Tag Archives: ‘real estate’

Sales training for everyone who touches the customers

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Everyone who works for a sales and service organization will eventually have some contact with clients or prospects. So everyone needs the confidence to present your business professionally in a way that will assist the sales process of the official sales team.

When running sales training I always suggest we invite,  anyone who wishes to consider a career move to selling. After the sales audit is complete we may choose a few to invite as well.

As an example of some of this content and an introduction to my sales style, you are welcome to download the first component of my sales training series. This first session is the broad view of selling and is not specific to any industry. All in-house training is fully tailored to your industry with industry-specific examples, techniques and tools.

I believe as sales staff we are not selling something ‘to’ people, rather that we are assisting people as they make decisions. In real estate, we are helping them with an incredibly important decision so the process is even more difficult to do well. If as salespeople we understand how people make decisions we are able to help them in a way that will make the most sense to each person we met rather than just repeatedly giving out information about our offering, leaving them to make sense of it themselves.

Most sales training is only focused on how we word our information or the ‘pitch’. Some courses even teach ‘magic’ words or phrases that they claim will improve your sales performance. As an example, you may have heard trainers’ advice we refer to the price as the ‘investment’. But this all assumes that every prospect has the same existing knowledge of your product/service and that they are all looking for exactly the same thing for exactly the same reason.

I have a degree in Psychology, providing sales training since 1994, and have merged my knowledge of practical selling with how the human brain makes stable decisions. Starting from understanding why they are searching for this product or service and on the journey to that decision they currently are before introducing your solution. To do this the salesperson needs thoroughly know about the role of emotions, especially fear, in the decision process and how to build trust before a decision is possible.

The first session, which I suggest everyone attends focuses on how the brain works and what our role in that is when we are selling. The following sessions use that decision model in situation-specific contexts.

To create a training schedule tailored to your business anywhere in the English-speaking world please email me at maya@salesinventoryprofile.com

Places I have trained include Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada and the US.

How we make decisions and the effect of fear in building trust

Finding your way through the decision maze.

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5 ways SIP shields you from poor recruitment

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SIP shieldWhen we think of poor recruitment outcomes it is easy to imagine the financial loss of salaries, resources and training that having the wrong person in the team will cost the business.

But even interviewing the wrong ones can have a subtle more devastating effect on your business. These are why we recommend everyone who applies for your job or approaches your business should complete a SIP before you make any contact with them.

  1. Don’t waste your own selling time

Never waste a manager’s time reading résumés and interviewing candidates who a low probability of success. Every interview you conduct with the wrong candidates is an hour of productive work lost and potentially a sales hour lost. We are all strapped for time; this is easy to conceptualise but saving your time is just the tip of the iceberg of issues to be avoided.

  1. Never miss a superstar

Selling capable candidates, especially for listing real estate, are incredibly scarce and their lack of industry knowledge means they often appear in disguise, as accountants, nurses, tradesmen, barristers and, the trickiest of all, as school leavers or retirees. LJ Hooker’s first million-dollar agent was a 45-year-old retired nurse and recent migrant who had been passed up by five offices.

What happens to your market when this star does eventually emerge at your competition?

  1. False hope in candidates can destroy your reputation

Building false hope in candidates can have an incredibly long negative impact on your business’s reputation. Candidates who feel they have been shunned at the eleventh hour after a huge build-up can have very long memories and retell their story to hundreds of people. Candidates have invested the time to come for an interview, (maybe taken time off work and lost a day’s pay), dressed up (bought something special, maybe the entire outfit), researched your business, rehearsed their answers and then had a great interview. That is a lot of personal investment to turn against you.

It’s also a much deeper, more personal rejection than if they didn’t meet one of the ‘standard’ criteria at the very beginning, like completing the SIP in the privacy and convenience of their own home. People apply to tens, if not hundreds of jobs, each year and completing a SIP will just fall into the mill of many uneventful hours of job hunting. Getting an interview and feeling it went well is something significantly different.

  1. Is it too late to contradict yourself?

No one likes it when the video referee overturns the on-field decisions. When you have met someone who is really keen on your role; who interviewed well enough to be seriously considered, any warnings provided by SIP afterwards may be too hard to accept. At this point, if SIP contradicts your judgement it is often too late emotionally to turn back from the candidate. But their SIP results will linger between you like a little black rain cloud threatening the relationship from day one.

  1. Setting candidates up for a lifetime of failure

Finally, when you interview and worse still recruit someone who does not make it; you can have an irreversible impact on their entire life. Candidates come to you with their careers, if not their hearts, in their hands, trusting that if they work hard this will be the beginning of a fabulous stage in their career. Hopefully the beginning of greater wealth for themselves and their families.

But if they don’t have enough of the core capacity to sell, no matter how hard they work, no matter how genuine they are, they will become a statistic; one of the 90% of candidates who fail and leave the industry within two years. They leave you feeling lousy, maybe even angry, having wasted their precious time and now uncertain of their next step, with the flow on effects in their family life that no-one can foresee when they could have gone on to find a job to be good at.

The industry is littered with the walking dead, sales staff who have spent years, decades even, barely breaking even. People, who have moved offices countless times, fixated on self-improvement, read every new sales book, attended every seminar, spending hours listening to audio files and then berate themselves for not being focused/motivated/something enough and believing when they just get the ‘right’ mental attitude their career will rocket them to success.

Is it time for a better way?

DIY recruiting with SIPTo find out how using SIP as your in-house recruitment specialist can give you 90% accuracy:

call +61 407 005 290 or

email maya@salesinventoryprofile

Could you have a career in real estate sales?

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Ever dreamed of a job in the country’s highest paying industry? Why not a professional career within your own community that can give you a six figure income after 2-3 years and where it is possible to break through the million dollar personal income barrier.

Start at $35,000 and in 5 years build to $350,000 and in 10 years the world is your oyster. Spectacular success is possible for those who are suited. You cannot achieve the same in any other industry that quickly no matter what your qualifications.

But what happens to most people that enter the industry? 90% fail and are gone within 2 years. Luckily 50% of those that start in residential sales are gone within 3 months. Lucky that they haven’t wasted more of their lives living at the basic level before working out it’s not for them

Step 1

Find out which job within Real Estate will suit you so you build a career around work that you will be successful at doing.

There are a few very different paths in the industry and they each require a different temperament of person.
SIPOur selling IQ system, Sales Inventory Profile, will show you where your natural abilities are the best match. Then you have to develop skills. There is no point in learning about the whole industry if you are best suited to one area.

 

 

The major roles in real estate are;

  • Residential listing and sales (this is the best paid but hardest to do)
  • Buyers agent
  • Property Management
  • Commercial property
  • Project sales or Display homes

Step 2

Once you know your fit the best way to get a job is to approach the bigger agencies within 10 KM of where you live and ask for an interview. Most owners will say yes just out of courtesy to members of their local community. Agents out side of 10 KM won’t be interested in hiring you anyway as travelling longer distances every day and at night is too hard and you will exhaust yourself and leave them.

Step 3

If you are under 25 or have been out of the work place for a while you will need to work on reception for a few years to build skills and area knowledge. Don’t let yourself be rushed into taking on more than you can do well.

Feel free to Email me directly if you want to discuss any of this.

Maya Saric

Cold calling still the leading light in new business sales

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Real estate agents are not earning enough. Despite the real estate industry having some of the highest income earners in the country only a small number of real estate agents earn over $250,000 per year.With some many offices around the country why are there so few individuals at this level of personal success? Is it really that the way we do business has changed so much that our old ways do not work and we are yet to find our feet in the brave new economy?

A common path to success that has worked for years is cold calling. The question is whether this tried and true approach is still appropriate in today’s web-based sales world. A new study from the Keller Center at Baylor University reaches some interesting conclusions about this important issue.

The details of the study

“134 agents from 10 different geographic areas were divided into two groups. Each group was asked to set aside a different hour each day, for seven days to make cold calls. They used the same script and were asked to record the results of their calls in an on-line form so that the data could be collected in real time. For this study, cold calling was defined as dialing random numbers, from a certain farm area not previously marketed to by the agent. The result was 14 hours of lead generation over 14 days.”

The goal of the study

“The goal was to determine if cold calling as a baseline lead generation activity – cold meaning no experience, no contacts, no database, no marketing, no listings, and no ‘just-solds’ – would generate appointments for agents.”

The Results

71.6 % of all calls failed to reach a live person.
28.4% the agent did connect with a live person with the following results,

  • 14.8 % said they weren’t interested,
  • 2.1 % the agent to call back later.
  • 11.3% agreed to either an appointment or gave a referral
  • It took 208 calls (including all the wrong numbers and no answers)  to get an appointment or referral.

This means for every 60 people the agent actually reached, the agent would either receive a referral or schedule an appointment.

Conclusions from the results

1. If an agent can make 50 calls per hour, speaking with 15 people, it will take them approximately 6 hours to achieve one appointment.

2. Anecdotal evidence of conversion rate suggests a 2-to-1 appointment to closing (listing) ratio. That means for every 12 hours of calls, an agent can expect to achieve 1 listing.

Who can do it?

By the time the sample agents had spent 11 hours cold calling, all 134 had quit calling. Yet the data showed that it takes 12 hours of cold calling to generate a closed deal. In other words, the agents quit one hour short of reaching the 12-hour revenue generating goal.

What does this mean for you and your business?

The conversion ratios from the Baylor study show that 12 hours of cold calling consistently yields one listing. Or if you want to close one listing a week that’s 144 minutes, just on 2 hours, of prospecting a day, 5 days a week.

Is It Worth the Price?

The Baylor study concludes with this important point: “Spending 3 hours a day, cold calling, Monday through Friday can potentially yield $290,063 in total commissions in a year.” This is based on a single listing being worth $4,800 to the agent.

The question it would seem to be; are you willing to work 12 hours a week on the phone to make almost $250,000 personal income.  The answer for most agents is “No.”

But the research from own study of sales ability in Australia is that it is not a question of being willing to cold call but rather; ‘Are you able to Cold Call?’.

The assumption in this study was all sales people are equally able and that they simply  don’t have the inner fortitude. The assumption is if they just showed a bit more backbone or energy or ‘millionaire mindset’ or changed something easy within themselves then they really could do it. They just don’t want to make the extra effort. The assumption is we can change ourselves, or our staff, into effective prospectors with just a little more effort.

So we have focused our attention on hiring staff who want the money in the hope they will want to make the effort. But what if no amount of ‘wanting’ can make the difference when they simple are not suited to it.

As we discussed in a previous article Are your staff to scared to cold call, less than 15 % of people no matter how willing, how well trained or how well managed still CANNOT.

The issue then is not whether cold calling works but whether the individual can cold call. That’s something our Sales IQ Inventory can answer for you and your team.

More on calling:  Are your staff too scared to cold call?

But are your staff too scared to cold call? http://tinyurl.com/cumo6w3

Can Sales Managers change sales results in their staff?

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I absolutely disagree that managing people differently will yield significantly different performances. They either have it or they don’t and most people who take on sales roles are earnestly trying their best, so bullying them or bribing them with awards, or tricking them with team activities into more sales results does not work.

If there is a sales person who has it in them, but they are still under-performing, then there are a few very different causes and these need to be addressed differently to allow the person to sell more.

1. Lack of skill – Category 1 i.e. the pure Hunters will eventually work it out without training but while they work it out they will make mistakes which cost them sales and your office it’s reputation. The other selling style staff will always need to be taught how best to sell a particular product before they are able to start selling alone. While selling capacity comes naturally to SIP selected people the process needs to be taught for that capacity to translate into skills and therefore sales.

Sales Management Solution:

a. Training in the specific selling techniques that suit your industry and product

b. Time to practice. This varies between industries. As an example in real estate the average learning time to translate knowledge into effective skills is two years

2. Lack of motivation – even with the very best attributed and trained sales people  they need to WANT THE MONEY. Selling takes energy and if you don’t need the money, even if you could make more, you won’t bother to exert themselves to the level required for sustained success. If they don’t want the money they need their own highly demanding reason to succeed and we (as managers and coaches) cannot give them a reason (i.e. externally set goals). It must be something they really want for themselves.

Sales Management Solution:

a. Help them identify real highly personal reasons to excel

3. Lack of available energy – people’s attention is distracted or energy can be consumed by other issues in their life (divorce, illness and even hobbies) that simply don’t leave them enough juice in the tank to fuel their selling activities. Selling cannot be done well by anyone as an afterthought or secondary focus. This is why  so called ‘selling rock stars’ lose their mojo. I’ve heard so many stories of sales people who ‘used’ to be good. If they really were any good but are mediocre or poor now then there must be something in their lives now that is consuming their energy.

Sales Management Solution:

a. Wait for the external issue to be resolved (or very significantly reduced)

b. Help them manage the external issue better. This is a very low yield solution even with a professional Coach or Psychologist.

c. Consider managing them out of the business. Your energy as a manager can be better spent

For more information on Sales Training, check out our blog here

What’s the number one issue facing sales organisation, managers and owners?

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Hiring staff who cannot prospect and will fail at closing, no matter how well you train them.

It often starts here: A candidate’s résumé tells you: “five years selling software”, “highly motivated and a self-starter”, “a degree in Computer Science”, “retail selling experience”!

 Question: What’s wrong with this information?     Answer: Everything

  •  It’s not independent
  • Maybe it’s been polished by a recruitment company
  • It’s what they think you need to know
  • It’s what they did in the past
  • It’s not about what they can do in the future
  • NONE of it means they can and will sell in your industry for your office
  • It’s boring and it’s wasting your time!

And, it’s why 70% of NEW STARTS in Real Estate will FAIL within 12 months and a total of 90% within 2 years!

This will cost you, the business owner over $100,000 dollars in the first year for each unsuitable candidate chosen in salary and indirect expenses.

It could be costing you millions in lost sales opportunities in hiring or hanging on too long to the hard-working but wrong ones! Imagine how many sales you lose in the second year as they slowly starve you and themselves before they admit they cannot do it?

Even worse, reading résumés can mean throwing away the sales stars of tomorrow because their résumés are poor, or don’t have the right clues, or maybe (and here’s the big one) there’s nothing in their past worth putting in a résumé because they are still young or returning to the workforce after having stopped for a period for parenting or complete their education, travelling, etc. We all know great real estate salespeople whose past gave NO clue to their future sales potential!

Excellent résumés aren’t always a good indicator of sales abilities!

Question: What’s the alternative? Answer: Start using SIP today!

The SIP system combines innovation, the internet and psychometrics. The results identify only those candidates who have the inherent attributes to enable them to sell real estate.

The SIP team will:

  • Analyze your existing team to show you how SIP works, review how your current team is structured, who your team needs as the next recruit and give you a personal sales competency benchmark for your office to use in the hiring process. We have provided this analysis for over a 200 businesses around Australia.
  • Write the advertising copy for you, so the best inherently attributed sales stars of the future in your area apply for your job. In addition, the SIP process highlights those with genuine motivation. Using SIP you now have people who can sell and do want your job.
  • Provide you with an online Candidate Management System so you need never read another résumé AND only organize to meet candidates who can sell and live locally.

Use SIP first before you read yet another résumé or hire another salesperson.

What our customers are saying about SIP: “We agreed to Maya applying her SIP test to all our Sales and Property Management,  Managerial and some admin staff. The results produced, when compared with our own staff assessments, were surprisingly accurate.”

– Jim Shortall, Sydney

Want to have a chat? Contact Maya Saric, Managing Director maya@salesinventoryprofile.com 

Want more Sales articles? Check out these from our blog:

Einstein’s Theory of Selling | Sales Excellence business

“Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open” – Sir James Dewar

SIP sales recruitment training and coaching programs pricing

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Sales Recruitment

Recruit Sales Staff with Sales Inventory Profile (SIP). Why? It answers your number one question in recruiting sales staff is “Who can sell?”

SIP is the best sales staff pre-selection tool in the world and it answers this important question by means of a proven independent psychometric online assessment. The SIP Assessment can determine if a person has the necessary attributes to sell.

SIP: SALES CAPACITY AUDIT $ 950 + GST

Includes:
• Test your existing sales and support team to achieve an independent sales capacity audit.
• Team results debrief with the manager – two hour onsite / phone review with a SIP specialist.
• Includes eight team members. Additional staff $180 + GST per person.

SIP: FULL RECRUITMENT CYCLE $2,950 + GST

Includes:
• Advert copywriting – the creation of the compelling, emotionally engaging, sales message advert.
• Loading and managing your advert on SEEK.
• All candidates tested with SIP.
• We analyze all the SIP reports and résumés within the score range for your job.
• We will recommend questions that you can ask each candidate within the score range for your job.
• Manage and communicate with the candidate pool via our online SIP Candidate Management System.

SIP: 12 MONTH SMALL BUSINESS RECRUITMENT LICENSE $4,950 + GST

Includes:
• Includes a Sales Capacity Audit of your existing team.
• Two full recruitment cycles including everything listed above.
• Direct employment inquiry program includes:
a. Copywriting an employment information pack for individuals who inquire between recruitment campaigns.
b. Copywriting an employment page on your website including a link to the SIP website.
c. Unlimited assessment of individuals (written summaries by SIP staff not included).
• Vocational guidance promotion program to local students includes:
a. Copywriting an invitation to complete a SIP.
b. Unlimited assessment of individuals (written summaries by SIP staff not included).

SIP: 12 MONTH UNLIMITED RECRUITMENT SERVICE $19,950 + GST

Includes:
• SIP becomes your recruitment provider across all job functions for 12 months.
• Write, load and manage all your adverts’ on SEEK.
• All candidates tested with SIP for all your jobs.
• We analyse 10 SIP reports and résumés per job for the first 3 months.
• Manage and communicate with the candidate pool via our online SIP Candidate Management System.

SIP: SINGLE CANDIDATE OR STAFF MEMBER $ 190 + GST

Includes:
• We analyse the SIP report and résumé and provide a written summary.
• We will recommend questions that you can ask this candidate during the interview.
• Manage and communicate with the candidate via our online SIP Candidate Management System.
• For existing staff we include a one hour coaching session directly with the individual or their manager.

SIP: PRIVATE SELF ASSESSMENT $ 190 + GST

Includes:
• Immediate access to your own 14 page SIP report.
• 45 minutes of personal coaching directly with a SIP Sales Excellence Coach.
• SIP Sales Potential Certificate to include in your job applications

Sales Training Programs by Maya Saric

Group Workshop

Emotions in Selling:
Trust based selling to help clients make strong decisions. Duration 2 hours $750 + GST

What is included:

• Understanding the neurological structure of the brain and how the flight/fight mechanism drives all decision making. We will review the progress of data arriving from the senses (hearing, sight etc) to the two levels of thought processing; emotional and logical.

• How to uncover the buyer’s personal perceptions of safety and the decision process they are using in order to guide them to use your service. If you contradict this process and trigger even the smallest feelings of fear they will reject you and your product.

• Learn how fear and anxiety can turn your client’s thoughts from caterpillars into pythons and how to prevent this; so that the caterpillars turn into butterflies instead.

• Learn how selling your own home is the scariest decision a person may ever make and how to guide your client safely through their anxiety to a stable decision to list with you.

• We will look at very specific strategies to maximize your message and the way you present it, so that your clients are able to safely process the message through their emotional filter to make effective decisions. Decisions that will not unravel when they continue to think about the situation after you have left or when they hear new data from your competition.

• Importance of the customer doing at least half of the talking during the sales process in order for the purchase to be stable. Using the magic wand technique that helps a buyer express their needs so you can discuss the real value to them of your offering.

• How to manage your clients fear response to help them to continue to listen and have the ability to buy from you.

DVD Set

Emotions in Selling:
Introduction to trust based selling to help clients make strong decisions $249 + GST

What is included:

• Understanding the neurological structure of the brain and how the flight/fight mechanism drives all decision making. We will review the progress of data arriving from the senses (hearing, sight etc) to the two levels of thought processing; emotional and logical.

• How to uncover the buyer’s personal perceptions of safety and the decision process they are using in order to guide them to use your service. If you contradict this process and trigger even the smallest feelings of fear they will reject you and your product.

• Learn how fear and anxiety can turn your client’s thoughts from caterpillars into pythons and how to prevent this so that the caterpillars all turn into butterflies instead.

• Importance of the customer doing at least half of the talking during the sales process in order for the purchase to be stable. Using the magic wand technique that helps a buyer express their needs so you can discuss the real value to them of your offering.

• How to manage your client’s fear response to help them to continue to listen and have the ability to buy from you.

• Managing your own fears and rejection responses.

Group Workshop

Emotions in Selling (RE):
Appraisals to Listing by overcoming the fear barrier. Duration 3 hours $950 + GST

What is included:

• Overview of neurological systems that drive decision making specific to listing and selling Real Estate.
• Brag Sheet: exercise to define why a property owner should hand their greatest financial decision over to you. Having clarity on how vendors choose agents.
• How to manage the vendor’s fear during both appraisal and listing meetings.
• Detailed scripts for appraisal walkthrough. How not to give your opinion on the spot.
• Setting up the parameters for a return meeting to conduct a listing call. Includes how to have all decision makers present.

Group Workshop

Emotions in Selling (RE) –Prospecting for Real Estate. Duration 3 hours $950 + GST

What is included:

• Overview of neurological systems and the role of fear and trust in selling. Learn to manage your own fear response to overcome your fear of cold calling.
• Managing your own fears and rejection responses.
• What is effective prospecting in real estate for residential listings and new property management?
• What is the difference between warm and cold calls? How to be warm calling most of the time.
• The role of scripting and developing your own script.
• Getting started: territory definition, personal organisation of your time and energy.
• Introduction and explanation of six different types of prospecting, each with starter scripts includes a Door Knocking System and Survey Prospecting. This is a specific system, fully scripted with supporting tools.
• Prospect tracking systems: Managing prospects from first touch to formal appraisal, role of follow up contact and marketing material.

Group Workshop

Emotions in Selling – Full day combined program.  Duration One day $ 1800 + GST

What is included:

• Emotions in Selling – Trust based selling to help clients make strong decisions
• Emotions in Selling – Appraisals to listing by overcoming the fear barrier
• Emotions in Selling – Prospecting for Real Estate

Sales Excellence Coaching Programs by Maya Saric

Individual Coaching Program

New Listing Agent Start Up. Duration 9 hours over 3 months $2,500 + GST

What is included:

• Emotions of selling overview.
• Personal motivation exercises targeting addressing cold calling issues.
• Getting started: territory definition, personal organisation and
• Introduction and explanation of six different types of cold calling, each with starter scripts.
• Door knocking system: Survey Prospecting. This is a specific system, fully scripted with supporting tools.
• Prospect tracking systems: Managing prospects from first touch to formal appraisal, role of follow up contact and marketing material.
• Weekly prospecting reporting by email.
• Three end of month coaching sessions on self emotion management.

Individual Coaching Program

Fires of Hell- Understanding your personal action triggers.  Duration 8 hours over One Month $1,800 + GST
What is included:

• Understanding the neurological structure of the brain and how the flight/fight mechanism drives the specific decisions you make.
• Identifying your personal blocks to action.
• Creating a clear plan for overcoming your blocks.
• Identifying goals that are fuelled by your own motivation structure.

Individual Coaching Program
Sales Excellence – Follow up to the Fires of Hell Program. Duration 9 hours $1600 + GST
What is included:

• Defining goals for your immediate sales issues.
• Agreed action plan on daily and weekly levels.
• Joint review of:
1. activities
2. sales situations
3. obstacles to current performance

Structure:

• Minimum program is set up session of two hours then eight weekly sessions.
• Conducted in person or on Skype with video.

Sales Management Programs by Maya Saric

SIP SALES CAPACITY AUDIT

Understanding Your Current Sales Team. Duration 2 hours $950 + GST

What is included:

• Test your existing sales and support team to achieve an independent sales capacity audit.
• Team results debrief with the manager – two hour onsite / phone review with a SIP specialist.
• Includes eight team members. Additional staff $180 + GST per person.

Workshop

Sales Planning. Duration One day $1,800 + GST

What is included:

• Total territory definition.
• Define and agree the business sales mission.
• Set sales goals: Five years and annual.
• Individual territory creation within the total territory by geography, product or industry classification.
• Staff matching to territory (includes results from SIP Sales Capacity Audit).
• Define existing staff development needs to match territory definition.

Here’s some more information on what SIP can do for you.

________________________________________

TERMS AND CONDITIONS • Settlement due in full 7 days before program starts, including recruitment. • * All facilities, refreshments and transport costs are additional and the client’s responsibility to organize. • Pricing valid until 1/03/2012.

Why a Receptionist for a Sales Organisation Needs to be a Gun Sales Person

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superhero receptionistWe have tested over 400 receptionists through all the businesses we have worked with and the profiles of the ones the business owners tell us are very good, are identical to the sales people.

Yes, equal to the BETTER sales people, especially in specialist sales organisations like Real Estate offices. You’re surprised that this role is so important to your business achieving new sales? I’m not.

One of the characteristics with new business or ‘hunter’ style sales people is they are not focused on details as they are often working too quickly. The upside of that is they are willing to handle a million balls at once, which is the first reason you need a hunter at reception. That is, they don’t handle a lot of detail as a normal part of their work, but in a busy office they need to be good with volume and not get flustered.

The second reason is the reception deals with the most important people, your public, often in times of crisis and confusion and if they cannot calm, or stall, an unhappy caller before they are dealt with more fully, the caller will turn their distress at your business and most often never call back. You get one chance at the really important issues to make a difference and the front desk is the first person the public will deal with so they can make a huge difference in supporting your prospects and  clients before they are heard by the ultimate representative.

The third reason is that reception is the best way to give someone too young to sell or unable to work full-time a chance to learn the whole business while you wait for them to be ready to sell. Given how hard it is to find quality sales staff at any level why waste this role on someone who does not aspire to a career path inside your business.

If you are interested in a simpler more accurate way of finding sales staff who can sell, whether for reception, a listing agent or a BDM for new managements contact me at maya@salesinventoryprofile.com or call now on 0407 005 290

Wanting to grow your sales team? Have you considered growing your talent within?

Are your staff developing trust or creating fear with your clients?

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Are your staff developing trust or creating fear with your clients? Have you ever wondered why clients DON’T buy from you when the call seemed to be going well?

I have launched my new workshop that is changing the way we sell in Real Estate. It is called Emotions in Selling – Helping clients make strong decisions.

I have developed this content from 25 years of selling having been a sales trainer and Coach for half of that time and from knowledge of how the brain works learned in my degree in Psychology. So the content is clearly anchored in understanding the workings of the mind first then translating that to the specifics of your sales situations.

I’m a bit over trainers who teach how to execute specific actions that have worked for them. Some parts of my training do include specific actions but I believe if you understand the intent of the underlying process you will be able to adapt the action to your own style and execute them well and so get the advertised outcome for yourself. If you just blindly copy others (even if the technique you are copying is absolutely fabulous) you don’t get the same outcomes they did because your situation is never exactly the same.

Content:

  • Understanding the neurological structure of the brain and how the flight/fight mechanism drives all decision making. We will review the progress of data arriving from the senses (hearing sight etc) to the two levels of thought processing; emotional and logical.
  • How to uncover the buyer’s personal perceptions of safety and the decision process they are using in order to guide them to use your service. If you contradict this process and trigger even the smallest feelings of fear they will reject you and your product.
  • Learn how fear and anxiety can turn your clients’ thoughts from caterpillars into pythons and how to prevent this so that the caterpillars turn into butterfly’s instead.
  • Learn how selling your own home is the scariest decision a person may ever make and how to guide them safely through their anxiety to a stable decision to list with you.
  • We will look at very specific strategies to maximize your message and they way you present it so that your clients are able to process safely through their emotional filter to make effective decisions that will not unravel when they continue to think about the situation after you have left or when they hear new data from your competition.
  • Importance of the customer doing at least half of the talking during the sales process in order for the purchase to be stable. Using the magic wand technique that helps a buyer express their needs so you can discuss the real value to them of your offering
  • How to manage your clients fear response to help them to continue to listen and have the ability to buy from you.

I believe this program will up skill the sales effectiveness of the entire office as well as providing more sales energy and focus. I encourage my clients to have all staff in their business sit in on it as everyone in a sales organization participates at some stage with our clients whether they are vendors, buyers, landlords or tenants. Most importantly each client interaction contributes to the reputation of our business and builds trust for our brand.

I’m offering to run a two hour session for just you or your team for just $750 +GST conducted at your office. Call me, Maya, for more info on 0407 005 290

For more articles on Trust in selling, check out our Emotions in Selling (EiS) training series here

Emotional Engagement during an Appraisal

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Selling without emotion is hard work!

Emotion stimulates the mind 3000 times faster than rational thought. The brain is structured in such a way that the emotional processing (instinct) starts responding first and creates much stronger chemical reactions then the logical processes, which are triggered much later. The emotional processes are designed to turn on the flight or fight (or freeze) mechanism and are on a 24/7 hair trigger for anything that creates fear.

It’s an emotional world we live in. Many people say we live in a rational world but nothing could be further from the truth. Emotions drive our behavior; the world is driven by emotions. Rational thought leads customers to be interested but it is emotion that sells.

Capturing minds is one thing; capturing hearts is quite another.

The most successful sales involve strong emotional connections between people. People don’t actually make life decisions on clear logical grounds. We often decide first and rationalize second. We are emotion based creatures that are first and foremost run by our fears and instincts. Our brain has been designed so that logic cannot easily override our emotions, especially strong emotions.

The better you target that human instinctual connection with the vendor the easier the sales process that follows will be. You need to start targeting their emotions the second you walk across their threshold. Given we sell Real Estate at a very intimate, personal level (in their homes) you have the opportunity to connect with them not in a brash, blatant way but in a simple and very profound manner.

To maximize your chances of getting the listing you must first connect with their hearts then later you can rationalize with their minds. Remember that the fear emotion has the strongest effect on the decision making process. You need to connect very directly with their fears in a way that explicitly helps reduce their fears.

So what are you selling that you need to be emotional about before you get the listing? Until you have secured the listing you have just one product: YOU.

Who are you? (some standard stuff, you need to tailor this to you):
• A committed member of your local community.
• A professional real estate agent of XX years standing.
• A highly experienced sales person who knows how to sell the value in each and every property.
• XX years young, e.g. through your own midlife dramas with plenty of drive and ambitions (people want personal content i.e. who are you?)
• You’re a specialist with Blue Bay Real Estate.
• A Licensed Agent partnered with one of the area’s most successful agents.
• Educated and raised in this community.

BUT of what value is that to them? How do you meet their emotional needs?
How does that make you the right person to sell their castle? How can you reduce their fears? You have to translate these things into specific benefits to them, in their context.

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