Too many builders are shackled by tradition and the how-things-used-to-be approach to sales. That’s understandable. For decades, buyers have gone to model homes to see what builders are offering. Today, however, technology has replaced tradition.

Nine out of 10 buyers search online before climbing into their cars to scout for new homes and to scope out neighborhoods. Therefore, it’s essential that builders have a Web site that showcases what they’re selling.

Unfortunately, builders who are accustomed to spending half a million dollars on a model home will scoff at the idea of spending $30 to $40 thousand for a first-class Website. And, if they do have a Website, they reject the idea that it needs to be staffed with a full-time online sales counselor. To these builders, I say dream on.

The reality is that your Website is your new model home and it must be staffed just as any model home would be. It should also have floor plans and top-quality photographs or renderings of your homes … maybe even have a printable brochure. It should emphasize the quality and the value found in your homes and include some testimonials from previous buyers.

Hire a professional to put it all together because buyers will conclude that, since you have a well-built Website, your homes will be well-built, too.

Do it right and you will reach hundreds of more buyers through your Website than you ever will onsite.

Posted In: New home sales marketing

Tags: home builders, online home search, online sales counselor, website

Everyone thinks buyers are only interested in the best PRICE.

The truth is, they’re really interested in the best VALUE.

Objections—there are millions of them that a prospective buyer can throw at you, but not a single one of them can stop you from closing the sale, if you know how to deal with them.

Secrets of New Home Sales Negotiation—How to Achieve ‘Yes!’ Every Time will teach you the real-world strategies that turn objections around, and make it possible for you to convince buyers of the real value of your product, no matter what the price difference between you and your competitors.

Don’t let the myth of price resistance keep you from getting the sale. Learn the tactics and secrets in Secrets of New Home Sales Negotiation—How to Achieve ‘Yes!’ Every Time that can put you back in the driver’s seat, instead of being taken for a ride.

Posted In: New home sales marketing, New Home Sales Training

Tags: myers barnes, price resistance, real estate sales, sales objections, Secrets of New Home Sales Negotiation, value

Science Magazine reported that each day the average person transmits information equivalent to six newspapers and receives data equaling 174 newspapers – much of it in videos and photographs.

Are you part of today’s media stream? If you aren’t blogging, you’re not in it and you’re missing a major market.

As the host of your own blog, you can reach a vast number of potential homebuyers and increase your online presence by contributing to other blogs.

What should you write about on your blog? Anything related to new homes, the housing industry, mortgages, your life in sales, lessons learned and other topics that are of interest to you.

A Realtor I know is talented in interior design and blogs about ways to decorate a new home. Another one is a committed jogger blogger. She writes about the joys and headaches of running on trails and in marathons.

Are you into backyard gardening? Preserving food? Sewing? Home-improvement projects? Children’s activities? Fishing? Write about it. Nothing lengthy. A few short graphs written in an honest, conversational way are all you need. Remember, a blog is nothing more than an online journal that allows you to connect and interact with readers.

For free templates, go to sites such as WordPress.com, Typepad.com and Blogger.com. Use Wikispaces and EzineArticles to post content and IMAutomator and OnlyWire to submit your blog posts to other social networking sites.

Expect to invest a little time keeping your blog current. Just as you can’t plough a field by turning it over in your mind, you can’t cultivate social media without working at it.

Posted In: New home sales marketing

Tags: blogger.com, blogging, ezinearticles, housing industry, imautomator, media stream, onlywire, Realtor, typepad.com, wikispaces, wordpress.com

Available Now! My newest book, “Secrets of New Home Sales Negotiation, How to Achieve ‘Yes!’ Every Time.” This groundbreaking field manual will become the new best friend to any home-builder, sales manager, or new home salesperson who is weary of losing sales to the deals, discounts and incentives offered by their competitors. Order it today!

Secrets Of New Home Sales Negotiation will help you transform your approach to negotiating and slice through every obstacle – from price phobias to extreme bargain hunters. Apply the tactics and you’ll overcome your need to concede your position by applying field-tested strategies, proven to deliver success with even the toughest home-buyer.

Guaranteed you’ll learn how to:
• Power past Price Resistance
• Overcome your pesky competitors’ deals, discounts, and incentives
• Negotiate global, selling homes to anyone from any culture
• Vaccinate yourself against every known objection
• Apply killer persuasion strategies that close sales like clockwork
• Discover – and AVOID – the biggest negotiation mistake that even hardcore, new home salespeople make in their presentations
• Tap into today’s sales strategies that expand the bottom line

Secrets Of New Home Sales Negotiation will unleash your potential to dramatically increase your income, expand the profitability of each sale, and build a following of satisfied customers. Pick up a copy and watch your sales SOAR!

Posted In: New home sales marketing, New Home Sales Training, Real estate courses

Tags: myers barnes, New Book, New Home Sales Training, order book, Sales Negotiation

There is a brand new resource being made available for FREE (you will need a special code at the end of this blog post) that can change the way you release new communities – and get you more sales. It’s called Presale Without Fail: The Secret to Launching New Communities & Phases with Maximum Results a new eBook written by my friend Kevin Oakley the Director of Marketing & Sales Training for Heartland Homes in Pittsburgh, PA. He shares how to sell multiple homes on the day one without the need for a model home – or even paved streets! It’s step-by-step and proven to work.

I asked him to tell us a little bit about how it all works, and to answer some common questions he receives from others in the industry.

_________________________________________________________________________

Thanks Myers! I really can’t wait to see how this eBook will impact builders across the country – and I do hope you all will share your successes with me. Here are the answers to the most common questions I am asked about Presale Without Fail:

Q: My builder already creates a VIP list of people who are interested, how is this different?
A: It’s true that most builders today have VIP lists or waiting lists. That isn’t the challenge. Where most builders fail is that they don’t know what to do with that list to turn it into sales. What I outline is not just how to get more people on your list, but what to do with them at every step. The most common mistake I see is that they try to hold private VIP meetings with each prospect where the give them all the information up front and then people disappear… never to be heard from again.

Q: Isn’t your success going to be directly related to how much demand there is for your location?
A: The short answer is no. When I really knew that I had something that worked is when we had a new phase of an existing community about to open. The previous year we had only sold eight homes, and the new phase was the same product, at the same price point, and on the same size home sites. Using the Presale Without Fail process we sold eight homes on the first day the phase released.

Q: Do I have to be a large home builder to make this process work?
A: Not at all. Of course, a larger builder may have an easier time of the initial awareness of the project, but as a smaller builder you’ll be able to be more personal with every prospect. This book really levels the playing field and puts you back in control of your success, and not the current state of the market.

Q: Why are you giving this away for free if it is so valuable?
A: There are several reasons. The first is that I love to network with others in the industry and to learn from them what is working, and what isn’t. My hope is that this eBook opens new doors and new conversations that can lead to a true sharing of insights. I am not selling anything, and I am not looking to sell consulting and speaking services. The second reason is that it is my way of giving back to an industry that I love, and that has done so much for me and my family.

Presale Without Fail won’t be released until September 29th, but as a friend of Myers I’d like to offer you the opportunity to download it now. Just go to www.PreSaleWithoutFail.com and enter presale-myers as your pre-release code. By doing so, you will also be entered into a random drawing for one hour of Skype time with me to answer any questions you have about how to implement this with your builder!

I hope you enjoy the book, and I’d love to hear your experiences putting it into action!

- Kevin Oakley

Posted In: New Home Sales, new home sales management, New home sales marketing, New Home Sales Training

Tags: builders, ebook, Heartland Homes, Kevin Oakley, Marketing, myers barnes, sales

My newest book, “Secrets of New Home Sales Negotiation, How to Achieve ‘Yes!’ Every Time,” is to be released in the next 3 weeks. This groundbreaking field manual will become the new best friend to any home-builder, sales manager, or new home salesperson who is weary of losing sales to the deals, discounts and incentives offered by their competitors.

Secrets Of New Home Sales Negotiation will help you transform your approach to negotiating and slice through every obstacle – from price phobias to extreme bargain hunters. Apply the tactics and you’ll overcome your need to concede your position by applying field-tested strategies, proven to deliver success with even the toughest home-buyer.

Guaranteed you’ll learn how to:
• Power past Price Resistance
• Overcome your pesky competitors’ deals, discounts, and incentives
• Negotiate global, selling homes to anyone from any culture
• Vaccinate yourself against every known objection
• Apply killer persuasion strategies that close sales like clockwork
• Discover – and AVOID – the biggest negotiation mistake that even hardcore, new home salespeople make in their presentations
• Tap into today’s sales strategies that expand the bottom line

Secrets Of New Home Sales Negotiation will unleash your potential to dramatically increase your income, expand the profitability of each sale, and build a following of satisfied customers. Pick up a copy and watch your sales SOAR!

Posted In: New Home Sales, new home sales management, New home sales marketing, New Home Sales Training, Real estate courses

Tags: Homebuilders, myers barnes, negotiation, New Book, New Home Sales, new home sales manager

I get this question all the time, should sales agents be on Facebook during model hours. This is a great question and the short answer is yes. Builders address this with me, sales agents address this with me, colleagues address this with me. Should they be on a Facebook during model hours.

The only Facebook page a site agent should be on during model hours is the page that is relevant to the community.

This information is being fed to 4 different groups of people.  For answers on who these groups are click here to view the video.

Posted In: New home sales marketing, New Home Sales Training Video

Tags: homebuilding, New Home Sales, site agents, social networking, video, youtube

Bill Gates calls the Internet the greatest marketing tool since radio, telephone or television. He’s right. Consider these statistics: It took 37 years for radio to reach 50 million listeners. It took 34 years for the telephone to have 50 million customers. It took television 13 years to reach 50 million viewers. How long did it take the Internet to reach 50 million subscribers? Only four years.

Facebook alone went from zero to more than 500 million users in six years. If it were a country, this would make it the third largest in the world. What that shouts to you is that, if you don’t have a Facebook page, get one NOW. Otherwise, you’re saying that you have decided not to communicate with this segment of the population. That’s a major mistake, considering that 91% of all home-buying decisions are influenced by women, and women comprise more than half of Facebook’s audience.

The number of women using social networking sites is greatly increasing each year. Research from SheSpeaks.com shows that nearly 90% of American women use popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Here are some ways you can tap this lucrative market:

• Create and sustain a coordinated campaign using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, etc.
• Establish a blog with your own URL. Your blog will be the cornerstone from which all your marketing will be based. To establish common ground with potential buyers, brand it and your social media sites with your picture and info that reflects you (hobbies, pets, accomplishments, awards, community involvements).
• Keep your blog interesting, informative and current. Post something new regularly.
• E-mail prospects to keep your name in front of them.
• E-mail previous buyers to find out how they’re doing in their new home. Stay in contact. Ask for referrals.
• Pull leads from your company’s Web site. Respond to all e-mails within five minutes if possible. Also, don’t forget to monitor your company’s online reputation by Googling the name or signing up for alerts. Respond to all who have posted a comment, whether they are happy or unhappy with your company.

Two final thoughts. (1) Use speed when following leads. I’ve never met a really high-achieving salesperson who hasn’t had a strong degree of urgency. (2) Because of the explosion of social media, make it a habit to live your life as though your mother is watching. She very well may be.

Posted In: New home sales marketing

Tags: Bill Gates, facebook, internet, Marketing Tool, Shespeaks.com, social media marketing

You won’t necessarily steal customers from competitors because your homes are the least expensive or because your builder offers the most incentives or because you have the best promotions. You will increase sales by being superior in both your sales process and your marketing.

If you are in competition with another builder who has a better home, but does minimal marketing, you will come out on top because the person with superior sales and marketing will always beat the person with a superior product.

Want proof? Think of all those infomercials. Remember the singing bass on the wall, the Pocket Fisherman and Ginsu Steak Knives? Were these the best products? Not by a long shot. But wait! There’s more! They did have one thing going for them – a great sales and marketing campaign.

I’m not suggesting that you don’t offer small incentives and promotions as a form of strategy. What I am suggesting is that, to improve sales, you don’t make promotions and pricing your major focus. Concentrate your efforts on selling solutions and marketing those solutions to buyers.

If you take a different approach, you may find that you won’t have to wait to get more.

Posted In: New home sales marketing

Tags: Ginsu Knives, Marketing, New Home buyers, sales process, Selling Solutions

Depending upon which economist is being quoted in the newspaper, housing sales are either so far down there’s no hope for recovery or they are on the uptick. The reality is that, regardless of where they fall, either situation isn’t permanent.

Therefore, your strategy must be to ignore the doomsayers and headlines. They change moment by moment and most of it’s bad news anyway … maybe even exaggerated bad news. As George Bernard Shaw once observed, “Newspapers are seemingly unable to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.”

By believing all the headlines and what “the experts” say, your brain cobbles together the different statistics, predictions, polls, remarks, facts and figures. Then you try to patch all this into an action plan that will work for you; but what you end up with is a makeshift mindset. While it may serve a purpose for a day, it’s only temporary. Tomorrow, the scenario will be change … and so will the headlines.

The reality is that you can’t afford to care whether the economy is up, down or sideways. Your focus has got to be steadfast on selling and marketing new homes the best that you can. Period.

Follow the advice of George Marshall, who was described as the “organizer of victory” by Winston Churchill because of his leadership during World War II.

America’s third Secretary of Defense advised, “We must stop setting our sights by the light of each passing ship; instead we must set our course by the stars.”

Focus on the big picture. Not on the press.

If you work in the new home sales industry and you’re looking for training tips from the top consultant in the business you’ve come to the right place for New Home Sales Training. Thank you, and keep following me — Myers Barnes | New Home Sales Trainer and Real Estate Consultant

Posted In: New Home Sales, New home sales marketing, New Home Sales Training, Personal Development

Tags: home sales training, meyers barnes, myers barnes, new home sales consultant, new home sales trainer, New Home Sales Training, new homes sales training, Real Estate Sales Training

Announcing the launch of HomeBuilders.com, the Ultimate Online Marketing and New Home Sales Resource Center dedicated to helping homebuilders and new home sales professionals succeed.

HomeBuilders.com is a free, non-promotional educational resource concentrating on the challenges that face homebuilders and industry professionals in today’s challenging market.

HomeBuilders.com is unique to the marketplace in that 100% of its content zeroes in on the three major challenges facing homebuilders and industry professionals today – generating enough traffic, converting that traffic to sales, and creating profitable sales. Going beyond a discussion group, HomeBuilders.com offers insight, advice and actionable know-how into what’s working and who’s doing it along with examples, case studies and feature interviews with leading builders across North America.

The landscape for marketing and selling in the homebuilding industry has changed so dramatically that we wanted to bring together a collective think-tank that captures the core elements for successful selling today — powerful marketing programs, building a motivated and productive sales team, creating websites that work, driving customers to your business online, integrating online marketing with onsite sales, and the key role technology plays in connecting with potential and existing homebuyers.

Learn how to create powerful marketing campaigns, drive customers to your website, capture leads and build a motivated sales team. Understand the components that make up a comprehensive marketing strategy and get real-world tips from the industry’s leading experts. HomeBuilders.com founders and editorial contributors include Myers Barnes of MyersBarnes.com, Mike Lyon, principal of DoYouConvert.com, Chip Johnson, CEO of BuilderDesigns.com, Jim Adams, founder and CEO of NewHomesDirectory.com, Dave Clements, founder and CEO of LassoDataSystems.com.

Sign up for the monthly newsletter and keep up with the latest at HomeBuilders.com!

Don’t miss out on a single article – register for the newsletter, become a fan on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or plug the RSS into your Feed Reader.

Add Link to PR: View the Full Press Release Here >>

Posted In: New home sales marketing, New Home Sales Training

Tags: home builder marketing, homebuilders.com, myers barnes, New Home Sales Consultants, new home sales for builders, New Home Sales Management Training

One day Mrs. Cat and Mr. Fox were having a conversation. Mr. Fox, who had an ego roughly the size of Rhode Island, boasted about how clever he was when it came to promoting his new home community.

“I know of at least a hundred ideas that will get buyers to come to my new homes,” Mr. Fox said.

“Really? How many have you tried?” Mrs. Cat asked.

“None yet,” Mr. Fox replied with a yawn. “They are all such great ideas, I’ve had a hard time deciding which one to do first.”

“Oh. Well, maybe you could share some of them with me. I’ve just started selling new homes and could use some help from a successful mentor,” Mrs. Cat told him.

“Yeah, well, maybe some day, when I have the time, I’ll share an idea or two,” he said. Just then they heard “You’ve got mail” on Mrs. Cat’s desktop computer. As she was printing out her e-mails, her cell phone rang. She hastily wrote down a name and appointment time, stuck her Bluetooth in her ear, grabbed her camera, briefcase, laptop, contracts and brochures. As she clicked off from talking to a potential buyer, she waved to Mr. Fox.

“Bye!” she yelled. “Since I’m not as clever as you, I have to go out and work this sales process I learned. It’s the only way I know to get buyers.”

Mr. Fox waved a weak goodbye. “Poor girl,” he said, shaking his head. “Why put yourself out there like that and risk rejection every day … day in … day out? And for what? They’re no qualified buyers, competition’s tough, builders are demanding. That’s not for me. I’ll wait right here. Buyers who are serious will come to me.”

So, Mr. Fox sat silently at his desk waiting for buyers and wondering which idea to pursue first. Before he could decide, however, poverty overtook him.

He tried to parlay his profession into a nightclub act, billing himself as Jed Foxworth and telling jokes like, “You know you’re a new home salesperson if you think Sherlock Holmes is a gated community in Florida.” However, no one understood his humor and the last time anyone saw Mr. Fox, he was wearing a trench-coat and selling knock-off Rolexes. Mrs. Cat, on the other hand, was still working the new-home sales process and could afford as many real Rolexes as she wanted.

The Moral: Learn a sales process, follow it and diligently pursue buyers instead of waiting for them to come to you. A single plan you work is better than a hundred ideas you don’t.

Posted In: New home sales marketing, New Home Sales Process

Tags: bluetooth, Marketing, mentor, New Home Sales, sales process