Part Four in a 12-part series highlighting the development of a proven New Home Sales Process
The salesperson’s greatest enemies to the sales process are the prospect’s indecision and procrastination. It is common for customers to want to procrastinate and most will put off making a buying decision if they feel they have time to delay. As a matter of fact, most prospects will delay even if they know your community and homes are exactly what they want. Why? Because they can.
Hesitant buyers frequently make statements such as:
Do you have any additional information?
We’re in the initial stage, just beginning to look.
We need to see one more home. (or) What else is available?
We need to think it over.
We must check with our advisors first.
How do you overcome indecision and procrastination? With urgency. Lead your prospect to take action today by kindling a fire that creates a sense of urgency, which provokes and incites him to buy now before it’s too late.
“Too late” means the conditions surrounding the offer will be different at a later date if the prospect decides to procrastinate. “Too late” means the circumstances will not only change, but they may have an adverse effect on the buyer if he delays his decision to own.
The salesperson’s most important role is to create and maintain-from the beginning of the presentation to the close-a positive psychological force that helps the prospect maneuver around the emotional barriers that could delay the sale.
Urgency is not high pressure. It is simply conveying the genuine facts the prospect needs to know to make an informed decision during your presentation. Some of those facts may be associated with deadlines and have a certain degree of urgency attached to them
Review the home’s features, the advantages to buying there, and the benefits to the customer of buyer this home, in this community, from you, today. Perhaps you point out to your prospect that there is a limited availability of homesites, and that what you have now will not be available later. Or, maybe there is an impending price increase, and your homes will soon cost more. Or finance rates are lower now than they have been in previous years. Whatever the reason-availability, price or financing-the conditions for owning will not be as favorable as they are right now.
The Fear of Loss and Desire for Gain
Your prospect’s two greatest emotions are the desire for gain and the fear of loss. Desire for gain is a function of your presentation and how you help prospects perceive through their senses and emotions the lifestyle they will enjoy as a result of owning in your community.
The fear of loss causes prospects to feel that they will miss out or lose if they do not own in your neighborhood. Also, people love what they cannot have. As a matter of fact, most people do not even realize how badly they want one of your homes or homesites until it is suggested that they cannot have it.
Urgency is an emotion, and in order for the prospect to have a sense of urgency, we must first feel it, then forward it to the prospect.
As a salesperson, you must sell to the prospect’s emotions. The emotion of satisfaction coupled with the emotion of urgency will determine whether your prospect purchases or not. Top sales organizations are those whose people incorporate the desire for gain with the fear of loss, creating urgency.
There are many ways to convey urgency, but perhaps the most powerful method is to quote actual sales figures. If your community is selling three homes or homesites per week, you might quote the rate of sales at the beginning of your presentation, saying something such as:
Superachiever: “Mr. and Mrs. Prospect, before discussing our homes and the lifestyle our neighborhood will afford your family, you will notice on our community map the homesites that are tagged/flagged in red. These indicate the homesites that have already been sold. As you can see, we are quite busy at (community). As a matter of fact, we have three homes/homesites that are purchased daily/weekly by families/people just like you.”
Urgency Surrounds You
Here are some ways to create a sense of urgency:
ONE-OF-A-KIND:
The most common, yet powerful form of urgency is the “one-of-a-kind.” People will buy almost anything that they perceive to be one-of-a-kind. The beauty of real estate is that, because of the uniqueness of every home, condominium, townhome or patio home, it is truly one-of-a-kind.
In discussing the fact that the property is one-of-a-kind, it is important that you take the initiative to control inventory. Even if you have 75 homesites, you cannot possibly show that many at one time. You only sell one at a time, so you should first determine which ones you will be showing.
INCREASE IN PROPERTY VALUES:
A pricing strategy should be designed to assist sales momentum. By scheduling price adjustments in advance, developers and builders can give their sales team a good presentation point that causes immediate urgency. Increases in prices are normally structured within predevelopment or preconstruction stages and give early investors an advantage.
POSSESSION DATES AND SCHEDULING:
Move-in and possession is almost always part of the consideration in a decision to own a new home. If construction time is 90 to 120 days, and the closing of their resale home is within the same time frame, then the meter of urgency is ticking. With second homes and vacation homes, possession and delivery can be of paramount importance if the home is to be completed “in season” for personal use or if rental income is important, especially if it is factored into the loan to qualify the prospect.
SELLING FROM STRENGTH:
With urgency, it is important to sell from a position of strength, to appear indifferent about whether the prospect buys or doesn’t buy. In our teenage years, we called this playing hard-to-get with respect to getting dates.
Selling from strength uses the element of reverse psychology that makes people want something they may not be able to get. In other words, you create a need (desire for gain) and then indicate that it may be hard to fulfill (fear of loss).
Next Installment: Discovery — Your Key To Quota Busting.
Myers Barnes
Myers Barnes Associates, Inc.
