In our industry, the good agents know that one of the key components of a successful sales presentation is a solid discovery and qualification process. Part of learning about our buyers is determining their motivation for being in our sales center. And dovetailing with motivation is the incentive to act. Not conducting a sufficient discovery and qualification process equates to consistently hitting the rim of the dart board. That is not a winning strategy.

Let’s take a look at each of these components.

Motivation is what drives all of us to do something. What motivates us to sell homes? Build homes? Play in a band? Run in a marathon? In short, it is the causal factor. Whatever the action, there has to be a driving reason behind it. The reason could be something as simple as we just want to do it. Or it could be more complicated such as fulfilling expectations, egos, ambition, etc. While some general basics apply to all people, motivation is also personal and unique to each of us.

While reviewing our video and audio shops, it troubles me that most agents never determine why a prospective buyer is in their sales office. Sure, they are looking to purchase a new home. But agents don’t probe for the why factor. Why your community? Why your location? Why not other homes or communities? For the most part all I hear agents ask is ‘what brings you out today?’ Falls short doesn’t it. Without probing deeper into a prospective buyer’s motivation, how can an agent match their product and community to the buyer’s driving needs and desires?

The incentive for a buyer is tied very closely to motivation. While motivation is our reason to do something, the incentive is the reward to take action. For example, I am motivated to start a new exercise program to look and feel better. What is my reward? A new wardrobe! We know today’s buyers are looking for incentives (freebies from the builder or lender). But usually there is more to the story.

When an agent has a motivated buyer in front of them, they need to move that buyer from the motivational stage to the reward stage. The reward is the buyer believing he/she has now found the ‘it home’ . If the home feels right and makes sense, now they can take action, i.e. purchase.

Buyers look at a lot of homes…new, resale, short sales, etc. and for the foreseeable future, they have a smorgasbord of homes to choose from. Therefore the agent needs to determine what about their product and community will entice the prospective buyer to commit to what they are selling.

The sales professional is charged with directing that buyer’s action. That is achieved by creating a compelling reason to make a purchase commitment and convincing the buyer that purchasing your product in your community is their ‘it home’. An agent can not do that unless they know who they are selling to and what they are selling against. Only then will the buyer be motivated to say, “This is it!” And for the agent, Bull’s-eye!

2. You increase your marketing efforts on the Internet (not expensive)

3. List your homes on the Internet. Check out 50 places to list your homes on the Internet.

4. You increase social networking (not expensive). You just need to take the time to do it.

5. You need to track your leads and follow-up more than ever.

6. You need to know what your salespeople are doing with their leads. If they don't follow-up, you need to.

7. Salespeople need to work more hours than ever now, and spend evenings on the phone.

8. Have your salespeople mystery shopped.

9. Do an analysis of what it costs you to get "one" suspect. You can't afford not to follow-up.

10. You need do more e-mail marketing and have a good system to do it. Be able to track who opens the e-mail and who doesn't, etc.

To many builders, Realtors seem be to an expensive way to market and sell their homes. To many Realtors, selling builder’s homes seems to be more hassle than marketing used homes. In reality, and with a little planning, builders and Realtors can form a synergy that can make them the best of friends.

Realtors - A builder’s best asset

“The Realtor is really a new home sales representative’s extended sales staff. There are infinitely more Realtors out there than there are any of your other referral sources. In a typical submarket, there are probably 500 licensed Realtors. Those people have a real incentive to sell homes continually because they are on straight commission. So, it costs you nothing to keep in touch with them and to develop relationships with the best ones - the 20 percent or so that have real sales skills.

The bottom line is that Realtors can help us solve that age-old stall, ‘Well, we have to sell our home before we can buy yours.’ They’re also master net workers. In fact, if you look at the national statistics, over 50% of all new construction is sold with some sort of Realtor involvement.”

Why uninitiated Realtors avoid builders

Here are the top 5 responses:

1. Fear of losing control of the client. “Realtors are told that they have to ‘marry the client’ and not muddy the water by turning them over to a new home sales agent. It takes come confidence-building between the onsite sales agent and the Realtor, because we’re both trying to do the same thing - make a profitable sale for the builder. We need to work as a team and not be at odds.”

2. Inflexibility on sale price. “New home builders have to price their homes competitively with resales, but their working on an average net margin of just 2.7%. Realtors need to understand that builders just don’t have the margin for flexibility that resales have.

Dave “HARD” Harding is President of HARDintelligence.com a sales and marketing resource for homebuilders, developers and lenders. He is a former NAHB national sales manager of the year. Dave trains homebuilding teams throughout Canada, The United States and in China and has been the workout expert for lenders from Japan, France, Britain, Canada, Hong Kong and many US institutions. He instructs land acquisition, master planned development and developing green and sustainable master planned communities at UC Irvine. He can be reached at 949. 315. 5890 or HARD@HARDintelligence.com

TRAINING. Using a Video Profile from LeBlanc & Associates of you best agent(s) demonstrates what you expect from the rest of the sales team. What better way can an agent learn than from the best of their peers? The training aspect is then reinforced with our self-evaluation guide.

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING. To maintain the highest quality of final product, all our work is done in-house. Our clients receive two DVDs of each sales encounter and have the option of either a fully processed or non-processed format.

QUALITY. LeBlanc & Associates is established as the premiere company for sales agent evaluations. Our business is your business . . . new home sales. Our high level of training for our field techs provides the best capture rate of your agents. We know you are paying to see your agents – not the walls and windows of your sales office.

WHY LEBLANC & ASSOCIATES? Have you tried the rest and found ill prepared field personnel? Have you seen more walls than agents? Do ceiling shots make you dizzy?

THEN BE PREPARED FOR THE BEST. GIVE US A CALL!

It’s easy! Give us a call!!