There's a new R word in town...RECOVERY

SALES OF NEW HOMES SURGE

That was the headline all across the country on July 28th, so for those that read last months blog, I hate to gloat but.....I TOLD YOU SO!!!

Since all of us are in the persuasion business, where perception is king, it is time for us to jump on the bandwagon with gusto and help our customers understand that "Now" truly is the perfect time to buy. While the good times may not return the way they were a few years ago, most experts agree that this seems to be the "beggining of the end" of the recession.

Last month I posted some facts that we could use in our dialogue with our customers, so here are the latest facts.

> Sales of new homes in June jumped 11% from May.

> It was the third month in a row of higher sales, and the most robust sales pace since November.

> Inventories of homes for sale dropped to 8.8 months in June, down from 10.2 months in May and the LOWEST monthly supply since October 2007.

For the record, experts agree that a normal supply of new homes is between six to seven months for a healthy balance between a supply and demand driven market.

Says Bernard Markestien, senior economist at the National Association of Homebuilders

"Evidence is mounting that we have turned the corner for sales, and that is a precursor for a recovery."

There it is my favorite R word, RECOVERY, after my own name of course.

So while the naysayers may depress us with talk of median prices still dropping, and that this may end up being a jobless recovery, and cash for clunkers worked so well they are out of cash, and so on, let's "dare to be different", and all across the selling fields of this great land lets stand up and be counted (Cue military music) and start becoming the voice of optimism, and the purveyors of positivity. Let's start instilling in our customers a sense of urgency that an opportunity like this to invest only comes along "once in a lifetime, and you would hate for them to miss out".

OK, now that is off my chest let me share with you where we have been all across the country, and all of the real world success stories that are happening as we speak.

NEW HOME SPECIALISTS ON THE MOVE

(This is my new photo symbolizing travel, how do you like it? That's me under the wing scratching my head and sobbing, as I realized that I had just lost my luggage for the umpteenth time!)

Here I am with the newest recruits at Minto Communities who are still doing incredibly well in their communities across South Florida, and one in Port St.Lucie. As you will have read in previous blogs we at NHS have been working with Minto for a few years, and they fully believe in hiring candidates with the highest potential, and then allowing us to instill in them our proven sales processes. The management team has recognised that training isn't a one time event, and should be practised continually to keep their sales team sharp and always growing and improving.

As mentioned a few blogs ago, we firmly believe that the real growth spurts for sales skills occur when we get out of the classroom and actually role play skills that we have previously discussed.

Here we are on site, in a gorgeous model numbering a floor plan and preparing exactly what to say to a customer to maximize their involvement, and then we are role playing Closing. Heather is doing a great job of taking me through her recap close, while Lori, Barbara, and Jacqueline look on.

I was just back at Minto with their whole sales team discussing "Adapting for Different Behavioral Styles", and learned that Lori who had been promoted from reception to sales, had already earned two sales, and Barbara was already up to eight sales! Congratulations to the whole team, we are very proud of all of you!

For information on the Recap Close, please write to me at Roland@newhomespecialist.com - Recap Close.

Next stop Annapolis, Maryland. Check out the beautiful scenery!

We just started working with Caruso homes in the Maryland/ Virginia area, so I was in town hosting a recruiting night. We are working closely with them on an accelerated implementation of our systems, so I am going to hold off sharing any more details for the time being, because I know that in a few months we will be bragging about them as the next wonderful success story.

Next stop, Memphis, Tennessee, with the team at Magnolia Homes. Owned by the delightful mother, and son team of Karen and Reggie Garner, and managed very ably by Josh Holley.

This visit we began with Video shop reviews and coaching and then created the training program based upon areas that we all agreed we needed to work on. As a tip, whenever you have elements of shops that are good, it is a wonderful training tool to show those segments (with the salesperson's permission) to other team members, to show them "how it should be done". Actions speak louder than words, as they say.
Here we are watching James Wachob's video shop. James was a sales hero on this blog last fall for his excellent shop, and again his most recent shop didn't disappoint. In Wales (part of great Britain, not the mammal), people name you for your profession such as Billy the Baker, Chris the Cook, Sally the... well you get the idea. From now on I am just going to call him, "James the Closer". James has attended three Boot Camps (sm), and heaps of on going training and is as serious a student of closing as I have ever met. I like to say:

"Your style may cause you to be memorable, but its your process that makes you rich!"

Roland Nairnsey

James has an incredible closing process, so good that if we were running subtitles on the screen, you would hear learned dialogues word for word, yet he makes them seem like his own. Again, great job to James the Closer!

Here we all are at Magnolia Homes having a little pizza break from right to left, are Reggie, Lisa, Andrea, Josh, Karen holding her brand new grandson Shafer, Reggies beautiful wife Jennifer, and her mother.

Next it was Fayeteville, North Carolina for a quick visit with Caviness and Cates to brush up on Model Demo and Closing skills.

They are working hard and getting great results. For the month of July they posted 24 net sales! I am on my way back there next week to work on "Preparing for the main Event" (video shop preparation), Advanced Closing and Closing Role Plays. I have to admit I can't wait as there are many great characters there, and they are always a lot of fun to work with.
After that it was Owensboro, Kentucky, to work with the amazing team at Jagoe Homes. They are doing so well in this tough market that below I have shared the whole story of how we came to work with them, and how they are earning their well deserved success. Here goes;

Jagoe Homes has the WRITE STUFF!Tri-state family Builder builds huge market share by 46%in down economy

If you were to hear about a Builder whose salesteam was Closing1 in 4 customers walking through the door, as of July 2009 would you believe it? Probably not. Well this is exactly the case with Jagoe homes, based in Owensboro Kentucky.

Eight years ago the owners Bill and Scott Jagoe had sought out the services of Bob Schultz and the New Home Specialists, to help give them the sales systems and processes that they realized they needed to create consistency in sales and significance for their family owned business.

After a thorough recruiting process, Dave Crowe was hired to manage the sales team. Dave interestingly came from the funeral monument business and had no prior new homes experience, nor any preconceived notions of how to manage a new home sales team. He was immediately flown to Boca Raton, Florida to consult with Bob Schultz and was thoroughly inculcated into every element of the New Home Specialists proven systems and processes.

Here are Dave Crowe and myself enjoying a mouthwatering dinner at the world famous Moonlite Bar-B-Q. If you are ever in Owensboro you should stop there!Fast forward to the summer of 2009, where of course the United States is suffering through the worst economy since the great depression of 1929, and a strange noise can be heard in Owensboro Kentucky and Evansville Indiana. It is the sound of hammers swinging and homes being built. As competing builders scratch their heads wondering what magic trick has been going on at Jagoe; Jagoe continues to increase its market share, widening the gap between themselves and their competition, with a 46% increase in their core markets.

Says owner Scott Jagoe,
The existing sales team was evaluated, many of whom didn’t make the cut, and many new recruits joined the team by implementing the NHS ten step recruiting process ®. Dave attended Serious Sales Management ® and joined a NHS management mentorship group as well as receiving on going training with the New Home Specialist team. The sales team attended congruent curriculum
based sales training initially with former facilitator Marilyn McVay and then with myself. This included attending Boot Camps (Sm) and on site Smart Start programs (sm), as well as model demo and closing role plays, and in depth Video Shopping coaching and evaluation utilizing the NHS patented system.

Consistent sales success started to blossom, that became sustainable because it had been forged the old fashioned way, though hard work and having the discipline to implement the complete NHS playbook.
Owner Scott Jagoe remembers;
"A few years back when Bob was onsite, a salesperson gave Bob the credit for a sale he had just made. Bob replied, the book and the training are avialable to everyone, your the one that listened, read, tried, and closed YOU GET THE CREDIT."
"We enojoyed a 39% increase in agreements for the first 7 months of 2009, over 20008!"
He continued:
"Our sales team as a whole enjoys a 1 in 4 Closing Ratio, that's not a typo, and we do consider ALL traffic. We keep to the BASICS OF YOUR PROGRAM, sharpen the saw to increase sales skills, and consistently Discover and Close, Discover and Close."
I just had the pleasure of working with the team again at the end of July, to help some new recruits in Louisville get up to speed, as well as a tune up with a few of the existing team.
Scott Jagoe mentions my visit:
"Just last weekend not 24 hours after Roland's training I had a salesperon close on two homes. That salesperson reported to me he used what he learned the prior 3 days from Roland. The bottom line is your program gets results."
In re-tooling their builder story, to add more benefits and involvement questions, they were thrilled to be able to impress their customers with their financial strength while simultaneously creating urgency by being able to say, “That on average approximately a family day is moving into their brand new Jagoe home.”

A bold statement in today’s environment and an accomplishment we are all proud of.

Here we are role playing on site, with Andy, Danielle, Laurie, Dayle, yours truly, Jennifer, Sara and Nathan. Notice Sara demonstrating the homesite with the Soy Bean field in the background, and of course a model demo wouldn't be complete without a famous shower scene demo, to show the spaciousness of course!


SALES HEROES

Christy Dedora

I worked with Christy during a seminar and was impressed with how energetic and engaged she was the whole time. We received this uplifting email, shortly after that which I believe speaks for itself.

From: Chris DeDora

To: Roland Nairnsey

Roland!

I wanted to share with you my experience thus far! I sold 1 my first week here and then 1 each week in the following 4 weeks, so I’ve had a total of 5 sales in my first 6 weeks and I am working on several others. Again, thank you for the awesome training, I refer back to my book and notes often and continue to utilize everything I learned from you! I hope to attend one of your seminars again! I will check the website for upcoming events! Hope you are doing well!

Chris

Chris DeDora
New Home Specialist
Serving All Communities!
Regent Homes

Congratulations to Kristin and Chris for the great job and to all of you working so hard out their and succeeding in this tough market.

I still firmly believe that, "My favorite Attititude is Gratitude", and I am truly grateful for the opportunity to share these great concepts and processes that have helped people improve their careers, and that they take the time to share their victories with all of us, allowing us all to enrich our lives.

By the way look who I ran into at the airport in Washington. Whoever said his personality was like cardboard? For the record, ....Yes you can!

BLOG RECAP

FREE DOWNLOADS

Recap Close

SALES HEROES

Chris DeDora

And finally a few photos of my pride and joy Max. Not only does he play the paino every day, now he likes to play it standing up! Behold the next little Richard!

For any of the free downlaods mentioned or to ask questions and share your success stories, please write to me at Roland@newhomespecialist.com


Happy Selling,



Coach Roland

Newhomespecialist.com