New Home Sales Training

I have a brutal stretch of travel coming up. That’s not a complaint; I feel entirely blessed to have a full calendar and a host of incredible clients! But I do know that I need to rigorously manage my project list or I’ll quickly find things are slipping through the cracks.

Recently I made a master list of everything that is coming up for the next quarter and I assigned dates to all the sub-tasks. To tell you the truth, it was a grueling and painful exercise, but it forced me to come to grips with the realities of my schedule.

What I did not expect was an interesting and powerful side benefit. The due dates are lined up from here to the end of October; I can see that. But with everything lined up neatly I can also see the opportunities to get out front of some of the actions. And that is exactly what is happening. I am proactively racing ahead of due dates…and it feels great!!!

All this to say that I am re-learning a lesson you would think I would have learned by now: being ahead on stuff feels great; being behind stinks! Read more…

I love this quote from Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code.

“If you don’t feel that frustration, that failing and fixing sensation, you’re not stressing your skill circuits.”

Huh? What’d he say? Let me break it down.

The “skill circuits” refer to the mental muscles where your skills reside. As you develop a skill you are actually making the mental muscle stronger. But as in any other type of training, this means we are first stressing the muscles in order to make them stronger.

This mental stressing can lead to frustration, but it is a very healthy and necessary frustration. It is the type of frustration that occurs when we work our muscles (in this case our mental muscles) to the point of failure. Read more…

Starbucks charges more than twice what you’ll spend for coffee at other stores. It’s a fact that has got to drive the leadership at Dunkin’ Donuts and 7-Eleven up the wall. I mean, come on – is the coffee really that much better?

Of course, Starbucks is not charging twice as much for coffee, are they? No – they’re charging for the experience, the brand, the feel, the vibe. They throw in the coffee at no extra cost.

The “experience premium” is evident in businesses all over the world. There is an argument to be made that Six Flags has far better roller coasters than Disneyland, or that the beds in a Westin Hotel are better than those in a Ritz-Carlton.

Now consider your own sales office experience. Is it really that different from the sales office down the street? Will the customers notice a significant change in the environment when they meet you? What can you bring to the table that would justify a premium?

Understand this principle, as espoused by Dan Ariely in his excellent book Predictable Irrationality. The author points out that we cannot assess and evaluate without a context, without a comparison of some form. We evaluate a home against other homes we have seen. And we evaluate people against other people we meet.

Your service and customer care is ever being compared to people around you, whether you like it or not. This is good news. It means opportunity to stand out and really make a difference if you are willing to go out of your way to stand out.

How much value do you, personally, bring to your community offering? How can you enhance the customer’s experience with your positive energy?

This is how we change people’s world each and every day.

Right now, this moment, you have an uncomfortable task on your to do list. It’s a phone call you don’t want to make, or an unpleasant task that needs to be completed. Stop right now and ask yourself these two questions:

1)    What is the worst possible outcome of doing this right now?

2)    How will I feel when this is behind me?

The chances are that the “worst possible outcome” is really not that bad. No one is going to take a swing at you. You’re not going to endure undo torment. The worst case is typically not that bad.

When it comes to question two, this should be a great motivator. Think of how great you’ll feel to knock that task out right away. Good news: you’re only a couple of minutes away from actually feeling that.

Do it! Right now! This minute! Tackle the tough stuff first and see how much better you feel.

Think for a moment of three words that would describe a successful new home sales professional. Before you read on, consider taking a piece of paper and writing down three words that define excellence in sales.

For example, you might write down something like: Positive; Driven; Personable.  There are many possibilities and the list could actually be quite long, but the purpose here is to settle in on the most important attributes.

Got your three attributes defined? Great! Now take some time to consider what you want to work on today as it relates to those three words. Is the word “Driven” on your list? What can you do today to prove that achievement drive? Perhaps one word is “Intelligent”. What can you do to get even smarter by the end of the day? Read more…

I received this e-mail from a sales professional in Utah, who asks a very good question:

I’m finding that there is a disconnect between what the Buyer wants – what solves their dissatisfaction – and what they can afford.  It’s because they think the bad economy will give them a $600K house for $375K.  It means I have to solve their dissatisfaction in two ways: by what they want AND by the price they can actually afford and then try to bring those two aspects together.  The problem I’m encountering is that I can do all kinds of educating but it still ends up being a disappointment – and some actual disbelief.  They end up refusing to make a decision because they’re certain that what they want for what they can afford will be out there if they just look long enough.  Any suggestions?

Getting in touch with this concept we call “reality” is a normal part of the homebuying process.  The only difference between the prospects is the length in that journey towards acceptance of the facts.  The good news is that all builders are playing from a level playing field; the homes are priced on the same platform so you’re not going to lose a buyer to another builder (or even to the resale market) in the scenario you described.

The biggest issue however is whether the buyer wishes to move at all.  I can fight the battle over timing, and I’ll take my chances in persuading that I have the best home for that prospect.  But if the prospect is considering staying put the battle becomes much more difficult.

Your first order of business is to identify both the motivation for moving and also the urgency to make a move.  If they simply cannot stay where they are at based on their current situation, you know they’ll quickly come to grips with the realities of pricing and terms.

If they are stuck on the perception of a $200,000 discount from your at-market pricing, we have a name for that person: Non-Buyer!

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…

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…

The holidays are just around the corner, my friends. And you know what that means, right? It means HIGH QUALITY TRAFFIC! That’s right – it’s the time of year when conversion rates should be at their absolute highest.

Think of the barriers that a prospect must go through to visit a sales office – time off work, narrowing choices, arranging for child care, overcoming a fear of salespeople. Now add on top of that the distractions of this time of year. There are so many reasons NOT to visit a new home sales office.

So between now and New Year’s Day, every traffic unit becomes more important…and more legitimate! They are looking at homes this time of year not because they have nothing better to do but because they are serious buyers!

Get it out of your head that slower traffic means lesser quality. That couldn’t be farther from the truth in this case. And while other salespeople will coast into the last weeks of the year on cruise control, the top performers will embrace the opportunities and get sales that others will overlook.

Hey veterans – you’ve seen this happen, right? Share your stories below. We’d love to hear from those of you on the front lines!

Start expecting your highest conversion rates of the year. And you’ll change someone’s world!