The best way to qualify a brokerage team is by asking them to clearly describe their sales and marketing plan of action. Their plan should include a clear and defined plan of action for the 3Ps of the Yacht Selling Formula (Price, Presentation, and Promotion) while also taking into consideration the 4 marketplace trends we discussed earlier. They should:
Despite this, the overwhelming majority of yacht listings contain minimal information. This is a great opportunity to create a comprehensive listing promoting all of your yacht’s features, specifications, and what sets her apart from other comparable yachts for sale. The more information your listing contains the more qualified.
The more information your listing contains, the more qualified the buyers you attract and the less you, your crew, your brokerage team will waste time due to unnecessary inquiries and visits. Your broker or yacht consultant needs to put serious effort into writing persuasively about your yachts inventory, specifications and features.
According to industry statistics, listings with 20 photos get viewed 4 times more than yachts with only 5 to 7. Therefore, make sure that your listing includes a generous amount of professional photographs displaying your yacht to her best advantage, inside, outside and in the technical areas.
Note: Also make sure that you or your brokerage team produce promotional material for both potential buyers and their broker network. The broker network material must be white labelled (broker friendly) and will incentivize and encourage other brokers or brokerage firms to distribute and promote your yacht to their clients.
While brochures are not as necessary today — nor environmentally friendly — make sure your marketing package contains an E-brochure. Other than quality photos and a brochure, another must today are walkthrough videos and drone videos.
As you know, buying a yacht is an emotional purchase. A nice music / aerial video / walkthrough video are the perfect combination to trigger the buyers’ emotions. For instance, our brokerage team produces two kinds of videos for our listings:
In addition to these two types of content, there is another great piece of content to include in your listing. But first, let us ask you a question: What is the first thing a buyer wants to do at a yacht show? Buyers want to step onboard yachts. Well, the same behavior holds true when they find your yacht listed online — if they’re interested, they want to step aboard. And ideally, they’d like to step aboard immediately.
But such a thing isn’t possible if your yacht is hundreds, or thousands of miles away from all the buyers who are interested in your yacht. This is why a Full Virtual Tour of your yacht can be a fantastic selling tool. Because it allows buyers to feel the space, experience the quality of the finishing, and surround themselves in each room, cabin, and area of your yacht. What’s more, it even allows buyers from all over the world to visit your yacht before making a trip. Essentially, it opens the doors to your yacht 24/7.
The ultimate goal of your broker or yacht consultant should be to exceed your expectations. To achieve this goal, they should work hard to obtain the highest price for your yacht within the shortest period of time. This can only be achieved through maximum promotional efforts and lead-generation. After every listing or price reduction, make sure that your broker or yacht consultant communicate or advertise to their network of brokers or database of prospects.
Before committing to offering your yacht as a Central Agency, ask them questions about their lead generation process, where do they get their leads from, and how many leads do they get per listing.
While leads are important, leads are useless if your broker isn’t following up properly.
Multiple studies demonstrate the correlation between rapid response rates and multiple follow-ups. Which means you need to make sure that the broker or yacht consultant representing your vessel has a strong system in place to follow-up rapidly by phone, text, Facebook, WhatsApp, email or whatever channel the buyer prefers.
When it comes to follow-up, speed is not the only requirement. Your broker or yacht consultant must also follow-up several times. According to The North American Sales Association, 80% of sales are closed between the 5th and 12th follow-up. If you want to sell your yacht, you need a meticulous method of following up with all the buyers who have shown interest in your yacht. Which means, if you want the highest chances of selling your yacht, your broker must follow-up fast, consistently and several times with every lead.