Again my commitment to you is still the same that this blog is about you the sales heroes out there on the front lines, will be choc-full of real sales tips that will help you to sell more homes immediately and is always written by me.
So here goes. At the beginning of the month I found my self out on the beautiful West Coast in Vancouver, Washington. I spent three enjoyable days with the Pacific Lifestyles team. Since I have been before, this visit we spent time on model demonstration and actually went out to a model and practiced what we had worked on in class. The team was actively involved and all did well. When we came back to the class room we re-visited closing, but in a lot more depth and at a more advanced level than my earlier visit.
We spent the last afternoon participating in closing role plays. We played a game which I affectionately call “The Closing game”. This is where we sit around a desk and the sales team take it in turns, to take me through their Recap close (Paper training), culminating in asking me for the sale. For those who haven’t been trained by us, paper training is when you sit down at the end at your desk and recap the outside of the home, the floor plan, the home site or location, the included feature sheet highlighting their hot button items, and then offer to create a customer work sheet showing them what their approximate monthly investment will be for their home. Once you have gone through these steps, you will have easliy earned the right to then "ask for the sale" and expect a far more succesful outcome.
During the closing game, after the first request for the sale, initially I will say no, and the salesperson has to find out what my objection is, manage it and then ask again but in a different way. This takes place four times and on the fifth request I relent and agree to go ahead with the purchase.
As I said in the last blog, “Never negotiate on your feet always close at your seat”, as we all realize that when we write an agreement we are sitting down. So by merely changing the body chemistry and insisting that your customer sits down for a formal recap you have dramatically increased the chances of making the sale.
I have found that as a trainer unless we role play an activity it may never become part of our selling repertoire, so the most dramatic growth takes place when we role plays skills, so that we can become more comfortable with them, and they can be turned into habits, creating “Unconscious Competence” which will directly help you make more sales.
The idea of the “closing game” is to create the muscle memory for closing, so that when you have an actual customer you will have already practiced the closing skills necessary for your success.
For example when you are sitting down and have recapped with the customer you then ask for the sale by simply saying:
What should you as a salesperson say? Here it is;
do you want to think about?"
Now let’s face it most people that need to think about it, are probably either two of the four distinct behavioral styles? Either amiable’s (S in the DISC profile) or lambs as Charles Clark 111 calls, them or analytics (C in the DISC profile). The kind of people that would say “I used to be indecisive, but now I am not sure.”
So even when you ask which part they want to think about, they are unlikely to be able to verbalize a lucid response. So now you need to practice being proactive and going through a list of any of the elements of the sales process that could be causing them to delay action. In this order you would ask:
“Mr. & Mrs. Home buyer could it be the location?”
Location
Community
Builder
Home
Home site
Included features
Luxury choices
Total Investment
Monthly Investment
Initial investment
Time frame/ home to sell
Someone else involved in the buying decision.
Notice I have bolded the money items, as those are the most common objections, although your objections will vary depending on the thoroughness of you sales process.
I have found that the “more proactive you are in your sales process, the less reactive you need to be when managing buyer’s objections.”
For example, if you don’t habitually take your customer to a home site on the first visit, then logically that could be their objection.
We like to say that “Confusion leads to indecision”, so if you don’t sit down to recap at the end of your sales process, and create a price out sheet showing the customer what their home, on their home site with their luxury choices will be, and what their approximate monthly investment will be, then of course they could have resistance to purchasing, and you will not be maximizing your sales potential.
Once you have narrowed their objection down then you can begin to manage it, using the processes and dialogues we teach, and which I will happy to cover in more detail in future blogs.
Interestingly the classroom training took place in a local church. Here is the photo of us together:
Certainly the whole sales team was actively involved and worked hard in training, or maybe it was the spirituality and great Karma of being in church, but something worked well, as sales took off immediately after my visit. Here is a small sample of an email I received from Director of Sales Olivia Bjerke:
“Amazing! We have written 10 transactions since the training with Roland.
Joni had 3 in the first day after training, Stephen had 1, Gary has 1, Marleen and Melinda had 1 written their first day back from training, Bruce concluded his sales by applying Roland’s training techniques, Will concluded long days of an “on your lot” sales, Millie wrote a sale, Matt negotiated 2.
We are on fire and the week is not over! "
I also received a series of Inspiring emails from Bruce Stoker, one of the fine salespeople who we had role played the “closing game” with. He let me know that he had an appointment coming in wherein he could practice the closing skills we had just worked on. The customer was asking for some more information before the appointment and I reminded Bruce of the part of the training which I like to call “NO ENABLING” the customer.
In other words have you found that so many customers will ask you for more information that they must have before they make their final buying decision, that they want you to either call or email to them? Yet mysteriously when you willingly oblige them, they still don’t show up and buy your home. In fact they may often then have a whole new series of other questions, that they will barrage you with, allowing them to further delay action. How come?
What you are inadvertently doing is handing over control to the customer, getting on their treadmill and actually hampering your chance of making the sale. Unless a customer is out of town, where are they most likely to make their buying decision? That’s right since sales are “emotion backed by logic”; the most emotional place for your customer is back in your model home and your community.
So from now on when your customer is asking for you to send them information simply say the following.
NHS DIALOGUE
“I would love to share that information with you but it’s a little too complicated;
When we would be more convenient for you, either tomorrow at 4:30 PM
Bruce shared this dialogue with his customer and they came in the next day and bought his home! It took him many hours because of their behavioral style and the amount of questions they had, but Bruce kept control and made the sale. Bravo son, bravo! To Bruce I would like to award co-sales hero of the month!
Congratulations to the whole Pacific Lifestyles team, we are very proud of you incredible efforts, in this challenged market.
.
Next it was off to the country music capital of Nashville, to work with a brand new start up builder called Weldon Homes. We held a two day Smart Start which covers four essential modules: Professional communicator, perfecting your presentation, Model Demonstration and Closing.
The team did well, but I have to admit that one of the highlights for me was going with the owner Mike to the Nashville Imax to watch the latest Batman movie, Dark Night. Watching the special effects on a two and a half storey high screen was an amazing experience.
The following week, it was the beautiful city of Charlotte to work again with the Simonini Builders team, a custom luxury home builder, led by Bill Saint. We had a wonderfully interactive workshop, covering prospecting and self generation of business and then advanced closing, culminating in closing role plays.
Here is a photo of their team:
For her first builder based in Loganville, Georgia (home of the runaway bride, remember those eyebrows!), together we hired and trained a brand new sales team. For over a year they had documented closing ratios between one in four to one in five customers. Pretty incredible performance, wouldn’t you agree?
In Wilmington we reviewed some of their video shops. We then showed excerpts of the best elements to the group and then trained on the areas that still needed some work.
Here is a photo of Kandace and her team:
We started the next week we started with a Video conference connecting me from our office in Boca Raton Florida all the way over to Pueblo Springs in Southern Colorado with the delightful Premier Homes team led by the very able Scott Baughman. By the way, Scott is another manager that was featured in the SMI article that I will be happy to send to you. We have been working with Scott and Premier for many years and under Scott’s expert tutelage they have increased sales from 8 million dollars 3 years ago to 24 million, to now over 30 million dollars a year, in a market that has become increasingly more difficult.
During the VC we discussed Customer in processes; this is the form that I mentioned last month that we use to strategize how to sell to our hot prospects. The CIP form is still available to anyone who writes to me as a free download.
During the Video conference I gave a special shout out to a truly exceptional salesperson called Kacey. And we recognized her as our co-sales hero of the month. Kacey has been with Premier Homes for a few years, and has been through numerous training with us, and in my opinion just does everything correctly. She has an amazingly positive attitude, and is extremely professional personable and polished. One day when we were training on site she got there early to sweep up the Colorado dust from her front driveway. Whenever we review CIP’S her forms are always perfectly filled out, in glorious typed detail. As a result Kacey has become remarkably consistent, always selling four to five homes a month, in a very ordinary market.
Here is a photo of Kacey sweeping up the Colorado dust!
When I asked her what she attributes her success to, she shared with the group she actively solicits Realtor business. Since NAHB research has shown that a customer bought in by a Realtor is three to four times more likely to but than one that walks in by themselves, then it would makes sense for Kacey to have figured that out and to have found ways to proactively court their business. Since the other members of the sale team wanted to learn more about prospecting in the following months Video conference we worked on Self generation of traffic and prospecting.
The next day I received an inspiring email from a former sales hero at Premier Homes Debra Van Buskirk. Here is an excerpt of what she said.
"Roland,
Just wanted to say hi and a big thank you, the training is so valuable. We achieved our first quarter bonus, two more deals left to close but we hit it!!!! I'm printing 200 flyers to drop off tomorrow. You've given me the tools, and the training. Thank you to you, Scott and Premier Homes. They rock!!! this training will be with me forever!
Debra"
During this same week I went to Minto homes located in South Florida twice, once to work with their managers, and the next time to host a Self generation of traffic and prospecting seminar. They continue to work extremely hard and baffle everyone with their incredible sales success in one of the very toughest markets in the country.
At the end of the month we hosted the third in a series of Video conferences with Grady homes, a mid size family builder based in the seaside resort of Townsville, Perth in Western Australia. There sales team was highly engaged with lots of great questions and insights. Isn’t it incredible, that a sales team 11,000 miles away, have the same issues as those of us in the United States, and also the same enthusiasm and eagerness to learn and enrich their careers. During this interactive video conference we dealt with Professional communication. In fact the owner of the company Geoff and his sales manager Peter are flying around the globe to come our Serious Sales Management and Boot Camp programs this October, here in Delray Beach. So hopefully that will inspire you to come and join us as well.
And that my friends was the end of another eventful month in the world of new home sales training.
Please feel free to write to me either at my email address roland@newhomespecialist.com or post your comments on this blog and I will be sure to respond.
So here is a recap of this blog.
- The recap close
- How to deal with “I wanna think about it”
- No enabling the customer
- CIP form
- Article - Red hot managers in a cooling market.
- Bruce from Pacific Lifestyles homes in Vancouver Washington,
- Kacey from Premier homes in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Happy selling
Coach Roland Nairnsey
Senior Vice President Training and Development Bob Schultz and The New Home Specialists
http:///www.NewHomeSpecialists.com
PS. I have to admit that I always mildly resented people that were obsessed by their babies (I'm sorry!), but since my Max came along five months ago I have found myself becoming one of those people. So for those of you that have been kind enough to ask about the lovely lad, here are a few recent pictures of Mighty Max.
