Every week, real estate agents across Australia are showing up to listing presentations completely unprepared.

Not because they lack market knowledge or sales experience, but because they’re missing the fundamental understanding of what actually wins listings.

They think the presentation starts when they walk through the front door.

It doesn’t.

Here’s what’s happening in most agencies right now: an agent books a listing appointment, scrambles to pull together some property data, shows up (sometimes late), and tries to showcase how great their agency is.

They’re making it about themselves.

And they’re losing business because of it.

The reality is that your listing presentation has three distinct phases, and if you’re only focusing on one of them, you’re leaving money on the table.

As a real estate mentor who’s worked with hundreds of agents across Australia and New Zealand, I’ve seen this pattern play out over and over. The agents who consistently win listings understand that the presentation breaks down like this:

• Before you arrive at the property
• During the actual meeting
• After you leave (if you don’t win immediately)

Most agents are gambling everything on the middle phase, completely ignoring the other parts of what determines their success.

Let me be clear about something: the pre-property phase is where you separate yourself from every other agent competing for the same listing.

Why?

Because this is where you separate yourself from every other agent competing for the same listing.

Think about what happens the moment you hang up the phone after booking that appointment. Your competition is probably doing one of two things: nothing, or just adding it to their calendar.

You should be creating a wow experience.

Within 60 minutes to two hours of that phone call, you need to position your offering and pre-interview your client. This means sending them information about you and your process, but more importantly, it means getting a questionnaire to them that starts gathering the information you’ll need.

Most agents think this sounds like extra work.

It’s actually a time-saver.

You’re pre-qualifying your client, understanding what’s important to them, and showing up to that kitchen table conversation already armed with the insights you need. You’re not fumbling through generic questions that every other agent is asking.

Here’s the truth: if you don’t feel confident at listing presentations, this pre-work is your secret weapon.

When you’ve already gathered information about what matters to your client, the actual appointment becomes a conversation about their needs rather than a performance about your capabilities.

Very few agents do this. And that’s exactly why it works.

Let me tell you about a client who came to work with us from New South Wales. When he first joined the program, I looked at his numbers and spotted the problem immediately.

Huge volume of listing presentations. Terrible strike rate.

He was burning through appointments without winning the business. The solution wasn’t to book more appointments—it was to improve the quality of the ones he already had.

Within three to four months of implementing this three-phase system, his conversion rate more than doubled.

Same market. Same competition. Just a better system.

And here’s what matters: there’s still room to grow. Being systematic takes you to levels most agents never reach when they’re treating every listing presentation like a pitch.

The biggest shift this agent made was understanding that a listing presentation should be about the client, not the agency.

That sounds obvious, but think about how most presentations actually run. Agents show up ready to talk about their marketing plan, their sales record, their agency’s reputation.

The client doesn’t care about any of that until they know you understand their situation.

The pre-work solves this. When you’ve already asked the right questions, gathered the relevant information, and shown up prepared to discuss what matters to them, the entire dynamic changes.

You’re not interviewing for a job. You’re consulting on their problem

Here’s something that makes a lot of agents uncomfortable: you need to role play this stuff.

Your clients are making one of the biggest decisions of their lives, and you’re winging it?

You’re either a generalist or a specialist in this industry. If you want to be a specialist at winning listings, you need to practice every component of this system until you’re confident enough that your client sees that confidence.

They need to feel like you’re leading the process, not like they’re interviewing you.

When you implement systems for real estate like the Listing Presentation Accelerator, you’re making a choice to be a specialist.

Specialists don’t need to do more work. They just need to do better work.

This agent’s trajectory proves it. He’s got aspirations to break through significant income milestones, and he can now see he doesn’t need more listing presentations to get there. He needs to keep improving the quality of the ones he takes.

That final 25%—what happens after you leave the property—is where most agents completely drop the ball.

If you don’t win the business on the spot (and you won’t always), what’s your follow-up system? Most agents have none. They wait for the phone to ring.

A systematic approach to following up, staying in front of the client, and continuing to add value is what converts those “maybe” situations into signed listings.

If there’s one piece of advice I’d give to every real estate agent watching their conversion rate stagnate, it’s this: slow it down.

Stop chasing volume and start focusing on quality.

Follow the process. Pre-work before you arrive. Strategic conversation when you’re there. Structured follow-up after you leave.

The implementation is straightforward. The results speak for themselves.

And when you’ve got a system that consistently converts at high rates, you’ll realise you don’t need to be everywhere doing everything. You just need to be prepared, professional, and process-driven.

The agents who implement systematic approaches to winning listings don’t just see better numbers—they build sustainable, scalable businesses that perform regardless of market conditions. If you’re tired of losing listings to agents who aren’t better than you, just better prepared, let’s talk about how the right systems can change your results. Book a brainstorm call and let’s map out what’s possible for your business.