Part 3 in this Commission Sales Lessons series presents principles seven through nine that were taught then caught along the way. Principles are dependable. They are true. They can help you separate fact from fiction. If perception is what we believe to be true and it is only perception or lie, we can spend our lives never making good decisions, because they are not based on the truth. For example, I, just like a lot of you, grew up believing that sticks and stones would break my bones but words would never hurt me. Where did that lie come from? Words, especially as a commission sales person, can make or break my career.

I used to believe all buyers are liars. As long as I believed that I took no responsibility for not knowing how to qualify them. I can always justify my own lack of responsibility to do what I know I should do, but never get around to doing, such as training to become a better qualifier.

It is fascinating to me how many sales agents come into the business with little or no commission sales background, have never had to prospect for a living, do not understand the sales process, receive little or no real sales training and are considered ‘a professionals in real estate simply by becoming a Realtor.

It’s like a surgeon who who knows everything about the human anatomy, but no one every taught him how to use a scalpel. Remember, we are talking about ‘commission sales’ as a career. We do not get paid to demonstrate the product or present our services. We get paid for selling them.

Lesson 7. Objections are buying signals

I heard this many times, but it never made sense to me. If they like the product, why are they asking so many questions? Then one day, someone explained it (probably one my fellow agents). The higher the buyer’s interest, the more objections you will get.

If the prospect doesn’t like the house or really does not want to buy it, why should he be saying ‘the price is too high’, ‘it needs a lot of work,” and give me all that grief? It’s not grief. It is the buyer’s way of telling you he wants the house, but he doesn’t want to make a mistake.

Once I understood this, I never feared an objection again. I learned how to anticipate objections that I know I will get, and resolve them. For starters, I had to become a much better listener.

For example I never had a real answer for the seller who would say something like this after I signed a listing: “Now that you have the listing signed, will I ever see you again.”

Then someone taught me the script: “Mr. Seller, I may not sell your home personally, but I will be the reason it sells.”

The next time you get an objection, get excited. You may be as close to a sale in direct proportion to your ability to resolve the buyers concerns.

Remember: You are a commission sales person. You are paid to resolve concerns on the way to the contract. Youj make your living with the words you say and don’t say.

Lesson 8: Buyers buy benefits, not you.

When the seller asks you what you are going to do for him, do you tell him that you are going to place his home in MLS, on your website, and post a sign in his yard. Those are not benefits.

Here’s your script, and it is old as the hills: “My job is to sell your home at the highest possible price in minimum time, with as little inconvenience as possible.” These are the benefits any seller wants from whoever he lists with, including lenders.

Every sales trainer teaches this. Buyers buy benefits. Some teach that they buy you too. I agree, if they trust you and believe you understand their needs. Otherwise, they may like you, but not want to do business with you.

I’ve been shopping for webinar services lately. I called a vendor who, without questioning me, began rattling off all the features of his product, 90 percent of which I did not need.

I listened patiently, then as my patience became more thinly disguised, I interrupted and said, “Sir, I don’t need what you are selling me.” My sales resistance was obviously increasing, not decreasing.

He apologized then instead of asking me what I did need, he asked why I would not need the features he had listed. He was doing a great job presenting the product, but not in my interest.

I called as a ready, willing, and able prospect, but I quickly became a ready, able, and unwilling one, after meeting one of the most knowledgeable sales consultants in the company.

I did not buy the sale person or the product, because I never did hear what the benefit of his product was to me.

But I must admit, he had a great personality and knew his product inside out. He was just more interested in selling me than helping me, that’s all.

Lesson 9. Hasten Slowly

One day I was on the phone with Dr. Basil Jackson, a Milwaukee psychiatrist and client. I was upset about something that I did not know how handle. I felt I needed to make a big decision immediately and it was eating me alive.

If you have ever waited to hear about the status of a pending sale and one of the parties has become angry and stubborn, you know the feeling.

His advice: hasten slowly. You might argue that this not a principle in its purest sense and you would be correct. But it is such great advice for so many scenarios I could not leave it out.

As a commission sales person, you well know what this means, because when the financial storms blow through your life, every other problem is magnified at least ten times, it seems.

What Dr. Jackson was saying, and I have remembered it many times, was not to give up, but not to rush into anything either. As a commission sales person, hasten slowly, means I will learn how to prospect and what to say when I get one. It will take time, and no doubt a change in the way I do some things, but I have no choice. If I need a accountability, a mentor or script training, none honestly that I want, I must do it anyway, because I am a commission sales person in an out of commission economy..

Lessons Summary:

1. Get their money!

2. Prospects must be ready, willing and able

3. Not asking for the business gets expensive

4. Be Patient

5. Words matter

6. Explain the money

7. Objections are buying signals

8. Buyers buy benefits, not you

9. Hasten slowly

   If you are a commission sales person and would like to share a lesson you learned and now incorporate in your career, and would like it be considered for sharing please email me.

   To read the Part I of this series, please click here.

   For Part II, click here.

Published: August 19, 2010

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.



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David Fletcher has been a Florida real estate condominium and new homes broker for 30 years with more than $3 billion in new construction sales. In 2008, Keller Williams Realty International named him a "Lifetime Achiever." Along the way he has chaired the Florida Homebuilders Associaiton Sales and Marketing Council, trained thousands of general agents and on-site agents to work together, and was a featured speaker at the National Association of Realtors. Recently he founded New Homes Niche, a builder-certified co-broker training system "to meet the growing trend we see in short sale buyers moving to new homes for a lot of reasons." Call David at 407 234 2349, , and visit his website.




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