New Home Sales Process | Forrest Performance Group

Posts Tagged ‘ new home sales process ’

Note from Jason Forrest: Setting Private Appointments

June 8, 2012

Tags: creating urgency, new home sales process, note from Jason Forrest, private appointments, X Factor sales professionals

Sales Pros:

As a new home sales person in your shoes not too many years ago, I used one simple tactic to create urgency, build momentum and give me an excuse to call prospects–private appointments.

At my builder, we opened our doors at 10 a.m. on Saturdays. So my strategy was to invite prospects out for a private showing at 9, saying I only had one slot for a private appointment and that it would be a time just for them–without any other prospects coming in or calling.

Prospects loved it so it was easy to convince them to come in. They felt tended to personally and I also had a high closing rate. So that means I started my Saturdays off in the best way possible–with a sale. Talk about momentum!

So then when I welcomed new prospects, I got to tell them that things were going great and we already had a sale for the weekend. Then I’d say, “Let’s see if we have something here that works for you,” which helped to create urgency in them. It was like a chain reaction of momentum–for me, for the be-backs, and for the future prospects.

So going forward, consider the benefits of setting up a private viewing appointment each Saturday. Make a habit of offering the option to your be backs and starting your weekend strong with a sale. What do you have to lose?

Here’s to creating urgency, building momentum, and earning what you’re worth!

Jason Forrest

Contributed by Jason Forrest:

Jason Forrest (named one of 2012′s Top Young Trainers for Training Magazine–a national, industry-wide publication) is an expert at creating high-performance sales cultures through complete training programs. He incorporates experiential learning (rather than theory) to increase sales, implement cultural accountability, and transform builders into sales organizations that build homes. A sales professional at heart, Forrest is the author of Creating Urgency in a Non-Urgent Housing Market and 40-Day Sales Dare for New Home Sales. As a consultant for many of the leading homebuilders in the United States, Canada, and Australia, Forrest’s competitive distinction is his behavior-modification approach (which focuses on people, process, and presentation) and his focus on culture change. Learn about our new home sales training programs at http://www.forrestperformancegroup.com.

Note from Jason: Analyzing your May Sales

June 1, 2012

Tags: 13 buying decisions, asking the right questions, closing the sale, Leadership Selling, leadership selling program, new home sales funnel, new home sales process, new home sales techniques, sales process, selling against the competition, X Factor sales professionals

Sales Pros–

Did you have good sales in May? Do you want even better sales in June? Well, analyzing your prospects using the sales funnel is a good start.

One of our clients, Jeff Benton Homes, has made the sales funnel (from our concept of the 13 buying decisions) the cornerstone of analyzing their new home sales process.

Whether you’re a new home sales coach or a new home sales professional, you should consider your traffic each week/month; evaluate where your prospects are in the sales funnel; and make a plan for moving them through the funnel and toward a contract.

Let’s do the exercise together for May. Write down the number of traffic you had for the month (sales managers, use all communities; sales professionals, use only your own).

From that, subtract how many sales you had; how many people you couldn’t get through financing; and then those who purchased a resale or another builder’s home.

The number you are left with is the number of people who are stuck somewhere in your sales funnel.

So evaluate where they’re stuck and determine which decisions have been accomplished and which ones still need to be accomplished.

Finally, make a strategy today for how you’re going to get them through the funnel. Because the truth is–you’re now in a race against your competitors. And x factor sales professionals and coaches are in it to win it!

Here’s to earning what you’re worth!

Jason Forrest

Note from Jason Forrest: Position of Strength

May 18, 2012

Tags: builder selling message, new home sales process, new home sales techniques, note from Jason Forrest, selling against the competitor

Sale pros:

In order to have a position of strength in your interactions with buyers, you must believe in your product.

I discussed this concept on a one-on-one coaching call this week. The sales professional (we’ll call her Jane) feels like she’s in a tough spot because she’s competing with a lower-priced builder who she believes has better features.

The truth is that people are buying in Jane’s neighborhood. So the real problem isn’t her product–it’s that Jane doesn’t believe in her product.

This belief influences each interaction. Because Jane already feels like she’s at a competitive disadvantage, she feels defensive the minute someone brings up the competitor. She’s already thinking, “Yeah. I get it. They’re a good deal over there.” And that defensiveness comes comes across to the buyers loud and clear (you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think you unconsciously communicate your beliefs to your prospects). She’s lost before she’s begun.

Whether you’re in a similar situation or not, a simple exercise on your selling message can help put you in a position of strength. Evaluate your product, community, and builder and then ask yourself what your three main strengths are and why people are choosing to buy a new home from you. Once you establish your three points, find supporting evidence in your features, community, and floor plans. Go an inch wide and a mile deep and build your argument.

Once you’ve established your watertight case, incorporate it into your new home sales process. Say, “As you can see by [feature]; people buy us because of ______, ____ and _____.” Support your case as you demonstrate the features and facts.

Once you stop focusing on what you don’t have and start telling everyone what you do have, you’ll be in a position of strength. You’ll also have more fun because you’ll believe in what you’re selling.

Here’s to earning what you’re worth!

Jason Forrest

Houston Agent Magazine: Brokers and Agents – Dig Deep For Big Success

May 18, 2012

Tags: Fearless Selling, Houston Agent, industry publications, Jason Forrest, new home sales process, new home sales training program, published articles, sales process, training for real estate agents

No matter if you’re a broker or an individual agent, you want to know how to get the most success from yourself or your team. Agents and brokers can either blend into the crowd with every other agent and team, or stand out by providing an excellent process and presentation. Focus your energy on deeper aspects of selling for maximum results.

Your product and pricing can only distinguish you to a certain extent, so the most fruitful coaching/self-coaching focuses on the things that can really set you apart in the eyes of the customer – causing repeat business and the ever-important referral.

While each level has its place, brokers and agents who focus heavily on the sales process, presentation and people are most effective at building a solid, results-oriented team mentality. However, those who spend the most time focused on circumstances, results and behavioral activities (the most common and least effective) end up falling behind the pack. Following are the six levels of coaching, as well as the characteristics, principles and benefits of each.

Note from Jason Forrest: A man, a ham, and a pan

May 9, 2012

Tags: lead conversion, new home sales process, note from Jason Forrest, X Factor sales professionals

Sales Pros:

I recently heard a story about a man, a ham, and a pan. Arnold said his mother always cut both ends off of her hams before putting them in the oven. So when Arnold noticed that his wife stuck the whole ham in, he questioned his mom’s practice for the first time. Until then, he had thought nothing of it–it was just the way it was done. When he asked his mom why she did it that way, she said, “The pan was too small to hold a whole ham.”

Maybe you can relate. Ask yourself why you do certain aspects of your new home sales process. Look at your process–your opening greeting, model tour, home site tour, etc. Then ask yourself, “Why do I do it this way?”

If your answer is “because it just feels right” or “that’s the way I’ve always done it,” or “that’s what I saw my partner do,” dig deeper. If you can’t come up with strategic reasons (that it’s the most effective way of moving the sale forward, for example) then use it as an opportunity to make adjustments.

Consider what room you start your presentation in and why you go from room to room the way you do. This will force you to have conviction about the way you are doing things. If you don’t have conviction/swagger in why you do what you do, then you’ll be thrown off your game the first time a customer throws a curve ball at you.

But being introspective on your sales process and presentation will force you to have conviction around your presentation and process. That conviction will lead to swagger. And swagger? Well that’s 85% of the battle.

Here’s to earning what you’re worth!

Jason Forrest

HB Resource– Today’s New Home Sales Challenge: Creating Interest in the Uninterested

May 8, 2012

Tags: cultural change, economic climate, Fearless Selling, HB Resource, industry publications, Jason Forrest, new home sales, new home sales process, new home sales techniques, overcoming objections, published articles

Just a few years ago, most of the visitors to new home sales offices arrived
interested in buying. Things have changed and fewer people enter our sales offices ready to buy. This presents a major challenge for today’s new home sales force that can no longer ride the current of a building and buying boom.

Remember your first love?

May 8, 2012

Tags: 40 Day Sales Dare, lead conversion, Leadership Selling, new home sales, new home sales process, new home sales techniques

Of course you do–the first time your belly got tingly and your hands sweat with anticipation when you might see the object of your affection. And remember how you compared everybody you dated or liked to the first one who gave you butterflies and made your heart pound?

In new home sales, you can create that same effect with your buyers as they leave your office. Give them such a memorable and positive experience that as they go to the next home or community, they are constantly comparing back to you.

Get them asking each other, “Remember how the sales pro at [your builder] really took the time to listen to us and understand our needs?” Or thinking that your home was the one they could picture raising their kids in. And your neighborhood was the one that made them feel connected–where they felt like they would fit in and be part of a community.

If you do your job, you will get them to the point where they are always comparing the next home or builder to you.

For more on making them compare to you, see Dare 38 (“Give them an Assignment”) from 40 Day Sales Dare.

Contributed by Jason Forrest

Coaching the sales process

May 4, 2012

Tags: buyer decision points, coaching X Factor sales professionals, creating urgency, Jason Forrest, lead conversion, new home sales process, sales coaching, sales management, sales process

“It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage.” –George William Curtis

There’s nothing predictable about the ocean. The best a sailor can do is know every crook and cranny of his vessel; be as prepared as possible for every shift of the wind; and get a lot of experience under his belt so he candle what the deep blue sea throws at him.

You can’t prepare your team members for every sales situation either. But by helping them perfect a repeatable process, you can help them get as comfortable as possible to face whatever comes their way.

It’s all about consistency–coaching your people to perform at a consistently high level so that every customer gets the richest buying experience possible–beyond what they will get from any competitor.

Think about Elton John or Lady Gaga, who practice until each song and motion becomes instinct. It’s the work that happens behind the scenes that helps make sure that each performance is consistently phenomenal. You are a part of perfecting the process, which helps eliminate variables and increase confidence.

Average salespeople practice until they can get it right sometimes, but professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.

Sales pros: see more on the subject just for you.

Sales coaches: Watch for more on the subject in our upcoming Coaching Management book.

Contributed by Jason Forrest

Note from Jason Forrest: Build Community

April 27, 2012

Tags: building community, creating urgency, new home sales process, new home sales techniques, note from Jason Forrest

New Home Sales Pros:

Community isn’t built on just bricks and mortar–it’s built on poker nights and walking buddies and play dates at the park.

People will stick with a less-than-ideal home if it means they can keep the personal connections and bonds that tie them to the community around them. On the flip side, they’ll be more likely to cut those ties if they see that they can have the shiny new house AND the community spirit they love.

Leave the bricks and mortar to your super, but take it upon yourself to build the deeper connections.

Making it happen:

What to do: Establish book clubs, stroller buddies, dog-walking outings, poker nights, play dates, and more.

How to do it: Sign people up for groups and clubs. When you have enough people interested, contact a good candidate to host/organize the first event.

Once you’ve established community, use it as a selling point for future prospects. If someone has young kids and asks about walking paths, talk about the stroller buddies group and offer to introduce them to some of the members. You get the idea–build connections to build community. And then pass it on.

Here’s to earning what you’re worth!

Jason Forrest

Share your own stories of building a spirit of community within your community below.

Contributed by Jason Forrest

Birdbrain

April 26, 2012

Tags: new home sales consultant, new home sales process, new home sales techniques, prospecting, X Factor sales professionals

In my backyard, I have a well-stocked bird feeder and a shiny new birdbath. But as of now, no birds.

I got all the recommended equipment, but after seven days of staring out at a full bird feeder and vacant birdbath, I was left wondering where I went wrong. When I asked my friend Julie (an expert on the subject) what I should do to attract my winged friends, she said, “They don’t know it’s there yet. Where do you think the term birdbrain came from?”

She gave me a few tips for getting the birds’ attention, saying, “It takes more than the old adage, ‘if you build it, they will come.’” Ahhh…words of wisdom from someone who also happens to be an X factor sales professional.

Is this what we expect in our new home communities? That if we build top-of-the-line model home parks with “perfect” landscaping, signage and displays; the customers will come? What is the missing ingredient? Like Julie, X factor new home sales professionals know that you have to take ownership of your model as well as ownership of getting prospects to visit.

Going beyond basic marketing and engaging in community networking, partnering with Realtors, and extraordinary follow-up can make or break a new community.

Now I am working on getting the word out to the animal kingdom!

Sales Tip: X Factor Sales Professionals drive 50% of their own community traffic by understanding why their homes, neighborhood and builder are the best in the marketplace and personally inviting prospects, community organizations, and Realtors to visit. X Factor sales professionals do their part to Be Sales Ready!

Jeanne Conger, J Forrest Group’s National Sales Coach, has 25 years in the industry; experience with public and private builders; and over 900 hours of real estate courses under her belt. She is truly an industry expert. While she has worked in design studios, marketing departments, merchandising departments, and sales management (she coached a sales team of more than 100), Jeanne enjoys nothing more than being in the trenches.

Jeanne specializes in turning around laggard communities, helping sales professionals generate traffic, providing hiring consulting for sales managers, and coaching design center sales professionals. Learn more about J Forrest Group’s new home sales training programs.

Posts Tagged ‘ new home sales process ’

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