|
I find that commitments are successfully earned by accompanying customers through four key steps that ultimately lead to closing the sale. Skip just one and you reduce your chances of a successful outcome.
The astute new home agent who recognizes the value of each step will find that commitments come without undue pressure and produce a less fearful, more enjoyable experience for both buyer and seller.
- Step One: Correctly Identify the Customer’s Profile.
Wouldn’t it be nice if every person who entered your model home wore a sign that disclosed his or her buying ability? Unfortunately, it’s up to us to figure out the buying status of each new customer we meet.
There is nothing worse than spending 45 minutes describing the glories of your community with someone who you later discover could never buy. Or worse yet, prejudging a buyer as being unable to purchase and finding out later that they bought from the competition (ouch!).
The first step to earning commitment is to determine which of your prospects are viable.
- Step Two: Build Credibility With the Customer.
A presale contract can initiate a relationship between buyer and seller that can last for months. Customers want to feel as safe about the relationship as they do about the product they buy. That includes feeling safe about the salesperson.
In the customer’s mind, a link exists between you and the product you sell. It’s a rare buyer who will purchase anything from a seller or agent who is perceived as being less than credible.
We demonstrate credibility through our competence, our integrity and our enthusiasm about the product we sell. We also demonstrate our credibility by showing real concern for the customer.
Such proficiency spawns the belief that we are trustworthy and that the product we sell is worth their consideration. We earn the buyer's commitment at this stage by showing ourselves to be credible people as well as credible representatives of what we sell.
- Step Three: Effectively Solve the Customer’s Problem.
The credibility we build will die like a flame depleted of oxygen unless we present a viable solution to the customer’s housing dilemma. Buyers come into your model home hopeful that you’ll be able to solve their housing problem. Unless they can see how what we offer matches their needs and desires, we will never be able to earn their commitment.
My kids enjoy playing a little “matching game” with playing cards. They lay their cards face down on the table and try to match them them.
Your buyers play a similar matching game with you. As they lay their cards on the table, you need to match them with the features that your builder offers. Keep in mind that these prospects also are playing a matching game with your competition. The agent with the most matches generally wins by best solving each prospect’s problem. A win here earns another level of commitment from the prospect.
- Step Four: Maintain On-Par Commitments.
When buyers come into your model home and you are helpful and attentive, they will not hesitate to sign your guest book. Whether out of appreciation or a healthy sense of obligation, they think, “This salesperson has spent time with me; the least I can do is fill out this card.” That’s an on-par commitment. You’ve given them your time and they’ve given you some basic information.
When they return and you spend more significant time with them, you have earned the right to ask for another on-par commitment — a home site reservation. Subsequently, if they ask you to do some specialty pricing, you again have the right to ask for an on-par commitment, perhaps a contingency agreement of some kind until the pricing comes back.
Finally, if they come to love your product, embrace the pricing and have no finance or housing contingency, you, because of the time and attention you gave them, have earned the right to ask for a non-contingent contract.
On-par commitments keep the sales process from becoming unbalanced. They protect you from doing too much for the customer without the customer doing something for you in return. Beware of letting the sales process become one-sided.
Identify the customer’s profile, solve his or her problem, build credibility and maintain on-par commitments. When you’re done, you’ll be amazed at how much you’ve accomplished — and how much of your fear and trepidation has given way to success.
Mark Barnard, MIRM is an on-site sales professional in the Atlanta market. For information, e-mail him at barnardptc@hotmail.com. Barnard is also a previous contributor to Closer's Corner, a recurring feature in Sales + Marketing Ideas magazine.
Originally published in NAHB’s Sales + Marketing Ideas magazine.©2004.
Subscribe to Sales + Marketing Ideas Magazine for Cutting-Edges Information
For additional cutting-edge sales and marketing information, subscribe to NAHB’s Sales + Marketing Ideas magazine. Call 800-368-5242 x8192 or visit www.smimagazine.com to subscribe or order a copy. Click here to learn about membership benefits of the National Sales and Marketing Council and the Institute of Residential Marketing.
Residential Marketing Courses and Designation Programs for Sales & Marketing Professionals
The Institute of Residential Marketing (IRM) offers four designation programs for sales and marketing professionals:
- The CMP and MIRM designation programs for new home marketing professionals
- The CSP and MCSP designation programs for new home sales professionals.
For more information on these designation programs, click here or call 800-368-5242 x8192. To locate a MIRM in your state, visit www.nahb.org/MIRM.
BuilderBooks.com Offers Sales and Marketing Publications Online
BuilderBooks.com offers a variety of sales and marketing publications online. To view or purchase these publications, click here.
| 
How is it that commitments, even the ones that bring us great rewards, are often laced with fear and trepidation? That fearfulness explains why, when it comes to closing a sale, it’s not unusual for the buyer and seller to dance around their uncertainties until one of them acquiesces and finally says, “Okay, what’s next?”
