Any advice for when people say they need to think about it?

You need to do a bit of simple testing and play acting:

Prepare a simple A4 questionaire with 10 questions on it, and maybe 9 photos of houses on it [tick the house/price you like photos] and give them some story about "How much you want to work with them", in order to do so you need to know their needs, wants, budget, and hopes. Leave space for them to add loads of information on it and ask them to bring it back to you later in the day or post it back to you. In effect your saying - without saying it, prove to me you really are interested, you see 8 out of 10 won't bother - SO THEY REJECTED THEMSELVES.

I call this the go for a coffee break and come back later screening method, others might have another name for it.

Bob how does this helps with the people who have already viewed the property but need to think about it?

Do you think it's a simply way of rejection? Maybe customers don't want to offend you.

Reply to Houston: This post of mine is to assist the OP. She is being plagued by "Let me think about it clients", meaning clients wasting her time. Using a questionaire is a simple means for her to let clients CHANGE THEIR MINDS, by leaving the building [with the questionaire to complete] and deciding whether THEY OUGHT TO GO BACK or not.

Take it from me if they've seen a property they like - barbed wire and machine guns won't keep them away. If clients have seen the property then telling the sales person to let them think about it - indicates they are not sold on it and you [the sales person] need to DISMISS THEM. This is a broad observation, they might have said "We like the property but can something be done about XYZ, so this is not the normal run-of-the-mill let-me-think about it situation.

Shinningstar is correct, you do have a number of clients who want to be loved, admired and respected, so they choose and use these common goodbye phrases to depart with dignity.

I'll second that.

I call that a 'condition of sale' and treat it as a buying sign.

In my experience if a prospect says, 'Thank you for your time' the chances are good that they are not coming back.

I would have thought that most people would need to "think about it" when facing a major purchase such as real estate. Yet, this thread sounds like it's something people say to end the dialog with the salesman.

It took my husband and I two weeks of thinking about it before we actually purchased the car we wanted to buy the first time we saw it. Maybe we are unusual buyers.

__________________
My Avon Site

His & Hers Blog

This is true... the day we first saw this house, and knew others would be looking too, we didn't need to think about it. We told the realtor to make an offer before we pulled away because it was our dream home and we didn't want to lose it. Even after doing that, I suffered because I wondered if we should have just said we'd pay the asking price and not let someone else come along and do that and steal it. It worked out okay, though. Whew!

Create an urge. Putoff excuses occur when the prospect doesn't have the urge to act

I used to get them daily at a carpet cleaning firm. I was below quota on deodorizer sales. I linked up deodorizer with steam cleaning by telling customers that steam cleaning activated deodorizer (everybody was interested in steam cleaning, but deodorizer had nothing to do with appearance plus it was never put on sale like steam cleaning was).

The result was the putoff excuses stopped, completely, and my deodorizer sales quadrupled (One lady though asked if it was okay to wait for the tech to show up before she made up her mind. I replied she can do whatever she wanted and simply reminded her that deodorizer is activated by steam cleaning. She responded by saying to add it to the order!).

If you have enough time to try to close low probability prospects, you need to learn how to find High Probability Prospects.

The former creates pressure and aggravation; the latter is easy and enjoyable.

The former costs you time and money; the latter saves time and makes money.

After reading all the different post I see we all have a large variety in the amount and type of sales training we have been through.

In my training I was always taught to agree with the customer first, this way you make them feel comfortable giving you any answer that comes into their mind. So I start of my reply with like

I understand how you feel

Now in order to make my first statement more credible I add many of my favorite clients have said the same thing.

and the main reason I am there is because I want them to buy, not "think about it" because I know if they are thinking about it they are not buying and if they are not buying they have to believe they made the right decision so all they are thinking about is the reason not to buy, not the reasons they should buy.
So I also through in before they bought.

This lets them know that they are like other customer who have bought. And then i ask May I ask what your concerns are?

So you can find the real objection.

So put together it goes like this

I understand how you feel, many of my favorite clients have said the same thing before they bought (signed the contract, made an offer). (pause) May I ask you what your concerns are?