“Ex-Shopper now SELLS Homes”…Part 1
I interviewed an ex-shopper who now works for a builder selling homes. I wanted to know how his experience shopping over 1000 new home sales agents helped him nail 4 contracts in one month in this challenging economy…
Here’s my interview:
1-Approx how many housing shops have you done?
Over 1000
2-How did being a shopper help you excel so quickly at selling new homes?
The easy answer is I have been sold to so many times that I know what the true buyer is looking for when they walk into a home. I know what drives me crazy and turn me off about certain sales reps and what would prevent me from buying from those particular sales reps. One of the main downfalls of poor sales rep is their approach to discovery. They are trained to get certain information from the potential buyer but don’t really know how to get that information from the buyer. So often I would walk into a model and a half hour of questions would be thrown in my face when all I want to do is get in the model and take a look around. As a result I learned how to get the preliminary information needed in order to begin the sales presentation and view the model and as I do so I continue my discovery and tailor my presentation to what the buyer is telling me. The buyer does not realize that they are giving me this information because it is done in a casual, conversational manner and as a result does not have their defensive shield up and prevent me from gaining access to what they really want. I guess this goes hand in hand with the sales reps that present their product with a lack of discovery and simply show you the model regardless of what you are looking for. The typical buyer that walks in the door does not want to talk to you or give you any information. You have to become their friend so you can get them to talk and use that information to sell to them.
I also learned that you should never ask a buyer questions like “would you like to take a look home sites”. As a shopper I always wanted to say that I would drive around on my own (but of course we could not do that). You need to take control of the presentation and say “let’s take a quick ride and take a look at the home sites”. The longer you can keep a buyer with you and the more you familiarize them with your product the closer you get to the sale.
Building up to the close.
When I encountered a good sales person, they trial closed me throughout their whole presentation and I did not even realize it. By the end of the presentation I was ready to buy the house and I had to remind myself that I was just on a shop. This is one of the most important parts of the presentation. Get the buyer saying yes, yes, yes so when it comes time to close them down they have already committed to you without even knowing it. Having seen some great trial closes trial closes has made this process much easier on me.
Closing.
Closing is always the hardest part of the sale but should not be if you trial closed properly and set yourself up correctly. When I was on the buyers/shoppers end during shops it was expected that the sales rep would ask for the sale. When they did it was easy to say no and move on. I did not look at the sales rep like they were being rude or out of place because it is their job to ask for the sale. On every presentation I put myself in the shoes of the buyer and remind myself that they are here to buy a house and expected to get asked to buy that house. You have to be the one to ask for the sale because only on rare occasion is the sales person going to ask you to buy.
Stay tuned for part 2…..
