By Keith McKinney, Regional Vice President - New Home Star
Can you remember back to when you were a kid and even the smallest things could put you in a positive mental attitude? Think back to the first time you blew bubbles, tried cotton candy, or picked out a balloon for your birthday party. Have I taken you down memory lane yet? Chances are, though these moments were small, they evoke positive emotional triggers.
As a salesperson, imagine the value added by showing a prospective buyer a new model and reactivating this child-like wonder. If you're selling the customer on the important memories that they can make in the home—the emotional value—then you are far more likely to have a sale. When a customer creates an emotional bond with any product, that product will inevitably seem much more necessary and worthwhile, initiating a feeling of ownership before they have even completed the contract.
So how do you genuinely activate this kind of emotion? Let's talk about a few strategies:
· Use open-ended questions during a customer's 'discovery' to find out their emotional pull to a new home.
Each prospective buyer arrives with a mental picture of how they want this new chapter of their life to go. In the home buying process, often, a new house is much more than just a house; it's a new and exciting start. Through active conversation, a salesperson should be able to uncover what a buyer's emotional trigger is, in hopes to create an emotional tie between the model and the buyer.
· Use F-B-E (Feature, Benefit, Emotion) techniques throughout the model demo to further develop the emotional tie to the home.
In the 'demonstration' phase, salespeople make the common mistake of focusing on the floor plan, rather than the emotional triggers that a specific area of the house might bring. Salespeople will often take the advice of listening to the customer, but choose to ignore the emotional messaging that the customer is providing.
· Maintain face-to-face visibility with the customer to capture all of the non-verbal emotional messaging they could be providing.
Consider our analogy above: Can you recall the look on a child's face the first time they tried cotton candy? Or the first time they received a balloon? By interacting with a potential buyer face-to-face, a salesperson should be able to read facial expressions and body language. This is often more important than verbal communication. When we accurately read these moments, we are able to deliver a product that will attract buyers on not only a financial level or a logistical level, but on an emotional level.These are just three quick strategies that can aid in being involved in the buyer's emotional process to buying a new home. Today, I challenge you to go above and beyond being a salesperson, and connect with your buyers on a human-level. Don't just sell them a home, but sell them a new life with the potential for positive memories.
Keith McKinney is a seasoned industry leader with 15+ years of experience in sales training, managing and marketing. He is currently the Vice President of Sales for New Home Star's Southern Region, managing development and operations in several states such as Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Utah and Nevada.
