Using the vehicle purchasing experience, we can examine our own sales practices for new homes.
Immediately introducing incentives that matter to you may not matter at all to me. By doing this, you only cheapen your offering and tell me that you are not selling many cars.
Or selling very well according to what the buyers have in mind. How can we ever know the buyers’ agenda? By asking about them, not telling them about us! By actually probing as Dani did. Turns out, I didn’t actually NEED a SUV. By listening to me, by asking good questions, and by knowing her products, she helped me find an alternate solution I hadn’t even considered.
And, how sweet that it was a vehicle that I could drive home that day.
The financing wasn’t the biggest part of my motivation. In some cases, it very well could be and great salespeople know how to discover when that is. Here’s how:
ASK!!
Shut Up!!!
And Listen!!
You’ll learn what I have in mind.
There’s a great saying in these situations:
“I am income; you are overhead. Which does your boss want more of? Whose agenda should matter more?”
Many of us have met the new home salespeople who say they MUST “prequal” every prospect first to be sure they are not wasting their time with a flake.
This was never a best practice, but it is foolish now.
Where are those sites where salespeople don’t have enough time? What would they do if there were not a prospect with them?
And, by the way, even the lenders don’t always get it right, anyway. We all know of sales that were made when another lender repackaged the proposal. And, we have seen “sure sales” evaporate because of poor lenders. So let’s not delegate this matter so soon.
If the payments ARE the most important thing, great. And, for that matter, the site sales professionals should have a pretty god idea of what it takes to afford their homes. They should know the income most likely needed to qualify. And the cash probably needed to close. Maybe the FICO scores. But to simply push away a prospect to a lender is madness.
They buyers NEVER want a loan. They’ll probably need one if they get their problem resolved with our help.
Consider. Why would someone borrow money against an asset that depreciates (some say 30% as you drive off the lot) over time, probably is worth less than the loan amount for much of the repayment period? The reason is what the loan does…it allows the purchase of the vehicle that solves a specific problem. For the prospect.
For the income part of the transaction.
· ASK!!
· Shut Up!!!
· And Listen!!
You’ll learn what I have in mind.
I am income.
