The Power Of Your Intentions & The ‘Anti-Sales Virus’!

Most salespeople today are infected with an ‘anti-sales virus’ and that this ‘virus’ acts as a sales repellant. The ‘virus’ has been infecting salespeople for years and it’s unknowingly

The Anti-Sale Virus Infects Unknowingly!

handed out by their companies, sales managers and sales trainers? Even more importantly, when a salesperson is left alone they’ll catch this ‘anti-sales virus’ all by themselves, and even help spread it to other salespeople. This ‘anti-sales virus’ is the reason people don’t like, trust or believe salespeople today.

The good news is it can be cured, and must be if you want to increase your sales, achieve and build a thriving career in sales. It must also be managed daily buy sales leaders, business owners and executive if they want their businesses to grow and prosper.

Before we get to the cure you need to know that when sales are weak, or economic conditions get tough, the strength of the ‘anti-sales virus’ increases, more is handed out and it spreads rapidly though most companies? I have found most salespeople think, “Not me, I couldn’t be infected with this virus”. This virus has been growing for decades and if it isn’t treated with the ‘antidote’ it eventually makes salespeople very average. In fact, it makes them all look, sound and act the same. What if I told you the ‘antidote’ has been around for years and really works?  Wouldn’t you be the first in line saying, “Sign me up” and “Where do I get more?”  The cynical salesperson wants to know how much it costs. What if I told you it’s free and the supply is unlimited? Well, guess what, it’s real, you can take it all the time and it will not only increase your sales immediately but help you grow a large healthy customer base.

The Antidote…You’ll Needed It Daily

Remember, the supply of  the ‘antidote’ is unlimited and free! However, even when you know what it is and how to use it, you’ll have to take it every day and you’ll have to keep taking it every time you engage someone in a sales conversation. In short, the ‘antidote’ is simple to use but wears off easily because other people will be trying to give you the ‘anti-sales virus’. This usually happens unknowingly and if you aren’t careful it’s easy to catch this virus!

By now, I know you’re ready for the active ingredient…The ingredient that causes the ‘antidote’ to attract and the ‘virus’ to repel is a salespersons’ intention when engaging people in a sales conversation. Before a salesperson opens their mouth to speak, their intentions are felt (like the scent of a potion) by the people that are attempting to sell. People then decide unknowingly, preconscious, to connect or avoid the salesperson. The salesperson’s intentions create their demeanor, presence and attitudes and cannot be faked. What people feel, and salespeople communicate,  are the genuine intentions of the salesperson.

The effects of the active ingredient in the ‘virus’ the salesperson has is evident when consumers avoid talking to or opening up even when salespeople ask good questions and genuinely cares about the people they are trying to sell but is infected with the ‘virus’.

‘Trying to make a sale’ is the active ingredient in the ‘anti sales virus’. The ‘virus’ even sabotages skilled salespeople who believe in their product and company, care about the consumer, but unknowingly are infected! Even they will repel people more often than they attract them. You can’t hide the virus from people…it is always showing!

The best example of the effects of the ‘anti sales virus’, or intention to make a sale, can be witnessed in a new home sales office when watching the interaction between consumers and salespeople. If there is a salesperson and a temp in the sales office and a consumer comes in, they will most often engage the temp and avoid speaking to the salesperson. I’ve personally witnessed this and over the years had many new home salespeople confirm this behavior by consumers.  It’s amazingly interesting that people are attracted by the ‘antidote’ the temp has taken or repelled by the ‘virus’ the salesperson is infected with. People will engage the person that is not infected with the ‘virus’ from the intention ‘to sell them something’.

Most companies, sales managers and sales trainers want salespeople to say the right things to create a better conversation with consumers.  They want and teach salespeople to ask better questions and be better listeners. The problem is, when salespeople try to do this, while infected with the ‘anti sales virus’, consumers won’t engage them and the engagement or conversation stalls.  As long as a salesperson is infected with the ‘virus’, sales will continue to be difficult and the relationship between consumers and salespeople will grow more dysfunctional. In short, people will keep avoiding salespeople until they become extinct.

The active ingredient in the ‘antidote’ is found in the intentions to help, serve and do what’s best for the consumer. The intention to make customers, not sales, is the missing ingredient. In fact, the intention to sell is the spoiled version of the intention to make a customer. The ‘virus’ wasn’t and never has been anyone conscious intention. It just mutated over the years from paying to much attention to the desired results companies, sales managers, salespeople and sales trainers wanted to create, instead of paying attention to what would create the results. Too much concern over what we want and not enough concern over what customers want. It’s also obvious that in a difficult economy we spend more time worrying and obsessing over the numbers and less time concerned about the customers concerns so the effects of the ‘virus’ worsen and spread.

When the ‘antidote’ is taken, the missing link in the sales conversation happens…a connection between the salesperson and the consumer. This connection causes or allows a conversation or real dialogue to take place so a healthy relationship can begin. This is the power of the ‘sales attraction potion’; it makes the consumer/salesperson connection happen and allows the other ingredients in the ‘sales potion’ to be used to best serve the consumer.

The steps of a sale, which have been taught for many years in various forms, only happen when this connection is made. Consumers only engage salespeople who have taken the ‘antidote’.  When the connection is made, people are served, customers are made and sales increase while business grows. After taking the ‘antidote’, salespeople are free to enjoy the profession of selling as the noble profession of service it was intended to be.

Whether you have taken the ‘antidote’ and whether companies encourage their salespeople to take the ‘antidote’ will determine your sales success!  Keep handing out the ‘virus’ and you will keep struggling to make customers and grow your business. In fact your salespeople will look, sound and act so much like your competition all they can be is average at best.

The intention to help, serve and do what’s best for the customer is the active ingredient in the ‘antidote’ that attracts customers and increases sales. It is the ingredient that leads to your sales success and needs to be handed out daily!

By Mike Moore

Selling Is A Journey…Not A Process

Selling is a journey and not a process or something to be done to or even for people. Selling must be done with people after a connection of trust and confidence is made. When selling is practiced as a process people resist or are reluctant to participate. The connection needed to help, serve and do what’s best for the buyer is lost or never made at all when you are trying to take them through your sales process.

Become The Buyers Guide

To be a successful salesperson you’ll need to sell with people, because selling is a journey…The buyer’s journey or their process. So, the first step in selling is being invited to be the buyer’s guide. To do this you’ll have to connect with them so they feel confident enough to invite you and that requires you to be a likable, trustworthy, expert.

Most people admit that when they go shopping for anything that cost more than a few hundred dollars they’ve already decide to buy…They just want help confirming their decision and a better understanding of what to expect after they buy it.

The Question…Why would the buyer invite you to be their guide on their journey or buying process?

The Answer…Trust and aligned intentions, and they can be achieved by taking the next 7 steps.

1) Be mindful that they choose you to be their guide. It’s not up to you but their decision will be based on your attitude, actions and skills…’your behavior’. Most importantly, all of these are driven by your intentions. Once they do choose you, you’ll have to keep earning their trust and confidence by being a ‘good guide’ that puts their issues before yours. If your intention is to sell them, they won’t trust you enough to allow you to guide them. If your intention is to guide them to what’s best for them…they’ll allow you the privilege of being their guide.

2) How do you know you are the guide…Trust your instincts…Are they following your instructions, advice and direction? Listen, watch and feel for any sign they aren’t moving with you and…

3) When they aren’t moving with you, you have to reconnect…You reconnect by asking what’s wrong or where you got off course to uncover why you lost them and get back on their journey…Why are we not moving in the same direction? Remember it’s about serving people not trying to please them…It’s about their issues and next step, not yours. It’s about their reasons they are buying, not yours.

4) Remember, sometimes you aren’t the right guide for them but that should never be more than 15% to 20% of the time…80% to 85% of the people you have an opportunity to do business with can and will choose you as their guide if you make their ‘why’ they’ll buy, more important than yours (making a sale). Then you can find out if what you’re selling is best for them…the destination where they want to end their journey.

5) It’s imperative to understand you’ll only know their ‘why they’ll buy’ and be able to guide them if you stay connected, so they feel comfortable communicating openly and honestly with you and this happens when you align your intention with theirs…They won’t open up and share if they don’t trust your intentions.

6) Like any guide…it’s your job to safely guide them to the final destination they want. When it isn’t going that way, engage them as to why you aren’t in the same place but remember it’s not your job to choose the destination just guide them to theirs. Remind them you’re there to help them but it’s got to be more than words, it has to be your real intention to help, serve and do what’s best for them or they will feel your insincerity and disconnect.

7) Keep moving in the same direction, stay at the same destination with them until they are ready to move. Buying isn’t always a smooth journey, as we all know, but if you keep coming back to their destination each time it feels like you aren’t connected, then you can help them reach their final destination more often. Make them a customer, not just a sale, and making customers will increase your sales.

By Mike Moore

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PCBC 2019

NEW HOME SALES LEADERS, EXECUTIVES, MANAGERS & DIRECTORS… You don’t want to miss this year’s PCBC Sales Workshop. We’re going to talk about how the messenger can deliver the message that will blow the top off your sales results! #pcbc2019 #pcbc #newhomesales #salesleadership

The ABCs Of Sales Leadership

THE HEAD SALES COACH…Coaches understand if they want to win they can’t focus on the score. Instead they have to identify the causes that produce the score they want and get busy coaching and managing those causes. Sales leaders who coach, win, because the ABCs of Sales Leadership are Always, Be Coaching!

Are you running a sales organization or managing salespeople? Are you an executive who needs to improve your company’s sales results? It’s fairly simple, even easy, to identify the sales you want or need to produce. However, sales are a result, and results can’t be managed anymore than the score can be managed. When you wait until the results are in, it’s too late. Increasing sales requires identifying the causes that produce sales and begin coaching and managing those causes.

The first thing to acknowledge is that salespeople are performing artists.  Just like athletes, actors and musicians they need direction, leadership and coaching to produce their results. Once you acknowledge this, you can begin to understand the importance and priority coaching plays in your organizations sales success. In fact, you’ll start to understand what’s missing in most sales organizations. THE SALES COACH!

Here are some key areas and specifics you can get started implementing if you’re going to stop being a frustrated traditional sales manager and become a successful sales coach.

PERFORMANCE CULTURE…Instilling an attitude that sales is a performance art will be a key to your success. Building a team of passionate salespeople who care about customers and helping people while being an advocate for the profession of sales will require the full force of your will. Turning mediocrity into excellence always does. You’ll need a firm belief that you are working to leave a legacy, not just working to produce sales numbers. The focus on making customers, instead of sales, can help make this possible by creating a higher purpose in your sales philosophy. I used to advise my clients to only hire people with a passion to be their best and an exceptional work ethic. This doesn’t work any longer because you won’t find enough people with these traits because we’ve experienced too much of a deterioration in what’s considered average. Our standards have eroded.  You’ll need to be prepared to inspire and develop salespeople to learn grow and become peak performers.

RECRUITING & TEAM BUILDING…Do you know your next salesperson? Do you have a bench, feeder system or know where to look for your next salesperson? A sales coach’s first action should be to recruit salespeople. This has three distinct purposes. First, performers should know if they don’t perform they can be replaced. This will help instill a performance culture in your sales team. Second, you need to find the people you believe you can coach, teach and train. Third, you want to hire differently than your competition to increase your chances of coaching a winning sales organization loaded with top talent.

COACHING IS ADJUSTING ATTITUDES…Attitudes produce actions that generate results. Attitudes are dominant thoughts and beliefs that make up a person’s state-of-mind. Salespeople need a superior state-of-mind to improve their ability to perform at their peak consistently. Sales Coaches manage attitudes that creates the atmosphere or culture of their sales team. This requires personal contact daily with your salespeople to check their attitude. This will give you the time to support the people with positive attitudes, coach up the one’s who need it and make sure they are prepared to perform to their peak.

TEACHING SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE…Sales Coaches are always teaching. They teach to improve the skills and knowledge of their salespeople. They train salespeople by holding them accountable to learn and improve. Training is what your salespeople do and it’s a Sales Coaches responsibility to insure their salespeople train to stay in sales shape. Being a teacher and trainer is an ongoing part of being a Sales Coach.  So, Sales Coaches have to study, learn and grow constantly if they are going lead their team to success. Regularly scheduled sales education are a coaches responsibility. Creating a culture where change, learning and growth are a habit of all salespeople is the real requirement for sustained success.

MANAGING & TRAINING ACTIONS…Managing actions is the exercise of assigning and monitoring the work of your salespeople. The salespeople who don’t want to improve won’t like being held accountable and they’ll often call this micro-management. It’s not micro-management, it’s responsible Sales Coaching. There are two distinct purposes for monitoring work. The first is accountability. The second, and most important, is to create real life opportunities to coach attitudes, teach skills and knowledge while assigning actions to be taken that you can monitor and do this all again. This is the circle of coaching, teaching, training and managing to coach teach and train that will produce the improved results you desire.

These are the actions of successful coaches first taught to me by my father Charles Moore, a successful football coach, added to and reinforced by John Wooden in one-on-one sessions with me. They have been implemented, developed and constantly proven in real life environments during my career for over 38 years. In addition, I have been successfully coaching, teaching and training sales managers and executives using these for over 20 years. They are the skills that successful sales coaches master and practice daily. Peak performing sales management and coaching are often the missing link in a companies sales organization. Get started Coaching today and don’t let that be the case in your company.

By Mike Moore

Connecting With and Serving Today’s Buyers

Old Methods Don’t Work!

The traditional selling process, led by the intention to make a sale, damages the connection and communication between buyers and sellers. In fact, it creates what phycologists call retractance.  It makes people shut down, pull back and avoid those trying to persuade them to buy their product or service. Selling happens when buyers connect with a salesperson and invite them to be their guide on their buying journey.

The steps of a sale that have been traditionally taught, happen during a buying process, not a selling process. The steps are taken by the buyer when they’re served by a salesperson with the intention to help, serve and do what’s best for them. The salesperson’s intention is what was missed when salespeople learn to sell as a process. It’s what opens or closes the door to their communication with buyers.

Selling, as most salespeople have learned it, is based on following a process which isn’t the most effective way to sell. It leaves the buyer’s participation out of the equation. Selling isn’t a process to be done to buyers, it’s much more effective to join the buyer in their buying process buy aligning your intentions with their. They want to be served, they want help and they want to do business with someone who wants to do what’s best for them, instead of just wanting to make a sale.

Most sales processes are models of what top salespeople do, but what they do happens because they have the right intention. The right intention opens the connection and communication. This intention that holds so much power, is to help, serve and do what’s best for the buyer.

The missing link in the traditional sales process and training is the salesperson’s intention when they engage buyers. Intention is the greatest tool a salesperson has and it communicates so loudly that people don’t hear or believe most of what salespeople say. At least not until they feel their intention is to truly help them, even above making a sale.

When salespeople understand selling is about the buyer not the seller, product or service, then they get invited to be the buyer’s guide and the steps of a sale happen naturally. The steps of a sale are more of a map or indicator, than a process. Traditional selling mapped those steps but left out what made them happen…the salesperson’s intention. The intention communicates with buyers and moves them to trust, open up and share with the salesperson. This results in more sales being made.

People shopping want help. They just don’t believe they get it from salespeople today because their dominant intention is to make a sale. Companies and sales managers sabotage their salespeople by instilling in them the intention to make a sale when they engage a buyer. Ultimately, everyone loses!

People aren’t wrong about salespeople. Salespeople will tell anyone who asks, that their main intention when talking to a buyer, is to make a sale. After they make a sale, their intention is to make another sale. People feel this and know that’s what salespeople are about today.

Top salespeople figure out that selling is a service and customers are more valuable than sales. The right intention makes connecting with buyers happen and becomes the salesperson’s greatest selling tool!

By Mike Moore

New Home Retailing

A Sales Mindset That Changes Everything

I’ve been studying mindsets, attitudes and beliefs that power peak performance for over 45 years. During that time I’ve learned many lessons on what limits people’s performance and what motivates people to become extraordinary producers of excellence. Recently while doing a keynote speech and conducting a sales rally at a home building conference, I uncovered just such a mindset in new home salespeople. This led me to do more research, interviews and surveys of top salespeople and what I discovered is career changing for any salesperson. I uncovered a mindset that only the top 4% of new home salespeople possess. This mindset can be instilled or adjusted to unleash amazing new results, especially for veteran sales professionals, and it doesn’t take a lot of practice, it just requires the self-awareness to be honest with yourself and maintain this mindset.

Before I reveal the mindset I uncovered and turn you loose to take advantage of its remarkable transforming power, I want to first talk about the power of mindsets for any of you that might be skeptical about their power. Much of the newest research about mindsets focuses on fixed vs. growth mindsets and the difference they make in people’s ability to face difficult challenges, develop solutions to obstacles or overcome adversity to become successful. In fact, this growth mindset is a key factor in people we consider successful, experts, in every field, while the fixed mindset limits people’s ability to face difficulties and deal with the obstacles that are sure to precede any significant achievement.

The research is clear about the power your mindsets have and their importance in your success. So, what is this mindset that salespeople have or need to adjust? Well, top salespeople deal with rejection and problems on a daily basis and their effect can often jade their mindsets or beliefs about the people they sell to. Research has also uncovered that we’re all wired to remember the negative things that happen to us, so the more experience a salesperson has, the more negative situations they remember, the less they tend to trust, respect and believe in their customers ability to make good decisions.

During the Sales Rally and following research, when I asked several hundred salespeople if they respected their customers ability to make good decisions the vast majority admitted they did not. In fact, only the top 4% of salespeople said they did. At the core of my own sales success and those I have taught, trained, coached and observed over the past 40 years has been a mindset of respect for the customer’s ability to make good decisions. The decisions that were best for them and in their own best interest. This mindset, or belief, drives salespeople be more open, honest and direct in communicating the consequences of their decisions, not just share information.

The real discovery is how the lack of respect for the customer’s decision-making ability restricts the salespersons conversation with prospective customers. Salespeople admitted they didn’t share the consequences of what they new to be poor decisions by the prospect. Instead they continued in presentation mode, spewing features, advantages and benefits hoping the prospective customer would choose their product. In short, they tried to persuade the buyer instead of appealing to their decision-making abilities by sharing the good and bad consequences or outcomes of their decisions. Armed with a healthy respect for the intelligence and decision making ability of the people they sell to, salespeople stop presenting to, and start communicating with people in real conversations that build mutual respect and trust. In these real conversations, instead of stale sales presentations, salespeople openly shared both the positive and negative consequences of decisions that needed to be made. Then, they found that people opened up and shared more freely with them, allowing these top 4% of salespeople to better help, serve and guide people to decision that would be best for them. More sales, loyal customers and increased buyer satisfaction…Now that’s a win, win, win!

There are several key mindsets that top salespeople possess and average salespeople lack, but this is the beginning, the one with the transforming power to create rapid improvement and produce the most significant, immediate, results. It also has the power to renew a veteran salesperson’s energy and enthusiasm, which will unleash their skills, allow them to use their experience in positive ways and revitalize their sales.

This is also a mindset that cannot be worked around but must become a core value if you want to maximize your skills, abilities and experience to become a peak performing salesperson. Remember only the top 4% of salespeople have, and maintain, this mindset. So, check your negative experiences at the door and pick up a healthy dose of respect for your prospective customers decision making ability. Then, you’ll begin building mutual respect, trust and be invited to help them make decisions that will be best for them and increase your sales, make customers and turn your sales job into a professional sales career.

Coming June 2, 2016…TecHome Sales Bootcamp

Homebuilder Or New Home Retailer

Buying a new home isn’t as much about real estate or an investment anymore as it is about the new homebuyer’s desire to enhance their lifestyle. So, the Design Center isn’t just about options and upgrades anymore! It’s about a Homebuilder’s transformation into a New Home Retailer who can meet the personalization desires and deliver the ‘New American Dream’ of living a luxury lifestyle. It’s about understanding today’s ‘new homebuyer’ and delivering the world class customer experience they deserve when making the most important purchase of their life! To do this a homebuilder must start with the customer experience first and work their way backwards. They must focus on the customer first and not the products or process, so they can make the product and process fit the experience instead of making the customer fit the process.

This article addresses subjects near and dear to my heart…Homebuilding, Design Centers, new home personalization and the customer experience. My passion for all of these began when I started working in retail and then moved to the floor covering and interior design industries and continued on to new home sales. I’ve been teaching, training and coaching new Homebuilders and Design Centers  for many years and that led to my co-founding Options Online in 1996 with one of my clients. Options Online became a nationally recognized, award winning, online design center and options operating system. In fact, it was the first of its kind and is still going strong today as Studio Chateau. I also develop Finished Home Design, a series of workshops, seminars and coaching sessions to help Homebuilder and Design Center professionals deliver a world class personalization experience to new homebuyers. I wanted to share the 5 first keys for a Homebuilder and Design Center to stop struggling with options and upgrades and become a successful ‘New Home Retailer’. These 5 keys include 2 Self-Awareness Issues and 3 Mindset Shifts that must be addressed to become a New Home Retailer who does deliver a world class home buying, personalization and customer experience. So here are the first 5 keys…

Self-Awareness Issue #1…You are not a production builder…You build personalized homes on a schedule!

Do you build production homes? No, you build personalized homes on a schedule, and until a homebuilder gets everyone in their business on this page they will continue to struggle. Homebuilders everywhere just wish options and upgrades would go away. Owners, executives, purchasing, construction, customer service and accounting people in the homebuilding industry struggle with this attitude and will continue to until they realize personalization is a core function of their business. After they acknowledge this is true, they can embrace the changes it causes to their jobs as a vital part of the business, instead of a hassle they wish would go away.

Self-Awareness Issue #2…Most people in the homebuilding industry are ‘used’ homebuyers and do not think like a ‘new’ homebuyer.

How many people in a position of leadership in the homebuilding industry would only shop for and buy a ‘new’ home i stead of a used home? Even if they buy a ‘new’ home they usually get to break all their companies rules for homebuyers to personalize it the way they want it…So, they aren’t really a ’new’ homebuyer, they are a new custom home buyer. I ask because the New Homebuilding Industry, is an industry led by and sold by predominantly ‘used’ homebuyers! Acknowledging this is a beginning that will allow you to start making the changes you’ll need to make to align with your intentions and mindset with the ‘new’ homebuyers who are your customers.

Mindset Shift #1…The vast majority of ‘new’ homebuyers want to buy the latest greatest and want a finished home, not a fixer up or a remodeling project! They’re buying ‘new’ instead of ‘used’ for this reason.

They’re dreaming of the lifestyle their ‘new’ home will allow them to live! Once a homebuilder experiences the first two self-awareness issues they can better understand the mind of a ‘new’ vs ‘used’ homebuyer. When this happens, and works it way through everyone at a homebuilder, then the homebuyer engagement and customer services will start to improve.

There has been lots written and discussed about how Boomers, GenX and Millennial homebuyers are different, but I’ll tell you they’re more similarities than differences when they make the decision to be a ‘new’ homebuyer and not a ‘used’ homebuyer. As new homebuyers they’re more alike than different…It’s more about lifestyle, personalization and their finished home, than it is about their generational differences.

Mindset Shift #2…Personalization is the most attractive thing about a ‘new’ home to the vast majority of ‘new’ homebuyers…So, it’s the most valuable thing you have to sell. Oh, and your standards aren’t fabulous or what a ‘new’ homebuyer wants in their home, and the vast majority don’t want to fix up their home after they move-in.

Personalization and the Design Center experience is the greatest value added service to help a homebuilder sell more homes. Getting new home sales agents to embrace this and not be afraid of the money people will need to invest to personalize their home is vital to their success in selling more new homes today! New home salespeople who embrace and engage ‘new’ homebuyers with a respect and appreciation for the different between ‘used’ homebuyers and ‘new’ homebuyers will be the big winners going forward. Over 80% of ‘new’ homebuyers don’t want to buy a new home ‘fixer upper’ and are willing to invest to make their new home their own personal living space. Engaging ‘new homebuyers’ with this knowledge improves the communication, allows for accurate expectation and makes the experience of buying a new home more enjoyable.

Mindset Shift #3…The Design Center isn’t about options and upgrades, it’s not about products, it’s about a personalized finished home.

First, the Design Center experience is about helping homebuyers design a finished plan for their new home that reflects their personal taste and enhances their lifestyle. Second, the homebuyer will need your help staying focused on why they bought a ‘new’ home instead of a ‘used’ home. Yes, they buy for one reason and then sabotage their own happiness if they aren’t properly assisted and guided by a trained professional with the expertise to truly serve them. However, when this is done correctly, Design Center sales increase, homebuyer satisfaction soars and profits grow!!! The proper customer engagement at the Design Center makes sure the homebuyer’s expectations match the reality of the home they are moving into, and assures they haven’t turned their new home into a new home ‘fixer upper’, unless they’re one of the few who truly wants a ‘new home fixer upper’!

This can only happen when a builder takes the next steps to educate and training all their staff. Everyone must come to acknowledge the first two self-awareness issues and begin accepting the 3 mindsets so they can align their thinking and service to match that of the ‘new’ homebuyer. Then, they can all start working together to deliver the world class customer experience a ‘new’ homebuyer deserves as part of the most expense purchase of their life and a Homebuilder can become a New Home Retailer!

If you want take the next steps in becoming a successful ‘New Home Retailer’ who delivers a world class customer experience, contact me for more information!

By Mike Moore

There Is A Better Way

Tired of the traditional sales training and the dysfunctional buyer and seller relationship that exists today? Do you really want to deliver a world-class customer experience? Are you ready to stop complaining, making excuses and do something different to change your results? Or, are you not convinced it’s really that bad?

Studies keep revealing what anyone in sales, who’s honest with
themselves, already knows…Buyers don’t like, trust or believe salespeople, and salespeople don’t respect or trust buyers to make good decisions.

So, do you really think it’s a good plan to keep teaching and training salespeople to do what they’ve been doing to create this existing dysfunction? You can keep doing what you’ve been ding, work harder and complain about your results, or you can make real changes that will result in a new healthy relationship that benefits both the buyer and the seller.

Remember that change is inevitable but improvement is a choice that requires new thinking, attitudes, skills, actions and leadership. Sales leaders make real change while sales managers work hard at managing the existing dysfunction. A sales leader is a compass always pointing towards improvement.

So, if you’re going to be a sales leader your purpose needs to shift from traditional sales intentions to healing the existing relationship between buyers and sellers. If you are going to do this you’ll have to believe it will produce dramatic sales results.

You’ll need to try a new approach, one that will develop your salespeople into likable, trustworthy, experts, who become more helpful, caring and courageous.

If you are or want to become that sales leader, the one who can make a real difference, contact me and let’s get started. Let’s make your next event, workshop, seminar or training session a breakthrough event that produces new levels of sustainable success!

By Mike Moore

The Making Customers Series On YouTube

New Home Retailing

I originally published this in 2011 but thought it would be great to revisit since it still applies today. We’ve all changed the way we live, from the way we communicate, to how we are entertained and gather information. Our shopping and buying behavior, habits and experiences are shifting rapidly. We all acknowledge the world is changing but the new home sales engagement hasn’t kept up. In fact, it’s holding us back.

Shifting demographics, globalization and technology are creating a ‘new economy’. This brings us to a time that requires new thinking, attitudes and plans to use technology if we want to effectively engage, connect and convert shoppers to customers.

Our greatest challenge in making a successful transition comes from ‘normalcy bias’. Economic, process and sales ‘normalcy bias’ is holding us back from adapting and using technology effectively. It causes people and companies to keep attempting to add technology to their existing process.

Technology and our buyer’s behavior have now surpassed us and we must catch up.

The first obstacle to overcome in using technology effectively in the sales engagement is an understanding that adding technology to the traditional sales process is a bad idea.

This applies to the selling of homes; options and the design center experience, because to the homebuyer they are one in the same.

Options or interior design selections are often treated as a nuisance and presented as products and not an integral part of people’s home buying process. Our customers want a finished home, they don’t want a fixer upper.

Successful use of technology to convert shoppers to customers requires a shift in the way people; sales environments and technology are combined and utilized to enhance the homebuyers’ journey. This is New Home Retailing and it results in increased sales, homebuyer satisfaction and reduced costs.

PEOPLE

Current Situation

The buyer and seller relationship is dysfunctional.

Buyers don’t trust or believe salespeople. They respond to surveys by saying they believe salespeople care more about the transaction than about helping them.

Salespeople’s intention is to make a sale. This is a leadership issue as executives, sales managers and traditional sales training reinforces this intention.

This intention causes salespeople to look, act and sound similar…It makes them present to, rather than engage, people.

Alternate Solution

Shift salespeople’s intentions to connect and communicate with homebuyer’s and heal the dysfunctional relationship.

Provide a new sales process that aligns with the buyer’s journey. It’s their process not ours.

This connects people and allows for an extended conversation, especially when done in a new sales environment and with the use of technology.

ENVIRONMENT

Current Situation

Traditional sales environments look and feel the same.

They support a dying traditional sales process that’s focused on the seller, not the buyer or even the product the buyer cares about.

Doesn’t support the use of technology…Makes technology an add-on, intruder and distraction to the old traditional process.

Alternate Solution

Redesign the selling space around the buyer’s journey. The internet is a place, not media, engage and interact online as an extension of your physical selling environment.

Stop adding technology to an old process and environment.

Meet buyers where they want help, to enhance the personal connection and use of technology to extend the conversation and help home shoppers take their next step.

No fences…No sales office…Take advantage of technology, mobility and deepen the emotional connection. Meet them in the models, interact with visualization tools and make the buying experience informative, entertaining and an extension of their online beginning.

Increase buyer participation, interaction and conversation with technology.

Create the real possibility of selling all your communities from anywhere, anytime.

TECHNOLOGY

Current Situation

Most builders have tried adding technology to their existing sales process, not using technology to create and enhance a new sales engagement.

Technology added to the old traditional sales process and sales environments makes it expensive ‘digital art’. Technology is ineffective as an add-on. In fact, it becomes a distraction or interruption to the traditional sales process.

In this format it’s ROI is weak at best or more often just an added cost.ld traditional sales process and sales environments makes it expensive ‘digital art’. It’s ineffective as an add-on.

Alternate Solution

Replace your existing traditional sales process with new intentions, environments and the use of technology. Engage, involve and connect with homebuyers in an interactive experience making the salesperson the buyers guide, on their homeownership journey.

Separate yourself from your competition for now… Allow your homes and the lifestyle they provide to become the destination of this journey.

Include technology engagement throughout the home tour in kiosk, tablets, flat screens and surfaces.

Connect online experience to the onsite experience, extending the engagement. Allow the journey to continue.

Using catalogs, visualization, animation, video and emerging new technologies to create a rich, emotion and visual experience…Last but not least, using live video and audio of the buyer and seller engagement to improve the engagement is long overdue if you truly want to improve the home buying experience.

Alternate Solution #2

Replace mediocre salespeople and the dying sales process with an interactive engagement that costs less and produces the same or more results.

This solution will always leave you vulnerable to companies who chose to do the first alternate solution.

With today’s broken, dysfunctional and dying sales process, what do you have to lose? Anything different will be the first step toward an improved sales engagement and result in converting more home shoppers to satisfied homeowners.

The use of technology is inevitable and has already begun. It will be most effective in a new sales environment but not fully effective until people are engaged by salespeople with aligned intentions. When all three are combined the ROI of technology is multiplied exponentially.

Make People, the sales Environment and the use of Technology your P.E.T. Project! Combining these three elements in the engagement of people shopping for new homes is the best way to stand out in a crowded marketplace. It will enable your salespeople to connect with buyers to help them take the next steps in owning your homes.

By Mike Moore