I Wrote a Song and Won the Offer and More: Whissel Realty Rockstars Share their Deal-Closing Secrets

Real estate is a competitive environment and the best agents are intuitive and personable when connecting with sellers, and do all they can to give their buyers a fair shot at their dream homes.

Two such agents, Kyle Whissel of Whissel Realty and his team member Clayton Connolly from San Diego, CA both use video and the smart presentation platform, HighNote, to help them stand tall above the rest.

Kyle says HighNote made the difference in helping him win a $3.5 million listing – even though he was competing against the No. 1 luxury agent in San Diego. The platform enables agents to send a variety of videos, links, and documents in a single link and displays everything in a beautiful presentation format. Agents get real-time analytics on what is being opened and viewed.

"I sent the seller a HighNote with about 10 different pieces in it," says Whissel. "He only watched the videos, nothing else. That helped me a lot, because I knew going into our meeting that he really cared about video. And when I got to the house, he started telling me how he's an engineer for video studios for schools. I knew to focus on video in my conversation with him, and that was a big differentiator between me and the other agents I was up against. I won the listing, which was really cool."

Connolly helped his buyers craft the winning bid that had 16 other offers. He sent the offer as a HighNote presentation that included a video introducing himself and his team, and information about the buyer's offer, lender, prequalification, and proof of funds.

"Using the analytics, I realized that the agent hadn't forwarded the offer to the sellers, so I followed up and asked them to do so," says Connolly. "I could see that both the agent and the sellers looked at the presentation for quite a while. At that point, I knew we'd made an impression."

He next found out that the sellers had narrowed their decision down to his clients and someone else, so decided to get creative. Connolly, a talented musician, decided to write a song. "It was called 'Pick Us' and it was super kooky and fun, and was all about how the buyers loved the house and the neighborhood," he adds.

He recorded it and sent it to the listing agent. Twenty minutes later, he found out that the sellers had selected his client – even though the offer was $40,000 lower than the other bid.

"We were able to make that personal connection with them through the power of video," says Connolly.

Whissel, Connolly and the rest of his team primarily use HighNote for pre-listing/buyer presentations and offer submissions.

"The analytics with HighNote are also so great, just being able to see what people click on can tell you so much. If you go into a meeting and know that all someone watched was the videos of me and my team, they're 'people people.' If they just looked at the comps and market data, then I'm dealing with an analytical person. That's the magic of it," Whissel says.