By Jason Forrest You know the highly hesitant prospects who come in thinking they just can’t afford to buy a home, and yet have solid incomes, little risk of losing their jobs, large down payments, and nearly perfect credit scores? Their consumer confidence (perceived ability to afford a home) is lacking. Consumer confidence levels contribute to overall economic health. When optimism is high, consumers are more likely to engage in the market (i.e. buy homes). But when pessimism abounds, consumers tend to retreat and engage more in their savings accounts. Bob Doll, of BlackRock Investments, made a list of ten predictions for 2011. Check out the first three below: US growth accelerates as US real GDP reaches a new all-time high. The US economy creates two to three million jobs in 2011 as the unemployment rate falls to 9%. US stocks … Read More…

Steven Palmer of Ivory Homes in Salt Lake City sent me a great quote from C.S. Lewis. I is one of those quotes that makes you stop and taste it for a while. It is also powerfully convicting: you’ve been warned! “All of us have the valiancy within us to rise to the moment. Few of us are willing to tackle the mundane.” Let me tell you why that struck me so thoroughly. I specialize in helping sales professionals to maximize their performance, and that means a large part of my calling is related to skill development. Skill. Proficiency. Aptitude. All of these descriptions speak to the idea of perfecting a craft. Like an expert carpenter or a virtuoso pianist, great sales performance is about mastering skill. And like the carpenter or the pianist, it means hours upon countless hours … Read More…

It never ceases to amaze me how many salespeople (not just in new home sales but in all industries) continue to ask questions that bring them poor results. For example, if someone asks, “May I help you?”, your response is almost certain to be “I’m just looking”. That is, of course, an undesirable response. So why do salespeople continue to ask the question? The above example might be too obvious, and to be fair I rarely hear the question in new home sales offices (although I am almost guaranteed to hear it every time I visit the mall!). But there are undoubtedly questions in your standard repertoire that you routinely ask but that give you an undesirable response. Here’s where you can train yourself. When a customer says something that you would rather not hear (“I’m just looking”, for example), … Read More…

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