How do I get my sales people to follow a process?

 

the customer walks in and they have a certain question and the salesperson just follows them down the path of their question and answers their question. And then the customer asks another question, and now they just follow them down the path of answering that question.

 

And then the customer asks another question, and who’s in charge of this presentation at this point?

 

It’s always the person asking the questions. Right. And that in this example it’s the customer. So the 300% rule is basically I’m going to drive the bus. You just stepped onto my bus. And I am not like letting you jump into the the position with the steering wheel and the gas pedal.

 

I’m going to drive the bus, and the way I am going to do that is I’m going to ask you questions, and whoever asked the questions will be the person who’s in charge of this whole process. So as a Home Builder Coach with every customer who walks in, I have the 300% rule. I’m going to do 100% of the process to 100% of the people, 100% of the time, every single time.

 

And I just had a salesperson the other day saying to me that they had a customer come in and they wished they would have covered this one part of their presentation that they didn’t cover, because the reason they couldn’t get them to buy was because they never covered that part. I’m like, exactly. That’s why you got to cover 100% of the process with 100% of the people.

 

100% of the time, that is the shortcut to the sale. And what salespeople do is they try to shortcut the shortcut so, you know, they’ll get into like, oh, well, they said they already talked to a lender. I’m not going to talk to them about financing.

 

So they shortcut the shortcut or the customer comes in and they go, I’ve already been on your website and I know that I like your, you know, Aspen floor plan. And it’s like, so they don’t do the tours of homes with them because they already said they like the Aspen. So they shortcut the shortcut or the customer comes in and they say, I already know that I want to be in, you know, Deer Meadows community.

 

And it’s like, okay, so we don’t even talk to them about other communities they have. And we shortcut the shortcut or they say, hey, I drove through the neighborhood. I really think I might want homesite 32. And so we don’t do a home site walk with them and we shortcut the shortcut. So, these are all things that salespeople do where they shortcut the shortcut by not doing the 300% rule.

 

And then, you know, we when the client walks in, like there is a very specific process to go from hello to contract. Going from hello to contract needs to be a critical path that we do the plays that we need to. It’s just like if the New England Patriots with Tom Brady you know they start the game right.

 

The game starts. Have you ever heard of the scripted 15 in an NFL game. Yes the first 15 plays. Yeah. So they’ve scripted out the first 15 plays. Why do you think they picked those 15 plays. And they want to score a touchdown. They they practiced it. Yeah they all week long they practiced these 15 plays. One because they’re the plays.

 

They run the best. And two, they’re the plays. They feel like their defense would be the most susceptible to them being able to have success with. And they want to start off on the best foot possible, right? They want to have the best chance of starting the game being ahead. So it’s the scripted 15. Well, in a sales environment, right?

 

If I’m a new home salesperson, I need to have my scripted 15 right off the bat. So play number one is KB connect card benefits book, right. This is all about making a connection, right? It’s kind of like rapport building rapport, making a connection with them because people buy from they like from people they like and trust. And then it’s card getting that guest registration card, filled out with their name and phone number.

 

If I don’t have a name and a phone number, I cannot follow up with that person. And I would say that most salespeople who are not, you’re not getting a lot of reinforcement and training with on a regular basis and watching video of them doing the process in the model home. My experience is that about 75% of the time, they do not get the contact information of the walk in.

 

So that’s a fail right there, right? I can I can follow up with 0% of the people. I didn’t get a name and a phone number for. I can follow up with 100% of the people that I did. So you got to get that card from them, and then you got to tell them the benefits of why they would want to choose you.

 

Like what makes you unique from other builders. Right. They’ve got lots of builders to choose from. They walked into your model. Tell them why you’re a great choice for them, right? You got to tell them how many years experience you guys have building why you’re passionate about what you do, what makes you the purple cow in the field full of brown cows?

 

Because there’s lots of brown cows in the field, but the purple cow stands out to them. So what’s your unique selling proposition? And there should be several. This is all pulled from the document called Why Choose Dad Homes or why Choose Shah Homes. We had you know and so it’s kind of like the bullet point ten points of why you would choose us were the highest rated and most reviewed home builder in our area.

 

You know, we’ve won 42 awards in the last 25 years for Best of Parade or whatever those things are. If you don’t have, you know, a whole bunch of awards, then you know, 1986 Pinewood Derby, first place, you know, my dad was 1986 finally Derby, first place winner or whatever. Get something that you have an award for from a third party saying you do a good job because they don’t believe you as much as they believe a third party, right?

 

And then it’s like, tell them, you know, other things, like we have the simplest process of any builder in the area. We have the most transparent pricing of any builder. We can very quickly and, you know, 30 minutes, we can go from I like this home to I have line item priced out everything you want in the home.

 

And you know exactly what the bottom line is. That’s transparent pricing. And that’s a reason to choose us. Right. And then it’s you know so that’s the benefits portion. And then in KB the last part is book always book an appointment from an appointment. If I didn’t sell them the home and write a contract today I need a follow up appointment.

 

Don’t turn yourself into the person chasing them after they leave, set an appointment with them before they leave. And the best way to do this is to go over the five easy steps with them while they’re there on their visit, because you’re telegraphing your punch to them. You’re saying, I’m going to ask you to take the next step before you leave, and then right before they leave, ask them to take the next step and schedule a time to go walk home sites or to do the price out with them.

 

So it’s CCBB connect card benefits and book. And then the next, you know, other things that you can kind of weave in here is doing that. Five easy steps to me is one of the most pivotal ways that you get that customer to understand your process. And to tell you all of the things they need to tell you that are the core issues of why they started looking for a home in the first place, and for you to really uncover a lot of the objections or maybe, requirements they have in order for them to purchase from you.

 

So, and objections are the roadmap to selling a home like I love when a home builder coach pulls objections out of the customer. Right? I want to know what their objections are. I’m not offended when they tell me they didn’t want to buy from me because of XYZ e it helps me because now I know I can turn it into what we call a circular close where I can, a circular closes.

 

I as a Home Builder Coach isolate the objection and I say, is that the only thing that’s keeping you from moving forward? And they go, yeah, it is. And then I overcome their objection and I go, well, actually, we can fix that. We can do this. And then they go, oh, okay, I didn’t know you could do that. And then you close on them after you’ve done that.

 

So you isolate the objection, overcome the objection and close. And then it’s like they maybe they go, well, I don’t know if I’m in there and they’re hemming and hawing. And now it’s called a circular closed because all you’re doing is bringing out the other objections. Okay. Well, you said it. That was the only thing keeping you from moving forward.

 

What else. And they give you another objection because people will hide their objections from you till you start asking them to make a commitment. And the commitment might be to purchasing. Right? That’s at the end. But the commitment upfront might be, like I said, with that first time walk in client, the commitment you’re going for is the next appointment to Daisy chain.

 

Together, your appointments and keep momentum. And you want to keep momentum because you know in in a sales world, time kills all deals, right? You get them excited about the homes you showed them. And then that excitement wears off is they go home and get back to their normal life. So you want to daisy chain those appointments better so you can strike while the iron is hot.

 

So maybe the the, you know, circular clothes, you’re just using it to overcome an objection about scheduling the next appointment. And they might go, well, you know, I don’t really have my calendar with me right now or I don’t know what my work schedule is or whatever. Then you just go, great, let’s work around your work schedule. I mean, you’ve been working there for a while.

 

Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, how many years? Eight. Okay, well, take your best guess at a time. That would be outside of your normal work hours. And let’s schedule a time for that. And me, you know, take your best guess. Let’s go ahead and put it on the calendar, because I’ve got a lot of appointments coming up. And, why don’t you take your best guess?

 

I’ll put it on my calendar. And when you get back to your house, you know, tonight, or you get back to work tomorrow, and you know what your calendar is. If it conflicts with that, just shoot me a text and we’ll we’ll switch it up to what works for you. But now I’ve at least got a commitment from them.

 

Right? And so the five easy Steps pulls out these objections or obstacles. Some things are brick walls, some things are hurdles. And it allows you to keep on moving forward. And it pulls out all the important stuff. Right? I mean, it’s like, you know, you ask them in there about their budget. Well, I can’t show them homes that are in their budget if I don’t know what their budget is.

 

Most salespeople are terrible and asking people what their budget is or any prying questions. You know what I mean? So they’ll get kind of quiet about it and they’ll not ask like, so what kind of monthly payments are you comfortable with? You know, and they won’t ask questions like, and which kind of mortgage are you doing? I just laid out here on the five easy steps that you can do 3.5% down, or if your VA zero down, those are your lowest down payments.

 

Or if you want to go conventional, those are five, 10 or 20% down. Which one of those are you planning on doing? I just asked the customer, like, how much money do you have to put down? A lot of salespeople don’t want to do that. And so if I watch a game film of them, I’ll see that they skip that question.

 

And that’s a really important question to find out the answer to. Right. And so the five easy steps from a home builder coach just pulls out all of the like really important things I need to talk to them about and helps guide me to the sale with them. It also to them feels like I’m just giving them really helpful information about how the homebuilding process works with us.

 

And then you kind of are also, you know, in talking about that financing portion, you’re kind of leading into that lender warm handoff, right? Because if I don’t if they’re a financing buyer and not a cash buyer, I don’t have a very good chance of getting them to, contract until they’ve actually done a mortgage application and they’ve been told by a lender, here is your approval letter, you’re good to go, your credit’s great and you’re approved for $465,000 or whatever it is.

 

So if I hand them that business card of a lender and tell them, here’s your homework, go do your homework. Call this person who’s going to ask you a lot of personal financial questions. They’re going to want to see your taxes, and they’re going to want to talk about how much money you make and how much money you have in your bank account.

 

Please go do your homework and go do that. Nobody does it. So you got to do that. Lender warm hand off when you call them while they’re standing in front of you, you put them on speaker phone and you do that process on the lender. Warm handoff because now they’ve met this person. They know that they’re, a nice person.

 

They were helpful. They answered questions, they’re no longer a stranger. And then you got to make sure you put them into that group text when you hang up, so that the lender can text them a link to the application and answer any further questions for them, and get that process started. So if we don’t kind of do that whole process in that order, then we end up in a place where we go, I don’t know why I didn’t get this sale, or I don’t know why I can’t move this person forward.

 

And, you know, I kind of say it this way, like training salespeople, doing, you know, having been in new home sales training for a really long time and a home builder coach for a really long time, what I’ve seen is that the biggest issue is that, you know, I can if I have a highway, I’ll give me this analogy.

 

If I have a highway and on that highway there’s no speed limit signs. People will drive 100 miles an hour. We’ll drive over 65 for sure. If I put a speed limit sign on the side of the road, about 30% of people will actually look at that speed limit sign and go, I should probably keep it under 65, you know, but there’s still a large percentage that’ll go over 65.

 

And then if I put a state trooper on the side of the road with a radar detector or an A badge and a gun, then surprisingly less people will go over 65. But there is still a group of people with that threat out there knowing that they could get a ticket and have to pay 200, 300 bucks. Whatever it is, there is still a group of people that will always drive over 65 in sales.

 

People in model homes are the same way. If I tell them this is the critical path to take the customer down, there is a group of people. When you just say, I want you to do this, they’ll do it. There’s a group of people that when you say, I’m going to watch you on these video cameras, and I’m going to listen to your recorded calls and make sure you’re doing the process.

 

There’s a group of people that a larger group of people that will follow the process, but there’s still people who won’t at all follow that process. And then there’s when you watch their game film with them and review it with them, especially if you can do it in front of other peers. It’s really even more effective because it’s a peer pressure thing.

 

But when you do those things, then even less people will, you know, do their own thing and more and more people will follow your process. So that’s kind of managing salespeople 101. And the thing is, is when you just like I learned how to do this and I went through a training to learn it, the a lot of people will retain, you know, 5% or 10% of that information.

 

And then three months from then they won’t retain that information. So you have to have repetitiveness. You know, I always say that repetition brings revelation. It’s like the when they keep hearing the same thing over and over again. Eventually, like the lights go on, the revelation happens. Now I understand why we’re doing this. I see how it’s working now and they get into a flow.

 

If I took Tom Brady and I said, Tom, I want you to go out and play in the game this weekend. And he’s like, cool, I’ll see you on Sunday. And you’re talking to him on Monday. And he’s like, he doesn’t come to any practices all week. He’s not going to play as well on Sunday. If he practices those plays all week, he’s going to do much better on Sunday.

 

He’s going to be a top performer on Sunday because he has a muscle memory of the repeating, of doing it over and over again. And that’s why role playing is really important in training, and that’s why having a process that’s very visual and you got the five easy steps hanging on the wall in the office and you got the flier that’s the wide shoes, you know, flier.

 

And you’ve got the guest card ready. And you have all these things on a clipboard and you’re able to present it all to the customer. Those visual cues help guide you through that path, and you can take them down that critical path and so on the whole. So that’s kind of how you fix sales in a nutshell. It’s a really short version of it from a Home Builder Coach, but that’s how you do it.