New Home Sales Training

I was speaking to a sales team in Denver last week when I made the following point: the prospect who walks into your sales office is doing so based on something that is wrong with his/her life.  For many people that would mean a nagging issue (pain) that has been getting worse and worse each year.   At some point this dissatisfaction reaches a tipping point and they begin looking at new home communities.

A particularly observant salesperson then made this observation: “So, what you’re really saying is that everyone is always in a buying cycle.”  By that she was inferring that we are forever in the “buying cycle” even when we are not actually looking.

Is she right?  And if she is right, how does that affect the way you see people who come through your door?

I’m very curious to hear the opinions of our readers on this.  It could also make for a very interesting sales meeting discussion.

Give it some thought, and place your comments below.  Let the discussion begin!

The sales process is best thought of as a partnership with your customer.  That means a constant involvement of the prospect in the demonstration process.

One mistake often made by salespeople is the failure to constantly involve the customer in the sales conversion through active commitments.  Too many salespeople go through the process assuming there is an acceptance on the part of the customer without actually asking for that commitment.

The rationale in not asking these commitment questions sounds like this: “I already know they love this kitchen – why would I need to ask that?”  Actually, there is a very sound reason for asking for a commitment in this instance.  You see, we don’t ask closing questions for our own benefit; we ask closing questions for our customer’s benefit.  Their active acceptance cements their commitment.

I read of this example this week from a restaurant that was seeking to increase customer commitments to keeping the reservations they made.  The restaurant dropped their no-show rate from 30% to 10% on phone reservations.  How?   Read more…

We all hit sales slumps.  They are universal in the sales world.  It’s not a matter of if, but when.  The important question is what will we do about the slump when it comes our way?  If you fail to act quickly, a sales slump will have deep and long-term impact.

Is a sales slump affecting your mindset?  Start with a mental check-up.  Do you see yourself in any of the following descriptions?

-       Lack of positive energy

-       Lack of motivation / determination / drive

-       Increased discomfort and lack of confidence in sales conversations

-       Coming up with excuses for why you can’t sell

-       Creating a negative impact on others

Allow me to offer two pieces of advice to help you out of a slump.

First, you must be aware that your next customer has no idea that you are in a slump!  Every new customer is a fresh start.  As far as they are concerned you’re writing a contract every two hours.  So don’t show the new prospect anything but positive energy. Read more…

How do you sell a home to someone when there is absolutely nothing wrong with the home and the situation they’re in right now?  You don’t, actually.  You cannot sell a home to people who have no dissatisfaction in their current situation.  We call those people “non-buyers”, and they don’t even make it out to the sales offices.  People aren’t in your office because they have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon.  Talking to salespeople for kicks is not exactly high on the list of non-motivated customers.

But every real prospect has some sense of dissatisfaction in their current home or situation, even if they don’t yet realize that! And that’s the key.  The great salespeople will help a prospect to clarify that dissatisfaction.  They will help the customer to understand how their life can be improved.  (If life improvement is a possibility, it must mean that a dissatisfaction lies waiting to be found.)

So how do we help the prospect identify a dissatisfaction?  There are a number of ways to do this, but perhaps the most effective method is to show them something spectacular that they don’t have now.  Surely you’ve fallen in love with a kitchen (or a pair of shoes, or a golf club) and before you saw that kitchen there was no dissatisfaction with what you had.  The emotional pull of what you saw created a dissatisfaction with what you had.

Don’t take a prospect at face value when they tell you they’re “just looking”, and they have no intention of purchasing.  Give them a chance to create an emotional attachment to your product, and then see if that attachment doesn’t all create a dissatisfaction in their current situation!

This week’s article is an excerpt from Jeff’s book: Tough Market New Home Sales.

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”  Winston Churchill

The problem in a prolonged healthy market lies in what I refer to as an “entitlement mentality” on the part of new home sales counselors. This mentality says, “If I show up for work and handle the rush of stuff that comes my way, I’ll get my fair share of sales.” It says, in a nutshell, “The market will come to me.”

If entitlement is the mindset to avoid, what is the most advantageous mindset to adopt? The word to dwell on is this: maximize! You must maximize every sales office opportunity. This is the practice of top professionals.

They maximize sales opportunities in two specific ways:

1.  Top sellers maximize their opportunities to sell in a tough market.

Top professionals take advantage of every conversation and advance every sale as far as possible. Look at it this way. When a customer comes into a sales office and leaves without buying, it means that someone stopped the sale. Read more…

Jason Forrest wrote this excellent response to my post last week on “Aggressiveness vs. Assertiveness”. It deserves it’s own posting. Read it carefully and evaluate your own approach to the sales process.

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There is a difference between manipulation and persuasion. When it comes down to it, you can distinguish them with one word: intent. Your intent and how you execute your position of strength determines if you are crossing the line and moving from pure persuasion to malicious manipulation. Persuaders use their position of strength for the customer’s benefit and wellbeing. Manipulators have ulterior motives, and are concerned only with their own wellbeing. Their goal is to coerce the prospect to purchase a home regardless of whether or not it satisfies their needs, wants or budget.

Unfortunately, many sales counselors don’t see the difference between persuasion and manipulation. They feel that they are one and the same, so they shy away from persuasion. To avoid coming across as aggressive, pushy and manipulative, they try to become the customer’s friend. They essentially abandon their position of strength and hand it over to the customer.

If you struggle with persuasion, you need to change your perception of it. Early in life, I learned that the way I see the world affects how I interpret things. And my perception of the world is created by the experiences of my past.

Read more…

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…