5 Tips to Accelerate Your Personal Sales Recovery

This week we speak with Master Sales Trainer, Roger Fiehn, Roger Fiehn & Associates

Even in the worst housing markets there are individual salespeople who are not only surviving, they are thriving!  Roger Fiehn has spent the last several months finding and interviewing these sales professionals to find out what they do differently to outpace the market get our sales back on track.

“I work in what might be considered the three worst markets in the country – California, Nevada and Florida – and I’m here to tell you that in every one of those markets there are salespeople who are doing quite well,” reports Fiehn.

What do those salespeople do that you can apply to your selling habits?  Here are Roger’s Top 5 tips to create your own sales recovery:

1.  Get a Check-up from the Neck Up!

That’s how Zig Zigler describes the need to get our attitudes adjusted for success.  “People have been beaten down by the press and by bad market conditions.  The superstars disciple themselves to disassociate themselves from the whiners and stay away from the losers, they will just bring you down.  It’s as simple as that.”

2.  Realign Your Goals – Personal and Professional

“Do you find yourself making the same New Year’s resolutions year after year?  Why bother?  We need to focus on what are our real priorities in both our personal life and our professional life, and work on those things.  Then, set timelines and benchmarks so that you can track your progress.   Some set quarterly reviews; other do it once a month.

Once you get your priorities set and goals in place to achieve them, you need to share them with everyone that can support you and help you monitor your goals – your friends, family – everyone.  The more people that understand what your goals are, the more support you’ll get; they’ll hold you accountable and keep you in line!

3.  Fine Tune Your CRM.

“The biggest failure we still see is improper or non-existent follow up.  Mystery shops show between 85% and 90% failure to effectively follow up on a ready, willing, and able to buy ‘Class A’ prospect!  You can win a lot of business back if you follow these simple rules:

• Find out what type of follow up system your buyer will embrace – how wish to be contacted.   Are they ‘high-touch’ or ‘no-touch?’  Do they like email, phone calls or direct mail?
• Determine how often they wish to be contacted and with what information.
• Always open your correspondence with a personal connecting message.  Show concern for them before their business.

4. Re-Educate Yourself.

“By developing new skills you’re not only raising your own personal value, but that of your company as well.  Get professional designations now before you get too busy, such as Certified Sales Professional (CSP), Master Certified Sales Professional, Council of Residential Specialist (CRS) from the  National Association of Realtors, or Member of Institute for Residential Marketing (MIRM.)  These designations tell your buyers that you understand what’s going on and that you have the latest tools to help them.

When we talk about reeducation, we need to go back to the basics.  We tend to overcomplicate the sales process and in doing so confuse the buyers.   We need to make is simple, comfortable and easy for them to engage.

5. Revitalize Your Networks.

“If your network doesn’t already include your social networks as well as your professional networks, then shame on you, because that’s how business is conducted today.  Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and LinkedIn are a must.  Inside of LinkedIn there are several professional groups that you should be members of, including NAHB, MIRM, NSMC, and professional sales and marketing groups from all over the world and from other industries that we can learn from.

Take a good look at the how you communicate with Realtors.  Realtors are still the backbone of our industry.  Over 50% of all new construction is sold through some sort of Realtor involvement.   But 80% of the business is done by about 20% of the Realtors.   So, identify the top performers and make sure that you’re doing a personal face-to-face with them and with their brokers.  Those are the people that  will continually bring you qualified prospects.

Don’t overlook the people you’ve already sold, since they are your best source of referrals.  Keep touching base with them, sending them cards and showing them attention so that you keep top of mind awareness.  Also, don’t forget your internal ambassadors – your employees, tradespeople, contractors and suppliers.  If you sell a home, they get to keep their jobs!

Putting the 5 Points Into Action

Roger Fiehn works with sales organizations to help them put into practice the points he has shared with us here.  But there’s always a gap between knowing and doing.  How does he create an action plan so that these activities become habits?

“Most salespeople have some skills in the basic selling process.  But these points are not being reinforced by their companies and sales managers.  When I come into a company, I try to get to know the salespeople as individuals and to learn what motivates them.  Often I’ll have mystery shops to help me.  I’ll find out who we need to spend some one-on-one time with and those that could just use a few new techniques, then I’ll craft a series of half-day programs to teach and reinforce these techniques.”

So, as you glance back at these 5 areas in which top performers excel, which have you mastered; which are you good at, and which need some work?  Knowing what to work on is the first step.

Need some help reinforcing these five points in your sales organization?  Contact Roger Fiehn at www.rfiehn.com.

To hear the live interview click here.