New Home Sales Training

The blog post last week brought in a number of good comments from top professionals, and led me to some interesting conversations throughout the week. Thought I would share a couple of new thoughts related to the subject.

First of all, I heard this great quote related to the topic. I can’t find the source (a Google search attributed it to several different people). Here is the quote:

“Intent is more important than technique.”

Think on that quote and all that it entails. To me the quote speaks to the heart of the matter. If you’re in sales what is your intent, your purpose? Why are you there? Seriously, what is your mission? These are important questions to consider because your actions and behaviors will always follow your purpose.

For example, what is the purpose of a politician on a campaign trail? It is to get as many single votes as possible. So he/she knocks on doors and makes phone calls, because one’s actions and behaviors always follow their purpose.

What is the purpose of a salesperson? If the sales representative believes it is nothing more than to give out information, or to make friends, or to set up the sales conversation for a further visit, then you’ll see mediocre efforts.

So what is your purpose? Why are you there? Really? Get the purpose right and you’ll soon find that your actions and behaviors are also right. Why? Because intent really is more important than technique.

Go ahead – take a stab – what is your purpose??????

From time to time I will meet a salesperson who will tell me flat out that they are not assertive. Typically they say things like, “I’m not pushy – I just let the sale happen”, or “The customers will let me know when they’re ready to buy, but I’m not going to push it.” There exists for many salespeople a built-in excuse for not closing – “it’s just not me.”

I suppose that’s fine if your only interest is in keeping the customer in a comfortable place. But look closely – that was never in your job description. The sales process is a two-way street. That means both parties have needs that must be met. There is a win-win solution, and ultimately that involves the prospect moving forward with a purchase decision.

The question we must consider is one of degree – how much is too much? How much should we push, and when should we back off?

For some perspective on this topic , consider a definition. In the classic book Your Perfect Right, authors Robert Alberti and Michael Emmons offer the following definition of “assertiveness”:

Assertive self-expression is direct, firm, positive – and when necessary persistent – action intended to promote equality in person-to-person relationships. Assertiveness enables us to act in our own best interests, to stand up for ourselves without undue anxiety, to exercise personal rights without denying the rights of others, and to express our feelings honestly and comfortably.

Inherent in that description is the idea that I can ask for what I want, so long as I am respectful to the person to whom I am asking.

It is my opinion that the majority of salespeople (in all industries) lack the necessary assertiveness for the job. Their fear of rejection is so high that they end up paralyzed in their approach. Often this is due to a high level of threat sensitivity, as they play out the worst-case scenarios of customer interactions.

The problem here is that the salesperson is robbed of the opportunity to accomplish his or her goals. But they are also robbing the prospect of the same thing! When we let our fear get in the way we force the customer to make the next move. If they share that same fear they will sit on the sideline waiting to be asked. Each then disables the process further.

Can I suggest that you get it out of your mind that assertiveness is a dirty word? You have a right to ask for the sale, and your customer has the right to say no. But if you do not ask you do not get. And sometimes when you do ask….you change people’s world!

It has been said that familiarity breeds contempt. I assume that’s true in some cases, but in most instances familiarity simply breeds complacency. It brings about a casual acceptance, a matter-of-fact approach to things. Familiarity breeds ordinary.

That’s fine when it comes to an old pair of shoes or to your silverware. Not everything can be special. But it’s deadly when it comes to how you see your own homes.

I have seen so many salespeople (and to be honest, I’ve fallen victim myself) who display no particular affection for their own homes. They show their product as if it is just another home. They talk about their community as if it could be any other neighborhood in the country. Read more…

“I’ve always been an optimist. Frankly, I never saw much use in being anything else.” Winston Churchill

Psychologist Martin Sigelman discovered a strong link between optimism and results in a detailed study with sales professionals at Met Life Insurance. The study concluded that those who ranked in the top 10% of the organization when it came to optimism outsold by 88% those in the bottom 10% of the company.

That statistic may not surprise you, but think through the underlying aspects of the study. These were salespeople, and they were hired because they were optimistic people in the first place. Those in the bottom 10% still would have considered themselves to be optimists, and compared to a lot of other professions they probably were.

What does this mean for the top 10% of the salespeople in the organization? It means they were more than optimists – they were super-optimists. These were people who did more than pretend. They were optimists in their core, and they carried that optimistic purpose into every sales encounter.

Read more…

Don’t know how you’re feeling, but the gang here at Shore Forrest Sales Strategies is totally stoked about 2010! We see a great year in front of us full of promise, success, re-creation, and of building the team we will be for years to come. We’re pleased and privileged to be working with some of the finest homebuilders in the country, and we are thrilled that our workload is very, very heavy.

With a new year comes new opportunities and a new look. So if I could share a few exciting things going on here at Shore Forrest Sales Strategies….

1) On January 1^st we launched a new web site (www.shoreforrest.com). Our thanks to Chip Johnson and the team at Builder Designs (www.builderdesigns.com) for their incredible work on this project. We’d love to hear your feedback. We think the site rocks! Read more…

The futurist Joel Barker offers an interesting perspective on a phenomenon that he calls “Paradigm Paralysis”. He says,

“Whatever our current level of success, we accept it as ‘normal’ and so continue with the activities, actions, and behaviors that keep us at that point.”

That is paradigm paralysis – being crippled by our own limiting self-perspective. Do you accept your current level of performance as being all you are capable of achieving? If so, your actions and behaviors will follow suit. Our actions and behaviors are always consistent with the way we see ourselves.

This phenomenon works both ways. Think of something that you are really good at: listening skills, or golf, or demonstration technique. If you think you are successful in any of those things, a very large portion of your success is based on your self-perception. Read more…

I’m not into New Year’s resolutions. My experience is that people make resolutions on a whim, but they rarely take the necessary step of developing the plan that would turn the resolution into reality.

It’s really a question of whether you have a dream and whether you have a plan. Most New Year’s resolutions are all about the dream – about the desired end result. I would suggest that you look past the dream to the plan that will be necessary to make that dream come true.

That said, this is the perfect time of year to set goals and create plans to achieve them. So if you are so inclined, allow me to share three tips for putting together some 2010 goals.

1) Think Short-Term

If you’ve never really invested any efforts into goal accountability, I would advise you not to try to tackle a huge project right out of the gate. Don’t think about what you’ll accomplish in 2010 – think about what you’ll accomplish in January (or at most in the first quarter). I’m not saying you shouldn’t have big, hairy, audacious goals, but that’s not where I would start. The more manageable the goal, the better the chances you’ll achieve the results.

2) Break the Goal into Small Steps

If you struggle right out of the gate, you’ll need to go back to goal definition. It’s not a goal unless it can be broken down into small, well defined, manageable steps. For example, if you say, “My goal is to be the best salesperson in my company”, that’s not defined and it is impossible to break down specifically. Read more…

I saw this excerpt in Seth Godin’s new book; I thought you might like it. It’s actually written by the ever-insightful Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.

Read this excerpt, and then comment with how it spoke to you (or didn’t) in the comment box below.

We are the strivingest people who have ever lived. We are ambitious, time-starved, competitive, distracted. We move at full velocity, yet constantly fear we are not doing enough. Though we live longer than any humans before us, our lives feel shorter, restless, breathless…

Dear ones, EASE UP. Pump the brakes. Take a step back. Seriously. Take two steps back. Turn off all your electronics and surrender over all your aspirations and do absolutely nothing for a spell. I know, I know – we all need to save the world. But trust me: The world will still need saving tomorrow. In the meantime, you’re going to have a stroke soon (or cause a stroke in somebody else) if you don’t calm the hell down.

So go take a walk. Or don’t. Consider actually exhaling. Find a body of water and float. Hit a tennis ball against a wall. Tell your colleagues you’re meditating (people take meditation seriously, so you’ll be absolved from guilt) and then actually, secretly, nap.

My radical suggestion? Cease participation. If only for one day this year – if only to make sure that we don’t lose forever the rare and vanishing human talent of appreciating ease.

Well, dear reader – is she right…..?”

Even if your traffic levels drop (as they often do this time of year) you will still be given the same wonderful gift as everyone else – 60 minutes per hour to use as best you can. Time is one of those completely inflexible things. You get no more and no less than anyone else. Bill Gates and every ditch-digger on the planet are granted exactly the same amount of time. In other words, it’s not how much time you have – it’s how you use it.

So if the traffic is down and your environment slows down, use that time to invest in yourself. How? Simple – read a book. Find a book you’ve been wanting to read and dedicate yourself to reading it between now and the end of January.

If you want to do this right, follow these three reading enhancement tips:

1) Read every day. Let it become a habit for you. Don’t skip a day.

2) Read with a highlighter and pen close by. Do this so that you can read interactively, regularly spotlighting those areas that can have the greatest impact. Read more…