New Home Sales Training | Most Experienced
New Home Sales Training | Most Experienced
This is the incredibly humbled Dave montanum here with Aaron Anstiss the founder of builders training academy. Erin is an industry leader in new home sales training and he’s here today to share some wisdom on helping new home sales people help themselves. Erin when we last talked we were really getting into the process of demonstrating a model with buyers potential buyers as they walked through the door. Now you mentioned last time we spoke that show business. So the folks walk in the show is get ready to start. What’s the number one thing or a question to ask for a sales manager to get that model demonstration rolling. New Home Sales Training
Yeah that’s a great question. This seems like it’s so complicated but you know you get them they walk in a lot of times into the garage or office where you’re sitting and maybe your garage office has a trap on it so they have to come through there and it becomes a little bit of an awkward scenario. It’s not that complicated. It’s just. Would you like to see our model. Great. Follow me. You’ll want to then make sure that you take them in through the front door. The number one biggest mistake that new home sales people make and that in my sales training I try and break them of the habit of is they walk them in through the back door garage door laundry room door and not the front door. So make sure that you take them through the front door.
OK so you’ve got these model homes obviously in there. They’re furnished they’ve got all the goodies they might have a beautiful pool table and accessories. There’s features and additional items added to them. How do you demonstrate or present a model home when it’s got extras built in that that it may not come with. New Home Sales Training
That’s a great question. You know so you’ve you’ve taken him around you’ve walked him into the front door I mean after all the architect has created a grand entry I mean architecture. We try and create great first impressions but before you even get to that first impression at the front door. They might see some optional things on the exterior of the home maybe siding is included and you’ve got this brick elevation or brick is included and you’ve got a stone and stucco elevation. And so right off the bat they’re already seeing some upgrades on the home or maybe you’re a. Elevation is included and they’re seeing the sea elevation which is a $15000 upgrade on the outside. So you haven’t even gotten to the front door and they’re already asking Is this included. Is this standard and they’re going through asking some of those questions about you know how much do things cost. And so here’s the thing. I think you as an expert in your industry you need to know your starting prices on your plans. And so you can say you know this home starts at. And you can give them that number or you can say you know we’ve got floor plans here that start from the to 60s or whatever the number is and this home starts in the 90s in this community. So you need to know some kind of starting points. But here’s the thing. New Home Sales Training
As soon as you dive into the analytical If you dive into that right off the bat you know people have the left brain which is the creative and the emotional side and that’s actually the right brain then they have the left brain which is the analytical side of their brain. And as soon as they start going over into the super analytical mode it’s hard to pull them back out of that. And here’s the thing. The process of building a new home is extremely involved. You’re going to get into a great number of details at some point or you’ll never get them to sign a contract. So knowing that you have to create. Some great emotional momentum with them before you get to the point of diving into the numbers so early on you really want to avoid getting into that in the best way to do that is to tell them Look I know you’re going to have a lot of questions about pricing and I promise to give you detailed pricing later but that’s not step one. And in fact I’m going to give you an included feature sheet that has all of the information you’re looking for about what comes included. But later we’ll do a price out. So for right now let’s just talk about the lay out and whether it works for you and the functionality of the design behind the plan. In this way you’re kind of pushing it off till later and you’re voiding it early on so you can build an emotional excitement to give yourself momentum to get them through the pricing and all the way to contract if you’re listening to this right now you.
You’ve been in a model home you’ve been into a builder’s model home. We talked about features and things that are going to be on display in these models. Why do builders put so many options in homes. New Home Sales Training
You know here’s the thing I remember when my kids were young we were sitting there I think my youngest was maybe about four years old and it was Saturday morning and he was watching cartoons on TV. And this commercial came on for this little monster truck and it was funny because the commercial they were showing of course almost like this monster truck drives itself. And you know they were showing like bombs going off as it’s driving through this terrain and moving on its own and like it was like almost this little mini story of like this action film you were seeing this truck live out in the little character that was in the truck but you didn’t see the kids hands like moving the trucks or anything so it was very very grandiose and exciting commercial. The commercial gets over and my son turns to me and he says with this look of like excitement in his eyes he says Dad they make me want it. I started cracking up. But what I also realized at the same time is that’s what we do in the new home industry and this is a great technique for a builder to use is to make them want it. You modeled to what people aspire to. You’re making the model so exciting to look at that it makes them want it and we all know at the end of the day everybody has a budget and they’re going to bring it down to what their budget can afford. At some point anyways but you got to make him want it.
Now though the whole process of demonstrating a model is a process that’s you know you have a design to it has already we’ve been talking yet there’s a mindset there’s goals involved now. What if as your sales managers are going through this process with the clients or the buyers What if they get distracted. They start going how much does this cost. How much does this cost. What does this house cost with the Senate. What do you do to kind of break that cycle and get back to the process. New Home Sales Training
Yeah. Early on you definitely want to avoid this as I was saying it kind of in some of the phrases you can use to deflect some of these questions are things like well it kind of depends on which version you end up choosing. And I’ve got some other plans I’d like to show you first before we decide. This is the one. So like they’ve just walked in the door and they’re trying to get prices for the hardwood floors that are in the entryway and they haven’t even seen the rest of the plans so you want to deflect it and you want to let them see not only that plan but as I have mentioned earlier other plans before you get down into the nitty gritty because ultimately does it matter how much that upgrade costs in this plan when when later on they actually pick a different floor plan they like more. So you don’t necessarily want to bog down in that plan’s options early on. And so I’ll say things you know like that it depends on which version of this you might choose. And then the other thing is I would say to them is that you know it kind that you know once you pick out some of the specifics then I’ll get into some of the pricing. But first there’s some options to how this floor plan can lay out and I think we should focus on that first. New Home Sales Training
Or you know and also on top of that one of the other things I would make sure that you say is let them know that later you will give them an itemized list of the things that they would want to put in the home as opposed to the things we chose to put in the home. And so a lot of times if you tell them that later they’re going to get an itemized list. It deflects them and it makes them calm down a little bit and stop focusing so much on the options.
Now new homes especially the models are infinitely variable I mean they’re all different. There’s there’s different sides to every single one and different builders. What are some of the key features you would always have a sales manager point out. These have to be you know things that are pretty much in common with every home. New Home Sales Training
Yeah and this is a new home sales training technique that I try and really get focused on with new salespeople and that is that you want to make sure that you know what the U S P is for that plan or also for your builder USP means unique selling proposition. So the things that I would point out would be things that the competition can’t offer. Now I’m not saying to slam your competition I’m just saying that Make sure your customer knows you have these things and they don’t. So if there’s anything like that that you can point out those unique selling propositions that’s going to be what you’re going to really want to point out to them so that they’re seeing a difference in you and you’re giving them a reason to purchase from you instead of your competition.
Erin thank you for joining us today and sharing your builder wisdom with us. I’m David Dumont. We’ve been speaking with Aaron N.A. the founder of the builders training academy. Thanks for listening and be sure to apply everything you heard here today for better business tomorrow.
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