Mar
31
The reason most prospects lie to you is that they have multiple layers of sales resistance.
Traditionally the sale model has always been about advancing the sale. Well, the people in your market place are fed up with the traditional sales model.
People are tired of being manipulated.
Inwardly, the prospect you’re dealing with simply wants to be treated like a person. And all too often the sales dialogs or scripts you’re using are structured with the sales process in mind first—and not the person on the other end.
Think about it from your own experiences.
How many times have you been approached and you knew the top priority of the salesperson was to advance the sale? The car salesmen. The insurance agent. They cared more about their agenda than they did about you.
As Greg Swan said, Life stinks when your heads up your….
Death to the Traditional Sales Model
Well the person you’re attempting to serve is no different. People have become extremely sensitive to the slightest hint of anything to do with the sales process.
Yes. I’m an advocate of becoming highly skilled with questions so you can diagnose your client’s needs [critical if you want to earn a paycheck in this soft market].
BUT…you’ve got to be very careful. You have to be very delicate and super-sensitive to the person you’re talking to…and their needs.
And the best thing I’ve found to help remove sales resistance is to completely let go of your sales agenda. I mean throw it out the window. Focus totally and completely on their needs—not your goals.
The real goal should be to get to a genuine, authentic dialog with that person.
By getting to what sales trainer Ari Galper refers to as the real truth, you’re positioning yourself to be a true problem solver.
But until you get to the real truth you’re actually stuck in somewhat of a guessing game.
See oddly enough, over time, it has become completely socially acceptable to lie to salespeople.
Why? Because the overriding opinion about salespeople is they’re only interested in getting the sale.
The worst part is all the sales models, all the sales training, all the traditional tools have been teaching us to advance the sales process. Well guess what? People have figured the process out.
They can smell it from a mile away. And if they catch even the slightest trace that you’re attempting to advance the sale…you’ve lost the game.
Once they sense that you’re in any way attempting to advance your agenda…you’ll never get to the real truth.
And unconsciously they will feel completely justified in lying to you.
4 Hidden Pressure Points
Whenever potential clients feel sales pressure, they almost always respond with defense and resistance and lying. Hidden sales pressure takes many forms. If we can avoid the ways we bring sales pressure into our cold calling, then we can stop triggering this response.
Here are four hidden sales pressures that we bring to our cold calling:
1. Focusing On the Sales Agenda
If you’re like most people who make cold calls, you’re hoping to make a sale — or at least an appointment — before you even pick up the phone. The problem is the people you call somehow almost immediately notice your mindset.
They sense that you are only focused on your goals and interests, rather than on finding out what they might need or want. This short-circuits the whole process of communication and trust building.
So try this. Practice shifting your mental focus into thinking, “When I make this call, first I’m going to build a conversation. From this, a level of trust can emerge which allows us to exchange information back and forth. And then we can both determine if there’s a fit or not.”
When your focus shifts from making a sale into making a conversation, there’s no sales pressure. Many people enjoy conversations. Moreover, as long as you’re sincere, this will be one of them.
2. Talking About Ourselves First
When we start our cold calls with a mini-pitch about who we are and what we have to offer, we’ve introduced sales pressure right away. The other person knows we want to make a sale, and they have to respond to that pressure. Most will respond with defense or rejection or lying.
So instead, start your conversation by focusing on a need or issue you know the other person is likely facing. Step into their world and invite them to share whether they’re open to exploring possible solutions with you.
3. Forcing the Conversation into a Pre-Planned Strategy or Script
Here’s a hard one to avoid if we’re using scripts or carefully planned cold calling strategies.
When we rely on these methods, it’s usually because we just don’t know how else to “do” cold calling. However, when we take charge of a conversation in this way, the other person almost always feels like they are being maneuvered. That’s pressure.
I’m not suggesting that we don’t prepare and plan for our cold calls. There are some really good ways to begin cold calls that we’ll want to use over and over. Additionally, there are special phrases we can use that convey well the fact that we’re interested in solving a problem for the other person.
What we want to avoid, however, is trying to control a cold calling conversation. This almost always happens with scripts and old-style sales strategies. Potential clients feel this pressure and respond negatively.
4. Bubbling with Over-Enthusiasm
The problem with over-enthusiasm in our conversations is that the other person has to make a decision whether to buy into our perspective, or reject it. They feel the hidden sales pressure that wants them to be carried along with our enthusiasm. This usually means braking, whether gently or abruptly.
With over-enthusiasm (which is often just an offshoot of our tension), potential clients feel somewhat boxed in. They feel the pressure of our expectations so they feel compelled to respond either positively or negatively. Most will almost always respond negatively.
So chill out.
Conclusion
Eliminating all sales pressure from your conversations will invite the other person to respond much more warmly and positively.
And the best way to do that is to completely throw out your sales agenda. Focus on diffusing pressure. This is a gentle process where you carefully use language that demonstrates you’re only interested in serving them.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the real estate marketing Blog by email or news feed.
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Mar
23
An Appropriate Story for Easter
Filed Under Goodwill | 2 Comments
Normally I don’t do stuff like this. But…
It’s Easter, Russell Shaw’s post on confronting death got me thinking and the Randy Pausch Last Lecture video that Russel Shaw shared really messed me up. So it’s kind of inevitable that I’m feeling this way. And wanting to share a little good cheer. And hope.
You might have heard the following story. I believe it’s been circulating the Internet. Somebody sent it to me and I found it a staggeringly good story. Let me know what you think. Hold conclusions until you are finished.
An Appropriate Story for Easter
She jumped up as soon as she saw the surgeon come out of the operating room. She said: ‘How is my little boy? Is he going to be all right? When can I see him?’
The surgeon said, “I’m sorry. We did all we could, but your boy didn’t make it.”
Sally said, “Why do little children get cancer? Doesn’t God care any more? Where were you, God, when my son needed you?”
he surgeon asked, “Would you like some time alone with your son? One of the nurses will be out in a few minutes, before he’s transported to the university.”
Sally asked the nurse to stay with her while she said good bye to son. Sally ran her fingers lovingly through his thick red curly hair.
“Would you like a lock of his hair?” the nurse asked. Sally nodded yes. The nurse cut a lock of the boy’s hair, put it in a plastic bag and handed it to Sally.
Sally said, “It was Jimmy’s idea to donate his body to the University for study. He said it might help somebody else. I said no at first, but Jimmy said, ‘Mom, I won’t be using it after I die. Maybe it will help some other little boy spend one more day with his Mom.’”
Sally went on, ‘My Jimmy had a heart of gold. Always thinking of someone else. Always wanting to help others if he could.”
Sally walked out of Children’s Mercy Hospital for the last time, after spending most of the last six months there. She put the bag with Jimmy’s belongings on the seat beside her in the car.
The drive home was difficult. It was even harder to enter the empty house. She carried Jimmy’s belongings, and the plastic bag with the lock of his hair to her son’s room.
She started placing the model cars and other personal things back in his room exactly where he had always kept them. She lay down across his bed and, hugging his pillow, cried herself to sleep.
It was around midnight when Sally awoke. Lying beside her on the bed was a folded letter. The letter said :
Dear Mom, I know you’re going to miss me; but don’t think that I will ever forget you, or stop loving you, just ’cause I’m not around to say ‘I Love You’.
I will always love you, Mom, even more with each day. Someday we will see each other again.
Until then, if you want to adopt a little boy so you won’t be so lonely, that’s okay with me. He can have my room and old stuff to play with. But, if you decide to get a girl instead, she probably wouldn’t like the same things us boys do. You’ll have to buy her dolls and stuff girls like, you know.Don’t be sad thinking about me.
This really is a neat place. Grandma and Grandpa met me as soon as I got here and showed me around some, but it will take a long time to see everything.
The angels are so cool. I love to watch them fly. And, you know what? Jesus doesn’t look like any of his pictures. Yet, when I saw Him, I knew it was Him.
Jesus himself took me to see GOD! And guess what, Mom? I got to sit on God’s knee and talk to Him, like I was somebody important. That’s when I told Him that I wanted to write you a letter, to tell you good bye and everything. But I already knew that wasn’t allowed.
Well, you know what Mom? God handed me some paper and His own personal pen to write you this letter. I think Gabriel is the name of the angel who is going to drop this letter off to you.
God said for me to give you the answer to one of the questions you asked Him ‘Where was He when I needed him?’
‘God said He was in the same place with me, as when His son Jesus was on the cross. He was right there, as He always is with all His children.’
Oh, by the way, Mom, no one else can see what I’ve written except you. To everyone else this is just a blank piece of paper. Isn’t that cool? I have to give God His pen back now He needs it to write some more names in the Book of Life.
Tonight I get to sit at the table with Jesus for supper. I’m sure the food will be great.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I don’t hurt anymore the cancer is all gone. I’m glad because I couldn’t stand that pain anymore and God couldn’t stand to see me hurt so much, either. That’s when He sent The Angel of Mercy to come get me.
The Angel said I was a Special Delivery! How about that?
Signed with Love from God, Jesus & Me.
Conclusion
Fundamentally the story males some leaps–like God having a knee–but the core of the story remains: death is not the end of the world as we know it. Resurrection. Life after death. This is the Easter Story as we know it.
I’d also like to share some videos of Easter messages from some of my favorite pastors.
I hope you enjoy. And feel free to share your thoughts with me. I’m open to any comments. Honestly.
Mar
20
Conquering Call Reluctance Once and For All
Filed Under Real Estate Prospecting Ideas, Real Estate Sales Tips | Leave a Comment
Anne G. reviews the MLS to make sure she knows all of the new listings that might be of interest to her buyers–instead of following up on her leads.
Hank M. defers his follow up calls so he can build his industry knowledge by reading journals and newsletters.
And Chris H. finds herself giving in to the impulse to write proposals for prospective clients rather than pick up the phone.
What do these three real estate agents share in common? You probably guessed it, call reluctance.
Call reluctance is the “social disease of the sales profession.” Each year, call reluctance single-handedly accounts for over half of all failures in one of the largest professions in the world.
In their book Earning What You’re Worth, researchers George Dudley and Shannon Gooson write that as many as 80 percent of all salespeople who fail within their first year do so because of insufficient call activity.
Unresolved call reluctance can cause frustration and loss of sales. So with this in mind, how do you overcome call reluctance?
Here are five tips:
1. Aim for a number of calls you will make each day. Make this goal small and comfortable.
2. Next, increase the daily number of calls you will make. Do this slowly. Here you will start to see that you don’t encounter the bad things you imagined, or, if you do, you find out that you can handle them.
3. Record each call. In a notebook strictly devoted to your sales calls, make notes about things you should have done differently. Keep this notebook handy whenever you make sales calls and review it every day before you make phone calls.
4. Realize the difference between real and imaginary threats. Over time you will recognize that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the bad things you thought would happen, don’t. And if you do experience rejection or fear, realize it’s not personal. The caller is rejecting your offer, not you.
5. Report to an accountability person. Whether it’s you’re spouse or friend, broker or coach, invite someone to help you stay on track and meet your goals.
Caution: Research shows that successful people do the hard things other people refuse to do. Work through these five steps only if you want to break through to the next level. Follow the footsteps of the successful now and within time you will prosper.
Related Articles
Pleasure and Pain: The Seemingly Dark Art of Manipulation
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Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the real estate marketing Blog by email or news feed.
Mar
13
Boy in the Bubble: How to Entice Even the Most Preoccupied Person
Filed Under Persuasion, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Negotiation | Leave a Comment
Breaking news: You have to break through more than just clutter.
What do I mean by that? Let me explain.
Attention is the new economy. That means the barrier is preoccupation.
Yet, it’s hot stuff to rattle off how many ads CEO’s see a day, the average person sees a day, the left bank bookseller sees a day.
This is commonly known as clutter.
But it doesn’t explain anything about what’s inside a person’s head. That is the real obstacle.
But if you learn how to split through someone’s preoccupation, it doesn’t matter if the he’s barraged with 1 million messages.
You will strike him dead. But it’s not that easy.
Combating Tangible and Intangible Preoccupations
Think of preoccupation as a boy in a bubble. Inside that bubble?
His iPhone. His laptop. His email inbox. His magazines. His television. His notepads, pencils, drafting compass.
Those are the tangibles.
Intangibles include dreams, lusts, fears, worries. All things that keep his vision very short-sighted. In a nutshell, he sees, rarely, no farther than the inner edge of his bubble.
Unless he’s interrupted. Or enticed.
You, my friend, have to entice him. Interrupting him will only piss him off. Piss him off and he hunkers more.
Enticing him involves waiting for him to ask a question.
Why would he do that? He has a problem.
Enter the sales process.
That Irresistible Scent
The first thing you need to have is a clear understanding of is how your prospect arrives at a buying decision.
Here’s a very simplified flow of a buying decision:
- Recognition of need or problem
- Search for information
- Evaluation of alternatives
- Decide what to purchase
- Purchase
- Evaluate the purchase again
With that in mind, let’s now consider how you sell to your prospect.
Keep in mind: Sales is not a push-method. It’s a pull method, where you entice your prospect to follow you by an attractive scent you are offering.
This scent has to appeal to him. It has to satisfy a craving he has. That craving he got before he decided to crawl out of the bubble.
And the overall decision has to be a win-win scenario: both you AND your prospect feel good about the outcome. He must feel it is delicious and think it divine and you must think it fulfilling and feel like you didn’t feed him your arm and leg.
So let’s look at the sales process with a clear goal in mind: matching the what you have to offer to what they want or need.
Defining That Complex Relationship with Clients
A complex relationship, like the one you want to develop with your prospects, goes through stages, like this [with each bullet followed by a little narrative]:
- Suspects–the entire universe of potential buyers for your product or service.
The boy in the bubble runs across your blog posts because he’s decided he wants a new home. You have an article called “11 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a New Bubble Home.”
- Prospects–those suspects who have expressed an active interest in your service.
He’s decided to follow you at this point. The 11 Mistakes article was good. So was the article called “How to Sell Your Bubble for the Most Money in Less Time and Hassle.” But he really liked the story you told about another boy in a bubble who you helped successfully and safely buy a new bubble.
- Leads–those prospects who are actively engaged in the buying process your service.
At this point, he likes you. He joined your email list. You have his permission. Eventually he wants you to help him find that dream bubble. In a matter of days, he’s calling you on the phone.
- Buyers–those leads negotiating with you and who have made a commitment to buy in principle, but have not yet bitten the bullet.
Your relationship gets a little rocky at this point. He doesn’t feel like you understand what he means by “leg room.” Nor does he feel like you are listening when you show him a bubble with fist holes in the door. You listen, re-engage, probe deeper with questions, find out what he really is thinking. You are negotiating.
- Customers–those who have paid for your product or service.
You did it. The dream bubble. You found him the dream bubble. He’s happy, you’re happy. So you buy him a wreath to hang on his bubble. He gives you a sketch of his foot. And then you follow up with him regularly through out the year. Why?
Post mortem, you still want him to love you.
Your advertising–not just your blog, because your blog simply can’t do it alone, neither can your email–must compel potential customers through these five phases.
To do so, they must not communicate not just information–but benefits. Benefits cinch the deal. It’s that attractive scent that snaps him out of his preoccupation to look at you.
Benefits are cream.
3 Questions to Find Out What They Desperately Want or Need
Benefits will provide the momentum to move potential customers along. This needs to happen, by the way, at every stage, both in an individual blog post or email through text ad or postcard through negotiations and post mortem discussions.
Now consider these three questions to determine your objectives every time you communicate with a prospective customer, whether via your website, phone or blog:
1. What actions do prospective customers need to take that will lead to a buying decision?
2. Who do I have to persuade to take action? The wife? The father in law?
3. How do I persuade them to take action?
The running theme here is “taking action.” Keep that in mind.
Truly powerful communication always addresses the recipient’s needs: What’s In It for Me?
If not, then you will never break through their mental preoccupations and get their attention. [They are thinking about dinner now, last week's Lost episode, not about you or what you have to offer.]
Always anticipate and ask the question, “Why should he buy from me?”
But be sure that you are addressing people at their level of interest and in the language that best suit their dominant personality styles. You want to give them information that convinces them to write a check, not write you off.
Conclusion
There is a huge difference between information and persuading. Persuasion is designed to move readers to action, to get results–whether it’s subscribing to your blog or pulling the trigger on a $800,000 home.
To persuade effectively you must take their point of view. You must answer questions correctly and fully. You must ask questions. And you must answer objections. Before they say them, if you can.
Breakthrough their preoccupation, maintain momentum, and actively lead your prospect through the decision process and you will survive.
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Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add.
And if you like what you read, subscribe to the real estate marketing Blog by email or news feed.
Mar
6
8 Guidelines for Writing Meaningful Links That Woo Potential Clients
Filed Under Real Estate Blogs, Real Estate Prospecting Ideas, Social Media | 2 Comments
Links play a huge part in online content.
When people scan web pages they automatically look at headlines, sub-headlines and links to judge whether the page holds any interest for them. Based on what they see in the headlines, sub-headlines and links will determine whether they stay or leave. [See, you are doing it now.]
This is called information foraging.
And it doesn’t help this evaluation usually occurs under 27 seconds.
This means that web visitors’ ruthless, critical eye can sometimes overlook important information if it’s not clearly articulated in headlines, sub-headlines, and especially links.
Also, links tell search engines what your web page is all about. Links rank high as one of the factors for good search engine results. And when you have less than 30 seconds to woo a potential client, I think you do what ever you can to make your page stick out from the million others.
As you already know, links can be:
- Sentences: Are you too busy to spend money on advertising?
- Fragments: In Pursuit of Leads: 21 Ideas That Really Work
- Phrases: Red-Handed with a Glamour Magazine
- Call to Actions: Subscribe Now
- Navigation Labels: Homes, Sellers, Buyers, News, About Us
With that in mind, let’s take a look at 8 easy guidelines for writing meaningful and compelling links that please both people and search engines.
1. Don’t Make New Program and Product Names into Links Themselves
For example: Instead of “Every Kid Deserves a Yard” as a link to your new campaign to help families move out of apartments and into a home, create the link on your website into something that both people and search engines will recognize immediately: “Ditch the Apartment” or “Buy a Home”.
The trick is to write links that your visitors—especially your first time visitors—will recognize and understand immediately.
Notice how the British Museum writes their navigation links.
For the most part, the navigation links make sense. But what does “The Museum” link mean?
I’m guessing it’s about the museum—which it turns out to be only partially true. Hitting The Museum link takes you to a page about the history and architecture of the museum.
Better if it was named “History of Museum” or “Museum History” or “Museum Architecture.” [Can you think of something better?]
If it was an About Us page, then “About Us” would work great.
2. Rethink Document Titles and Headings That Turn into Links
When turning print articles into web pages, sometimes you may need to rethink the title of the article. Things don’t transfer smoothly from print to web.
First of all, avoid cute, clever or generic headline titles like The Power of Online Technology. They don’t clearly communicate the content of the article, sales letter or flier. Neither is the title really compelling or enticing to the reader.
What’s bad in print becomes only worse online.
On the web, when visitors are fierce and fast in their judgment, titles, headlines and links need to stand out. Boldly.
Your web document titles, headlines and links need to offer the thing people want most. And the links needs to satisfy a need they have.
High-Tech Cowboys in Real Estate: The Race to Dominate Web Space is one way to rewrite the above link to give people a fullness of the articles meaning. It would work equally well as a page title.
3. Match Links and Page Titles
This is a biggie. So pay attention.
As people move through websites, the first question they ask on each new page is “Did I get where I thought I was going?” They expect the page title to match the link.
When you have links and page titles that match, you reassure your web visitors that they are on a good pathway and have landed on the page they expected.
To write successful matching links and page titles, plan them in both directions:
- As you write the page title, think of how the same link will work on all the pages where the link will appear.
- As you write links, think of how the same words will work as a page title.
For example, if I wanted to patch you through to an article on Realty Times about the current real estate market outlook and how it’s not that bad, best I use the actual title of the article as the link like this: Real Estate Outlook: Housing Better Than Some Reports Indicate.
And when writing page titles, always imagine how they’ll look as a link. See point 2.
4. Be as Explicit as You Can in the Space You Have
And make more space if you need it. The longer the link, the better. See point 6 below.
5. Use Action Phrases for Action Links
“View My Profile” beats “Profile” any day.
“Buy a Home” dominates “Homes to Buy.”
“Subscribe Now” is better than “Mailing List”.
6. Use Longer, More Descriptive Links
Single nouns or short noun phrases can work as labels or as links for general categories and overall topics, but only if your site visitors recognize the nouns you use and give them the same meaning.
[Think back to the British Museum page and “The Museum” link. It probably made sense to everyone involved in building the website, so nobody questioned it. Not so to those who actually use it.]
Descriptive links that lead to specific information are just like headings. Fox News creates compelling, descriptive links that are hard to ignore. Couple it with a powerful image and you have an irresistible message.
Furthermore, in the report Designing for the Scent of Information, usability engineer Jared Spool and his colleagues discovered that links of 7 to 12 words achieved the highest success in getting people to the information they are seeking.
Why is that?
Longer links are likely to have the words your visitors have in minds.
Remember, people scan web pages looking for headings, sub-headlines and links. That’s about it. If they just see The Power of Online Technology in the body copy they’re likely to overlook it. It’s just too general.
On the other hand, if they want answers on how to use social media to generate leads, they’ll quickly gravitate to Learn how to deploy Social Media Marketing to put your business Beyond Competition. That’s more likely to satisfy their quest. [Disclaimer: I do not work for Greg. I just like what he is doing, hence I share link love.]
That link is actually 13 words. Ghastly, you say. Too long. Will muss up your pretty web page? Think about this: people will likely only read your links, because they stand out. Wouldn’t you want them to read the most important and compelling piece to draw them in?
7. Add a Short Description if People Need It
Or rewrite the link.
If you can’t get enough information into the link to create a meaningful link, then you can add a short description about what’s behind the link. Again, I lean to FoxNews to demonstrate short descriptions that follow vague link titles.
8. Avoid Click Here or More at All Costs
I hate these links the most. Why? They add zero value to the people who mean the most to you.
The other day I spent about twenty minutes unsubscribing from email newsletters I no longer read. Of course the the link to unsubscribe was buried at the bottom of every email, but worse yet, nine out of ten publishers created links like this:
To unsubscribe, click here. [This actual link will take you to a Google search results page for the term "click here." These are the people who rank for "click here." Interesting. See point below.]
There are two good reasons why you want to avoid these terms.
First, when someone is looking for something specific on a page—like how to sell a home—and all they see is Click Here, they’re likely to miss the all important Learn How to Sell Your Home that proceeds the Click Here.
The second reason you want to avoid Click Here and More links is because they are meaningless to search engines. Unless you are searching for “click here” or “more.” I guess to some people that’s a legitimate hunt.
Finally, never, ever write links like this: I’m a little late to the party on this one. [Each link goes to Joel Burslem's excellent website simply because I saw him do this but couldn't actually find the page he didn't own.]
I see this a lot on blogs. Here’s why it’s a bad idea: it just plain ticks people off. When I first saw Joel do it, I shared the page with several people and invariably–without my persuasion–they pointed out how annoying that link set up was.
What do you want me to do? Really click all of them to find out what party you were late to? Why, how and when? No thanks.
And what is a search engine to make of it?
This is a subtle ill will builder that costs against you. And all that eventually adds up. [Joel is usually spot on with descriptive links. This one just stood out to me.]
Conclusion
Not only people, but search engines deem descriptive, keyword links to be of high value in telling them what a page is about. And so with less than 30 seconds to win over potential leads and clients, I believe it’s in your best interest to do your best in getting people to not only find your page and stay on your page, but actually convert on your page to a lead or client.