Special offer

Sales Tip 2: LISTEN!

By
Services for Real Estate Pros with Proforma Printelligence

About two years ago, one of my favorite sales managers ever, Paul Thompson, told me a story that I was thinking about this morning. It's a story of two lumberjacks, new to the camp. They were put to a test in the local bar and asked to both go out back and chop down as many trees as they could in an hour. The guys inside the bar could hear the sounds of chopping and wagered on which of the two could chop down more in that hour.

On the left, they could hear constant chop. chop. chop. On the right, they heard a few minutes of chopping and then nothing for a few minutes. Then a few more minutes of chopping and then nothing.

They mostly bet on the guy on the left. At the end of the hour, they all went outside and were surprised to see the guy on the right had chopped twice as much wood. They asked him how that was possible with so many minutes of silence.

The guy explained, "I stopped every few minutes to sharpen my axe."

I've spent a lot of time in my long history of sales for large and small companies going to sales training seminars. I think I've heard them all. Even played Simon Sez with Zig...I suck at that, BTW. 

It occurred to me after the umpteenth seminar (which was one of the best) that I should really try to sort through all the knowledge that I had hopefully gained from those days spent with the experts and figure out what I had USED. 

I grabbed a pad and paper and wrote down my most successful sales. Then figured out what I had DONE to make those sales successful. The results of that exercise became a the sales tools that I work with today. None of it is original ideas. It's just the stuff that works for me. And sometimes I need to revisit those ideas to sharpen the axe.

Today I am going to revisit...Listen.

Too often in sales - or even in Agency (really not sales, in the typical interpretation of the word) we are quick to give opinions. To start 'selling'. But how does that make you feel when it happens to you?

Let's imagine the worst case scenario - a car lot. Your car pulls in. You barely make it to the parking spot. And there he or she is! In your face. "What can I help you with today?" Even though you potentially came to that car lot to BUY a car today. What happens? You immediately put up a wall between you and that salesperson. "Just looking."

By coming up to you and being so aggressive, that person just made it harder on him- or herself to sell you a car.

We do that every day. Mrs. Buyer says, "I want a X# BR, X # Baths house in X neighborhood." we pull up the MLS and start searching. We set up an auto-notification email with some parameters that we may have asked about that fit the empty spaces in the MLS search tools. We answer questions without knowing the reason the question was asked. And we blame our clients when they surprise us after searching 25 homes for some new twist on what they do or do not like. I am sure we all learned the hard way but just don't admit that ITS OUR FAULT - NOT THEIRS.

I was holding an open house one day and a guy walked in, looked around, seemed very interested in the house. When I mentioned that the bozTEAM flips homes, too. He got real interested. Started asking Boz and I a lot of questions about our listing.  One of the questions was, "What is better for resale? Carpet of hardwood flooring?"

Boz started to answer right away. And the answer would have been, "Hardwoods seem to be the most desirable of the two right now." But I stopped him from answering. And instead, I asked the 'suspect' (Not a prospect because he's not fully qualified), "Good question. Why do you ask?" 

Another of my favorite sales trainers taught me that one. John Costigan. AMAZING course.

Guy answers, "Because I was looking at the models of the new construction just down the road in this same subdivision. Same builder. Price is $24,000 more. But it's brand new and they have hardwoods everywhere."

"Interesting." I said. "Tell me more."

"Well," he went on, "I am buying this as an investment. I want to make sure it has the best resale value. And I am pretty sure I would prefer hardwoods."

We kept asking him other questions. Would he change anything else about the place?  Was he interested in putting money into it to make changes or buy and hold as a rental...all the typical investor questions. Then we both sat back and listed while he spilled the whole dream about converting the basement and adding value...everything. We just listened.

Now, to clarify. This was a townhouse. Small. The amount of carpet was about 700 square feet.  The upside was huge because the garage had a massive open area at the bottom of the stairs to the main living level that could be finished out relatively inexpensively into more living space.The new models didn't have any of that.

So I called a subcontractor who does all our hardwoods on our bozPROJECTs and got a quote for removing carpet and placing hardwoods. $7,500 max. And he could schedule this within three weeks.

So don't you think the guy was faced with a no-brainer? Do you buy the two year newer construction by the same builder for $24,000 more with less total potential because of $7,500 worth of hardwood flooring?  He might have if we had not taken the time to listen to ALL of what he wanted before we started answering. 

Instead, he got just what he wanted. And has a great new contact for hardwood floors on the next investment.

If you're reading this and you have a similar story or the learning experience where I just made you realize ITS YOUR FAULT. Please let me know. I hope we can all learn from each others successes and failures. 

Comments (1)

Scott Hutchinson
REAL ESTATE - Lago Vista, TX
Lago Vista Real Estate
That was a very good article.  I like the questions you started asking him. It made sense! Thanks
Jan 25, 2008 01:42 AM