12/20/2013 Goal Setting For 2014

As the end of the year draws closer, determine where you are in relation to the sales, financial, and customer satisfaction goals you set for 2013. If you are behind where you projected yourself to be, then assess and analyze to determine what you have to do to get back on track.

Bob Schultz, Contributing Editor



December 20, 2013

What did you accomplish in 2013?

A good way to plan for the new year is to ask yourself that question. Why? Because past performance is always a good indication of potential future success. So, look back before you move forward. Review your goals, activities, and performance benchmarks for 2013. Here are some items to consider as you make your assessment.

Carefully assemble the data needed for this review. As the end of the year draws closer, determine where you are in relation to the sales, financial, and customer satisfaction goals you set for 2013. If you are on track, great, and congratulations.

On the other hand, if you are behind where you projected yourself to be, then assess and analyze to determine what you have to do to get back on track. Next, think through all the actions, activities, and tactics you executed exceptionally well throughout this year. Determine why you performed those tasks so well and identify what you need to do to assure that you keep doing those tasks throughout 2013 and into 2014.

Likewise, review what you didn’t do as well and determine what you must immediately do to become more proficient in each and every one of those areas as you go forward.

Consider using 69 benchmarking segments—52 weekly, 12 monthly, four quarterly, and one annual—if you really want to drill down in the historic data. This rear-view mirror assessment will give you a sense of what you may need to do more systematically as you move forward. By keeping the focus and attention on shorter weekly segments, you’ll be able to achieve much more consistency and urgency in gathering information. Reviewing and assessing each of 12 months will allow more time to make quick adjustments as needed, and major reviews and corrections over four quarters will provide a much stronger possibility of achieving, or exceeding, annual goals and objectives in the future.

After you have assessed and determined what you did well and what needs to be improved, meet with the appropriate members of your team to create an action plan with time lines for implementation to achieve measurable improvement in the year ahead. Here’s an additional tool to help you assess what you accomplished in 2013: I presented a list of “25 Proven Ways to Increase Sales” in last month’s Professional Builder (see PB November 2013 or ProBuilder.com). Take that list, create a simple spreadsheet, and score each of the 25 items as you see it today on a scale of A to F.

A—Got it covered, do it all well and consistently. Identify why and how this has been accomplished. Action Plan: Maintain.

B—Somewhat covered and fairly consistent. Identify why and how this was accomplished. Action Plan: Improve where needed.

C—Varies as to levels of excellence and consistency. Identify why. Action Plan: Immediate improvement.

D—Not even close to a process or system to achieve success. Identify why not. Action Plan: Critical action needed immediately or concede defeat.

F—No clue where we are. Action Plan: Your call as to if you intend to try to stay in business.

A few more thoughts to consider:

• “When something becomes personal, it becomes important.” Builders want sales revenue and salespeople want financial compensation for their sales. For the most part, builders are responsible for nearly all (if not all) of the costs and expenses related to generating the leads and prospects to produce the sales. Pretty simple, straight forward, and personal.

• “You cannot manage and therefore improve that which you do not measure.” To increase the ROI on all sales-related costs and activities, builders, sales and marketing managers, and salespeople should have a passion for knowing and understanding the important metrics of their business.

• “In new home sales, if we only look at a sale as an objective rather than as the end result of a series of activities, actions, and expenses measured against acceptable levels of performance, then we really do not know where we are or what we accomplished.” Develop a vision for those possibilities.

Be sure that you have a system and process in place that consistently provides the costs, numbers, and ratios. Then you can more easily and accurately answer these questions: What did you accomplish in 2013? How did you do it? How many sales and how much revenue and profit did you achieve? How much time, money, and human resources were invested in the process? What was the ROI on the financial and human resources invested?

Using all this information as a frame of reference and creating an appropriate and formative action plan, I promise that you will be able to increase sales conversion ratios and begin to reduce unnecessary costs going into 2014.

But beyond these assessments and reviews, attitude is critical. Remember that success can often times be the biggest breeder of complacency. The recent upturn in many markets is starting to show some signs of that. Also know that no market ever remains great or bad forever. Always stay grounded in reality and be focused on the fundamentals, disciplines, measurable benchmarks, and accountability that are required for consistent optimum performance. Increase sales revenue and reduce unnecessary costs without sacrificing quality, integrity, and sound business practices. Do not allow yourself to get distracted by irrational exuberance or unfounded optimism.

Being a pragmatist with more than four decades of experience in our industry—enduring four major housing recessions along the way—I am convinced that history does repeat itself. With the continued upward pressure on all of your construction and land costs leading to price increases, and the strong potential of increasing interest rates over time, affordability will become a major issue. Also, there is always the omnipresent possibility of any national or global event that could quickly cause fear and pushback from potential buyers.

Then all of a sudden, just as the market did not that long ago, we could go from hot to not in an instant. Don’t plan on that to happen, for that outlook would be pessimistic and not appropriate; however, you should always be preparing for that possibility. Doing so is good judgment and very appropriate. A final thought: Where does good judgment come from? Experience. Where does experience come from? Bad judgment.

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11/15/2013 25 Proven Ways to Increase Sales

A comprehensive strategy for reviewing and improving your sales operation

Bob Schultz, Contributing Editor



November 15, 2013

If you look at what you are doing and the way you are presently doing it, how many sales and how much revenue do you think you are missing? How much are you misspending in the process, and what can you do to fix it?

To begin, it is imperative that you understand the differences between marketing and sales, and that you have a process to consistently manage and measure the objectives and results of each. For home builders, marketing takes two predominant forms. The first involves research, analysis, and interpretation of information to determine whether your product is well positioned in your marketplace. The second is to provide a reasonable projection of what your sales absorption should be expected to produce.

The following list offers 25 ways that your sales operation can benchmark, assess, and improve its processes. A single step, in and of itself, will not make a substantial difference as none of them is a silver bullet, the one thing, the big secret, or the newest strategy guaranteed to increase your sales. Review them all and evaluate your current standing against the entire list. Commit to an action plan for making improvements where they are needed, and you will begin to make a significant difference. The magic is in the mix. These steps are not easy. Embarking on this path will require focus and  an understanding of the value of these principles. Only then will you be able to motivate your team to take the action needed to create more sales success.

Measure 

1. Periodically conduct an independent competitive market study and positioning assessment of your company and its offerings.
2. Track monthly sales and closings in your competitive resale market areas and price ranges. Analyze trends, such as the number of closings, days on market, and who the selling agents are, on a quarterly basis.
3. Review and print the complete website of all competing home builders and check each one again monthly, noting any changes in offerings or the status of sales.
4. Send salespeople to personally visit and provide a competitive shop report of all competitive builders at least quarterly.
5. Conduct Realtor focus groups twice annually.
Another critical role of marketing is the creation, implementation, and measurement of resources used to draw homebuyers to interact with your sales people. This is especially important when using social media. Being liked is highly overrated if it does not lead to a measurable number of contacts, and then to sales. Measure the following; this data will let you know if the likes are producing sales:
6. Website visits against source, customer contact information provided on website, contacts made, appointments set, and sales converted.
7. Cost of traffic units by source.
8. Cost of sales by traffic source.
9. Conversion ratios by salesperson, by source.
10. Referral sales.

Mine Those Contacts 

Selling new homes is a contact sport. To maximize the number of contacts, take these recommendations to heart:

11. Be open for the convenience of the customer.
12. Be properly staffed, especially during peak traffic times.
13. Utilize assistants. One good new-home salesperson, working in conjunction with a well-trained, motivated assistant will outsell two salespeople in the same situation.
14. Hold a monthly drawing to acquire basic and accurate contact information from all visitors.
15. Have your sales team focus on follow-through and contact all prospects. Measure that activity and its results.

Sales Prep 

The point of purchase is where the rubber meets the road. Spending money and human resources just  to generate traffic is wasteful and simply gives your salespeople more chances to fail—unless your team has mastered the necessary skills. To improve your conversion ratios, follow these tips:

16. Use a targeted form of compensation where money is earned and escalate for achieving and exceeding levels of sales on a quarterly basis. The compensation should be calculated to be congruent with profit levels, and restarts each quarter. Do not use a fixed percentage of the sales price as your gauge.
17. All that the customer sees—signs, landscaping, models, sales office, amenities, selections center, and the like—must be show ready at all times.
18. Communication, demonstrating, closing, and negotiation skills must be highly developed through inculcation and become second nature when interacting with a customer.
19. Every sales representative that a customer encounters must be psychologically and emotionally ready to sell.
20.  Everyone must expect a sale to occur on the first visit, or if that doesn’t happen, a conditional sale; or if that is not going to happen, an appointment to meet again will be made; and if that doesn’t occur, an agreement for a call or contact; and if that doesn’t happen, it’s time to assess why not.

Sales Management 

You cannot manage and therefore improve what you do not measure. To create a high-performing sales team:

21. Learn to hire right, and when required, fire right. Do not hire for experience as far too frequently that experience is the greatest barrier to becoming extraordinary.
22. Train for the purpose of skill development and to provide a well-proven basis for change of behavior. Motivate to provoke the use of those skills, and don’t confuse the two.
23. Use simulated selling drills to increase sales competence to a high level of accountability performance. These drills, which salespeople know unfavorably as role playing, are not an option and should not be subject to popular opinion and consensus.
24. Mystery video shop and score against a high standard, view with your salespeople, and coach using the video shop at least twice annually.
25. Lead with a purpose. When placed in command, take charge.

Given the uptick in the market for many builders, the prospect of having a modicum of success can become the biggest breeder of complacency. Don’t let that happen. This list is just the tip of the iceberg, but it’s a good place to begin an assessment; consider converting it into your own self-evaluation tool. And please feel free to contact me with any questions or situations you would like to discuss.

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10/24/2013 Selling To Women Home Buyers

Compared with men, women have a different approach to the process of purchasing a home and, in many cases, ultimately decide which house to buy.

Bob Schultz, Contributing Editor



October 24, 2013

To be a consistently high-performing new-home sales professional, you must be able to adapt to and connect with all of your potential buyers. As an expert on the new-home sales process, and in writing about marketing and selling to the female buyer, I decided to do what Dr. Stephen Covey recommends in his book, The Seven Habits Of Highly Successful People, which is to seek first to understand, then to be understood. I asked one of the most successful and professional women in new-home sales I know, whose expertise has been proven in the trenches what matters when selling to women buyers. Here is what Michelle Moore has to tell us.

Always having a planned, not canned, presentation prepares you for any surprises in the sales process. This recommendation reminds me of a saying I heard years ago: Proper planning prevents poor performance. Due to the high percentage of women making the home-buying decisions, a planned presentation must include details that are important to women. In fact, studies show that seven out of eight women will go out of their way to do business with companies that market to women. As you can see, the skill of selling to women isn't just nice to know; you need to know it.

The biggest purchase most people ever make is their home. In a recent article, Marti Barletta, author of Marketing to Women: How to Increase Your Share of the World's Largest Market, credits women with 80 to 85 percent of spending decisions. Sure, we know that men have some say in a couple's decision to buy a home, but when you look into  what their contribution is specifically, I think you'll agree it's very little.

Men often have a different approach than women when it comes to the process of purchasing. Men focus on a need and create a process to reach their buying decision, while women consider their relationship with their Realtor to be one of the more important factors in helping them to decide. Aspects such as appearance, reputation, respect, trust, eye contact, and how much you listen (or don't) can make or break the deal for them.
From a woman's perspective, some negative perceptions of men selling to women include a lack of manners, poor listening skills, and being aggressive, pushy, high pressure, overbearing, condescending, and devious.

Likewise, some negative perceptions of women selling to other women include a lack of technical and product knowledge, being emotional, tentative, uncertain, vague, unsure of specifics, unable to make a sound recommendation, and unable to get to the bottom line.
But here's one very important point. Though women have a great deal of buying power, their decisions are not about picking a product that only they like. Ultimately, when a woman makes a buying decision, she has her entire family in mind.

So if you're wondering which points to cover in an effective sales presentation to a woman, here?s a list of four must-haves:

1. Display good business etiquette such as beginning with a friendly greeting. Include a firm handshake while introducing yourself and make eye contact. Generally speaking, women prefer more eye contact than men in the buying process.
2. Paint a picture by speaking to women about how your product is going to appeal to them as a mom, a wife, or a partner. Women are driven to make their own lives, and the lives of those they care about, better. Remember, features tell and benefits sell.
3. Be prepared to deliver a professional presentation full of details such as completion dates, available features, and color selections. As I have always said, the deal is in the details. Women are researchers looking for facts. They won't make purchasing decisions without obtaining all the facts required to make an informed decision.
4. Listen, listen, and listen some more. Superior customer service is linked highly with your ability to actively listen. Reflecting back on customers' needs throughout the entire sales process shows that you are listening, you care about their needs, and you are sincere.

Finally, through the years, I have heard many people talk about doing business by the Golden Rule, which is, Treat people as you want to be treated. That is good. But as you develop your skills in selling to women, I challenge you to live by the Platinum Rule. It simply states, Treat people as they'd like to be treated. If you can master the art of selling to women, you can take your sales numbers to levels you've never seen. PB

Michelle Moore has demonstrated her expertise and ability in the real estate and new-home sales arenas with more than 40 sales and leadership awards from the industry. Michelle travels the country as an inspirational speaker and leadership coach, and as an associate consultant, training facilitator, and coach with Bob Schultz & The New Home Specialists. Her newest book, ?Selling Simplified,? has just been published.

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9/20/2013 It's Not Easy (Or Cheap) Being Green

Selling energy-efficient systems requires a bit of comparative math to make the value and savings more tangible to potential home buyers.

Bob Schultz, Contributing Editor



September 20, 2013

Kermit the Frog had it right, especially for home builders.

?Being Green? means you have to build to higher standards, more often with higher costs. But the marketplace has not yet totally accepted these added upfront costs to a new home as being a great value.

What is energy efficiency, why do builders do it, and how can the benefits be presented so that all home buyers will consider it a necessity, rather than an expensive nice thing to have?

Let?s check some key words and phrases:

? Energy describes those resources such as petroleum, coal, gas, wind, nuclear fuel, and sunlight from which energy in the form of electricity, heat, etc., can be produced.
? Energy efficiency is simply the process of doing more with less. The goal is to accomplish the same tasks and functions as before while using less energy.
What?s the objective:
? To reduce energy required to regulate temperatures, run appliances, etc.
? To provide cost savings to customers
? To have customers experience useful benefits and perceive great value
? To reduce the world?s energy needs
 Why do it:
? To help control global emissions of greenhouse gases
? In many countries, energy efficiency is also seen to have national security benefits.
? It?s the right thing to do.

And how about this: It can help sell more new homes and remodeling contracts.

Since there are additional construction costs involved, make absolutely sure that you receive the economic benefit and ROI you deserve. To accomplish this objective, you must have a strategy in place and implement a consistent plan of action so that each potential buyer touches, feels, sees, and experiences the benefits and value they will gain by buying your energy-efficient home.

As the late actress, Mae West said, ?If you?ve got it, flaunt it.? Football legend Joe Namath said, ?It ain?t braggin? if you can back it up.?

You must present the benefits of your energy system in two formats.

How It'S Done 

Tap into your customer?s logical side by presenting benefits that are tangible, such as saving money. Stating a fact in the form of a rhetorical question, to which the only logical reply is ?yes? can get the point across and cause customers to experience that benefit on a conscious level. For example, ?In considering features of your brand new home, I would imagine that like for most people, saving money on energy bills would be of importance to you, is that correct?? Who is going to say, ?No??

Then involve their emotions by connecting with why energy efficiency matters. Another rhetorical question possibility: ?Won?t it be comforting to know that your children will be warm and cozy on a cold night??

Next, create a unique selling proposition. ?Although it?s not required by any building code, we provide you with (mention the energy-value feature(s) that you offer). Of course, this will (explain the benefits). I don?t know why all builders/remodelers don?t provide this feature, but we do it because we believe that when all things are considered, it?s the right thing to do.?

Here is where the rubber meets the road. Most new-home salespeople do a pretty good job of talking about the elements of the energy system. Typically they?ll say something like, ?This will save you 30 percent on your energy bills.? The problem is customers don?t walk around with a calculator so they can immediately crunch the numbers to figure what?s in it for them.

Here is how to drive that point home, every time: Make the savings meaningful, easy to understand, and real.

For example, if your energy-value package is estimated to save your customers 30 percent on their energy bills, that 30 percent figure on its own is rather nebulous until you convert that percentage to something tangible. Here?s how:

? Present the percentage savings as a monthly amount.
? Let?s assume that the estimated monthly cost for energy (heating, cooling, and lighting) for a home that is comparable in size to the product you are offering, but does not have any energy-saving systems, is approximately $500 a month at today?s cost of energy. The 30-percent savings in energy efficiency translates into a dollar savings of $150 per month?a sizeable number to be sure, but still not impactful enough.
? Now create the comparison. Take the $150 monthly savings and convert it to buying power. Explain that at today?s current rates (let?s say 4.5 percent for this example), it takes approximately $5 per month to pay off the interest and principal on each $1,000 of mortgage money borrowed on a 30-year loan.
? Here is where you can turn that 30-percent figure into buying power. In your head, you can estimate as follows. Each $5 per month will pay off approximately $1,000 of borrowed money. Also, you are showing an approximate monthly savings as a part of their total cost of ownership in energy savings of $150 monthly. Divide that $150 by $5, and for each $1,000 of mortgage money you get 30, which represents $30,000 of mortgage money not being borrowed. To validate, use Google search to find any amortization table and plug in the $30,000 mortgage amount at 4.5 percent interest for 30 years. The answer will show a monthly payment of approximately $150.

The conclusion?what they are saving monthly (real cash now) as a result of your energy package?would provide them with, on average, $30,000 of buying power over the life of the mortgage. This figure will make any older resale they might be considering at a lower price seem like much less of a bargain.

Let?s face it, if it were ?easy being green and selling it to the marketplace?, everyone would be doing it. They might not be able to do so, but you certainly can.

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New Microsoft Bing.com Search Engine Takes the # 2 Position

June 1st 2009 Microsoft launched the new 'Decision Search Engine' intent on improving the way search results are displayed. Commercials on national prime time TV show people speaking random words associated with what others asked them as a way to illustrate the frustration of search results on many search engines. Microsoft launched a YouTube channel with the new search engine to share advertisments - www.YouTube.com/Bing. An example of this includes a commercial where a wife asks about 'Hawaii' and the husband begins saying all types of words that have to do with Hawaii such as 'Hawaii 5-0', surf lingo and other items that would commonly come up on a search engine related to Hawaii.

The Bing.com search engine looks at the context of what users are searching for and then makes a decision on which search results make the most sense to display. With the launch of the new Bing.com search engine Microsoft overtook the # 2 position behind Google temporarily jumping ahead of Yahoo.com with 16.28% of the market share. Yahoo moved down to 10.22% of the market share with Google remaining at 71.47% of the search engine market share according to StatCounter reports June 4th.

Microsoft has launched several new cutting edge technologies in the past few months including Photosynth.net enabling users worldwide to combine images creating extremely detailed 'video like' 3D images online. What remains to be seen is if the Bing.com search engine will be a long term competitor with Yahoo.com or Google.com using intelligent search results and new technologies.

Robert 'Dot Com' Jackson
Internet & Technology Expert
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