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Learn how you, and everything you do, becomes your personal brand, and learn
the four essential components of branding in this brief but very informative
video.
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Posted by Myers Barnes
You may have heard the story about the couple from America who were taking their first trip aboard. Their son and daughter-in-law were living in China and had bought them airline tickets so they could visit during Christmas. When the middle-age Caucasian pair arrived in Beijing and saw the native population, the husband whispered to his wife, “Look at all the minorities over here!”
Although many of us still have the mindset that anyone other than Anglo-European Americans is a minority, the reality is that the demographics of the American population are shifting rapidly.
More than ever, minorities and immigrants have an increasing presence in our communities and, just like the rest of us, they are eager to buy a house. Although the homeownership rate in America is at an all-time high, there are still some segments of the population that continue to lag behind—not because they don’t have the money or desire to buy—but because they don’t have the knowledge.
New home salespeople who understand the intricacies of cultural diversity will enormously improve their chances for success in today’s multicultural environment. It’s your responsibility to hone your inter-cultural skills so you can be an effective new home salesperson to those from other countries and educate them on how to buy their new dream home. But how do you do that?
You still need to apply the new model of selling—meet and greet, build trust, demonstrate your new homes, overcome objections, present solutions, and close the sale—but now you have to do it without committing a cultural faux pas that your prospect finds insulting, offensive, or embarrassing.
Even when you’re selling new homes to Americans who speak the same language, are from the same culture and have a similar background, it’s easy for you to say one thing and for them to hear something totally different. If it’s that hard to communicate within your own culture, think how much more difficult it is to effectively and accurately communicate with those from other countries.
Myers
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Posted by Myers Barnes
There are some salespeople (and I use that term loosely) who sit and wait for prospects to wander into their new home model. They are the gatherers, not the hunters. I call them the “Creatures of Traffic”. This creature lies in wait for the prey to come into sight and then pounces — gently or voraciously, but it doesn’t matter. The Creature of Traffic is not a true salesperson because unless those prospects come within reach, they are unattainable.
Then there is the Creator of Traffic. Now, this is a sales professional. The Creator stirs up the prospect pool, journeying beyond the walls of the model to find those people who might be interested in this unique property but don’t know it yet. They create traffic, they generate leads, and they close sales — far more sales than the Creature.
The Creator says, “I’m not waiting. I’m going to find those leads and bring them to this model.” But the Creature just waits.
The Creator of Traffic knows that the majority of sales comes from referrals and builds relationships with people who can make those referrals. The Creature waits for those referrals to seek him out.
Which do you want to be?
I challenge you to set a goal to build at least one new referral source every day. Talk to realtors, colleagues, financial advisors, and other business owners. Cultivate the relationships with the people who have already purchased from you so that your name is number one on their mind when someone mentions they’re thinking of buying a home.
Myers
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Posted by Myers Barnes
In this post, real estate advertising and e-marketing expert Tom Nelson shares insights on maximizing your signage investment to pull as much traffic as possible.
What brings traffic? Quality websites that are optimized for search engines to find easily. But beyond that, the second biggest source of traffic is still the most fundamental and traditional type of advertising: Signage. We often make many excuses for why traffic is down, and usually the culprit that sales people point to is “poor signage.”
By following some basic rules, we can ensure that we see real returns on our signage investment, ensure that we’re giving sales staff everything they need to get traffic flowing, and remove any room for excuses. If your website is pulling qualified traffic and your signage is too, then the only thing left for salespeople to do is close the deal. No more excuses. Let’s make signage work as hard as possible for us.
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF NEW HOME SALES SIGNAGE:
THE ENTRANCE SIGN:
The entrance sign must be highly visible, easily readable (even at 55mph+), share product type, amenities, phone number, and most importantly, the website address.
MODEL/SALES CENTER SIGN:
The model or sales center sign must include model name (if applicable), hours of operation, phone number, and again, most importantly, the website address.
DIRECTIONALS/BANDITS:
Directional routes should be well mapped out. Directional signs should help buyers find your communities and capturing buyer interest in your property. These signs also let “drive-bys” know there is a home on the market in the neighborhood. The signs should be clear and easy to read; 20×24 is recommended. The routes should be driven every weekend to ensure proper placement of signs.
Stay tuned for the second half of this article from real estate advertising and e-marketing expert Tom Nelson.
No Comments » | Customer Service, Marketing, New Home Sales, New Home Sales Management Training, New Home Sales Training, New home sales marketing, Real estate courses, Sales Management, new home sales management | Permalink
Posted by Myers Barnes
In this post, real estate advertising and e-marketing expert Tom Nelson shares more on how website searches are used by prospective homebuyers and how you can make sure your website is as close to the top of their list as possible.
Last time, I gave you some hard facts about the importance of search engine optimization for new home sales websites, like the fact that 84% of homebuyers start their new home search on the internet. So you understand WHY you need to be concerned about making sure search engines rank your website as high as possible. Now, here’s the HOW. Below are some fundamentals you must consider when creating your website in order to help search engines connect you with the right prospects who are searching for new homes.
• It is estimated that 47% of all website visits come from direct navigation (that is, a user typing the website address or URL directly into the address navigation box). Therefore, your website’s address or “URL” should be simple and intuitive—as close to the community’s name or brand as possible. The closer your website address to your actual property’s name, the easier it will be for prospects to locate you online and for search engines to connect your website with the right prospects.
• A website’s architecture (the pages of content and how they are structured together) and the actual content of the website’s pages themselves have a direct impact on the way search engines interpret the site’s information and determine its relevancy. So, the better your content, the more relevant it is to your prospects, and the fresher it is, the easier it will be for prospects to find your website via search engines. When you update your website often with news, events, and more detailed information, the search engines notice this and will boost your ranking higher so that you can be found more easily. Websites that never change will begin to fall further down the list. The lesson: Stay fresh.
• Websites use special “tags” in the actual programming code to help search engines understand the content of your website. The Title Tag is one of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings. Limited to 68 characters including spaces, the title tag description is what appears in the clickable link on the search engine results page and is incredibly important in helping your website get better search rankings. Each page in your website can have a separate title tag that describes the page’s content. Remember, the title tag determines what your prospects will see when they’re searching for new homes online and find your website’s listing, and will help them determine whether to click your link, or to skip it and move on. So make sure you take advantage of this simple but most important programming tag to connect with your prospects.
• Having other websites link to your website can boost your ranking with some of the search engines and substantially increase the flow of traffic through your site. Just as having new and fresh content regularly added to your website will help improve your ranking, the more links you have between your website and others the more search engine optimization benefit you’ll be able to realize.
There are many, many more methods and strategies for helping your website achieve better search engine results rankings, but the ones we’ve discussed today are among the most fundamental and a good place to start. My company, NDG Communications, has helped countless clients boost their rankings to get more qualified leads, increase registrations, and help establish communities with our effective SEO services and e-marketing capabilities.
Stay tuned for more new home sales insights from real estate e-marketing expert Tom Nelson.
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Posted by Myers Barnes
DOES YOUR WEBSITE HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO DRIVE TRAFFIC? Part 2
With the website being the most fundamental marketing tool, and the hub of all information, here are some additional critical factors to consider for your sales website:
CONTACT DETAILS
Providing immediate contact details such as email addresses and telephone numbers on the home page will give the site an open feel and add a personal touch, thus increasing user confidence and instilling credibility.
CREDENTIAL VALIDATION/TESTIMONIALS
Providing the kinds of information that establishes credibility and consumer confidence, such as awards, is a useful way to build trust with the consumer. Providing independent comments on positive experiences (applicable to the product or company) will have an even greater impact—instilling confidence in your brand and qualitatively boosting the consumer’s perception of the quality of your product and company.
STATEMENT FROM MANAGEMENT
This content will share the vision and values of the people who envisioned and are building the community. This information provides credibility and legitimacy for the property.
UP-TO-DATE
All content published on the website should be recent and up-to-date.
DISCLAIMERS & TERMS OF USE
It is very important to supply the appropriate disclaimers, terms of use, privacy policy, and other legal terms.
Stay tuned for the next part of this article for more new home sales insights from real estate e-marketing expert Tom Nelson.
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Posted by Myers Barnes
Most habits are actions you have taken for so long that they now come naturally and you no longer need to think about them – like tying you shoes, for example. When you first learned, you probably felt as if you were all thumbs. Now, you can do it with your eyes closed.
Experts have found that it takes 21 repetitions for an action to become a habit. And those bad habits are never really “broken.” Instead, we simply learn to build new and better habits that replace them. But to do that, we must repeat the new habit 21 times. That’s one reason it’s so hard to change. We try something new, but don’t do it long enough for it to become a solid practice. Then the old habit is lying nearby in dormant brain cells ready to resurface before the new habit is entrenched.
In our profession, developing good habits is crucial to success – especially when it comes to customer service. Following are some basic habits every salesperson should develop to maintain a consistently high level of customer satisfaction.
1. Be on time: Retired professional football player Gale Sayers is quoted as saying, “If you are early you are on time. If you are merely on time, you are late, and if you are late, you are forgotten.” Being on time is a statement of respect. Conversely, making others wait until you show up creates a negative impression and is disrespectful of your customer’s time and agenda. Occasionally, you’ll encounter situations and challenges that force tardiness, so the cardinal rule is to notify others as soon as you know you are going to be late. The sooner you let your customers know you are delayed, the less irritated they will become. Do not wait until the last minute, hoping that it all works out.
2. Follow up on your promises: If I hear one major pet peeve from customers across the board, it is this: Builders and their teams promise something and then do not follow through. For example, a customer is told that she will be given a weekly status report on the progress of her new home, and then, as if the promise were a dream, no one delivers on the commitment. Always call a customer (and your prospects) back by the time you promised, even if it’s to say you do not have the answers they want to hear and you’ll have to get back with them later. Customers are so unaccustomed to good follow through that even that kind of contact scores you big points.
3. Under-promise and over-deliver: Sometimes, with enthusiasm to give the customer what he wants or to avoid confrontation, you may find yourself promising something that is difficult to deliver. By making that promise, you have created an expectation in the customer’s mind that, regardless of difficulty, he will come to expect. If you find yourself in this type of situation, your best approach is to only promise what you can be sure of and not what you hope will happen.
For example, your customers need a 120-day delivery time of their new home; yet they want to make structural changes to their floor plan. Your production history proves delivery of the home takes 135 days minus the delay of re-engineering the plan. You are better off explaining that what appears to be a small change involves an immense amount of work and, although you would like to promise 120 days as a possibility, it is not guaranteed. By promising 145 days, you avoid disappointing your customers and delighting them if the home is delivered earlier.
4. Go the extra mile: Make going out of your way for your customers a habit. By doing small extra things for them, your commitment to customer satisfaction is remembered and you create a residual of referrals. By far, the best method to develop an extraordinary relationship is frequent contact. For example, buy a camera and carry it in your car. Take photos of the home under construction or the neighborhood as it changes. Then e-mail, mail or hand-deliver the photos. Absentee owners, as well as local residents, appreciate pictures of their home and community.
5. Express empathy: No matter how strong your commitment is, you will occasionally have an unhappy camper as a customer. At such times, expressing empathy is imperative. Empathy means understanding your customer’s point of view, regardless of whether or not you agree. Employ these empathetic phrases to help your customer realize you are on his or her side:
I understand how you feel.
I hear what you are saying.
I’m sorry that happened.
I see your point of view.
Even when you aren’t dealing with a dissatisfied customer, it’s a good practice to match the tone of your customer. Some call it “taking a psychic photograph,” but basically it’s taking a moment before you even say the first word to determine what mood your listener is in. Does she look bored? Is he zoning? Do they look buoyant, happy to be where they are?
If you can match their mood with your voice tone only briefly, it helps establish an immediate connection. “Speech syncing” adds to your charisma and creates a welcomed camaraderie.
As an experiment, take one day and consciously speak at the same rate of speed with the same tone as everyone you meet. Then watch to see how people warm up to you – how they relate to what you’re saying.
6. Treat your customers as the most important part of your job: With all of the functions of your job - meetings, paperwork, phone calls and so on – perceiving your customers as an interruption is normal. Remind yourself that, although the customer may not always be right, she is the very reason your business exists and the one who indirectly signs your paycheck. By focusing on your customers as the reason you do your job, you will make them feel important.
7. Treat your coworkers as customers: The quality of customer satisfaction you deliver is often only as good as the quality of relationships you have with your coworkers. Results depend upon relationships and treating your workmates as valuable customers raises the overall quality of satisfaction they deliver to the new homebuyer.
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Posted by Myers Barnes
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