I guess I was about as familiar with the concept of real estate investing as the next guy.  I’d seen the infomercials, and even bought the ‘No Money Down’ program several years ago on a whim…

But I had no idea how vital that industry would become – And how Builders, not investors, should be driving the industry – until I met an ‘industry insider’ who explained how everything really works, and why the profits being made are real, legitimate… and can add massive profits to your business, almost immediately!

Ron Tager

I met Ron Tager totally by chance at a marketing conference. Ron is a self-described ‘Real Estate Renegade.’  He is part of an exclusive group of investors that are making a killing buying homes that need a some work for way below the market price… Using money from private lenders (rarely their own) to fund the purchase and the remodel.  Then, they hire builders or remodelers to bring the homes up to certain specs, and finally use one of about a dozen strategies up their sleeve to sell the home for a substantial profit.

And get this – Their best markets are in places like Tampa, Detroit, and Atlanta and many of other markets.  The places we call ‘Builder Hell’ he calls heaven!

Ron’s system is fast, has near-zero risk, and returns huge profits in a very short time.  It’ can be implemented quickly and adds value to your community as well as your bottom line.

And, it can be duplicated by nearly anyone… But is a slam-dunk for builders and remodelers.

So the question Ron asked me was, “Why aren’t all builders doing this?  Why are they struggling to find new homes to build when they could be making a fortune rehabbing existing homes and reselling them?”

Why Builders aren’t doing this.

Reason #1:  Misconceptions.

Like me, maybe you’ve seen the infomercials and thought that real estate investing was just another ‘get rich quick’ scam.  Or, maybe you’ve watched ‘Flip this House’ and concluded that there is just too much risk involved in buying, rehabbing and selling older properties.

Well, the TV shows are all about drama, not reality.  The truth is, as a builder and using the program we’ll be teaching, you’ll be able to quickly identify the most profitable homes to buy – and the fastest, easiest way to rehab and resell them. 

Reason #2:  “I don’t have the money to do this.”

Did I mention that Ron almost never uses his own money to buy and remodel homes?  There are long lines of private lenders and other little-known sources (finding them is one of Ron’s specialties!) that will buy the homes you find and put up the money to do the rehab.  Then, when the house sells, they get their money back, plus a very reasonable return, usually around 7%.

You don’t have to use your own money; all you have to do is bring the opportunity to those lenders.

Reason #3:  “I don’t know where or how to get started.”

Fear not.  Ron and I have spent the past three months researching, brainstorming and planning a way to bring builder-specific training to the people who need it most.

We’ve formed a new partnership, Renegade Builder Systems, and are in the process of creating a series of articles, videos and resources to help builders take advantage of – and lead – what most experts say will be the driving force in the US housing marketing for the next 3-5 years.

When we launch our course, we’ll be teaching you:

*How to find private lenders and numerous other sources – other than banks – ready and eager to fund every project you can bring   them;

*Simple methods for finding the right properties at well below market value;

*Exactly what to do to bring older homes up to rental or resale spec;

*Multiple strategies for turning rehabbed homes into huge profits – Retail, wholesale, sell to investors… or hold them for your      own portfolio and cash flow.

*We’re even including a ‘Done-For-You’ training program where we’ll come to you, set up your entire team and hand you a profitable, up-and-running, turn-key business!

Take Action to Get Started.

As I write this, we’re putting the final touches on a program designed specifically for builders to teach you everything you need to know to begin making huge profits from the skills and resources you already have.  In the mean time, we’ll be sharing some information from a few existing sources to get you started.

In fact, on Monday, one of Ron’s most wildly successful friends will begin posting a series of free training videos explaining exactly what he’s doing to make a high 7-figure income from buying, fixing and reselling existing homes.  He’s promised to let us share the link to those videos with you.  Again, they’re absolutely free and no strings attached, so if you’d like to get the link, simply fill in the form below.

We’ll also send you periodic updates as to our progress, along with additional resources that you’ll find invaluable.  As a bonus, we’ll start by sending you a copy of a Special Report on the ‘3 Big Issues Facing All Builders… And how to make money in spite of them!’

We’d love to find out what your major questions or concerns are.  So please let us know your what you’re thinking by leaving a comment below.

We speak with Steve Hoffacker, Hoffacker Associates.

“Should I open my doors to work with Realtors, or not?”

Most builders have asked that question, and many have found good reason to build working relationships with the real estate community.  Sales and marketing consultant, Steve Hoffacker, tells us why:

“For Realtors, selling new homes is easier, is more beneficial in terms of time usage, and pays well.  But a lot of Realtors are not familiar with the process,” begins Hoffacker.

“Builders on the other hand have been reluctant to use Realtors,” believing that they’ll lose control of the sales process or that the Realtor will come in with their own agenda.

Since you can’t trust what you don’t know, Hoffacker advises that both builders and Realtors make it a point to learn from each other’s perspective and develop a keen working relationship that can be highly beneficial for both parties.

Since times are tough and buyers are few, builders need all the help they can get to find new buyers.  So developing relationships with Realtors who can find and steer more buyers your way is important.  Why, though, should Realtors give serious attention to selling new homes?  One reason is to save time.

When a Realtor brings a qualified buyer to a builder’s sales center, the builder’s sales agent will do the majority of the work of discovery, demonstration, selection and closing.   They don’t have to complete any paperwork worry about collecting the deposit or even arranging financing since the builder typically has that in place.  This is all time saved that the Realtor can use servicing other clients.

Another benefit is that builders can be a source of new listings for Realtors.  How often is a builder presented with a sales contract contingent on the sale of the buyer’s existing home?  That’s when builders benefit from their relationship with Realtors, and the Realtor gets another home to list.

It’s not uncommon for builders to visit real estate offices and make presentations at sales meetings.  Your competitors are doing it, too.  So Hoffacker recommends going a step further to nurture relationships on an individual level.  Taking the extra step, such as giving agents a copy of Steve’s book to follow as a manual for your working relations, helps build rapport and trust, explains in detail how you will work with agents and their customers, and assures them that they will be well compensated for their time and effort.

We’re not talking about replacing the builder’s in-house sales team with outside Realtors.  Rather, Hoffacker is teaching builders how to use Realtors to generate more leads into your office to be serviced by sales professionals trained and educated on your specific product.  That might be an outside firm that you’ve hired, but even then, that firm will far more equipped to represent your homes or communities than a general real estate agent.

Realtors not only bring you more buyers, their commissions are also offset by the marketing they do in your behalf – money that you’re not spending from your own marketing budget.  It’s the broker’s marketing that finds the buyers they bring to you, making the cost of working with a Realtor even more appealing.

The Realtors you cultivate relations with can also act as de facto marketing advisors.  They know what’s selling in the marketplace, where the most activity is and what buyers are continuing to ask for and respond to.  Their knowledge can help you make sure your bringing the right plans, features and amenities to market to ensure high buyer approval.  After all, the better your product is positioned for the current market, the more attractive it will be to Realtors as well as buyers.

Choosing Realtors to work with.

“I like the idea of aggressive up-and-comers,” say Hoffacker.  “The top producers already have their way of doing things, so you’re looking for aggressive newer agents that will subscribe to your way of doing business and that will be loyal to you over time.

“Talk to the broker or office manager and tell them what you’re looking for – someone new who is looking to develop a good business, who has a good work ethic and is an aggressive marketer.  Then, talk to that person.  Tell them that their broker identified them as the person to talk to in that office and that you’d like to make an appointment to speak with them because you feel that you can help them make a lot of money.”

Once you’ve identified Realtors to work with, some basic orientation on your product will help them find and qualify appropriate buyers and to better promote your company.  Specialized training is also available through NAHB’s Institute of Residential Marketing, which offers Certified New Home Sales Professional (CSP) and Master of Institute of Residential Marketing (MIRM) courses and designations.

You don’t have to be a large builder to cultivate relationships with Realtors.  In fact, small builders without an in-house sales team can particularly benefit by using a Realtor as part of their marketing and sales force.

Should you be working with Realtors to marketing your property?  We think, yes!

Contact Steve Hoffacker at http://www.stevehoffacker.com

Order Steve’s new book, Selling With Builders – How Realtors Can Profit From Selling Builders’ New Homes here.

[Originally published in The Journal of the Manufactured Housing Institute; May 2011]

It’s not that I’m pessimistic, but I rarely expect an exceptional experience as a customer.

I travel a fair amount, mostly in the service of clients who hire me to speak at their company or group meetings or to consult on their sales or marketing processes.  In order to be as frugal as possible with my client’s expense account, I usually shop out airline tickets, rental cars and motels online and choose the best deals available.

My experience has been that most of these service providers are basically the same.  I’ve come to expect that I’ll get to the rental car agency, wait in line while an impersonal agent shuffles through waiting customers until it’s my turn, then endure the hard sell as they try to get me to buy their extras – insurance, pre-paid fuel, etc.  That’s true of just about all of the name brand rental shops.

However, on a recent trip to Chicago I had a different experience.  My ‘best deal’ from Hotwire.com brought me to Enterprise Rent-A-Car for the first time in a long while.  Here’s what happened:

I stepped off of the shuttle to be greeted by a well-dressed young man who opened the door for me and welcomed me with a warm smile.  Although it was fairly busy, an available agent, again in business dress and with a compelling smile, beckoned me right in.  Another agent approached me with a bottle of water, commenting that I must be thirsty after my flight.  My reservation was quickly located (an economy car with no frills) and the paperwork was started.  I sipped my water and relaxed, just a bit.

At this point, I typically go into ‘no’ mode:  No to their expensive insurance; no to the pre-paid gas; no to every add-on or extra.  But, something was different here.  They didn’t try to scare me into buying their insurance coverage.  They did, though, offer to let me upgrade to a beautiful new SUV (I’d been dying to test drive!) for just $5.00 per day.  I heard myself saying ‘yes.’  Then, they proposed that I probably wouldn’t want to go through the hassle of stopping in downtown Chicago on the way back to to buy gas, when I could relax and let them handle it by prepaying the gas.  Another ‘yes.’  And, instead of stopping to pay tolls every 10 miles, it was explained that I could cruise right past them at 65 mph if I purchased their Easy Pass unit.  YES!

In the end, not only did I spend an extra $120 (out of my own pocket, not expensed), I came away feeling good about the company, the entire transaction, and myself!  They had crafted for me an experience that dissolved my defenses and allowed me to open up and be more receptive to options I really did want, but didn’t want to be pressured into buying!

That experience was so different from what I expected – from what their competitors are offering – that I was stunned.  They profited nicely by getting me out of ‘no’ mode into saying ‘yes.’  More than that, they earned all my future business, at least until the point where their service falls below my new expectations.  Barring that, I’m a customer for life.

Now, what did it cost them to deliver an exceptional experience to me?  Add it up:

• Employees who were friendly and dressed in business attire:  $0
• Smiles all around: $0
• A bottle of water: $0.30

Yet, giving attention to me as a customer – understanding what I might be feeling and experiencing as I walked into their office as opposed to how I wanted to feel – earned them a substantial reward, my loyalty and additional purchases.  And none of this had to do with what might be construed as their product – the car.  In reality, it had everything to do with their real value-add, customer attention and service.

What will it take to make impress your customers with an exceptional customer experience?  What will it be worth to you if you do?

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who are my customers, and what are they feeling when they enter my office or visit my website?
• What are their pains, fears, uncertainties, or doubts?
• What will they experience from my competitors?
• What are their hopes versus their expectations?
• How can I demonstrate an interest in them above and before an interest in their business?
• How can I create an experience that makes people want to do business with me?

It’s not about your product; it’s about your concern for your customer first.  Enterprise strategically crafted an experience that made me feel good as a person first.  By doing that, they earned a customer for life.

About the author:

Scott Stroud helps housing businesses find the hidden value in the their products and services to attract more buyers and profits, even in challenging housing markets.  He coaches small businesses through The Selling More Homes Academy, an online MasterMind group for housing professionals, and is host of the weekly Selling More Homes Podcast at http://BuilderRadio.com/blog.  Email Scott at sstroud@builderradio.com, or call 606-677-0447.

Jerry Rouleau

As many of you know Jerry Rouleau has been battling cancer for the past two years.  On Tuesday morning, March 15, 2011, at 5:30 am EST Jerry’s struggle ended.  He died surrounded by his family at St. Francis Hospital.  Jerry is survived by his wife, Valerie; his sons, Jason and Scott and Scott’s wife, Amber; his daughter, Kerry, three sisters and numerous grandchildren, cousins, nieces and nephews.

Few people I’ve known have had the opportunity to touch as many lives in such a gracious and endearing way as Jerry Rouleau.  Whether in business or in other aspects of his life, Jerry had a way of inspiring everyone around him.  You never left Jerry’s presence without feeling better about yourself, and that is a truly remarkable characteristic, one worth emulating.

Those of you who met Jerry through this program know him as the founder of BuilderRadio and The Selling More Homes Podcast, which he co-hosted with me for over three years.

Before BuilderRadio, though, Jerry had been involved in the housing industry for over 25 years as President of J. Rouleau & Associates, offering public relations, sales and marketing resources and consulting to builders, housing companies and building product suppliers.

During his career, Jerry has spoken personally to over 8,000 industry professionals who have attended his seminars & workshops.  He’s shared the stage with most of the industry’s best-known speakers and trainers, and even had the honor of appearing with Earl Nightingale. In addition, he is the author of Selling New Homes: Sales & Marketing Workbook for Million-Dollar Producers, Selling More Homes the Easy Way, The Insider’s Guide to Selling More Homes, and the eBook, Selling More Homes the Easy Way, Part 2.

Jerry was an active member of the National Association of Home Builders and was a regular speaker at the NAHB’s International Builder Show for the past several years.  He was also active in the Building Systems Councils and was a recipient of the coveted S.A. Walters Chairman’s Award.  This past January, the National Sales and Marketing Council’s Institute of Residential Marketing awarded Jerry with the Friends of the Institute award for his years of support and contributions.

After having lost his wife, Jan, to cancer 10 years ago, Jerry created Jan’s House of Hope, a fund raising project which involved building a 3,100 sq. ft. home on a barge – complete with 3 car garage, car in the driveway and fenced in landscaped yard –which toured seven cities on the east coast. The tour generated over $15 million of publicity for cancer awareness in a two-month period.

For those of us with whom Jerry shared his vision for BuilderRadio and Selling More Homes Media, our task is to continue to build on the foundation he laid for us.  It’s with profound gratitude to Jerry – and a deep sense of loss – that we’ll continue this program in his honor.

In honoring Jerry’s wishes, there will be no funeral services.  His family will hold a “Celebration of His Life” in the near future.  It was Jerry’s wish that memorial donations be made to St. Francis Hospital, 8th Floor Oncology/Hospice Floor, c/o Nurse Manager Cindy Climer, RN, MS, OCN, 114 Woodland Street, Hartford, CT 06105, so current and future patients and their families may be helped, as he had been helped.

Jerry touched a lot of lives in a very positive way.  How did he touch yours? Please leave a comment below and share your experience working with Jerry that we can, in turn, share with his family.

Your emails are worthless if they aren’t opened, read and responded to.  Sundeep Kapur shares these 7 tips for creating effective email campaigns.

I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m getting pretty tired of hearing news reports about how bad the housing market is.  And it really gets me ruffled when they scare buyers away from buying a new home – as if this wasn’t the best time in our lifetimes to invest in a new home!

I understand that times are tough for most of us.  I feel it just as much as most of you.  And, sadly, I have good friends who have lost their companies because they weren’t prepared for the market changes that we’ve experienced in the past three of four years.

So, I’m not being insensitive – I’m just ready for somebody to start talking about solutions instead of rehashing the problems over and over again, confusing buyers and de-motivating the rest of us into a false belief that ‘there’s nothing we can do; that we might as well give up.’

I refuse to believe that  ‘we’re all doomed’ – and I don’t think you should believe it, either… And here’s why:  there are today, right now, in just about every market I’ve seen – builders, Realtors, and remodelers that have adjusted their marketing and sales strategies and are realizing huge success – I’m talking about record-breaking sales and profits… and in some of the “worst markets” in the country – FL; CA; MI…

What are they doing that’s so radically different… And, most importantly, how can you do what they’re doing… and get the same results they’re getting?

Through the BuilderRadio faculty we’ve been able to piece together some ‘market truths’ that we want to share with you in this series of three short videos.  But, in a nutshell, these super-successful builders understand three things:

1. The factors behind the current ‘housing recession.’
2. The real needs families and potential buyers are facing today…
3. The fears that buyers have… and how to turn those around and inspire confidence, even excitement, at the opportunity to buy now.

Let’s start with #1:  What are the factors behind the current market?

Go back a decade ago to the late 1990s and early 2000s.  Economists were worried that a recession was about to hit but they thought they could keep it from happening by propping up the largest pillars of the economy – the auto industry and the housing industry – to plow through the threat.

They focused on creating the desire for more new homes – bigger, better homes that would keep 100,000s employed and the economy moving.  Government programs made mortgages more affordable and available, and Housing became the Hero of the American Economy!

New home construction single-handedly buoyed up the entire economy and kept it from stalling out.  As a result, home prices took off as the entire country ‘bought in’ to the American Dream of owning a brand spanking new home, whether they could actually afford it our not!

Over a four-year period — from February 2002 to February 2006 — the Case-Shiller index increased … about 50 percent.

The market was responding according to “irrationally optimistic beliefs about future housing price appreciation.”  The Wall Street Pit.com

“But low interest rates, favorable home legislation and poor oversight, and a desire to make every American a homeowner led Washington and Wall Street down a destructive path.”  Motley Fool – April, 2010

What caused the housing bubble?

1. Lax Lending Standards – unqualified borrowers
2. Creative lending – subprime; adjustable, 0-interests, 0-down payment…
3. The Growth of the Secondary Mortgage Market
4. Big Builder Buy-In

Greed, a lack of regulation, oversight and enforcement, and shortsightedness – some blame banks, some blame economists, everyone blames government.  It was all of the above; builders, too.

The ‘bubble’ burst when the fuel (money) was no longer there to support it.

Homeowners who had been just barely able to pay their mortgage in good times were now defaulting, prices were falling, home values were tumbling… Giving us the market and economy we are experiencing today…  A deep dive in housing prices and values.

But, think for a minute:  Did the houses change?  Did their real value decrease?  Did people need them less?  Have people decided to stop living in houses?  Have families stopped growing?  Have people stopped immigrating to this country?  Are older homes somehow better than new homes now?

NO to all the above.

What has changed is the prices of your homes are more affordable now than ever…

Mortgage rates are still outstandingly low… but harder to get.  When I built my first house in 1979, a typical deposit was 20%.   What is it today?  20%.

Yes, buyers now have to demonstrate a financial stability and offer reasonable assurance to a lender that they can actually pay the loan and thus afford the home.

Where does that leave us – those of us who market, build, or sell homes?

Greater need; smaller market of able buyers.

Confused market where appraisals seem to favor the older, existing homes. (that’s what appraised by.)

You’ll hear that REOs and Short Sales erode market…  Don’t believe it; it’s simply not true.

New vs. Old:

• Cost More – pound for pound, NOT feature for feature!
• Little initial Maintenance
• Warranty
• Choices
• Energy Efficient
• Longer life

As bad as the economy is, are people still buying new cars instead of used?

Automakers do a good job of creating value perception.  The value is there, they just know how to get their point across.  You don’t see Ford crying about how cheaply you can buy a used car – they don’t care; it isn’t new.

Facts:  There is a market.  Confused, timid, gun shy, but real.

The Good Old Days of ‘blind optimism’ are gone… for at least another decade, leaving instead something I think might be better: a reason for ‘Sighted optimism.’

You need sales now.  So, what does it take to find, attract, and engage buyers in this market?  That will be the topic of the next video in this 3-part series: The key to selling more homes now!

Help is coming.

http://SellingMoreHomesMedia.com

We speak with, Duane Sparks, CEO of The Sales Board and author of the book, Action Selling.

Everybody sells.  There are situations where husbands are selling wives, wives selling husbands, parents selling children and children selling parents, employees selling employers and employers selling employees.  It goes on all around us.  Any time you have an interaction with someone where the end result, the expected result, is to gain a commitment, that’s selling. It goes on all the time.

So, all of us sell.  Some of us are professionals at it. The question is, can selling be a genuine profession like engineering or medicine, or is it just an occupation? Professions have rules.  They have recognized patterns.  They have organized bodies of knowledge that can be taught and then put to use proactively with predictable results.

Selling skills are sometimes presented as collections of reactive tips.  So if a customer says this, you do that.  That requires salespeople to remember all kinds of reactionary things.  If somebody does this, you do that.  So you have a bunch of Xs and Os that you’ve got to remember.  Not everybody is nimble enough to be really good at that.  A better approach is to have a proactive sales process that allows salespeople to use specific skills to encourage customers to move towards a buying decision.

Salespeople, if they look at sales as a profession, can make as much money if not more than some of those fields. So, why is it that some salespeople are challenged to recognize that if they follow these rules they, too, can increase their income?

The problem is twofold.  Some people have never been trained on how to be professional salespeople.  For those that have been trained, some of the training is just particularly bad and salespeople have been taught some manipulative techniques for gaining commitment.

I know in my first sales training experience I was taught no less than 30 different closes.  Things like the sharp angle close or the Ben Franklin close.  I remember the puppy dog close.  I made a living in the 70’s using the alternate choice close – “would you prefer Wednesday or Thursday?” But even that is now viewed as manipulative.  So what’s needed is a sales process that’s based on how people buy so you match your process with theirs.  That’s what we do with Action Selling training.

Matching the Buying Process: 5 Steps, 5 Skills

There are five unique decisions that people go through before they buy.  These are decisions that are made in every major purchase.  From my experience, they’re made in a predetermined sequence.  I’ve also found that when your sales process matches up with that sequence, you’re far more successful.

The first decision that the customer makes is about the salesperson.  Do I like this person?  Do I trust this person?  Do I feel that this person has my interest in mind?

The second decision is about the company that person represents – are they credible, are they viable, do their policies match with how I like to be treated as a customer?

The third buying decision is about the product – does it fit my needs.

The fourth buying decision is the price of the product as an investment; as a value.  Is it a good value?

The fifth decision is a decision about when to move forward; we call it time to buy.

These five decisions are present in every major purchase.  Now, if they’re made in the proper sequence and the salesperson helps the customer make these decisions in their favor, it can be far more successful than if we get these things out of sequence.

Over the last 20 years we’ve done a lot of studies on what skills help salespeople improve the most. We’ve been assessing salespeople before training and after training and comparing improved results to specific skills that were learned.  So when we measure learning, we have an opportunity to be able to tie it back to specific skills.

Five skills have risen to the top as being the ones that we call them the critical selling skills.  These are the ones that have the most impact on performance.

Number 1 is the buyer-seller relationship.  Understanding how buyers buy and having a sales process that matches up with that like I had explained earlier with the five buying decisions.

Second is having an effective way of planning sales calls.  It seems like salespeople that are better at that – being prepared, having the right kind of objectives in mind with the sales call, having questions prepared ahead of the call so they can engage the customer in the sales process that was the second skill – are more productive.

Third is questioning skills.  The question, in my opinion, is the number one tool that salespeople have available to them, and those that are good at questioning are also better at seeing commitments.

Fourth is presentation skills.  I don’t mean just talking about the products, but connecting the customer’s needs to your product capabilities, therefore offering a solution to customers.

The fifth skill is gaining commitment.  That’s why salespeople are valuable to employers.  That’s what helps drive their income.  They are good at gaining commitment from customers.  So, those five things are the critical skills.  They’re learnable, they’re measurable, and when salespeople improve in each of those skill areas, their performance also improves.

Selling Yourself First

From my experience it takes good people skills to be effective at selling yourself. To me, questioning is the key people skill and it’s the artful part of selling.  It’s the part that you can get better and better at and you can practice.

In our action selling training program, I would say a good third of what we teach is relative to improving the ability of salespeople to ask great questions.  In our experience, about 85% of us need a lot of help in asking the right kind of questions, asking the right questions, and allowing them to leverage the answers to help sell themselves.

Do that and you set everything else up for the rest of the sales call.  You understand what’s important for the customer, so when you present your company and you’re product you’re not presenting enormous amounts of detail, but you’re taking the rightful approach to what the customer explained their situation was and how your product satisfies that situation.  So questioning sets the whole thing up.  Sell yourself and your position well to sell everything else in the sales process.

So things happen when all those buying decisions are in alignment with the presentation that the salesperson uses. The customer comes away saying, “This is perfect.  This is a great match.  I like the person.  The company is great.  The product fits my needs.  The investment is worthwhile and I think it’s time to buy!”

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Learn more about Action Selling at www.actionselling.com.

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Sponsors:  Lasso Data Systems Sears Commercial Marketplace StrucSure Home Warranty

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New Webinar:  Wednesday, June 23  2:00pm EDT -

Your Marketing Mix: Where to Invest; How to Measure Results;
How to Nurture Prospects to Close.
What is a good mix of online marketing versus traditional outlets?  How do you optimize connecting with prospective buyers in today’s world?  Learn about the strategies and tactics for connecting and interacting – creating awareness, connecting with brokers and developing referral strategies.  Plus, how to pinpoint best lead sources to maximize media marketing ROI and down to earth tactics and technology tips to nurture leads and convert prospects to purchasers.

Presented by:  Dave Clements, Dave Betcher and Carol Ruiz

Registration:  $37.   Register here.

We speak with Jack Gallagher, Gallagher Marketing Group, Jacksonville, NC

I’ve been a tremendous advocate of networking over the years because I’ve seen how it works to sell more new homes.  People like to buy from people that they know and like, and selling is a numbers game – the more contacts you make, the better your chances of creating a sale.  So the more networking that you can get done, the more contacts that you can develop and the more referral business that you can create, the better off your going to be and the more homes that you’re going to be able to sell.

Building Your Referral Network

An ideal place to start is at industry events or conferences, at your local Home Builders Association or Sales and Marketing Council, or at the different committee meetings that you might be involved with.  Also, any tradeshow or home show within your local area is a great place to network.  But don’t forget that a lot of the opportunities would come right in front of your face when you’re just doing your general day-to-day business, whether it’s at the grocery store, the dry cleaners, the post office, the hair salon – any of those activities that you happen to run into different people are opportunities to network, get a contact and ask for a referral.

I know one Realtor that always wears her name badge when she does her everyday regular  shopping.  She gets an unbelievable number of referrals just because she identifies herself as a Realtor to the people she interacts with regularly.

So, you’ve got to identify yourself; you’ve got to talk to people.  And, when you do, you should have a 30-second ‘commercial’ prepared so that you can give your pitch as to who you are, what you’re doing and why you’d like to make a contact and become a friend of that particular individual. It should be a short introduction with a quick who, what and why so you can exchange a business card and ask them if they know anybody that’s interested in buying a new home.  Don’t be too overly aggressive, but certainly ask for referrals.

Builders, meet Realtors…

Statistics show that in many major markets 65-80% of all new homes sales are brought in by Realtors.  So the real estate community is a great place to network, and what I suggest is that you develop a Realtor builder advisory board and target five to six real high powered Realtors that are selling new homes.  I did this for a project in Cincinnati; I got together with them once every 4-6 weeks, had lunch and as it turned out, they created 36% of the sales in the new community that I was marketing.  So, it’s a great idea to get some high value contacts that will help provide the additional sales that you’re looking for.

You can identify those agents very easily.  Each of the different real estate boards is always providing their list of awards and showing the different people as to the kind of volume that they’ve done.  So identification is very simple; it just becomes a question of picking up the phone or dropping by their office, going into your 30-second commercial and talking to them about the who, what and why, and then developing a camaraderie so that you can create a lunch meeting or a cocktail meeting, whatever it might be.  If you get five or six of those heavy hitters, you’re going to be further ahead than your competition.

Get involved.

I think it’s critical that you get involved in your industry and you stay visible – volunteer your time and efforts, even donate your money in some cases and maybe become a sponsor of some different events, whether it’s for the local Sales and Marketing Council or the local real estate office.  But it’s critical that you offer you expertise and volunteer and become visible within the community.  And never forget that once you’re out there, one of your purposes is not only to donate your time and your efforts, but also to create the visibility where people will learn to like you and they know who you are.  As we said in the beginning, people like to buy from people that they know and they like.

Why volunteer your time?  A lot of times there will be tradeshows or events with your local HBA or your Sales and Marketing Council where you’re going to be working a booth perhaps with somebody else that is a little bit more experienced, and that will help you to get over some of that fear.  But you’ve got to put your foot in the water.  You just got to be able to get out there like Nike says and ‘just do it.’  Get involved with it and become visible.  And the more often that you do it, the less intimidating it becomes and the more you become skilled in networking.  Those types of involvements with committees or fundraisers that help you stay visible in the marketplace will be very advantageous to creating a better network.

The problem, however, often becomes that people over extend themselves.  You don’t want to get involved in too many different activities and over extend yourself so that you’re taking away from what your primary purpose is, to sell more homes.

Contact… Now what?

Once you make that initial contact its critical to immediately follow up within the first 24 to 48 hours either by phone, email or by snail mail with a note.  Include a reference to what you talked about – something that came up in the conversation obviously referencing your community that you’re trying to sell the new homes in – and ask for their referral.  Ask who do they know that might be looking for a new home, and then ask for permission to keep in touch on a periodic basis.  And also ask permission to add them to your Facebook or your other social media site.  Once you get that done, now you’ve established a real contact, so you can continue that networking, continue the relationship.

Follow up with a note to say thanks and then pay it forward.  Provide some kind of benefit to the new contact that’s not going to cost them anything and that’s not going to cost you anything, but will help them in their business. Networking is a two-way street and referring business to them, looking for ways to help them build their business, is an excellent place to start.  When you’ve given somebody a referral or you’ve done something to help them, then they look for ways to reciprocate.

Just to summarize and put some memory points out there:

• Never miss an opportunity to network, whether it’s going to be at the gym, at your social meetings or tradeshows, etc.
• Prioritize your target audience; look for the high value contacts that are out there, those Realtors and agents that are selling a whole lot of new homes that will sell in your marketplace.
• Develop your 30-second introduction and have that ready when you talk to people so that you can let them know who you are what you’re doing and where you’re doing it;
• Exchange business cards so that you have all that information;
• Follow up immediately;
• Be unforgettable;
• It’s always nice when you can offer them a referral as well to get that relationship going;
• Pay it forward – create some kind of no-charge benefit for them; give them some kind of referral or benefit and then ask for their referral.

A wise man told me a long time ago that if you want to catch any fish, you got to go where the fish are.  Networking can help you develop a whole lot more new customers, create a whole lot more sales and put more money in your pockets.

So, get out there and meet a whole lot of new people and create a whole lot more new sales.

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Conact Jack Gallagher by email at jgall8@aol.com.

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BuilderRadio welcomes Dave Clements and Dave Betcher as new faculty members! See what they and the rest of our faculty can do for you!

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New Webinar: Finding Buyers – Planning Your Marketing Strategy

How buyers shop today is radically different from what it was just 5 years ago.  In fact, 87% of
buyers will first find you online… If they find you at all!  Presented by noted marketing
strategist, Jerry Costanzo, you’ll learn the simple, yet powerful questions you should be asking
about your market, products and services, and discover how to plan a marketing strategy that
puts you in front of buyers quickly, efficiently and affordably.

Live Presentation: Wedneday, May 12  2:00pm (Registrants also get a link to the recording.)

Registration:  $37 Register here.

Attend this webinar for free by helping us with a brief survey! Details…

We speak with Joe Colletti, The Joe Colletti Group

The Joe Colletti Group provides sales training and business growth consulting to builders, developers and real estate brokers.  Joe is a well-known speaker in the housing industry and is the co-author of Roadmap to Success, with Ken Blanchard and Stephen Covey.

Here, Joe shares his take on the sales process and what he refers to as the presentation sequence:

Through the years I’ve done my share of mystery shops.  About four or five years ago I began noticing that there was a common thread that was starting to appear, that no matter how qualified and how experienced the salesperson was, there were routinely things they missed – they forgot to ask this question; they forgot to give that information.  Out of over 300 shops, not one salesperson ever made it through a sales presentation without letting at least something slip through the cracks.

It comes to down to 1) not doing the fundamentals, and 2) not having a structured presentation with a purpose and a direction.

Many people have what they call ‘presentations,’ but they’re really just giving information to the potential buyer.  They’re giving information about builders, about their product or their community, but not with a real purpose in mind.  The purpose should be to give good information to that buyer that’s going to help them move forward, and asking questions of that buyer at the right point and place and time that will help you customize the presentation for that particular buyer.

I’ve developed a flowchart to help augment the presentation for the salesperson.  It’s broken down into six major modules.  They are:

1. Pre-Demonstration
2. Model Demonstration
3. Inventory Demonstration
4. Targeting Sequence
5. Review and Confirm
6. Closing Sequence.

Hopefully, you could do all of this in one sitting with a customer, but there are many times when you can’t.  But you always do the sequence in this format.  What it’s doing is telling the salesperson this is the important information that you need to first give, then this is the important information you need to receive from that customer to help customize it for their needs.  What you’re doing is trying to find out what I call the BPP, the buyer’s Purpose To Purchase.

So many of us don’t find out what the PTP of the buyer is, and if we do, we find out bits and pieces.  But as soon as you find out the actual PTP for a buyer – or purpose to purchase – you automatically incorporate that into the rest of the presentation.  It actually is hitting on those areas that you know are really important to that particular buyer.  So now that buyer becomes part of the presentation and knows that you are aware of what they’re looking for; that buyer then gives you good information.

There’s a saying out there that we’ve all heard, ‘buyers are liars.’  Everybody says that, but I don’t agree.  I don’t think they’re liars; I just think that we ask the buyer for important or personal information at the wrong point and place and time of the presentation.

There are certain times when you can ask for specific information and you’ll get it back correctly.  There are certain times when you have to give information regarding your product, your builder, your developer or your community to your customer.  It’s more scientific and it’s more structured than people tend to realize.

So many salespeople today have the philosophy, ‘I understand; I feel good; I know my product; I know what’s going on. Let me get all this information out and now I feel good because I gave the information.’  That’s not the way to do presentation.  That’s really information-giving and it’s not really having a presentation that is part of a conversation.

So the six modules will tell you when you should be doing certain things within the presentation.  Then I have three sub-modules.  Those three sub-modules I refer to as proactive energy.

Proactive energies are ideas that you need to inject within that particular module.  For example, prior to demonstration make sure you go over the amenities and lifestyle.  You have to sell lifestyle and amenities before you can actually sell the product.  Too many salespeople  start selling product before they actually sell the places to where people are going to live.  First you have to sell the lifestyle so that people say, ‘Yeah, I could see myself living here.  I could really enjoy the amenities that are here.  Now sell me the product.’

What’s happened is that over the years  selling has become too simple and people are cutting out the fundamentals.  They’re giving information.  Instead, we have to ask for what I call first-, second-, and third-degree probing questions to get information from customers.

Most salespeople, even if they’re good, are only going first-degree questions; some maybe second-degree questions.  It’s like taking an onion and peeling back all the layers and until you get to the core, which is the substance, and now you really understand what’s going on with that potential customer and they understand what you’re there for.  We need to make sure we peel back those layers so we can build a better rapport, build trust with the customer, and have the customer say this person really is listening to me; this person really understands what I want.

Doing a good presentation is 80-85 percent of the close.  Fifteen to twenty percent of that presentation is a customization that you do by asking the right questions and providing the right information at the certain important point, place, and time to customize it for that particular buyer.  So, if the presentation is done the same for 80-85 percent of the people walking through the door, 15-20 percent of it that has to be customized for each individual so you can gather the right information.

Structure Your Presentation

Without a sequence someone may forget to do something because they don’t have it structured in some way to understand what they need to be doing at a certain point, place, and time.  But now with studying and understanding this flowchart they say, “Gee, these are the things I need to be doing at this particular point and place and time.”

For example, Module 2 is model demonstration and Module 3 is inventory demonstration. Well, if you’re in a community where you don’t have both a model and inventory, you combine those two modules.  So your presentation becomes one module for those two issues because of what you have or do not have in your particular community.

In the actual training programs that I do, I give a laminated copy of the printed flowchart to my client and I encourage the salesperson, no matter what level they’re at, to take the laminate and not only study it so that they get the modules’ order down, but also so they know what they’re going to be looking for in each one of those modules.  They keep it with them when giving presentations until they’ve actually committed it to memory.  They can slide it in a portfolio or legal pad, and as they’re presenting they can actually lift that up as if they’re looking for additional information regarding their product.  But what they’re doing is looking at the flowchart to say, ‘I’m at this point in the presentation and by giving the information I need, I am gathering the information I need to gather.’

So it’s there with them always like a checklist that a pilot uses when they take off.  I don’t care how experienced a pilot may be, one always goes through every point of the checklist.

I keep coming back to the fundamentals.  There’s got to be a structure to the presentation with a purpose, and the purpose isn’t strictly a one-sided purpose, it’s two-sided.  It’s the salesperson needing to give information and the salesperson needing to gather information.

You need to establish the purpose to purchase from that buyer.  You need to find out why are they there.  They may say, “Well, I’m not really interested in purchasing right now; I’m just looking at the furnishings.”  Well, as you ask specific questions and you ask the correct probing questions, you will unlock the fact is that there is a purpose to purchase that would make that person buy and that’s where it becomes customized for that particular potential buyer.

So without gathering that information – without focusing in on specific information -  you don’t establish their purpose, and you may not have enough time to establish it before they walk out.  So you need to make sure that you’re actually zeroing in on what that particular person’s purpose to purchase is.  If they’re out looking at a home today, in most cases there’s a good chance that they’ll buy it if they find the right product and the right community that fits their needs.  But if you don’t understand what that is, then there’s no way you can guide them in the right direction to find it.

The 500% Potential Increase

Back in 2004-2005 a survey was made of people that purchased brand new homes or had new homes built.  The survey was to determine how many of those people really were actually interested in buying a new home when they originally came out to look. 20 percent of those buyers said they had some idea that they wanted to buy; 80 percent had no intentions to buy, but they bought due to the fact that the salesperson, the product, or the community.

That means that we have the potential to increase our sales five fold if we do a better job of engaging more people in this process!  We get buying signals from somebody who’s really serious about finding something to buy; the other 80 percent do not give off buying signals.  That’s why we need to find out the purpose to purchase and actually get involved with that.

So, typically, the buying signals we zero in on, but the people who don’t give us buying signals, we kind of like put them on the backburner.  Now, I tell my clients, you want to increase your sales?  You don’t have to increase your marketing; you don’t have to increase your traffic.  All you have to do is increase your closing ability through your presentation process to close more of the 80 percent than you would have previously.

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Contact Joe Colletti at www.JoeCollettiGroup.com

Download The Presentation Sequence Flow Chart here.

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Special Online Coaching Event:

Wednesday, April 28   2:00pm ET (Note:  program will be recorded for on-demand replay.)

Deepening Relationships that Lead to Referrals

With guest host, S. Robert August.

In this world of electronic communication, are we losing touch with our personal selling skills? Learn how to network by cultivating old and new leads and referrals everyday in every way. Make your network work for you as you build more sales, closings and profits!

Registration:  $37     Register here.

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