No More Begging for Sales! The great recession is ending, and the recovery is coming. But things have changed forever—only the sales teams that have Thrival Instinct will know how to make it in this new environment.
The Thrival Revival is Coming!
The Myers Barnes New Home Sales Management Conference
June 7th & 8th, 2010 in Dallas, Texas
I recently arrived home after traveling around to various cities and presenting motivational workshops. I had my mind set on unwinding in my most comfortable chair and putting my work aside for awhile. As I walked up to the door, I waved at the landscaper riding his tractor across my lawn.
Once inside the house, I collapsed into the aforementioned chair, and was instantly met by my wife who told me I needed to talk to the landscaper because he needed some business advice. I can honestly say I felt like saying, “I’m fresh out,” but anyone who knows me would just laugh at such a ludicrous thought.
I walked outside a few minutes (and sighs) later, and waved him down. He sheepishly said to me, “So, you’re the guy who teaches people how to make more money.”
“That’s one way to put it,” I replied. He waited for more so I turned the questioning to him. “How much are you charging me per hour for that tractor?”
“$75,” he replied quickly.
“And how much for your time?”
$15 an hour,” he said.
“So your equipment is worth more than you are. The answer to your challenge here is that you need to increase your value as a service provider or I will find that I have more need for the tractor than for you.”
I then advised him that while he spent 8 hours a day riding a tractor, he could be listening to audio books that would give him numerous tips for increasing his business and his value. “Make your ultimate goal to become more valuable than your tractor,” I said, and walked back to my comfy chair.
I was once sitting on the proverbial tractor. There I realized that my true value should be measured by what I bring to a client in terms of knowledge and skills, not replaceable equipment.
Ignite your selling power and blow past your goals to achieve blockbuster sales! Join New Home Sales Expert Myers Barnes and NDG Communications President Tom Nelson at the 2010 International Builders Show for a fast-paced, results-oriented sales and marketing session that will get your adrenaline pumping and deliver over-the-top results.
At Red-Hot New Home Sales and Marketing Solutions you’ll receive hard-boiled advice, tried-and-true tips, sensible solutions, and a bold line of attack for your sales and marketing organization. And, you’ll learn pure-genius techniques that will propel you to success, along with remedies for overcoming hardship economies.
When you are healthy, sickness is not on your mind. You just take for granted that you will keep breathing, your heart will continue to beat, and all the internal organs are humming along as they should be. Similarly, when you have a comfortable financial cushion, you don’t worry about money.
Health and wealth are both deficiency needs. They only rise to prominence in your actions when they are lacking. The time to think about your health is before you get sick. The time to amass your wealth is when you are healthy.
Recently, I have seen people close to me be forced to deal with serious health and/or financial issues. It’s an eye-opening experience. I’ve seen how neglect can take its toll on a person and the people around them — loved ones, friends, co-workers, employees, and the many people who rely on an individual to be an active participant in their world.
Health, I have discovered, is the greatest gift you can have. All the wealth you can imagine will not help you if your health is compromised. Take preventative measures. Don’t skip that annual check-up or ignore a symptom. Get the tests that are recommended. Follow your doctor’s guidelines for diet, activity, and vaccines. Because you will not live forever but you can make smarter choices to live longer.
A law is a command that is placed upon a citizen, with a defined consequence. If you drive while drunk, you’ll pay a fine, lose your license, or worse, depending on the situation. If you harm an individual, steal someone’s identity, or cheat on your income taxes, the law says you will be punished.
There is no law that says you have to take care of your health. Nor is there a law that says you must be financially careful. Imagine if a law was put in place that dictated you must put 10% of your income into a saving account or you will be go jail for five years. How many people would scramble to comply? And how crowded would our jails be then?
There is a vast difference between law and demand. Law has directed consequences while demand has freedom of choice. When you put an unlegislated demand on yourself, without discipline, you can easily ignore it. You can command yourself to exercise daily but it is too easy to give yourself a day off here and there, with a little rationalization. It’s raining out. I have a headache. I deserve to sleep in today. Whatever the reason, you hold yourself less accountable when no one else is watching.
Buddha said that it is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then, the victory is yours. Make yourself accountable for your life. Create your own set of laws for living. Expect more from yourself and understand that the consequence of compromise is breaking the law. What will be your punishment? A life of less value? Poor health? Guilt?
I challenge you to develop a set of personal standards for yourself and write the laws that will empower you to live up to them. I guarantee you will be a happier, healthier, and richer person for it.
When you start thinking about your professional life — whether you’re in school, training, or into your career — you think about how much money you want to earn. What are you worth and what do you need to do to earn that salary?
For some people, “just enough to get by” is sufficient — enough to pay the bills and enjoy life. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Then you meet someone special and realize you have to raise that level because your needs are greater. You want a decent home and a reliable car, and maybe have some savings tucked away for later. When you think about starting a family, the dollar value of “just enough” becomes quite a bit more.
My question is, why not start out with higher standards? Why not think bigger earlier in your life? Why not use that youthful energy to drive harder, deliver greater results, and earn more than just enough to get by? I think the lower standard is selfish. It deprives you of reaching your potential, making a greater difference, and helping others who can benefit from your success. There are myriad charitable organizations that have suffered greatly from the depressed economy, because donors have been forced to be less generous.
Hard work is the road to wealth. And wealth gives you the opportunity to be generous. It’s about giving. Scripturally, the Bible says I should give away 10% of my wealth. When I lower my own standards, I deprive myself, my family, and my community of the resources they need that I could provide if I were to push myself to deliver greater results and the ensuing income.
I have committed myself to becoming wealthy, not so that I can spend freely, but so I can donate freely, as I wish. I want to be able to share my success with others who deserve a helping hand. That’s the social obligation of wealth. And the reward is far greater than you will ever imagine.
Last year, I went to a car dealership a few miles from my home to buy a car. The salesman showed me a brochure with beautiful pictures. Then I test-drove the model that interested me. I told the salesman that I liked the car but wasn’t in love with the color. He responded that he only had two on the lot and that if I wanted the car, I had my choice of white or white.
I was ready to buy. The only hurdle was the color. And I knew from many prior buying experiences that auto dealers use an online locator and switch cars to make a sale. But the lazy salesperson wasn’t ready to make the small leap to get the sale.
I walked out of showroom, drove home, and did my own locator search. I found a dealership 15 minutes away that had four cars in the color of my choice. I drove there that afternoon and bought the car. And I also return there for service, even though it would be more convenient to use the closer dealership.
The same laziness that I experienced with the first salesman is a chronic problem with many new home salespeople. They need a jolt of a sales strategy I call “GOYA” or “Get Off Your Anatomy! You don’t close deals by sitting behind a desk and taking the take-it-or-leave-it attitude—not in any economy, but especially not in a down one like the present. Get out of the sales center. Show them the homesite where they can envision their new life. Help them experience the dream and then make it happen. And it doesn’t happen when you don’t take control of the situation and guide your buyer to the purchase decision.
My father advised me to pick my friends, champions, and role models carefully. The people you spend your time with, he said, will determine the type of person you become.
This is the nature versus nurture argument that divides so many behavioral scientists, parents, and educators. I believe that nurture has tremendous impact.
Let’s look at the koi fish. A two-inch carp can be placed in a fishbowl with just the right water, temperature, and food. At the end of the year (if it lives that long), the koi fish will still be two inches long. With luck, the koi has a lifespan of a couple of years in this little bowl.
Put that same fish into a larger pond and, one year later, it will likely have grown to a foot in length. In fact, the koi can reach about 40 inches when living in a spacious environment. And the lifespan also increases to 60 years or more!
When given room to grow, a koi fish grows and thrives. In a restricted environment, it merely survives. I believe the same is true for people. We can exist or we can thrive. Unlike the koi fish, we have the ability to choose our environment. When a situation is harmful, crippling, or just plain unproductive, we can move on and create a better life just by making the conscious decision to do so.
As I grew, I saw the wisdom of my father’s words. Past friends took paths that led them in the wrong directions. I learned to surround myself with and to emulate those people who would continue to support my goals. I’ve left the small pond and explored greater waters, with the help of carefully chosen friends and mentors.
A trained behavior is simply one that has been ingrained in you through repetition. Pavlov’s dog was given a treat every time the bell rang so he learned to salivate with anticipation at the sound of a chime. It became an automatic reaction.
Look at a flea circus. These tiny insects spend their short lives jumping up and down. That’s all they do! If you want to train a flea, start by putting it in a box with a lid. The flea will keep jumping up and hitting the inside of the lid. After enough tries (and whacks on the head), it learns to lower its leap height so as not to strike the insurmountable obstacle. Then, once this flea has been trained, the cover is removed and the flea will continue to jump only as high as it has become accustomed to leap, in spite of the fact that there are no longer any boundaries.
I see many people who act like a trained flea. They have become conditioned by failures to overcome obstacles so they lower their expectations. With this defeatist mindset, you cannot reach your full potential.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
What has restricted your upward momentum? Take a look at the setbacks that have prevented you from achieving the success you desire. Go back and make the effort to overcome them. Jump higher. Use your determination to knock the lid off the box. Be a flea-flicker.
Biologically speaking, humans are organisms — like plants, trees, and animals. Like all living things, we go through stages. We are born, we grow, and we die. For many, there is another stage: stagnation. You stop growing, going through life in one constant mode. Sure, we reach our adult height, but what about our emotional and professional growth? At what point do you accept where you are and stop driving yourself forward? When is “enough” going to be good enough for the rest of your life?
In the dormant stage, you make no conscious effort to improve. It’s purely status quo, ordinary, and usual. But growth is happiness. Think about the exhilaration when you have achieved a goal. That is the euphoric result of growth. In essence, you bloom. Do you want a garden filled with stems but no blossoms and with vegetable plants that bear no fruit? Of course not.
Stillness is stagnation. Look at the Dead Sea. This withering body of water lives up to its name. There are noinlets or outlets. It is a stagnant body of water that is receding, creating a minefield of sink holes as it retreats to a natural extinction.
I suggest that you examine your life and your work. Where are you in the growth cycle? Make a move toward growth. Movement creates motivation. Set one goal today, perhaps to do something you’ve put off for a long time. Get up and do it. Then let the satisfaction of achievement be your addictive motivator to keep going and growing.
Making a sale requires action, not inaction. Unfortunately, I see one sales center after another populated with so-called “salespeople” who are merely waiting for a prospect to walk in the door of the model. They’ve sharpened their pitch and are ready to hurl it at anyone who crosses the threshold. But, in the meantime, they sit and wait for the company’s marketing efforts to deliver the buyers to them. While they sit and wait, sales are being lost to more proactive professionals.
Here’s the reality. Marketing is the act of attracting. Prospecting is the act of seeking. The Bible says, “seek and ye shall find.” It doesn’t advise you to sit around and wait. In any economy, but particularly in a down market, you need to get out of your chair and find the buyers. Make it happen!
Prospecting is a contact sport. The more contacts you gain, the more sales you will close. Yet oddly, most salespeople wrap themselves in a cocoon and wait for change to occur, laying their hopes entirely in the ability of the company’s marketing campaign to generate leads. As a salesperson, you can let things happen or choose to seize control of your success. When you become an active prospector, you declare, “I accept complete responsibility for the traffic that comes in here. I depend solely on myself as a marketing department.”
Every day that you wait for someone to come to you is eight hours wasted. Get in the game and make direct contact!
Are you battling the price war in your sales efforts? Do you feel like you have to bottom out your bottom line just to stay in business?
When you feel like taking a hatchet to your price, stop for a moment and think of this: Disney.
Does Disney push you to buy a pass to just one theme park? Do they entice you to come for the thrill of a single ride? Do the ads sell you on a hotel room as a destination or the dining experience of a particular restaurant? Of course not. What Disney sells is a magical experience. The big picture is a mosaic made up of tiny treats that combine to create a vacation like no other.
According to statistics, the average family that visits a Disney theme park consists of 4.5 people who come for four days and five nights at a cost of $5,000. That’s no small investment these days, but the parks continue to fill up. Perhaps in a down economy, the magic of Disney is more important than ever.
But I have to believe that the success of Disney is the corporate culture that is fully invested in delivering a magical experience. And it doesn’t just happen with a spray of pixie dust — even though they can easily make us believe otherwise.
I challenge you to put the magic of Disney into your selling strategy. Visitors invest $5,000 in a Disney vacation because the cost of admission is at least equal to the pure enjoyment they get in return.
What is the cost of admission to your theme park? It’s the price of a new home. How can you turn your sales presentation into a magical experience? What can you do for your buyer that will make that individual not just agree to purchase but be thrilled to do so?
Sell the joy of the home, not the price of the house. Deliver the experience and share the magic.
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