Is It the Market… Or Is It You?

 Is it the Market or is it YOU? [24:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

With our guest, Paul Montelongo, author of The Real Secrets to Selling New Homes in a Down Market – Or Any Market for that Matter!

The market is down.  Housing is off.  Nobody’s buying.  I might as well flip burgers.

Sure, the housing market is much different today than it was four years ago.  But, how much of the down turn is due to real market conditions, and how much can be attributed to the perceptions of the marketplace?  Even more important, who’s perceptions are having the greatest impact on our sales – our customer’s or our own?

This isn’t Paul Montelongo’s first housing downturn.  He’s been selling new homes and counseling builders and salespeople since the late 1970’s, when mortgage rates were 18% and people were just as fearful as they are now.  Paul has a way of waking us up to the realities of the marketplace by challenging our perceptions.

“If your market is down by 25%, my question is, who is selling the other 75%?  Somebody’s making those sales.  Is it you?  If it’s not you, then why not?”

There are a number of very positive and exciting elements to the current market; we just need to take the time to look at it from a different perspective.  Yet, salespeople have a tendency to think that their market is different, what I call the ‘Yeah, but’ syndrome.  Paul’s response to that is “If you believe that, you’re absolutely right.”  Again, it’s the perception of the market that is hampering sales. But in this case, it’s our perceptions and beliefs.  He adds, “But, if the marketplace truly is different, how are you going to change it?  Not, how is the marketplace going to adapt to you, but how are you going to adapt to the marketplace?”

Why do people buy new homes?  “To purchase a new home, the fact still remains that it’s a highly emotional purchase.  Now, the emotion is driven much by the individual’s perceptions – their perception of the marketplace; their perception of the builder; their perception of the housing industry; their perception of you, the salesperson.  When they walk into that sales center, within the first 10 seconds they have a perception about you.  So, what are you going to do to drive that perception in a positive manner?  This all relates to why consumers buy new homes.”  Salespeople need to determine and manage prospect’s perceptions to help buyer’s see the benefits of moving forward with the purchase.

How can we help buyer’s reprogram their thinking, beliefs and perceptions?  Paul offers these suggestions”

ATO:  Acknowledge the Obvious

Go back and interview your last 12 buyers.  12 is the ‘magic number’ – 4 won’t work, 15 is too much; 12 is the number that works.  Ask a couple of simple questions.  Ask, ‘Why did you buy from me?  What was it about me that you saw that made you want to buy your house from me?’  After about 4 or 5 or 6, you’ll see a specific theme emerge.”  Paul says that the theme that takes shape will alert you the perceptions that buyers hold regarding you, and what they were looking for when they decided to buy from you.  It could be the way you explained things or that they just trusted you.  Whatever it is, you need to know it and make sure that comes through when you speak with new prospects.

“The second question is, ‘What perception did you have to overcome or manage to make this decision?’  Again, you’re going to get a theme.  Right now, the theme you will likely hear is, ‘Well, we’ve heard that right now is not a great time to buy, that we should wait a few months until the market bottoms out so we can get the best deal.’  Okay, so that is the perception.  So, with ATO, you acknowledge the obvious.  If that’s the common perception that buyers have, then with the next potential buyer that walks into your sales center, you acknowledge the obvious.  In a few brief moments, after building rapport, you can say, ‘You’ve probably heard that is now is not the time to buy; that you should wait.  Let me explain to you, if I may, why it is a buy-and-hold market now.’”

If you take the time to go through this process of contacting and asking these two questions of your past buyers, two things will happen, according to Montelongo.  “Number one, it reconnects you with your buyer and you an understanding of the perception of the marketplace.  Number two is you will get referrals.  When people understand that you care and that you want to be helpful, people want to reciprocate and they want to help you as well, and they reciprocate with referrals.”

Understanding perceptions tells us how to sell. “Even now, so many salespeople want to sell amenities; they want to sell the 100% brick on the home, or whatever.  That’s not why people buy.  People want to buy because of the perception of what it does for their lifestyle, which goes back to our original point, that it’s a highly emotional purchase.”

Earn the right to make the sale. “Every sale that we make, we have to feel like we’ve earned the right.  That’s the #1 reason that most salespeople will not ask for the sale.  They feel like it’s pushy, intrusive, invasive, or manipulative to ask that final closing question to make the sale.  And, the reason is because they don’t feel that they’ve earned the right.  At a gut level they know they are going to hear ‘no’ because they haven’t done their homework.”

Paul cites this example:  Statistically, men generally ask their wives for their hand in marriage only one time.  The success rate for that question is over 90%.  Why?  Because men generally won’t ask the question if they feel there is a chance that they will hear ‘no;’ they will only ask after they feel they’ve earned the right to a ‘yes.’

“The same thing is true with sales.  There is so much emphasis on teaching salespeople to ask for the close.  [In reality,] when you feel like you’ve earned the right to ask for the sale, your customer is asking you, ‘Where do I sign? What’s next?  How do I get this financed?  When can you start?  They are basically saying, ‘Help me make this deal!’ Most salespeople never get to that point.”

Remember those two questions that Paul recommends we go back and ask our previous customers?  We can use those same questions when speaking with new prospects.

“One of the first questions I ask is, ‘I’m very curious; why would you have me build your new home?’  Or, ‘Why would you buy from me?’  Now, the answers that you get from that question, they give you a jillion ways to go to help this person make this decision.  If they start telling you, ‘The reason I would buy from you is because you did it for my neighbors,’ or ‘I’ve seen your community…’ now, they’ve just sold themselves.  If they say, ‘I’m not sure I would buy from you,’ then that’s a great piece of information to know.  The next thing you would say to them is, ‘Well, what information do I need to give you to help you make this decision?’  You’re going down the path to earn the right.

It’s your beliefs that control your sales, not the perceptions of the market.  Paul Montelongo gives us three things to do to get our own thinking straight and our beliefs in line with the reality of the market – that there are still sales to be made.

“#1:  You have to set clear intentions.  You must have a goal as to what you intend to happen.  You must have the intentions that you’re going to be helpful, and that you’re going to sell at a profitable level.

#2: You must have clarity of intentions.  In other words, you must be specific as to how much money you want to earn, how many homes you want to sell, who you want to purchase your home.  If your intention is clear that you’re going to sell to families that want to live in your communities and that want to buy from you and are going to be completely ecstatic, you’re going to get that intention as well.

#3:  You must associate with others who have clear intentions.  This is probably one of the areas that most of us fall short in.  The challenge with all of us is to continue to elevate our associates.  That doesn’t mean we have to give up the friends we have, just that we find new associates who share clear intention.”

Applying these three concepts will not only raise our own performance to the levels of our own internal beliefs, they will help us convince our customers to adopt our beliefs and make the purchasing decisions.  Our beliefs will come through to consumers.  Paul puts it this way: “In an interaction, the person with the highest and clearest intentions wins.”

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Order Paul Montelongo’s new ebook, The Real Secrets to Selling New Homes in a Down Market – Or Any Market for that Matter! More…

Download a free chapter of Paul’s book here.

Join us at IBS! Jerry and Scott, along with our friend Smokey Imes, will be presenting the topic How to Increase Your Profits Creatively Through Alliance Partnerships!

Tuesday, January 19   3:30 – 5:00pm   Room N255, North Hall, Las Vegas Convention Center.  More…

Like this week’s program?  Then, please leave a comment.  Don’t like our program?  We need to hear from you, too, and would appreciate any and all constructive feedback.  Thanks.

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