Despite the frustration, why would a customer want to walk away from all of that built-in appreciation? It just wouldn’t make sense. But what if the prices just were to go flat for a while? I don’t mean prices going down but what if the prices just went flat. What would that do to the customer? What can we, as sales professionals, do about that? I share three ideas with you.

Over the past couple of years, our backlog has become more challenging than ever. Delays, escalation clauses, and now interest rate hikes are the most common accelerants fueling the backlog fires. Look, we know backlog management is part of this business and we should absolutely know how to manage it.

Salespeople are, by and large, more competitive than the average Jill or Joe on the street. But the competitive traits that make them effective can also make them somewhat self-centered, to the detriment of the team (I speak from my own experience here — not as a sales leader but as a sometimes patently obnoxious salesperson!).

Think about what your customer is going through. If you’re trying to buy a home in this environment, the first thing you understand is that your customer is a mental mess. They’re so confused with everything that’s going on around them with the difficulty of being a home buyer today.

I’ve heard sales professionals joke in the past about how the word “meeting” rhymes with “beating” because that’s how their past sales meetings felt to them. And, instead of feeling motivated and inspired when they headed back to their sales centers, they only felt bruised and battered.

Imagine you were out shopping for a new home. You’ve been to four sales offices and worked with four different sales agents. Surprisingly, or maybe not, they all asked the same questions in almost identical order. Now as a buyer you may come to the conclusion that this is normal. This should concern you. Why?

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve never been a big fan of networking. That is until I changed my way of looking at it. I saw networking the wrong way. I always had this picture in my mind of networking being about meeting somebody in a conference or a hotel lobby and then grabbing a business card and shaking their hand and saying, “Hi, I’m Jeff Shore and I’m in sales.” We just have sort of that icky feeling when it comes to networking if that’s the way we feel about it, right?

For the first time in history, a custom designed home has been sold through an online “Buy Now” offer. Harbor Homes partnered with Anewgo to make this possible and buyers were able to pick their homesite, personalize a floor plan, select their finishes, sign paperwork and make a deposit on their own time, remotely. If you’re thinking about implementing BUY NOW, here are the twelve important items you need to consider.

Why does anyone buy anything? It all comes down to one simple motivating factor: The desire to improve one’s life. Whenever you make a purchase decision — either in business or in your personal life — you do so in the hope of creating a better existence.

Are you in the job for the right reasons? Is the job that you are doing conducive to your success, to your skillset? Does it match your capabilities? I’ll share how that worked out for me.