Page 14 - Builder Brief September 2022 Issue

SALES & MARKETING
TO BE SANE, OR INSANE...THAT IS THE QUESTION
By Debora Trimpe, Prime Performance Strategies, LLC
While thinking about writing this article and all the different topics I could choose from, I spent some time reviewing all the conversations I have been having with my clients and people I know in the industry over the last 30 days. It is these conversations that have guided me toward the topic I want to write about today.... choosing sanity or
insanity in today’s market.
So many people I talk to are so very worried about this “changing” or “shifting” market. I must be honest, every time I hear these comments I am chuckling inside my head. Why? It is because these market trends have happened multiple times during the 40+ years I have been in this business. Markets do that. They do not stay stagnant. They are always changing.
What people are really saying is, they fear their ability, and maybe even more importantly, their willingness, to embrace the strategies that made them successful in markets that were less vibrant than the market we are now exiting. Let’s face it, we all knew when the Covid market took off that this influx of business was temporary. We knew it would not last. And yet here we are fretting the inevitable we knew was coming.
I like to look at the market as if it was a giant rubber band. Before Covid it was just a rubber band. Then the craziness of Covid-induced needs stretched that rubber band to almost breaking. Now the demand is beginning to normalize and so is the stretch of the rubber band.
The insanity I referenced in the title is the fear-induced insanity that we won’t be able to sell homes or product. Or that our ability to sell homes or product will be greatly reduced. That fear is causing some to engage in behaviors that are actually forcing the buyer to the sidelines rather than encouraging them to buy. You have a choice. Embrace the insanity or embrace a sane approach.
What is a sane approach? Stop listening and repeating all the negative stories you hear. Whatever you focus your attention on, you will only get more of. Remember the stories you have heard about once you buy a red car, you see more red cars on the road? Listening and repeating the negatives keep you in fear mode. This activity keeps many from seeing and recognizing the positive things the market is offering.
I can assure you of one thing. In all the “shifting” and “changing” markets I have experienced, I watched people be successful. I watched people make more money and have more success than the market should have allowed them to have. Why? Because they chose to believe in the possibilities. The more they believed there were people out there who wanted to buy, the more buyers they found.
They worked on their skills. During the market we just experienced, being a great sales professional, having great discovery and demonstration skills, and creating relationships with customers wasn’t required. In fact, there wasn’t even time for any of it. As a result, many of us have let those skills get rusty. It does not mean we don’t have the skills. We just need to polish them off and make them part of our practice.
The other thing these individuals did was to spend time getting to know the needs of their customers and helping these people find solutions that worked. These solutions weren’t the same for everyone. Each solution was crafted to feel unique for that customer. They understood that the customer’s motivation to buy was NOT externally affected. Buying motivation is internal. Therefore, these successful professionals fully understood their customer’s needs and helped their customers determine how their product met these needs. Their customers were asking to buy, not being pressured to buy. These sales professionals understood knowledge is everything in the sale.
You have an opportunity. You can either join the “Negative Nellies” in their pursuit to find all the reasons there is no opportunity for success, the insane group. Or you can choose sanity. You can choose to expect opportunities for sales, and you will find them. You can focus on improving the number of qualified, potential customers you have, and you will get them. We have the opportunity to have phenomenal success if only we shift our mindset to believe that it still exists.
14 SEPTEMBER 2022 | GREATER SAN ANTONIO BUILDERS ASSOCIATION