What Stops the Sale – Part 1: Cost
They didn’t buy. That means that something stopped the sale, and today we’ll take a look at one of the two key factors that stops the sale. Let’s talk about cost.
If you follow my work at all, you know that there is a formula that I teach that shows us why people purchase and why they don’t. The formula suggests that people buy when their current dissatisfaction multiplied by their future promise is greater than their cost and fear.
Let me break that down. The current dissatisfaction and the future promise. These are motivators. They propel a customer forward into a purchase decision.
Cost and fear are inhibiting factors. They hold the customer back from making a decision. In looking at what stops the sale, we have to begin with the first of those two issues, the issue that we call cost. The cost side of the equation accounts for things that are at least somewhat loosely measurable price, payment, terms, hassle, and time. All of those things fall into the category of cost.
Of course, the greatest of those costs for a home buyer is payment, not the price. That’s just a value gauge. It’s the monthly commitment that presents the greatest concern.
This is especially true in a time of higher interest rates when customers know that they would have paid significantly less had they purchased just six months ago or a year ago. Our task to keep the sale moving forward is ensuring that customers are not hung up on the payment. Remember, payment has always been an issue for all home buyers since the beginning of time.
There has never been a time when customers were perfectly happy with their payment. But it’s also important to understand that the payment is the enabler to something far more important, that being life improvement. We don’t want to talk so much about the payment that we forget about what the payment does.
Namely, the payment gets our customers into the right home. Now, all that means is that you cannot get involved in a conversation about payments before a customer determines whether or not they love the home. But wait a minute. What if the payment is too high and they can’t afford it?
If you’re dealing in a sales environment, where you’re swamped with traffic and have more people than you know how to deal with, I get that would be a problem. You don’t want to waste your time trying to sell to somebody who can’t buy. But that’s not the case in most real estate environments these days.
You have the time to spend with your customers. I would rather take a customer to a home and see if they love the home first and risk the fact that they may not be able to purchase it as compared to going through a detailed conversation about price where they are eliminating themselves because the payment is perceived to be too high right out of the gate even before they’ve seen the home.
You see, what I found is that when customers love a home, they will go to great lengths to figure out how to pay for it. My advice, make sure that the customer loves the home before you get into any kind of payment conversation.
It’s not easy, but this is where true professionals prove their value.
If you’re interested in learning more about overcoming the cost objection, as well as the entire buying formula, you might be a great fit for our 4:2 Formula® Academy. This is a three-day academy taught live, where we equip home sales professionals on how to sell the way that a buyer wants to buy. If you work in home sales and are ready to master the most proven sales strategy in the industry, you can learn more at jeffshore.com/42fa
Until next to my friends, learn more to earn more.
