Watch your homebuyer's signals

Think about all of the different products you've purchased in your lifetime, and think about all of the salespeople you've worked with while shopping for those products.

Harry Beckwith, author of "You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself," tells a story based on the fact that each of us works with salespeople and that we work with them on a daily basis:

"Examine all of your own purchases — products and services — and think of the people that sold them. Did the sellers know more about their products and services? Were they able to detail why theirs was a superior product? In fact, to what extent did they sell you at all?

Time and again, you bought their hearts and souls. You bought them and their spirit; — their enthusiasm and warmth. Without realizing it you bought their love of life and their love of people. You bought from them because you enjoyed their company. You went back for the same reason."

Are you showing your customers who you really are? And can you answer these needs in the table below?

The Critical Path for Buyers

Customers today require a different approach, especially if you expect any chance of repeated and consistent success.

Selling is about how your customer shops and decides instead of how you want to present and sell. It's about their critical path of buying rather than your critical path of selling.

Today's customers make four decisions in their journey from shopping to buying:

1. Are you someone they're interested in?
   Most buyers start out with six or seven alternatives and narrow it down to two or three.
2. Are you their perfect match?
   Your customers must realize what they consider to be perfect. Then, they will compare and decide which of the two to three alternatives represents their perfect decision.
3. Can you prove why you are perfect for them?
   Once your home buyers have selected their perfect builder, they must validate their decision.
4. Do they want to commit?
   Your customer must decide if they want to commit and move forward with the paperwork.

Customers don't come to your community to decide if they want to buy; they visit your sales center to qualify you — not the other way around.

Selling Agendas Versus Shopping Agendas

Most traditional sales training stresses rapport building — the meet and greet process — when a customer first arrives at your community. Is the rapport process what your customer really wants and needs?

How important is rapport to you when your customer first arrives? I imagine you'd say very important but would think not very important at all. Why do customers want to waste time building rapport before they even know if they like what you have to offer?

They don't. It's a waste of their time.

What Customers Want

Customers don't want or require a lot of care or maintenance. What they want depends on where they are in their shopping process. The table at the bottom of this page shows your customers' critical path for shopping.

As you can see, customers only need what they need. If you're trying to develop rapport, trust or a relationship and your customers are only trying to see if they like you enough to put you in their "keep" pile, you're wasting their time.

Likewise, if they're trying to narrow their choices from two or three builders to one, they need more than comfort but don't yet need trust or a relationship. It's the same as they move forward.

Give them too much and you waste their time. Give them less than they need and you stall your selling process.

Making Customers Comfortable

If your customers' agenda is to see if they like you enough to make you one of their two to three finalists, what should your agenda be? Answer: to stand out.

Standing out starts with making your customer comfortable. The quicker customers become comfortable, the quicker they will talk to you. All that's required is a little self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice from a sales perspective means making your customer's agenda more important than your own. I'm sure you'll agree that this is a strategy that will work, but that's not the question. The question is if you can trade some old habits and trade them for some new ones.

Think about comfort in terms of the verbal and visual signals you send. Look at the following list and answer yes or no in terms of producing comfort on your customers' first visit:

• Do you walk toward prospective buyers when they first arrive?
• Do you greet customers within two or three feet of the front door?
• Do you immediately ask, "What brings you out today?"
• Do you ask three, four, five or more qualifying questions?
• Do you provide a presentation that customers didn't ask for?
• Do you talk too much?

How did you answer? If I'm right, you probably agreed that these actions really don't produce comfort. On the other hand, I'll bet you wondered, "How am I suppose to do my job if I don't do any of those things?" The answer is simple: think out of the box.

Signals

Comfort is all about signals, especially on the selling side of the equation.

Signals are today's out-of-the-box answer. They range from quickly getting a brochure when a customer says they are in a hurry to asking permission to provide a quick overview. It also means getting a customer anchored to a non-business approach. They all add up to recognizing what today's customers want.

Nicholas Boothman, author of "How to Connect in Business in 90 Seconds or Less," thinks so. He suggests your customer will size you up and decide if they're comfortable within the first two seconds of their arrival. And if that's true, it means you can throw everything you've ever been taught about "meet and greet" out the window. Times have changed.

So no matter how you think about it, comfort is a starting point for a successful sales process. It's probably a good idea to review every thing you say and everything you do when a customer arrives at your community. Not only will you will you love yourself for spending the time, your customer will love you, too.