Video Mystery Shopping Tip: Training Your Team to Listen MORE and Talk LESS!
“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” – Robert McCloskey
I stumbled upon this quote the other day, and I really liked it! OK, I may not know who Robert McCloskey is, but I certainly like what he says! This quote SPEAKS volumes in the industry of new homes sales. It could make the difference between showing a prospect a model home AND selling a prospect a NEW home.
After many years of watching video shops, I have discovered something about sales people –we like to talk. Shocking, right? Well, because we do like to talk, this sometimes can make it more difficult for us to do the opposite of talking….which is listening.
When prospective buyers come into our sales office, the first thing we naturally want to do is ‘tell’ them everything we know about our new home communities! We want to tell them how spacious our floorplans are, how beautiful our homesites are, how fabulous our builder is, etc. There is SO much information in our going on in our brain that oftentimes we do what I like to refer to as the ‘Information Dump’. We want to tell them EVERYTHING we can, whether it is important to them or not!
Now, we may occasionally ask the prospect a question or two, but instead of REALLY listening to their responses, our minds are already racing at the speed of light wondering if we remembered to tell them that granite is an included feature and that if they purchased this month they get a free washer/dryer. We do this because, in many cases, this is what we have been trained to do. We are in SALES, after all.
However, I challenge you to look at this process from a different perspective. What if instead of ‘information dumping’ we took the time to simply ask our prospects questions and really listen to their responses. I tell my clients all the time that when you do this, it actually makes your job easier! You see if given the chance, your prospects will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about their buying motivation! I promise you!
And, there is an added bonus! Once they give you this important information, you will be able to personalize and tailor your sales presentation so that you are not ‘information dumping’ but instead providing them with valuable information that is important to THEIR needs! It’s all about zeroing in on and focusing on what the PROSPECT wants.
Remember, buyers BUY on emotion and justify later with logic. So, it’s your job to connect with them to find out what their emotional triggers are. And, the best way to do that is to LISTEN.
