New Home Sales Training

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.

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…

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…

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…

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!

As a salesperson, the problem with stale names on databases is that you have a means of remembering them (albeit electronically) but they have no way of remembering you.  So the phone call after some amount of time goes by causes people to have to reconnect who you are with their distance experiences.  The whole time that you are trying to jog their memory, they are thinking “telemarketer”; you’re going to face an uphill battle. To counter that I would suggest that you follow my “5+5+5″ system with the people on the database.  This is not a system for active prospects; it is only to reconnect to older database leads.

The “5+5+5″ system goes like this: every day you write 5 personal, hand-written notes to previous visitors.  The content should serve to reconnect the relationship, to remind the prospect of who you are, and give them a heads up on a future call.  5 days later the prospect gets a phone call, as promised (5 calls per day). They’re ready for it, they know who you are, and they are far more likely to talk.  The system calls for an even flow of cards and calls. Every day the salesperson calls on someone they wrote to 5 days prior.

In summary, that’s 5 cards followed by 5 calls 5 days later. You’ll make 25 calls a week, 100 a month, and you’ll reconnect with 600 people by card and phone every six months. Got it? Read more…

Last week I wrote part 1 of this story. If you didn’t read that, the following will make no sense whatsoever.

Click on this link to read part 1

And now, part 2….

With one last step he rounded the corner into the family room, and there he saw the stranger – an old man in a rumpled suit eating a danish and watching television.

“Hello, Bob!” said the stranger in an upbeat tone, as if nothing was wrong in the world.

Bob staggered and stuttered. “What?…. How?… Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“Now that’s funny, Bob. Because I’ve been meaning to ask you the very same question. Who are you, Bob, and what are you doing here?”

“I’m Bob, and I work here!” said Bob indignantly.

“Oh, I know that already, Bob. But what I really want to know is who you are and what you do.”

There was something piercing about the delivery. The stranger spoke with a calm and mesmerizing authority. Bob wanted to run, or hide, or call the police, but he could only stand and answer the question. Read more…

This is a story about a salesman we’ll call “Bob” (although his real name is Frank). Each morning Bob would get up at the crack of nine to get ready for his day. His morning routine was consistent: brushing his face, combing his teeth, and shaving his hair (Bob was really not much of a morning person).

On his drive to work Bob enjoyed multi-tasking. This meant listening to Howard Stern, eating an Egg McMuffin, sipping a caramel latte, and texting his “girlfriend” (they hadn’t technically spoken since the Reagan administration, but Bob still held out hope, even though she was married these last seven years).

As was his custom during the latter part of the drive, five minutes before arriving at his sales office (promptly at 10:20), Bob would occupy himself with his warm-up routine. This included self-talk (“I might sell a home today; I might sell a home today”) and practicing his best opening lines (“Hi, is this your first time here?”).

At the office, Bob would complete his preparation by reaching into his desk drawer for his most coveted of sales weapons: Brylcream and a gold medallion. With his tresses perfectly slicked back and his medallion regularly tugging on his chest hair, Bob was ready for action.

He strode to his models with his usual cocky swagger, all the while practicing his best closing lines. “What’s it gonna take to get you to buy a home today?” “I’ve got a couple of other buyers on the line, but I like your style.” “This baby’s a beaut – and you two were made for each other!”

He proceeded to unlock his three models, The Larry, The Moe, and The Curly. These were not, of course, the original names as labeled by the Sales and Marketing Director. But Bob always had a special affection for the trio, and besides – the Director hadn’t been out to visit the community since Brett Favre was a rookie; he hardly would have noticed.

While in The Curly, Bob noticed something…different. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was making him uncomfortable, but something was definitely amiss. Was it the smell? No, that was just yesterday’s re-heated Kung Po chicken. Was it the lighting? No, more than half the light bulbs were working just fine. Was it the music? Certainly not, that was Bob’s usual selection – Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits CD (Volume 1).

But something was unusual this morning. It just felt different. Odd. Not quite right. Spooky, even.

And for some reason that he could not properly figure out, Bob really did not want to go into the family room. Something in his soul said that the source of the trouble was right around that corner. He summoned all his courage as he crept slowly, hugging the wall of the hallway as he made his way to the back of the home.

With one last step he rounded the corner into the family room, and there he saw….

(Dear reader – I can’t decide yet whether I’m going to publish part 2 of this story. If you’d like to know what Bob saw in the family room, please indicate below. If enough people want to read more, we’ll print more. The story is now in your hands.)

We are somewhat conditioned to have an automatic negative response to our environment when it relates to limitations. We fret and complain about a limited amount of prospects. We struggle with limitations from our customers (“I’m in a hurry”; “I’m just looking”; “We can only afford $150,000”). We feel limited by our location, or our product, or our processes, or appraisers, or financing, or any number of different restrictions that cause us angst.

Perhaps we are looking at things with the wrong perspective. Perhaps there are opportunities within the limitations if we would only seek them out. We consultants talk a lot about “thinking outside the box”. But are the times when we would be more effective by thinking inside the box?

When you get a chance, rent the movie Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks. Pay particular attention to the scene where the NASA engineers on the ground are trying to figure out how to keep the crew alive in a damaged ship. Read more…