From the Management Message Archive

How Much Can You Learn About Someone in 7 Minutes? 

Sales & Marketing Management Message

Would you believe me if I told you it's possible to learn much of someone's life story in just a few minutes?  I hope you said yes.

I just got back from a week-long ski vacation and since I can't help myself, I decided to play a game. (I'll tell you about the game later in this management message.) 

You see, since the slow down in the market I've been doing quite a bit more sales training with clients and the Builders' Training Group (our sister company) sales training workshops have been packed. I'm happy to see that people are getting serious about sales training again but a decade of complacency has brought up some interesting questions from the untrained sales people I've been meeting.

A key concept in sales training is DISCOVERY. Discovery is one of six components of an effective sales process. It is the keystone of sales since you can not effectively use the other 4 out of 5 components without it. (By the way, the six components of a sales process are welcoming, discovery, matching, agreement, closing, and service.) 

Discovery is the process of learning about someone and if you want to sell homes you absolutely, positively need to learn what makes your buyers tick. But herein lies the interesting question I've been getting from builders and sales reps - "why do I need to learn all these personal things about my buyers?" Then the follow up statement - "won't they be annoyed with me if I get too personal." 

The answer to the question is this: 

People's lifestyle dictates what type of home and area they will buy not the other way around. If you don't understand what motivates your buyer and why they truly want to buy a home, then you're mostly lucky when you make a sale. And, since your livelihood as a builder or a salesperson depends on making sales, do you want to rely on luck to sell homes?

The answer to the statement is this:

If you are not genuinely interested in meeting and getting to know people then:
− one, you shouldn't be in sales 
− two, people will see right through you and think you're a  typical "sales person" 

and yes 
- they'll be annoyed with you.

But, if you truly care about people, it's very rare that someone will get annoyed with you for trying to get to know them. Oh, and one more thing. If you don't get to know your potential buyer, someone like me will and they'll get your sale.
Case in point.

While on my ski trip, my game consisted of the following. Each time I got on a lift, if there was a stranger or strangers, I had until the end of the ride up the mountain (typically 7 to 12 minutes) to learn as much as possible about each new person I met.
So over six days from 8:30 to 4:00 I met 74 new people. Guess how many weren't willing to talk to me? (People who couldn't speak any English didn't count in my game and hey, these are my rules.) 

If you guessed 0, you're right.

Following is an example of one out of the 74.

Mark is recently retired from the justice department. He was most recently the warden for a federal prison in Colorado Springs but has lived in New Jersey, Washington DC (where we knew someone in common), Iowa, briefly in my home state of Pennsylvania, Indiana, and now Colorado. His wife was a third grade teacher and was always able to find a teaching spot whenever they moved.

They're getting ready to sell their home in Colorado Springs and move full time to the ski resorts area in Summit County (and of course I referred him to one of our inner circle members who builds in that area). 

He wants to move closer to the resorts because he has three children and seven grandchildren who love to ski as much as he and his wife Janice do. Mark and Janice love to cook and they're going to spend a bunch of money on their new kitchen as well as a media room for Mark the movie buff (another thing we had in common). 
Mark and Janice have owned 11 different homes and only once bought a resale (Of course I thanked him for that). They aren't going to downsize and as a matter of fact want to build a larger home than they currently own because they want to encourage their children to come often.

Mark and Janice bought all their previous new homes from production builders but this time want to build a custom home and know they'll pay more for it. (I know, I know, that's 'A typical' but those were the exact words out of his mouth).

I learned a little bit more about Mark but this is the general gist. He was one of the most memorable of everyone I met because he was getting ready to look for a new home.

So how did I learn so much about Mark in such a short time? Great training and years of practice combined with a genuine care about people for one; but also because of the 10 minutes we were together on the lift he spoke for nine of them. All I did was ask enough questions to keep the conversation going after I initially got things going with Mark.

If I were trying to sell Mark a home I would have followed the same process of getting to know him. I would have eventually begun to ask more direct questions about the home he was looking for, started to match what he needed with what I have to offer, then tried to get some agreement that we were on the same page so I could start to close the sale.

I often get another objection from people I teach these sales techniques to which is "you must have been born this way." The truth is that yes, I've always been interested in people. However, I wasn't able to effectively learn so much about people in such a short period of time until I learned right way to sell. 

For more than a decade I've watched hundreds of mystery video shops and have shopped at least a hundred sales people myself and I'm always amazed at how little most people pay attention to one another. I'll watch people speak with someone for 30 minutes or more and learn next to nothing about them.

One of my favorite role play scenarios is to subtly mention that I'm engaged and only one out of 20 sales people ever say anything other than congratulations if they say anything at all. If I were selling a home to someone and they mentioned they were getting married soon, I'd want to know a few things more about that life changing event they are about to embark on such as:

− when are they getting married 
− do they want to move into a home before or after their wedding
− what will the fiancé want out of the home
− how soon can I meet the fiancé?

Then again, that's just me, so call me crazy.
So why did I play this silly game on my vacation? Well it was fun and I met some really interesting people. Also, I wanted to prove to myself (one half of me is the eternal sales person, the other the eternal statistician) that most people like to talk about themselves. Given more time I'm sure I would have sat next to someone who wasn't interested in speaking with me and that would have been OK since I was already close to meeting 75 new people. Besides, I used to be a sales person, so rejection doesn't bother me too much.
Have a great week!

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