Top 10 Golden Rules to Selling to Realtors - or just about anybody

Top 10 Golden Rules to Selling to Realtors - or just about anybody...

So how can you differentiate yourself from your competition? Stop being a salesperson! Instead, become a valued business partner or consultant to your clients. It all starts with making YOUR top priority knowing what THEIR top priority is ~ to increase their business, or a way to improve their business by working less. You are bringing VALUE to them. A consultant advises after listening and obtaining facts. A consultant is knowledgeable and worthy of respect. A consultant’s customer doesn’t want what they have - s/he wants what they know. This is what today’s salesperson must become.

Below are a few of the top Golden Rules of Selling to Realtors which may put you in the correct mindset moving forward:

1. Know who you are, and how YOU want to be perceived.


2. Limit your target list to no more than 40 contacts and update every 30 days.


3. Focus, focus, focus.


4. Set up formal appointments. Don't perform drive-by sellings.


5. Never make a call without a purpose. Provide value.


6. Interview prospects to educate yourself, not to close the sale. Since you don’t know if you can help..get more info and be a consultant to set up the next appointment.


7. Intend to understand what it is the customer wants, rather than “sell” your services and products.


8. Never tell a customer what to do, or what they want.


9. Focus on after-sale fulfillment, communication, and service issues to build customers-for-life.


10. Look for opportunities to evolve or expand with your customer. The second you take your customer for granted, they become vulnerable. Meet with them once per month in a business setting to re-evaluate your service levels.

Sales is about perseverance. Typically, the most fear-inspiring realtor, lender or attorney in the office is the one you should be talking to. It will take creativity and tenacity to get time in front of them and likely he/she thinks you are just like every other title rep or lender. As General Patton said- "Courage is fear holding on a minute longer."

So persevere, and be courageous. Apply what you’ve learned and blow away your competition by setting a higher industry standard.

Happy Selling!

Working By Interview

Working By Interview

As you think about the clients you interact with, especially top producers, notice that those that are extremely busy and value their time, tend to be driven by scheduling. When we work by appointment / interview ONLY, we communicate to those we are working with that our time is as valuable as theirs. (look at other professionals that work by appointment, Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, etc…)

I understand that there are times when we absolutely have to do things for our customers RIGHT NOW! I’m not suggesting that you put off an important client with an immediate need. What I am suggesting is that when working with a new Prospect, use scheduling to create perceived value. By showing our Prospects that we can and will be available at their beck and call, we set an unproductive precedence which will permeate the relationship going forward.
By now, you’re probably getting pretty good at getting interviews with your Top Prospects – if you want to know how to get these appointments, email us at info@rightnowconsulting.com .

Once you’re on these interviews, it is important to remember that you are using a new method of uncovering needs and determining if there is a possibility of a mutually beneficial relationship. Resist the urge to present a solution during the first meeting. Remember, your prospects are more interested in how well you understand their needs BEFORE they are concerned with how well you know your products.














Beginning and Ending Interviews and Conversational Questioning.

Beginning the interview

1. Build rapport
2. Restate your Value Statement
3. Establish joing confidentiality
4. State your goal for the interview
5. Ask if the agent has a goal for the interview. Or, perhaps a qualifying question such as,
6. "How will you know if this was a successful interview?"

Start with a kick-off question (unique to the customer and/or focused on past successes) – see my other post on asking great questions

Conversational Questioning Steps

1. Ask a baseline question to introduce a topic
2. Continue with at least two follow-up questions to explore key points raised by the customer
3. Summarize what you heard regarding that topic
4. Check for the customer's agreement
   

Ending the Interview

1. Summarize the interview
2. Re-establish your desire for a business relationship
3. Confirm the need and specify next steps
4. Ask a Relationship Definition Question
5. Arrange for the next appointment

Put some structure to the way you interact in your face to face appointments with both your prospects and clients - you'll be surprised at the reaction you get.

I'll elaborate further on each as I get comments from you.

Happy selling!

Ride-Time for Sales Managers

It's Time to Be Seen
It is 2008. Where has the time gone? With a New Year already upon us, it is time to venture out from behind our desks and be seen. Not only should you be seen by those beyond the security of your own office, more importantly, it is time to get out there and visit your customers.

Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
It's funny when you overhear discussions about sales management. Most of the time, these discussions are centered around a few key things. There is the tendency for upper level management to want more accountability and measurable results from the sales effort. The sales manager is caught between their boss, who wants to quantify sales results, and their salespeople, who sometimes struggle (as we all often do) to turn in an expense report on time. Frustrated, sales managers exhaustively find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. The goal is hardly worth the punishment

The One Single Thing
OK, so what’s the point? The point is, the most important subject gets lost in the shuffle. I know it’s hard to imagine there is anything more critical to sales management than accountability or keeping up with the competition. Even though sales reports seem like the Holy Grail of sales management, there is something more important to the process. There is a secret, a hidden treasure of the successful sales managers of the world. The bizarre thing is that the secret is what made you successful when you were a top-notch salesperson in the first place. The secret is simply this: Spending more time in the field talking to customers is more important than any other single thing you do. Period.

You’re probably scratching your head. You might be thinking, "isn’t that what I have salespeople for?" Well, yes, and no. Yes, your salespeople do a good job at developing and maintaining relationships on a daily basis. But, you don’t have to be everywhere and do everything for everyone, as much as it often feels that way. When you are in the field with customers, a lot of really important things happen. Let’s look at some of them in a little more detail.

Benefits of Field Time
As sales management, when you call on customers, you get a different level of interest. It’s amazing what a little 'perceived' power will do for your sales process. The title on your business card will give your access to people, places, and issues others will never be a part of. It’s not until you’ve been invited inside do you realize the opportunity had been there all along.
You should be going out in the field with your salespeople a minimum of once per quarter, using a call route you design. Here’s why. Seeing your rep in action gives you a chance to experience their strengths (and weaknesses?) first hand. It gives you the ability to make recommendations, offer encouragement and give compliments when you catch them doing something right.
Your field call schedule should include the big offices or top producers you want to your reps to be targeting. Offer pointers and help support the interaction; either way, you’ll both learn something.

This also allows you get a great sense of the salespersons’ work habits, how well-known they are, and how dominant your company is in the territory. In general, your rep’s value to the customer will become very apparent. Do the receptionists seem to know the rep? What about the top producers? Do they acknowledge the salesperson? Does the rep introduce you warmly to people they clearly have already met? Has the rep figured out how to get behind the iron curtain in closed offices? Answers to these questions will truly help you to gauge their effectiveness, something that can only be expressed first hand.

Staying In Touch
Being in the field allows you to stay in constant touch with customer opportunities and needs. When you are busy running sales meetings, having endless internal conversations, handling customer calls, and attending meetings, it’s easy to make the mistake of relying on salespeople to supply you with information about competitors, customers, and the market in general. It isn’t that the information they provide you isn't important, it’s just that outside observations will be from their frame of reference. It won’t (in most cases) be “global” enough. The goals of outside conversations for a sales manager might not be the same as the salesperson. Asking existing and prospective customers about their views of the market place, about your competition, about their business challenges, and their views of opportunity will help you get connected to things that are about to happen outside the office, rather than history of a particular escrow file. This inevitably helps you guide your strategic efforts while you’re building relationships with high-end prospects and customers. A “no-lose” scenario.

Sales managers who are in the field regularly have direct control over their results. Though it probably goes without saying, the most powerful benefit of getting out in the field with salespeople and customers might be the timing of the market knowledge you gain. For example, if you are discovering a market opportunity before your competition, you’ll have the chance to get there first. You’ll hear about customers who want to enter into joint ventures, competitors you should be recruiting, and overall market conditions. The information you gather will be high quality and will answer the global questions you struggle with when making strategic decisions. You’re able to test ideas that you’ve been considering before wasting a ton of time and energy on their implementation. You’ll be able to put your resources and people in motion going towards tangible customer opportunities, rather than making healthy guesses and getting lucky.
Sales managers have so many conflicting priorities, it can be difficult to make this one of them. Unfortunately, we find that more than 68% of the sales managers we consult don’t spend one full day in the field with each of their salespeople in a year, much less a quarter. The good news is, if you are one of the few, the elite managers who make a serious commitment to the “once per quarter” field effort, you’ll likely be the only sales manager in your area who does this and have a serious competitive advantage.

But, But... Ten Easy Reasons
If you struggle with finding the time to do it, let me leave you with a list of ideas that will put you in front of customer situations that take less than an hour to conduct.

• Call your company’s top existing customer and take her (or him) to coffee. Bring the appropriate rep.
• Call your Company’s top prospective customer and interview him/her in their office. Bring your rep.
• Set up an office presentation in one of your high priority existing customer’s office operations and bring your salesperson.
• On a weekend, go with a salesperson to visit three prospective customer’s open houses.
• Create a list of your top 10 target customers and interview them in the course of 90-day period. Bring the appropriate rep.
• Take the top competitor’s best salesperson out to lunch. Don’t bring a rep.
• Create an event that your company conducts entirely on its own. This could be a Mastermind group, a highly pertinent educational event, whatever. So long as it’s yours and you call to invite your top 10 customers personally. Get all of your reps involved
• Arrange to meet one of your highest opportunity office managers at an office where your company has little to no market share for lunch. Don’t bring the rep.
• Arrange to meet a customer who you are aware had a pretty ugly problem in their office and let them rant their frustration. Bring the appropriate rep.
• Stop by one real estate office every day and meet its top producer.
  

No Excuses
OK. There you have ten easy reasons to spend time out talking to customers, each in less than an hour. It is a New Year and time to renew your commitment to finding out what is important to your customer. Time to be seen, ask questions, and find out for yourself what makes your customers (and future clients) tick.On your way home, take this as an opportunity to pick one of the ideas and act immediately, (but don’t hurt yourself.) If you’re working at home, or working out, do one of these things immediately after you’re done. You’ll be on the road to being more informed, more in control, and even more successful. And by the way, the next time you hear someone talking about the three over analyzed issues in sales management, tell them the best kept secret. Go out and talk to customers and everything else will follow.
So why are you still reading this? Now get out there.

Coaching the Enthusiasm for Results

Bold Enthusiasm

I keep hearing people say that we are in a “down market.” I keep hearing that “times are tough.” I keep hearing that “the golden days are over.” This reminds me of a marriage or relationship that has hit a rough spot, and I am certain everyone can sympathize ~ be it lack of time, kids, financial stress, careers or communication breakdowns. Just because the honeymoon is over doesn’t mean that the marriage is. The passion that brought it all together is still there, but sometimes it just needs to be re-examined and re-ignited. Passion. Bold Enthusiasm.

Now More Than Ever
Now more than ever, we as an industry need to have Bold Enthusiasm in how we approach our business, our co-workers, and of course, our clients. No one wakes up and says ‘Oh, I want to be in title when I grow up.’ So, it begs the question, what has kept you here through tough times in years past? I would venture to say that it is a passion for what you do. It is a passion for serving your clients needs. I know because that is why I am here, too. I know that is also why I left my former profession. The passion was gone. I needed to re-ignite the passion ~ to try to find it again. And I did. And here I am in the title industry.

When a marriage is in a rough spot, it is the best time to rekindle the passion. It is the time when we can rediscover what it is that we love about our career and why we come to work every morning. If you are passionate about your business, so will be the people around you. The most successful people and companies in this world are fueled by a contagious passion within their employees that generates positive results, and by the way, profits, regardless of external circumstances.

So how do you turn Passion into Profits? Here are a few tools for ensuring success in good and bad times.

IGNITE THE PASSION

Be a Leader

Be honest with yourself. Understand where you are in your life, what you already have, what you want and what you are willing to do to get there. Leadership is an internal approach that is seen externally. Being a leader means being the one who creates the vision and encourages others to see it! Stop Coasting & start Contending.

Live with Purpose

What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? What are you committed to on both a personal and professional level? What is your cause? What do you mean to your clients, your co-workers?
On your epitaph, will it read “Went to work each day and came home.” Or, will it read “Was purposeful, passionate about life, and the people that she touched.”

Reconnect with your vision, goals & people

Project yourself and your company into the future and what do you see? What does it look like? Be specific and describe it in detail. Create a vision of success for yourself and those around you. Goals are attainable dreams that make you reach and develop. Review and revise your goals, consistently tracking your progress.
Share your vision and goals with your team. Let them know where they a going and how they are going to get there. Give them a sense of purpose and show them how their efforts contribute to the company as a whole.

PLAY WITH FIRE

Create a Play Space

Do you remember recess? That wasn’t just the school’s way to make sure that children tired themselves out so they wouldn’t drive teachers crazy. Playing is a great way to get the blood flowing and allowing people to blow off steam. They are more refreshed, focused and more productive. I am not suggesting you build a playground in your parking lot, but do create an atmosphere that fosters fun! Keep a few toys on hand, Koosh balls, ping pong table, foosball.

Encourage Creativity

Remember when you were learning to draw? You created pictures that looked more like lines on a page than the animal that you claimed it was? Well, you were being creative. You could see a pattern where others saw chaos. Look for the patterns and encourage out–of-the-box thinking. Be You.

Applaud Positivism.

Start small. The only way to reinforce new behavior is to make sure that you allow yourself to achieve and celebrate smaller goals before you move onto bigger ones. Acknowledge proactive attitudes.

PASS THE TORCH

• Attitude: How do you arrive at work each day? Believe in yourself it will show on the outside and it will make people want to be around you. Focus on the things you can control and build on the positive.
• Energy: Persistence is key in this time of change. You won’t see results overnight, but you will see small changes right away. Keeping that energy steady is important to lasting success. Almost like playing catch, pass the energy along to those who need it most. Keep the energy high.
• Integrity: Be truthful in all that you do. Be true to yourself, and to others. The Golden Rule is never out of style.
  

In Summary
In the end, our clients want to do business with people they like, who exude unbridled BOLD enthusiasm and are passionate about what they do.

By Dr. Cynthia McGovern and Anthony George
Senior Consultants, RightNow

The Sales Process: In Sales, You Get What You Measure

By Laura Compton
Business Support Manager, RightNow

Ask 10 salespeople in our industry what their commission goal is this year, and only 1 or 2 will be able to answer with a solid number. Most will say something like, “Well, I don’t know where the industry is headed, so I hope to earn at least what I did last year.” We also commonly hear “I work as hard as I can every month, bringing in as many orders as I can, and that’s the commission that I will make.” The reality is that only 1-2% of all title industry sales and marketing representatives will tell you exactly how much they want to make, and exactly how they are going to do it. With great precision, they will also tell you the number of “no’s” they need to hear every day in order to achieve their goal.

There is no doubt about it. Many salespeople in our industry have done very well for themselves “working hard.” Just take one look at your parking lot on the day of your staff meeting and you’ll see. But as Bob Dylan said a long time ago, “The times, they are a changin’.” In this case, if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you won’t necessarily get the same result you’ve always achieved in the past.

So let’s play the numbers game.

We suggest that you work these numbers with each person on your team individually, since they won’t be the same for everyone. One performer may be better at converting cold calls to appointment than another. Start with the commission they want to earn in any given “commission period,” usually one month’s time.

Commission Goal for Bob = $5,000 per month (This allows Bob to make his annual goal of $100,000 total gross income, because Bob’s base + car allowance is $40K.)

• Bob’s commission breakdown is the following:
• 3% of the premium dollars that he brings in, and
• 0.5% of the "house" or branch revenue (Accounts Bob did not bring in , but helps maintain)

On average, the monthly amount Bob earns from the ‘house account’ at 0.5% is $1,000. Therefore, he needs to earn $4,000 on his own. In order to earn $4,000 with a 3.0% commission rate, Bob needs to generate $134,000 in revenue. Are you with me so far? ($134,000 x 3% = $4,000). The average fee per file (FPF) in Bob’s office is $1,950. Therefore, $134,000 divided by $1,950 would be equal to 69 closed orders. (We could get really complicated here and separate resale and refi and any other streams of business Bob can generate, but we’ll just use an average FPF to simplify things.)

So, Bob needs to bring in 69 closed orders on his own, given his commission structure, in order to meet his financial goals. But wait, we’re not done yet. We need to make sure that Bob’s goal of 69 closed orders, combined with the revenue from house accounts is (a) enough to make the branch profitable, and (b) enough to also meet the branch goals. (For simplicity, let’s assume that if Bob brings in 69 closed orders, the branch achieves its goal of 21% profit retention.)

Now we get down to the fun stuff
Quite simply, we all know that sales is about activity. But in concert with the activity, it is also about time. It takes a certain number of calls over a certain amount of time to get an appointment. It takes a certain amount of appointments to get a commitment for an order. It then takes a certain number of “commitments” to actually convert to an order. Know on average the numbers associated with each of these activities for each of your team members, as it may vary, and select a span of time in which to conduct the activity. Bob may need to ratchet up activity in order to get the results he needs and wants. If 10 office visits a day “talking to as many people as he can” doesn’t get him there, help him to set specific goals around calls, contacts and interviews.

As you meet with your team members regularly, help them to set goals and track their progress on an ongoing basis. You will start to identify best practices that help elevate everyone on the team. You win, and so do they!

RightNow suggests, at a minimum, that salespeople should have monthly results goals for the following categories: revenue, new clients and orders. They should also have monthly activity goals for both (a) outbound contacts made and (b) interviews with prospects and clients.

So, if you don’t set goals with your sales team now, make it YOUR goal to do so by the end of the month for the final quarter of the year. Then, do the same for the entire year of 2008. Our research consistently shows that the mere act of setting goals, and writing them down, helps individuals and operations attain greater numbers for financial success. 2008 will be upon us soon, and we want you to be prepared to take your team to the next level of success.

Owning a Niche

I keep running into this subject. Niche Marketing.

In a changing real estate market with insane stories coming out everyday predicting the downfall of society as we know it (OK I'm embellishing a little bit here) it's more important than ever to create and/or identify, and own and niche. Think about it. Look around and find real estate agents and loan officers that have grown in 2007 over 2006 and will continue to do so in 2008 and you'll find one commonality. They own a niche.

Here are 4 sectors in the real estate space that we've noticed are growing today:

1. Reverse Mortgage
2. Private Banking
3. Real Estate Owned (REO)
4. Preforeclosure Sales (commonly known as "short sales")

Spend some time over the holiday and figure out what niche you're going to own in 2008, create a strategy for how you're going to research it, target the right people, communicate your value to that niche, then work like mad to interview those prospects so you can provide the value based solution that allows you to negotiate a percentage of their business in 2008, not just their next deal.

Happy hunting...

From the Lips of a Top Producer

I just had this section of an article forwarded to me by a rep (thanks TT) and think it's incredibly apt. It's by Walter Sanford and here's a link to the full article.

"Your only question remains 'How do I affect the top real estate agent in my town?' My answer is, 'Learn the real estate business!' Any top salesperson knows that the fastest way to provide a market for a product is to make sure that the product provides solutions for their day-to-day business. This means understanding their business. If you were selling copiers to a pharmaceutical company, you would pore over the company's financial statements and annual reports to determine the potential need for your product. The same goes for your potential real estate agents. After identifying them as a potential or realistic top 'elephant agent,' ask the appropriate questions to find out what the greatest needs are that can be supplied by you..."