Coastguard Saying
“We can only save those who swim towards us.”
“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.”
Pat Riley
One of the greatest pleasures I enjoy, is spending time coaching salespeople who are eager to learn and develop their skills, who are courageous enough to implement what we discuss immediately; and then hearing about how their fierce commitment to personal development leads to instant results.
In the last few weeks, I have been blessed to have had the pleasure of coaching many such sales heroes, here are their stories.
Jacobi is a charismatic young man and has already been a sales rock star for Timbercraft Homes. He is an expert at social media and has driven in many qualified prospects and Realtors with his cutting edge short videos, that have impressively directly led to extra sales. In the last year Jacobi has already sold 33 homes, no mean feat in the highly competitive Edmunds / Oklahoma City market that he is in.
Last Thursday, we had a Video shop coaching session, with Jacobi and his associate Kacie. At first we acknowledged the many good things that Jacobi did. I then shared three areas that could be improved, that if implemented I knew would lead to exponential change for Jacobi.
1. Involvement Questions
We identified the need for more benefits and many more involvement questions, or what I call FBI, which means Feature, Benefits, Involvement. We role played what this would feel like to constantly check in and get feedback in the moment, and place deposits into our yes bank.
2. Homesites
As corny as it sounds, the idiom “Site and Write” still stands the test of time. If the customer is building a home, you can’tgain connection until you actually walk the homesites and narrow down to one of a kind, also creating legitimate urgency and FMO. We got into the weeds and reiterated the need to mark up your own private map and find 3 Unique selling propositions for each home site. This may include exposure, location within the community, front and rear views, topography, garage orientations, and even minutiae such as streetlights,electric boxes etc. Always looking to find the tie breaker, and narrow down choices to an exclusive one of a kind.
3. Close At Your Seat – Recap Close
While Jacobi had sat the customer down, we agreed that it wasn’t as intentional enough and closing didn’t feel like the only logical culmination, as it should. We reviewed how to recap and close each element of the sales process, and gain agreement on each important decision. Effectively filling your yes bank to overflowing with Yes’s. These 7 magical closes are:
We role played the closing recap, to create muscle memory. Jacobi was very open minded, nodded continuously and took copious notes. Two days later on Saturday evening I was having dinner with my son Max, when I received this delightful text from Jacob:
Wow, what an incredible response! Well done Jacobi for being such a great student always looking to grow, and congratulations on your well-deserved success.
Bob is a hands on VP of Sales, he manages a small but highly effective sales team, and actively sells homes at a very high level. We have a Zoom every month which is a hybrid between management coaching and strategizing, and sales coaching. Bob is very easy going, fun to work with, and a great implementor, so I always look forward to our video huddles.
During the Zoom, Bob discussed a customer who had a home to sell and insisted on building a home. Bob had advised the customer that their current home would probaly sell quickly in the area it was in, and they should consider one of their nearly completed Showcase Homes. Sure enough the customers sold their home almost immediately, and now wanted to switch to one of the now completed showcase homes. Their Realtor ® was angling for concessions, that Bob was unable to give.
We laid out a plan, of leaving nothing to chance, and building emotional attachment and value by putting everything in writing and showing the customer the home plan with the structural additions, photos of the home and the exact finishes, many of which were valuable luxury choices. Plus discussing, “The value of having the selections professionally curated by our experienced designer, representing the latest trends and finishes; as well as maximizing their enjoyment and investment.”
Lastly showing in writing the investment for the home, home site premium and benefits of the homesite along with a detailed list of the luxury choices, with descriptions, and investment of the luxury bundle. Showing the total investment, and then showing the “Special, Quick Move In, Customer loyalty concession” that Bob was prepared to give to help the customer feel valued and make a smooth transition and close in a few weeks. Bob promised to assemble all of the sales props before meeting with the customer later that day. On Monday, I received this delightful email from Bob.
Roland,
I Just wanted to let you know we were able to get the buyer to move forward on the home in Community, with the scenario we worked on in our meeting today. Everything went exactly according to plan, thanks for helping me talk it out and layout a strategic plan. I grabbed the controls and landed the plane which is exactly what the scenario called for. Customer is super happy, and we get to check another quick delivery home off of our list and get us that much closer to the goal.
Truly, Bob Williams,
Vice President of Sales
David, like Jacobi is also young, extremely personable and very driven to succeed. After a few years in General Real Estate he joined the new home sales team at Pacific Lifestyle homes. I met David early in his new career during an on-site role playing visit, plus he was a welcome and active participant in our five part Virtual Academy series in the Spring, and I have also worked with him during our monthly sales Zoom huddles. He is always positive and eager to learn actionable skills that will help increase his sales.
We had a private coaching call a few weeks ago. David had sold very well in a new luxury home community at the beginning, and then traffic, and sales slowed. We discussed possible reasons for this and explored ways to improve the outcome. We concluded that David may need to simplify his approach and be more pro-active in taking more people to homesites that where expensive yet breathtaking, in order to create more emotion and connection. A week later, David and I chatted again, and he followed up with this delightful email.
Hi Roland,
Wanted to update you on progress after our training. I made it a point to focus on getting people up to the view homesites and avoiding discussions of the back yard or lot slope. I got more than half of my traffic from the weekend up to the ridge and scheduled a structural appointment for today with one of them. The other buyer is still considering and working on getting them back in as well. The training was certainly helpful.
I also made a sale, the buyer I got an agreement with wasn’t on view home sites but certainly used a lot of your techniques you taught in the past to get a one meeting sale.
Thank you for your help,
David McDuffee
New Home Sales Consultant, Pacific Lifestyle Homes, Inc.
I am so proud of all three of these excellent salespeople for their courage to stretch out of their comfort zones and implement sales strategies at the highest level and honored to be their sales coach. The results of five sales amongst the three salespeople in two days, for me is the icing on the cake. The cake itself is the transformative growth each salesperson will experience by honing their skills and implementing so radically.
“I love to learn but hate to be taught.”
Winston Churchill
Most of us would like to grow but don’t like the learning process, perhaps because personal development is often time consuming, takes commitment and let’s face it training can be tedious. For example, I know how to work out at the gym, yet somehow engage in highly anemic, underwhelming workouts when left to my own devices. Over the years I have hired personal coaches, and magically all of a sudden my energy and commitment levels increased, and the workout results were exponentially improved.
When it comes to sales improvement, we may be caught in the same malaise, knowing that we should be doing better, but not quite sure how to get there. Leverage the wisdom of your sales manager, or if one is not available then look around and see who can be a mentor for you. Maybe there is a fellow salesperson who can take the time to share their wisdom and give you the tools you need. For many more seasoned sales professionals, skills have atrophied as a result of the post covid boom, so now is a time to mentally re-boot, and get back to where you were before, diligently executing the fundamentals at the highest level.
Of course, I would be thrilled to help you in any way possible, so please feel free to reach out. However if that not practical and you can’t find a mentor on your team, then at least revisit sales training books, or listen to audio training, such as my “Mastery of Selling for New Homes”, which has almost ten hours of New Home Sales Training content, wrapped around real life fun stories and yarns.
Lastly, true coaches are not particularly money motivated, we are fueled by the warm glow and pride we feel when we know we have helped improve the lives of those we train. We thrive on hearing about the success of our students, so when you do succeed as I know you will, please make sure you take a moment to thank your coach or mentor, so they can revel in your success with you.
With that in mind, I can’t wait to hear about your successes too.
Roland Nairnsey
President New Home Sales Plus
561-236-2400