“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
Benjamin Franklin
As we know, Sales Mastery doesn’t happen just by our good looks and charm, but instead is a result of many planned activities, that when practiced perfectly help create long-term sales success. When these activities become a habit, they will ensure that you maximize conversion ratios and create sales consistency that will easily outperform cyclical economic roller coaster rides.
The question is, as a sales manager, how do you convince your salespeople the importance of actively engaging in these many proven steps? This is especially difficult, if they went through the halcyon boom times of the low interest rate, post covid boom. Convincing them of the importance of the New Home Sales fundamentals can be challenging.
I have personally sold homes through many tough markets and was blessed to have had excellent sales managers such as Dom Rizzo and Bob Romano, who created fun games to help instill the fundamentals into the sales team. I would engage in these positive activities during the week, then bound into sales meetings with enthusiasm, hoping that my endeavors would win some weekly rewards, and ultimately win me the grand prize. Over the years, I was fortunate enough to have won two seven day Caribbean Cruises, a three day trip to the Beachfront Ritz Carlton in Naples, and just barely missed out on winning a giant big screen TV. For the record, I was all set to win the gigantic TV, when the last week of the competition, the President switched the rules at the last minute! I would greatly appreciate it if you don’t bring this up, ever again! Oh, by the way, whilst being consumed with the idea of receiving recognition for my hard work, and winning some attractive prizes, I was able to create consistent sales success, while fomenting the habits that have stayed with me for the rest of my career in new home sales.
In order to share this gift with all of you; I have created a fun sales activity game, which has now been implemented by over a dozen of the sales teams that we actively work with on a monthly basis. The goal is to have the sales team engage in the dally activities that are needed for their success, in a fun and competitive way. When the game ends, after a few months of frenzied sales activities, you can reap the benefits of a sales team who are hyper focused on all of the necessary activities to ensure that they outperform the market and any competition.
Recently, I interviewed three of our wonderful managers, Cassie Smith from Chesapeake Homes in their Virginia Division, Tammy Sauls of Keystone Homes of NC, and Jenna Parker VP of Sales and Marketing of Stevens Fine Homes in Wilmington, NC, to learn firsthand what their experiences were like with this Salt Race Game, and what the results have been after the game finished. Thanks to AI, here is a transcript of what they thought, and were able to accomplish.
Roland
What were the issues with your sales team and sales process; that you were hoping to improve with the Salt Race Game?
Cassie
The time of year that we were at, it was a little bit slower for us, so it was a way to get back in that database and reach out to contacts who had not been out in a while and motivated us to invite them back out for some revisits. Ultimately, my goal was to get the deep lying gold in the CRM out to our models and this game came along at the right time.
Tammy
I wanted to address self-marketing activities, I made it so that each salesperson had to turn in their monthly marketing plan, and then you moved a space on the track for every time you hosted Realtors at your model. Plus focusing on Appointment and follow up in the CRM was needed.
Jenna
What I found was one of the biggest issues, was some of my Junior agents, who had started as lead agents for a community during Covid. They had never gotten into the habit or really learned the way we like to do self-marketing, and they didn’t feel empowered to do their own event community events, or regular Realtor drops.
Roland
How did it go?
Cassie
Yeah, so it worked really, really, well. Everybody had a great time; it was a fun way to reward the sales team, and they love to compete. Every two weeks the winner, the leader of the race would get a $25 gift card so that they could choose what they wanted, and I bought some little trophies. They really loved winning the trophy and bragging to their peers.
Tammy
Really well, they became very competitive on the racetrack and couldn’t wait to move spaces around the track. Peggy one of our more seasoned salespeople, even found her own stash of dots and was ready to add them before the meeting, which was hilarious.
Jenna
Yes, it helped them really focus on sales activities and relationship building with Realtors. It empowered them to do broker events, as well do more community open houses so that they got into the habit of doing that. It helped my more junior agents learn the way we wanted prospecting done and kind of re-set their expectations. It also helped my senior agents get back in the right habits, in such a fun way.
We gave a variety of prizes such as gift cards for Sephora, or the local movie theater. Also we gave a $10 Starbucks for second. The salesperson who won the month won a $150 voucher to a place of their choosing; our first winner chose a local spa day. They all got really committed and increased their sales activities so they could win prizes!
Roland
What results did you get and who won?
Cassie
The game definitely improved what they needed to do, they got back into the CRM and dug into old leads. We started in December and had 3 weeks of the game and then sales started to roll.
They got two sales from digging back into aged leads who came back and bought. Our first quarter was incredible with sales, so this got us in the right mindset to kick start sales and created much needed momentum.
Malia was our star, she rocked it, she called aged leads, and got a lot of sales. She had great social media posts on her own, trying to procure her own business and drive her own qualified traffic. Malia and Raleah (not a typo) were neck and neck, and the team loved to see visually on the board, who was doing what, and who was winning the week and how they could work on catching up next week. Incredibly, they both crossed the finish line in the same week, but Malia was three spaces ahead, so that was the tie breaker and she won the whole game.
Tammy
Ours is still going on, and Travis and Patrick are neck and neck, it looks like Travis may get ahead. I have been giving a gift card and an extra day off as the top prizes. They are having fun and improving.
Jenna
Our overall winner was McLain, she did very well. A funny story, was that we hung the board in the hall, and our owner Craig Stevens would walk by the racetrack and look at it. The sales team knew that, and found it very motivating, as a way of showing Craig how hard they were working on sales activities, that will eventually lead to sales. He was impressed and proud of them.
We also added so many points for our assistants and included the whole team. We had sales with aged leads, one that was 6 months old, and one that was 9 months. As you always say:
“There is gold in them there hills of the CRM, we just have to find it.”
This game motivated the sales team to go digging. We also enjoyed a big increase in Realtor traffic, which came from the teams vigilance in getting to Realtor offices every week to win points in the game.
Roland
How would you suggest improving the game for your needs and will you do it again.
Cassie
It took 60 days to complete, next time I would like it to last 90 days, so I think next time I would adjust some of the scoring. Also, we typically meet as a group once a month, but I would have liked to had a way to be more interactive. I think the team would’ve liked it more if I could have done that weekly. Plus, next time we will have more clarity on the points, they would like go to know how many points per activity.
Tammy
It’s a lot of fun and effective, we will do it again for sure.
Jenna
We are going to do it again and amend the scoring to change it up. But we can’t wait.
I am so happy to hear firsthand from our managers, how this somewhat goofy game has helped their teams focus on sales activities that needed reinforcing, while having fun in a competitive way. As a result, their conversion ratios are on the increase, while the sales team are creating habits that will sustain their whole new home sales career, a true win-win. This also proves that we can relax and laugh, while we embrace growth and development together. I am so grateful to be able to pass on the gift of learning in an amusing way that we can all enjoy, while constantly striving to improve the lives of all those we meet.
For more information about the Salt Race Game or my training programs, processes, and curriculum, please feel free to reach out to me. Now go sell some homes, and keep smiling!