By Shirleen Von Hoffmann President of Homebuilders AdvantEdge Copyright 2010
At Homebuilders AdvantEdge, we do a lot of Secret Shopping all over the nation. I consider the Secret Shopping aspect of my company my very own pulse of the market. I love doing secret shops myself, whenever I can, because it keeps me in touch with what the Agents are doing right and not doing at all. From a training aspect it keeps me in tune to what training the Agents need. Right now what I see most and my new mantra for the year is,”Creating Urgency in Your Self”. The most prominent issue we are seeing is that there is no Urgency in the Sales Teams we have working for us.
You see many articles about creating urgency in the client. But how about starting at the source and Creating some Urgency in Your Sales Teams? Here is what we are seeing out there.
• Too many Agents have not changed what they do every day. They are using the same routines they used when the market was great.
For instance, two out of 35 agents will come with us on a model tour. Most hand us brochure and point us towards the models.
• Too many Agents don’t have, don’t know or are using minimal selling skills and really need to be honing their skills of selling, developing rapport, asking great questions, follow up and marketing.
For instance one out of every 30 Agents will find a reason for follow up and actually do it!
• Too many Agents are just letting prospects walk in and walk out without really getting to know their needs and wants and never following up with them.
For instance one out of every 20 Agents will really ask great questions, get to know us, our needs and stand out from the rest.
• Too many Agents sitting around waiting for prospects to come to them instead of marketing to prospects and bringing them in the door.
• Too many Agents waiting around doing nothing, waiting for the market to change instead of changing themselves, their attitudes and their habits.
It’s the difference between being really great at what you do and just showing up. Agents need to show up with a plan every day, a list of all the things they want to accomplish at work. The list should include marketing, perfecting themselves and their skills.
I have learned that the pulse of the company begins with the President or Owner and moves throughout the organization from that desk. So the question I ask you is this: Are your Sales Teams crystal clear on your company mission, company sales goals and expectations of them? Are they accountable to you? You as the Builder should be the one who sets the tone for the Sales Teams that sell for you and it must be crystal clear what you wish to achieve.
Your Sales Teams represent millions of dollars in your inventory, so you must be no only directly involved with these teams but set the pace and initiatives. It’s the most important thing you can do is have the right people selling for you because it all starts with your Sales Teams.
If I were a builder, in this market I would start with these seven simple things when it came to my Sales Team and never waiver from them.
7 tips to having the very best Sales Teams
1. I would have only the best Sales Team working for me. Everyone working for me would know what my expectations of them were, and if they didn’t exceed my expectations, they will not be working for me.
2. They would need to have that “hunger” for the sale and need to be constantly looking for new ways to bring in prospects, market to them, sell to them and follow up with them. If I didn’t see these traits in my Sales People, they will not be working for me.
3. I would make sure that I was providing weekly training for my Sales Team, so they could hone their sales skills and challenge themselves as individuals and as a Team. I would be present in this training and through performance evaluations and role play; I would know and witness that my team was the very best in the business or they would not be working for me.
4. At all times, I would make sure my Sales Teams knew how much I pay in marketing and advertising to walk one prospect in the door. In other words when they looked at a prospect, I would want them to see a price tag on their head. The price I paid to get them to our front door. I would need to see that they are working those prospects to obtain the absolute maximum value from each or they would not be working for me.
5. My Agents would always be secret shopped to evaluate their performance. They would not only learn from these shops but they would welcome the shops and be confident about their performance in the shops. They would see secret shops as an opportunity to see themselves in action and grow from it or they would not be working for me.
6. My Agents would work a normal 8-5 workday. They would start early and spend the first half of the day half out and about marketing our community to businesses, employers and people in the surrounding area. They would open the community at 11:30 and be there for the rest of the day continuing their marketing by phone and email as well as the rest of their duties. They would have two sets of goals one for prospects I pay to get to the door and another for prospects they bring in from their own marketing. If an Agent didn’t believe that off site marketing was a part of their job description then they would not be working for me.
7. I know Top Producing Sales People like to be recognized both monetarily and in other ways. I would make sure their pay was based on a sliding scale where they would be recognized largely, monetarily, by the company and in front of their peers for these increased sales and efforts. This sort of pay scale would encourage top producers and discourage lower level producers.
Now I am very aware that some of these ideas are far from how we do business in the New Home arena however changing times call for change. As my new book states; A New Day, calls for selling in a New Way! If you want your Sales Teams to start selling in new innovative ways, more like Realtors, then you must be the one to set the tone and the initiatives.
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