I’d like to hear your thoughts on something. Many new home salespeople feel that they could sell anything. Is that you?
If you couldn’t sell homes and you wanted another sales job, what product or service would you want to sell? Forget qualifications, geography, lifestyle, or any other hindrance. Just jot down your preference in the box below.
If you couldn’t sell homes, what would you want to sell?
Chime in, folks!
As I get older I deal more and more with a question that I find very valuable: How do I continually move from success to significance? This might be one of the most important introspective questions I can ask. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I consider myself to be successful. Business is healthy for me, I have an incredible wife and three great kids, a wonderful church, fantastic friends… all the things we hope for when we say we want to be successful.
So now what? How do I continually move from success to significance? I have only so many years on this planet and I want to make an impact in the people around me. I want to be significant in people’s lives.
And that’s where you come in. When you think about it, I just defined your very calling. Selling homes is not about contracts and sales technique. It’s not even about the home, really. It’s about making a difference in people’s lives.
This Independence Day, stop and think about that wonderful phrase “The American Dream”. Owning a home is a vital part of that dream, and you are blessed each day to make those dreams come true for people.
Talk about changing someone’s world! How cool is that!
Anecdotally, it would appear that May was something less than a banner sales month for most homebuilders in the country. The expiration of the federal tax credit seems to have taken some wind out of the “sales sails”, especially in the early weeks of May. Many builders and salespeople are left scratching their heads over what to do now. The most pessimistic are wondering how to recover in this post-tax credit environment.
They might be missing something. Check the traffic numbers, folks. While the sales pace may be off, the traffic numbers have not really declined. That makes no sense whatsoever. If the tax credit was why people were buying, and the tax credit is now gone, shouldn’t the prospects be staying put at this point? Why are they still visiting the sales offices around the country?
Moreover, in my direct conversations with sales professionals it is clear that prospects have little interest in bringing up the topic. That is, the tax credit is yesterday’s news!
It is time, my friends, to forget that the tax credit ever existed and look instead at the realities of buying a home in 2010. Here’s a fact: the present buying opportunity is nothing short of phenomenal! Read more…
Paul Desmet is a long-time friend of mine and former sales competitor from way back. He sold in a new home community several blocks from my own. We were targeting the same buyer base in the same price range. Hats off to Paul, one of the classier people I know. Paul never degraded my community, my company or me in his sales presentation. The competition for sales was fierce, but it was never ugly.
A different salesperson who shall remain nameless was a competitor in my very next sales community, but his tactics were far less admirable. He slammed my community, my builder, the quality of my homes, and even me personally. He was ruthless and unashamed.
In the long run, Paul was not only more ethical but also far more successful. Prospects were turned off by the second salesman, so much so that his sales pace was consistently lagging. He is out of the business now (and perhaps in jail somewhere!), while Paul is a very successful executive. Read more…
As part of a research project, I’ve been studying up on the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Theory (CBT); I’m finding the study to be exceedingly interesting and insightful. One concept that comes from CBT is that our thoughts determine our emotions. Our emotions, once established, affect our thoughts. And so on.
For example, let’s say I’m reading an online article about the billions of dollars in wasted government spending. I’m reading via my cognition (thoughts), but as I receive with my thoughts it is affecting my feelings (mood). Now let’s say I move on to the next article about how bullying is on the rise in elementary schools. Read more…
Jeff,
How would you handle the following situation? I have been lucky enough to be in the same really great community for 6 years. Unfortunately the area around this great community is not so great. The major objection has always been that there are 2 neighborhoods right next to ours with very bad reputations for crime, drugs and gangs. Two years ago the City passed an ordinance that there could be no more section 8 housing in those neighborhoods and this helped overcome the objection with some people. Suddenly this objection started coming up more often lately and is more difficult to overcome since our zip code is the same as theirs and the crime blotter shows all of the crime in the zip code instead of just our neighborhood. All three of our schools have also dropped in ratings this year and they were already low before they dropped. What do you suggest?
Jeff Says…
If your career in new home sales lasts any respectable amount of time you are certain to face a glaring location objection. The key word in that last sentence is “glaring”, as in obvious. This gives you an advantage when you think about it. The customer who just came through your door saw the objectionable issue…and came through your door anyway! I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important that is. If the location objection were a deal killer that customer would never get out of the car! 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.
