It’s SPOOKY How Many Sales You Are Missing

Sounds simple enough, a prospect comes into your sales center and you greet them warmly and invite them to come on in.  Then you take part in “small” talk, getting to know them, where are they from, are they from there originally, what line of work are they in, etc. Thus allowing you to create some rapport and build a common bond before you start the more serious Discovery process. Yet all too often, what we actually see is what I like to refer to as, “Premature Presentation”.

It is almost as if we are so excited to see a prospect…any prospect that we just jump up and immediately start spewing off all sorts of virtues and benefits of our builder and community, and the Great Deals we have to offer– hardly giving the prospect time to get a word in edgewise.  Then, we shove the registration in their hands and immediately ask them to fill it out.  All the while, the door hasn’t even closed behind them where they entered.  Next thing you know, we have them in the car and we are out showing inventory homes before we have ever had the opportunity to find out exactly what it is they want and need in a home, or what kind of timeframe they had in mind.  We aren’t helping our guests to own one of our homes, we are simply playing “Tour Guide Barbie” and showing them everything we have, hoping that by process of elimiation we will find a home for them.  HOPE is NOT a STRATEGY! So our one and only prospect for the day bolts as quickly as they entered and it won’t matter what kind of follow-up we do because we didn’t earn the right to follow up with them, we didn’t engage them in the process or try to help them.

So just what should this process look like?  Well for one thing, if we are welcoming a guest into our home, shouldn’t we actually WELCOME them? Forget the topo table and the floor plans and awards on the wall to your sales center—they are not important now, you can get back to them later. When a guest comes into your sales center, we know they are usually in a hurry and they are usually confused. Change it up a bit. Don’t be like the other 5 builders they visited on the way to you. Warmly greet them, and then invite them to Come On In! I usually like to do this by saying something like, “Hi! Welcome to Bodacious Builders, I am so glad you stopped in today.  I was just on my way to the kitchen for a fresh cup of gourmet coffee, why don’t you join me?” And, then I just turn and head out through the trap, around to the front door. Guess what?  They follow.

Once we are outside, I usually stop and say something like this, “Oh my goodness, where are my manners, my name is Kimberly and you are? _________________ Well is a real pleasure to meet you Mr. & Mrs. Prospect. Tell me, where are you folks from?…” Then we walk through the front door and head straight toward the kitchen (we are not demonstrating the model at this point—we don’t even know if that is relevant yet). While I am making their coffee or getting them a nice bottle of water they will generally lean on the breakfast bar or counter and I can continue to get to know them a bit, find some common ground and ever so gracefully enter into the Discovery Process because I now have some rapport and some basic information. This is information I must have in order to be effective in my presentation, which I will have then earned the right to do. *NOTE: The more time you spend in the kitchen with your guests, the more comfortable they become and the more information you will be able to learn in order to help them to find the one and only home that fits their needs.

I don’t care how much of a hurry they are in (or tell you they are in), if you invite them into your kitchen and walk that way—not waiting for a response, they will “free up” more time for you because, guess what? It was never about you, or your builders story or your great deal, it was all about them all along. And, once you make it about them instead of you they will relax and you will have earned the right to help them.

Kimberly Mackey, MCSP, CMP, Realtor®, is the founder of Creative Sales Solutions, which provides sales and leadership consulting and training, outsourced sales management, on-site sales coaching, social media strategy and training — and other sales and marketing management SOLUTIONS. For more information, visit the Creative Sales Solutions Web site at www.creativesalesnow.com, or visit Mackey at LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlymackey; Twitter, www.twitter.com/CreativeSales; and Facebook, www.facebook.com/CreativeSalesSolutions.

Advertisement