform, covers the practical details: updates made to the home, major ticket items, timeline. But it also asks personal questions, like their favourite restaurant and things they enjoy. That information is used later. When a deal goes firm, they send a gift card to that restaurant. The closing gift is based on what clients said they liked.

Fewer than half of people fill it out. But Tom has found that when they do, his close rate is nearly guaranteed. The act of filling it out signals they are already leaning toward working with him.

“If they’re willing to fill it out before I meet with them in person, my conversion rate is almost a guarantee. They’re telling me they’re already going to work with us.”

Tom has made a version of the questionnaire available for other agents. You can access it here: Tom Storey’s Seller Questionnaire

Tom also noted one more thing about booking appointments: he tries never to schedule one more than a week out. More time between the booking and the meeting means more chances for the client to talk to other agents — and more chances for cancellations.

 

Tamara Stone: The digital flipbook that does the talking

Tamara’s team has tried everything. They used to show up with printed hardcover books, then switched to a courier-delivered package in a fancy box. A surprising number of clients never opened it. Some packages were still sitting at the front door when the agents arrived.

Now they send a 15-page digital flipbook by email before the appointment. It covers their marketing approach, what sets them apart, testimonials and performance stats compared to the market average. Crucially, they warn clients it is coming — before they started doing that, many clients assumed it was spam and ignored it. Their CRM tracks how many times the email has been opened, giving them a signal before they even arrive.

The shift from the printed presentation to the digital one also changed how they use their time at the appointment. They used to spend half an hour talking about themselves. Now they spend nearly all of their time talking about the client.

You can view an example of the Stone Sisters flipbook here: Stone Sisters Flipbook

The platform they use is Flippingbook, which Tamara described as straightforward and user-friendly.

 

What you bring and what you actually use

 

All three panelists bring a physical listing package to the appointment. But all three also admitted they rarely open it in front of clients. The materials are client-forward when used, but the real work happens in conversation, not in a presentation deck.

Tom brings two physical booklets printed with perfect binding. He is deliberate about the quality. A listing booklet is something you leave in a client’s home — it represents your brand. He spends around $20 per booklet because the quality matters.

“Don’t show up with a flimsy booklet. This is your brand.”

Tamara also brings a booklet, which includes an introduction to the team, a checklist where clients fill in their five favourite things about the home for use in marketing copy, and a short guide on how to prepare the home for sale. She brings the physical book but uses her own handwritten notes throughout the appointment, writing down everything from the age of the roof to the name of the family dog.

Brandon has a laptop and a listing package. He also almost never opens either. The insight all three shared: most listing packages spend too much time on the agent and not enough on the client. Over time, they have all moved toward a model where the package exists as a leave-behind, not the centrepiece of the conversation.

 

The first 5 minutes

 

Before Tom even knocks, there is a mental preparation ritual. He reminds himself he is good at this and that he will be a strong option for these clients. No matter how many listing presentations he has done, there is still a moment of not knowing how it will go. Getting into the right headspace before walking in matters.

All three panelists start with the tour. They do not sit down first. They walk through the home, ask questions and use that time to build rapport. Brandon put it plainly: the tour is the best time to build rapport because everyone’s guard is a little lower. You can talk about the home, offer compliments and get conversations started. By the time you sit down, there is already warmth in the room.

During the tour, Brandon focuses less on visual aesthetics and more on the big-ticket items: roof, windows, HVAC, rental items, recent renovations. He wants all of that information captured before sitting down so the conversation is used more efficiently.

Tamara researches clients on social media and LinkedIn before arriving. She writes down everything — the name of the dog, that the wife ran a half-Ironman three years ago, that their kids went to a particular school. Those details become connection points during the conversation. She also uses the tour to demonstrate construction knowledge, pointing out things like whether floors are hardwood or engineered, or noticing details about new construction that most agents would miss. In a market where she and her team often compete against multiple other agents, those small signals of expertise add up.

On where to sit: all three prefer the kitchen table. Tamara is deliberate about positioning, specifically making sure she can make eye contact with both people in the room. She has heard enough stories of agents who only spoke to one spouse and lost the listing to know it matters.

 

Stop pitching yourself

 

The shift all three panelists have made over their careers is moving away from opening with a pitch about themselves and toward opening with questions about the client.

Brandon’s approach is to ask clients what they want and what they’re looking for before saying anything about what he offers. Every client’s priorities are different. Some care most about timeline. Some care about who is doing the showings. Some have a price in mind they’re attached to. Some are going through a divorce or an estate situation. Until you know the full picture, you are guessing about what matters.

“How can you speak to helping them if you don’t know their picture? We’re not here to run off a few quick ones. We’re in it for the long haul.”

Tom structures his entire presentation around five questions he has found every seller wants answered: Why should I hire you? What is happening in the market? What are you going to do to sell my house? What is my property worth? And what do you charge? He tells clients upfront that those are the five things they likely want to know, and that everything he covers will address those questions. That framing settles people.

Tom also opens with one line he has found dramatically changes the energy in the room. He tells clients he is there to give them all the information he would want if he were in their position, and that he is not going to ask them to sign anything unless they are absolutely ready.

“You can almost watch the stress leave their body. And then they open up so much more.”

 

Handling the commission question

 

All three panelists handle the commission question the same way when it comes up on a first call: they deflect, but not rudely. The message is that they have different options depending on what the client needs, and that it makes more sense to see the property first and talk through what the right fit looks like. Commission is the last thing they discuss at the appointment, not the first.

Brandon noted that one-percenters are heavily advertised in his GTA market and that he gets that question on cold calls regularly. His answer is similar: stay competitive, acknowledge the question and direct the conversation toward the appointment without conceding anything on the phone.

The deeper point Brandon made: some of the best appointments he has been on ended with the clients asking him to send the paperwork before commission or price was even discussed. If you build enough value before you get there, people stop thinking about the cost.

Tamara uses her team’s performance stats as her answer to the commission objection. Her team’s listings sold at an average of 98.1 per cent of list price, compared to the board average of 96.2 per cent. On a $1-million home, that difference is $12,370 more in the seller’s pocket. That number appears in large bold type in her leave-behind. When a seller says the commission seems high, she pivots to the net result: her job is to make sure they walk away with the most money, and the data shows they do.

Brandon also backs his presentations with a client guarantee that lets sellers terminate the agreement at any time for any reason, and a dedicated listing budget clients can put toward staging, repairs or renovations. Both elements reduce the perceived risk of hiring him and give clients more reason to sign than to keep interviewing.

 

The stats that actually land

 

All three panelists use market statistics as a differentiator — not just to prove their worth but to educate clients on how the market actually works. The goal is to create what Tom calls a value gap early in the conversation: showing sellers something they did not know before you walked in.

Tom’s favourite tool is months of inventory. He explains the concept in plain language, pulls out a pen and works through the math with the client on the spot using six data points: active listings, sold, months of inventory, days on market, list price and percentage of properties selling each month. He breaks it down by their specific property type and neighbourhood. The moment a seller learns that only eight per cent of homes in their area are selling each month, the conversation shifts. They stop wondering what an agent can do and start asking how to be in the eight per cent.

Tamara uses absorption rate for the same reason. The board-reported days-on-market number is misleading in her market because agents cancel and relist to reset the clock. Real absorption paints a more accurate picture. She also makes a point of acknowledging the gap between what the data says and what sellers want to hear — her team will not inflate a price to win a listing.

Brandon’s take on pricing stats: flip the percentage. Instead of saying a home sold for 97.2 per cent of list price, explain it as a 2.8 per cent margin of error. If the client’s price is three per cent above what the market will bear, they are already in trouble before the sign goes up. He also pulls terminated listings that relisted at a lower price and sold quickly, showing clients the real cost of overpricing in concrete terms.

For agents who are newer and do not yet have strong personal stats, Brandon’s advice: find a different angle. Your sales-to-listing ratio. Your communication record. Your market knowledge. Numbers are flexible when you know what you are trying to prove.

 

One appointment or two?

 

This is where the three panelists diverge most clearly, and where the variation by market and client type shows up.

Tom and Tamara both prefer a two-step process: tour and relationship-building on the first visit, with the CMA and pricing conversation on a follow-up Zoom call. Tom has found that for most properties he can turn the CMA around quickly, and the follow-up is almost always remote. Tamara’s team aims to have the report back to clients within 24 hours, giving both sides time to reflect before the numbers are discussed.

Brandon tends to run one-step appointments. His clients in the GTA markets he works often want the information immediately, and he finds the rapport-building during the tour is enough to support the pricing conversation in the same visit.

On handling unrealistic seller expectations, Brandon’s approach is situational. If he is the only agent being interviewed, he can have a more direct conversation. If he is competing against others, he treads more carefully. He always asks how many agents the sellers are meeting with, where he falls in that sequence and what price ranges they have already heard. Armed with that information, he can calibrate.

Tom frames pricing around position — his term is positioned pricing. Great marketing gets attention and showings. Positioned pricing gets offers. If you are not in the right range, the right buyers may not even find you in their search.

He also uses the reverse buyer search as a tool: pulling up what is currently for sale, filtered by the criteria a buyer would use, and showing the seller where their property lands in that competitive set. That question — where do we have to be positioned to be the obvious choice for buyers in this range — reframes the entire pricing conversation.

Brandon sometimes pre-negotiates price reductions at the time of signing. If he anticipates resistance to price adjustments down the road, he may ask the client to commit to a reduction at a set point in advance. In one recent case, he had them sign the price reduction at the same time as the original listing.

 

Are they talking to other agents?

 

Tamara asks every time, both before the appointment and again when she arrives. She goes in assuming clients are interviewing multiple agents. Most of the time they are.

She also addresses the risk of other agents promising an inflated price to win the listing. She is direct about it: her team will give clients the price they believe will result in a successful sale, not the number that wins the room. She backs that with data on what happens to overpriced properties in her market, including one example of a home that sat for four years and ultimately sold for $600,000 less than its original list price.

Her closing question when she knows the client is talking to others: what are you going to base your decision on? Is it the agent you like the most? The one who gave you the highest price? Or the one who will communicate well, work hard and do the best job? Then she uses what she calls the Sullivan’s nod — a technique she picked up from her years waitressing at The Keg — to guide them toward the right answer.

 

What doesn’t work: Lessons from the panelists

 

Near the end of the session, Andrew asked all three about what has not worked — what they tried, believed in and discovered did not land the way they expected.

Matterport came up quickly. Brandon pointed out that you can check the bounce rate on Matterport walkthroughs. Most people are off within 10 seconds. When he uses one himself, he is bored and frustrated within five. The tool checks a box, but probably not the one agents think it checks.

Andrew added context from an Ontario Real Estate Association study that ranked what buyers actually care about in a listing. Photos were first. Description was second. Floor plans were third. Video did not appear until around eighth. The drone footage, the 3D tours, the virtual staging — sellers love hearing about them. Buyers largely do not use them.

“Sellers like the video. Buyers don’t care.”

Tamara’s team went deep on AI-generated staging and templates and found it stripped away the authenticity clients had come to associate with them. She also tried spotlights on her signs to illuminate them at night. Kids stole them.

Tom’s most candid reflection: he lost four listings in a row at one point. When he dug into why, he realized he had been too direct. He was walking in and telling sellers the two things that actually mattered, cutting to the chase, and it was not landing. Clients need to be walked through the process. They need to feel the value being built. Someone who came in with an 18-point marketing plan and went through every point beat him — not because those 18 points were more effective, but because the presentation felt more thorough.

“People need to be massaged. You’ve got to walk them through it. Not because it’s all going to work, but because they need to see that you’ve thought about everything.”

 

On losing: What the best agents do

 

Tamara has been selling real estate for 31 years and still loses listings. She still feels it. She gives herself about 20 minutes of disappointment and then asks what she can learn from it.

Brandon is openly competitive and hates losing. His advice: take a hard look at yourself. The client is rarely going to tell you what did not work. You have to figure it out on your own.

Tom updates his presentation every time he senses something is not landing. His assistant, by her own admission, does not love how often that happens. But the willingness to revise is what keeps the presentation current. The moment you stop updating it is the moment it starts to feel stale.

 

Team leaders: Going on appointments yourself vs. sending someone

 

For agents who run teams, this is one of the hardest decisions in the business. Your close rate on listing presentations is almost certainly higher than your agents’. How do you train them without being on every appointment yourself?

Tamara goes on a lot of appointments. She did 14 evaluations in a single week. She goes with newer agents to model the process, and with certain experienced agents who simply prefer having her in the room. She does not go with agents who have carved out a niche and do not need her. Knowing when you are a help and when you are a distraction is part of the job.

Tom’s approach is different. He stopped working with buyers entirely seven years ago. His whole business is listings. Every appointment, he goes. And he uses that as a selling point with sellers: because he is not running around with active buyers, he can give 15 to 20 listings at a time his full attention. They are getting him, not a team member.

“Everything you do leads to the listing presentation. Take it seriously and be really good at it. Once you’re there, you better be good. That’s the biggest ROI in your business, that hour.”

 

Resources from this session

 

The panelists have shared the following resources with REM readers:

• Tom Storey’s Seller Questionnaire (Typeform)
• Stone Sisters pre-listing flipbook example
• Full session recording on YouTube
• Brandon Wasser’s Key Group Guarantee and listing budget tools: coming soon

 

Join us next month: Buying and selling a book of business

 

The May REM Mastermind takes place on May 27 at 2 p.m. EST. The topic is buying and selling a book of business — a conversation that is increasingly relevant as more agents look at retirement, partnership and the value of what they have built.

Register for the May Mastermind

The REM Mastermind runs on the last Wednesday of every month at 2 p.m. EST. It is free for everyone, made possible by the support of official sponsor REMAX.

 

A note of thanks to REMAX

 

The REM Mastermind series is free for everyone who attends, and that does not happen by accident. REMAX has sponsored this series for the full year and their support is what makes it possible to keep bringing in strong panelists and offering this to the industry at no cost. It is a partnership we do not take for granted.

 

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