Marketing events are supposed to do more than get people through a sales office door. As a sales professional, it’s your job to take it to the next level and maximize the opportunity. Here’s a formula and sample scripts to follow to make sure marketing events are money makers:

Invite your top ten prospects as well as the existing homeowners you have a good connection with.
Be the connector:

This starts with building community. After you’ve done that, you can invite current homeowners to your event and then connect them with your top prospects. Make them feel welcome and comfortable by finding similarities.

Use the rule of three–introduce a prospect to three different owners and share three things about them. For example, “Mr. Prospect, I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Homeowner. Mr. Homeowner has been living here now for six months and you guys have a lot in common. You’re both doctors with young children and you’re both originally from the east coast.”

Step back and let them talk. Once they’ve established a connection, turn the conversation towards your home or community. For example, ”Mr. Homeowner decided to buy the ___ floor plan, which is the same one you are looking at. So I’m curious, Mr. Homeowner, what other floor plans and communities did you consider? How long did it take you and what was the deciding point?”

They’re not going to say anything negative in front of you so go in for the close and say something like, “Knowing what you know now, do you wish you would’ve bought sooner?”

If you’re working multiple buyers, this is a good point to go play matchmaker with a different prospect and buyer. When you follow up though, get on the offense right away with something like, “Looks like you and Mr. Smith have a a lot in common and hit it off well. What advice did he give you about [builder]? About the time he took to buy? About the overall decision?”

They’ll likely say something positive, so then you say, “That sounds great, so based on that, what do you say we go ahead and move forward with this?”

Since you’re at the party, just take a deposit and make an appointment to write the contract later so that you can keep working with your prospects. But as soon as someone says that they’re going to move forward, congratulate them in front of all the partygoers. Turn down the music and say, “I want everyone’s attention, Mr. Prospect has shared with me that he has decided to move forward with us. He’s going to buy the [floor plan] at [address]. Please welcome your new neighbor!”

Here’s something fun–if you start clapping at this point, everyone else will too. That really locks in their decision and helps eliminate any buyer’s remorse or butterflies. This is where you congratulate yourself because you just guaranteed yourself a contract.

Now find the next prospect and say, “Hidden Brooks Estates is a pretty cool community, don’t you think? What did you think about Mr. Prospect’s decision and the fact that the community welcomed him so warmly?”

After they affirm, say “I want to introduce you to someone” and then start the process again.

This stuff works. Focus on the process and watch the magic happen. Don’t have blind spots or nervousness, just do it.