One day, I sat down with a sales professional named Jenn to conduct a comprehensive review of her video shop performance. I noticed Jenn connected immediately with the shopper. They had some great conversations, as though they were friends from high school 20 years ago. They spent 90 minutes together walking homes in the neighborhood.
The Shopper was looking for a two-story home with 4 bedrooms. I asked Jenn why the prospect was looking for this type of home. She admitted she wasn't sure. Jenn was more focused on selling the home rather than helping her customers solve their problems. What were the shopper's goals? Why? She didn't understand their motivation for buying a new home at an emotional level.
This is where the challenge lies with many salespeople. Gaining insights into your buyer's motivations provides you with the knowledge to help that customer achieve their goals.
The Importance of Developing Essential Sales Behaviors
After reviewing and analyzing hundreds of video mystery shops from builders all across the country, Jenn's story has played out more than I would like to admit. I have concluded that if sales professionals work on developing essential sales behaviors, they will find more success by connecting more on an emotional level with their buyers. As the market shifts and the availability of information for home buyers online is abundant, our sales process must adapt from a product-centric approach to a more customer-centric sales approach. As sales professionals, we must gain the knowledge to lead our customers through the complex home-buying process. As we say, knowledge builds confidence, and confidence creates trust, and trust produces sales. Let's be the professional our customers need us to be.
Behavior 1: Cultivate Curiosity
Curiosity is one of the most underdeveloped and underutilized sales traits in new home sales practice. Showing genuine interest in your customers' stories is indeed a vital aspect of an effective sales practice. It is the guiding principle in personalizing the engagement with your customer.
Generally, we are too quick to jump into demonstration mode without understanding your buyer's motivations. It is almost insulting to recommend a solution without understanding the problem and why the customer is in front of you in the first place. It's akin to navigating a ship without a rutter - there is no direction or purpose to the journey.
Being insatiably curious about our customers' stories will provide insights to:
- Guiding you through your sales presentation
- Help make the home demonstration more meaningful
- Personalize the engagement
- Focus on the important things - important to your customer
- Help you understand what added value will have the most impact
Developing targeted discovery questions that will open up conversations more organically is essential in creating meaningful conversations with your prospects. Everyone has a story to tell and is always willing to tell if you allow them the opportunity. Be curious; your prospect will appreciate you.
Here are a few examples of discovery questions you will find will lead to more meaningful conversations:
- "What changed in your current situation that has you looking for a new home?"
- "Tell me, what do you like about our current home that you may want to see in your new home?"
- "What caused you to start looking for a change?"
- " If money was no object, what would you change in your current home? And Why?"
- "What are your 'must haves' in your next new home?"
These are just a few discovery questions you can practice to start a conversation with your customers. When asking the above questions, you will notice we're not asking for the Xs and Os—bedroom or bath count, or even square footage needs (a useless question), etc. — you will learn this from your conversation. The point is that we must clearly understand our customer's mission before we suggest a solution. While reviewing video mystery shops, we are too quick to show our homes before knowing our customers' stories and their why!
What are your discovery questions? Are you bold enough to continue asking questions to fully understand your prospects' reasons for looking for a new home? Slow down and make the interaction more meaningful for your prospects.
Behavior 2: Facilitate the Buying Process
While working with sales professionals on their skills, I occasionally witness closing techniques that are hollow and lack the reasoning to proceed to the next step. Then, when the inevitable objection surfaces, we struggle to address the objection successfully. Also, you can point to the lack of the use of tie-down questions or room closes during the model demonstration as to why the sale didn't advance.
Mindset Shift
Instead of trying to sell a home, let's approach our engagement with the idea of helping our customers buy. Understanding what this means will help guide you through a more meaningful model home demonstration.
When it comes to model home demonstrations, the key is to make it a personalized experience for the customer. Instead of overwhelming them with a laundry list of features, focus on showcasing how the home aligns with their lifestyle and aspirations. You learned these things by asking the above discovery questions. Asking insightful questions and actively listening to their responses can help you uncover what matters most to them. Then, you can highlight specific features or aspects of the home that address their needs and preferences.
Ultimately, the goal is to make the model home demonstration more about the customer than the home itself. By demonstrating a genuine interest in understanding their wants and needs, you can build rapport and trust, which are crucial in the home-buying process.
Behavior 3: Follow Up (Religiously)
Sales professionals continue to struggle with following up with their prospects. There are several reasons for this. The biggest reason is that the sales professional did not learn enough about the prospect's motivation to make a move to have meaningful future conversations. Even if they did a good job of discovery, the buyer's story wasn't memorialized in the note section in their CRM.
It is essential to embrace our CRM and use the automation tools it provides for effective follow-up. Automation has come a long way, and most CRMs provide more means to connect with your prospects. Mix up the cadence and methods in your follow-up through the use of sequences. Use email, video messaging, personal text, and nothing beats a well-placed phone call to show your prospect you care.
Remember one thing about follow-up: We want to bring value to your prospect with each touchpoint. A "check-in" email or call does not serve that purpose. Also, please don't give up on your prospect after one, two, or even three tries. Research tells us it takes 8 to 10 touchpoints, on average, to turn your prospect into a buyer. Touchpoints are defined by email contacts, text messages, phone calls, and face-to-face encounters. Refer back to your notes in your CRM to provide you with meaningful context.
Let's Get to Work
Let's get serious about our new home sales profession. There is nothing better than helping someone achieve their dream home, where memories are made, celebrations happen, and holidays are warm and cozy. Elevate your customer service attitude, and your customers will win. You will also be reminded why we do this every day.
Reach out to the Bokka Group if you need assistance with your follow-up workflows. We can provide a quick analysis of what you have in place or build an industry-leading workflow designed to keep you at the top of your prospects' minds when they are ready to take the next step.
