Creating Confidence in a Changing Market
Are the rumors of a changing market beginning to cause ripples in your organization, your sales team, or even your own mind?
Perhaps, it’s escalated beyond rumors, and what was once a hot market is starting to cool down.
Sound familiar? The variables may be slightly different but the net result of a hot market cooling always brings to bare sales skills that are out of practice and somehow forgotten.
It also leaves your customers wondering… “AAAAAAAAAHHH! IS IT HAPPENING AGAIN!?!?!” Or, at the very least, causes anxiety.
You need a sales team that can relieve that anxiety!
What tends to happen in a “hot” market is people get busy. Sales leaders and agents are slammed with admin and backlog work. Sales training and skill development often go by the wayside as we are likely to focus on sales results rather than sales behaviors.
All of a sudden our sales team must be more than order-takers. They actually have to sell! Now, I’m not saying everyone out there has forgotten how to execute in order to help our buyers make the best decision possible but I think you’ll agree the majority of sales professionals will struggle to get back up to speed on some of the basic skills required to achieve the customer’s mission.
If you have doubts here’s a way to gauge this. Most new home builders have an interest list with what seems to be an infinite list of names. Take a look at a handful of samples on your list. What information do you have about these people beyond names, phone numbers, and email addresses? When was the most recent dialogue with these people (dialogue meaning a two-way conversation)? How many of these people are still buyers?
I don’t have solid figures for this but what if 50-75% of these people are not buyers and the remaining ones now have a new set of concerns that you haven’t yet addressed but will need to before they would ever close on a home.
Is your team prepared to confidently and clearly address your buyers’ concerns, so your sales not only survive this changing market but thrive?
The good news is that you have time albeit not much but there should be a little time for you to be proactive and explore what you need to to ensure your sales team will continue selling homes even when the market slows.
Here are some ideas to consider when prepping your team for a cooling market.
- Confidently and clearly answer the critical questions that every buyer asks themselves in a changing market
- Coach your sales team to craft a compelling “Why Buy Now” sales presentation
- Design a simple but powerful “Unique Value Proposition” to differentiate from the competition and avoid becoming a commodity
- Help your salespeople maximize buyer urgency in a changing market to get buyers off the fence and into a home
- Avoid creating the buyer confusion that almost always leads to a “no”
- Prepare your salespeople to competently and confidently discuss rising interest rates with their buyers
- Keep your team positive, motivated and making sales despite shifting market conditions!
The only better time to be thinking about your team’s development was yesterday. You can’t control the market but you can absolutely control the action plan for making sure you and your team are ready for what’s next. I would encourage you to be purposeful and set aside time this week to start planning for this if you haven’t already.
If you’re looking for a resource that has experience doing this with new home sales teams please reach out to our Director of Sales, Lindsay Ayala to schedule a consultation.
