My friend can whip up a meal from a bare refrigerator at the end of the week. And I’m not talking some barely-edible, nutritionally-deficient casserole either. What’s more, she could please any given audience—a New York food critic, a strict vegetarian, or a second-grade child. And man, she makes it look easy. It’s not magic though—she knows the basic principles of cooking inside and out, she works with what she has, and she’s not afraid to take risks.

It’s like the new home sales process. You’ve got to know the principles of selling, you’ve got to be adaptable, and you’ve got to be courageous as heck. No matter how brilliant your personality, shooting from the hip is dangerous business. You need training, you need to understand the product, and you need practice. The best training prepares you to adjust your presentation to the market, the community you’re in, and of course, the buyer. But the principles remain.

No matter what my friend is faced with in the kitchen, she’s not intimidated. She’ll work with what she’s got and it’ll be brilliant—be it fruit smoothies with spinach, Greek yogurt in place of sour cream, or chocolate cheese. You are the X factor, not the ingredients you have to work with.

Contributed by Jason Forrest, new home sales trainer/coach

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.

Learn about our new home sales training programs.