sales training: Automate Your Processes to Build Profits
- 10/21/10 07:02 AM
We speak with Charlie Schneider – Builder Sourcing In today’s world every homebuyer is starting out on the Internet, so every builder needs to establish a presence there, to make a good impression, and to create the interest to come up with a lead. Then, they need get that lead into the hands of a salesperson that can respond to the interest with a phone call or email that engages that prospect in a conversation that gets them to come in and visit. That may sound simple, but it takes a system in place to make sure that occurs. Systems such … (0 comments)
sales training: Attracting and Hiring Top Sales Performers
- 10/21/10 06:57 AM
We speak with Scott Smeester – HowtoHireSalesStars.com You may not be thinking of hiring a new salesperson in this economy, but maybe you should. After all, right now, when sales are few and far between, is when you need top performers on your team – those who can find and close business. But, who? Who make the best salespeople? What are the attributes that you should be looking for when considering a new sales hire? How can you know who your next ‘super star’ will be before you invest the time and resources to bring them onto your team? It’s not … (1 comments)
sales training: How Top Sales Producers Follow Up
- 09/12/10 01:04 PM
This week we speak with Shirleen Von Hoffman, Home Builders AdvantEdge Shirleen Von Hoffman (aka ‘The Sales Queen’) is the kind of sales coach that rolls up her sleeves and gets ‘down in the trenches’ with agents to teach by example. She has done hundreds of secret shops and uses video of her encounters as a place to start in her teaching. And the agents she works with soon get over the discomfort of being videoed and shopped when as her coaching helps them overcome obstacles and achieve greater results. We asked Shirleen to share her perspective on the ‘state of … (1 comments)
sales training: How to Manage and Motivate a Sales Team
- 09/07/10 07:55 AM
This week we speak with Christine Hamilton, sales trainer, speaker, and consultant. Christine Hamilton is a co-author of GPS for Success: Goals and Proven Strategies for Success, along with Stephen Covey, John Gray, Les Brown and others. We spoke with Christine about her contribution to the book and what it takes to achieve success in selling homes in this environment. Below are excerpts from our interview: Managers: Know thy salespeople.One of the most important things is to first evaluate the needs of the company. First and foremost is shopping the front line sales people. We observe how they manage what we … (1 comments)
sales training: 4 Steps to Outstanding Customer Satisfaction
- 08/16/10 01:17 AM
This week we speak with Tim Kane, MBK Homes. Few states have housing markets nose dive more than California. Yet, this Irvine builder is taking the market in stride, polishing their prospects and focusing on thing: pleasing their buyers. And it’s working for them. They are attracting buyers when other builders are still scratching their heads wondering when the market will return. Can it really be that easy – just please your customers and you’ll sell more homes? Tim Kane, of MBK Builders, describes their 4-step process for achieving outstanding customer satisfaction. As far as being easy, it took MBK seven years … (2 comments)
sales training: Are Your Prospects Buying You?
- 08/08/10 01:55 PM
This week we speak with Jeb Blount, author of "People Buy You". “Most people in business or in sales recognize that it’s the relationships they have with their customers that are the most valuable,” says Blount. Yet, for the past 30 years, as computers and the Internet have changed business practices, focus has changed from building relationships to streamlining processes. And since these tools are available to everyone, it’s created a somewhat homogeneous marketplace where the challenge for any business is to stand out and get noticed. “What is the competitive differentiator if everybody from the buyer’s standpoint looks the same? … (1 comments)
Every successful salesperson knows that referrals are the lifeblood of a sales career. Referrals are the reported as the #1 source of new leads for builders and Realtors alike, and sales to those who have been referred to you by happy customers are the least expensive leads you have and the easiest to close. We spoke with one of the foremost sales trainers in the business today, Myers Barnes, to get his thoughts on how to build a strong referral program. Below are excerpts from our recorded conversation: … (0 comments)
sales training: How to Create a Winning Customer Experience
- 07/19/10 01:04 AM
This week we speak with Beverly Koehn, Beverly Koehn & Associates Beverly Koehn started her career as a salesperson in a builder’s model over 20 years ago. Today, she shares her insights as a sales trainer and consultant to builders across the country. Her book, Loyalty Is Love, details how to create long-term relationships with homebuyers and has been a favorite of BuilderRadio listeners. We asked Beverly to discuss one aspect of building loyalty – creating a winning customer experience. Below are excerpts from our recorded interview: It’s so important that we all remember that we’re selling so much more than just our … (0 comments)
sales training: Four Steps to Home Sales Recovery
- 06/14/10 01:21 AM
Rich Carlson, president of Carlson Communications in Northborough, Massachusetts, has been involved in advertising, marketing and public relations within the housing industry for 35 years. He’s also the author of a new book, Are You Prepared for the Recovery. Rich sat down with us to discuss his book and the major steps he feels are essential for getting through the current market and successfully moving forward. The following are excerpts from our interview: Step One: Market Research One thing that I try and emphasize is the importance of listening to your customers and conducting continuous research. Research, just like sales training, it … (2 comments)
Everybody sells. There are situations where husbands are selling wives, wives selling husbands, parents selling children and children selling parents, employees selling employers and employers selling employees. It goes on all around us. Any time you have an interaction with someone where the end result, the expected result, is to gain a commitment, that’s selling. It goes on all the time. So, all of us sell. Some of us are professionals at it. The question is, can selling be a genuine … (6 comments)
sales training: Where’s the Urgency in Today’s Housing Market?
- 05/16/10 01:44 PM
This week we speak with Shirleen Von Hoffman. Through secret shopping I get to see all kinds of things that builders only see on camera. A lot of managers will only see what they see at a sales meeting, but they don’t see their agents in action out in the field. In this market, when traffic is so slow, you would expect to see a lot of selling skills being used, but they’re just really not. For example, when we do our secret shops, we’re finding that on only two out of 35 shops the agents will actually walk us through … (1 comments)
sales training: 7 Expectations Your Customers Have of You
- 03/22/10 12:16 AM
This week we speak with Sundeep Kapur, EmailYogi.com Online Communications expert, Sundeep Kapur, recently conducted a survey of over 400,000 online purchases as to their expectations of the companies that they did business with, online and off. His team followed up with a cross section of respondents, conducted more in-depth focus groups, and have outlined Seven Key Expectations that your buyers have when they visit your website, pick up the phone to call you, or even open one of your emails. Listen to the audio interview to get Sundeep’s full commentary, but here are the highlights of his survey results: 1. … (2 comments)
There is recovery in the air. But as of yet, that hasn’t translated into significantly higher traffic numbers in sales models. So, if you’re waiting to get the people who take their own initiative to come through the door, you’re not taking advantage of what’s really going on out there and it’s just not going to be enough to sustain you. There has to be a strong effort on behalf of salespeople to do a much more thorough job than we’ve been doing to convince people to come out to the … (2 comments)
sales training: Setting Realistic Customer Expectations
- 03/07/10 10:02 PM
This week we speak with guest, Tom Stephani. Most of the ‘clients from hell’ are clients that we create on our own. We create our own clients from hell by not creating, setting and maintaining realistic expectations from the very get go. We have a lot of things that we do as an industry that we have to be very, very, very careful about, especially in these times when the custom client has the opportunity to go to any builder within the marketplace to have their home built. And there are a lot of people that are promising things and not delivering on … (2 comments)
sales training: 5 Tips to Accelerate Your Personal Sales Recovery
- 02/28/10 09:55 PM
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 … (10 comments)
sales training: Complimentary Home Show Coaching/Webinar
- 02/26/10 11:58 PM
Home Show selling If you’re planning on exhibiting at a Home Show this spring, don’t miss this complimentary coaching webinar session. Don’t spend the money going to a Home Show, unless you learn the difference between just being at a Home Show and Home Show Success. Learn the various techniques that will produce leads and sales. Some people exhibit at Home Shows to do business, and others go, to get a feel on how business is. There is a system and technique, on how to exhibit and work Home Shows. Home Shows, fairs and specialty shows are an excellent … (3 comments)
sales training: Networking For Referrals – ‘Old School’ Style
- 02/21/10 10:20 PM
This week we speak with Robert August, S. Robert August Today, the term ‘networking’ is most often thought of in terms of online social media – LinkedIn, Active Rain, Facebook, Twitter, etc. But, offline, in-person networking, like we used to do, is still as powerful a means of growing sales as it ever was. S. Robert August, one of the few great masters of the art networking, joins us to share why and how top salespeople create networking opportunities to increase their sales… and how you can, too. “Were finding that as we embrace the electronic age of communication we’re losing … (4 comments)
sales training: Deal or No Deal: 7 Keys to Successful Negotiation
- 02/14/10 08:58 PM
This week we speak with Roland Nairnsey, The New Home Specialists Most of us are familiar with the popular TV show, Deal or no Deal. The show has a good formula for how to negotiate: There is pressure, tension, drama and expectation; it follows a lot of the patterns of negotiating. What we find is that negotiating is sort of a lost art. Not everybody knows how to negotiate because in the past we didn’t have to. This week Roland Nairnsey shares his top seven negotiation tip to bring everybody up to speed. …It’s how you play the game. Research shows that the main … (6 comments)
sales training: Sales Management: Managing Activities vs. Results
- 02/07/10 11:02 PM
This week we speak with John Underwood, author of Scratch Selling: 18 Lessons Golf will Teach you about Sales. For 25 years John Underwood has been helping sales organizations to increase their productivity by teaching them to measure and manage activities rather than results. Manage these activities, says Underwood, and the results will take care of themselves. We asked John what he saw as the biggest management lessons he’s learned that he could share with us, and what steps we should take to increase sales productivity from a management perspective. Listen to the audio to hear his answer, or continue reading our … (1 comments)
sales training: Overcoming Fear in the Marketplace
- 01/31/10 12:09 PM
This week we speak with sales expert, author and speaker, Steve Waterhouse Virtually everyone I talk to is telling me they are facing a marketplace that is scared to make a decision; they are afraid to be sold. And the worst thing you can do when you’re up against someone who is afraid is to start to look like a huckster. As sales professionals we have to overcome that, and there are three simple techniques that can help us overcome that fear. 1. Share your Successes Be sure to lay out your track record of success to the client. Everyone of … (2 comments)
We speak with Charlie Schneider – Builder Sourcing
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