HousingZone.com columnists

Myers Barnes

Myers Barnes writes articles for many of the nation's top sales-related magazines and trade publications. Myers is also the best-selling author of Reach The Top In New Home & Neighborhood Sales and Closing Strong, the Super Sales Handbook. He is a nationally known motivational speaker and a consultant on new home and resort property sales.

Recent Columns from Myers Barnes

Exposing Common Sales Myths
It seems that, over the years, a great number of well-intended sales trainers - as well as sales managers - have perpetrated a number of sales myths.
10/9/2002

Fifteen Words Guaranteed to Kill Your Broker Co-Op Program
How do you handle the dilemma of the broker's commission fee?
9/25/2002

A New Real Estate Economy
Our entire industry and methodology for conducting business are up for grabs.
9/11/2002

Goals: Taking Charge of Your Destiny
To improve your aim in life, begin by improving yourself. To improve yourself, set your goals.
8/19/2002

Negotiation: Advanced Selling Strategies
It is a misconception that, in the case of a new home or home site, customers are concerned only with the lowest price.
7/24/2002

Referrals - You Are the Marketing Department
Results depend on relationships. Your customers pay your wages, so it stands to reason that the more buyers you have, the more money you make.
7/8/2002

Do You Give up or Clean up on Follow-up? 10 Proven Strategies
It's important to understand that our business usually requires multiple calls, and most sales are completed on return visits to the community.
6/5/2002

Your Prospect Will Remain a Prospect Until You Close
As a salesperson, you can turn closing the sale into an exciting and positive event. Make no mistake, closing is the bottom line.
5/17/2002

Managing Objections
Regardless of how dazzling and complete your presentation is, the fear of making a mistake might cause your prospects to be doubtful and hesitant.
4/24/2002

Demonstration: Selling the Sizzle
You sell property by not merely walking on it, but by walking around it and clearly identifying the prospect's unique 'lot in life.' To do so, you must outline all boundaries and property lines clearly.
4/16/2002

Discovery: Your Key to Quota Busting
Your goal in professional selling is to determine each buyer's needs and financial ability, offer solutions and conclude the transaction as soon as possible. However, before you can lead your potential customer from presentation to close, it is essenti...
3/20/2002

Urgency: Overcoming Indecision
The salesperson's greatest enemies in the sales process are the prospect's indecision and procrastination. Customers commonly procrastinate, and most will put off making a buying decision if they think they have time to delay. Most prospects will delay...
3/11/2002

Fear – It Will Sabotage Your Success
Fear of failure is the greatest obstacle to success in adult life. Our fears make us reluctant and anxious, and they well up inside us whenever we are faced with risk or with doing anything new and different. This is especially true when it involves se...
2/1/2002

The Top Considerations for a Customer in Buying a New Home
Countless hours and dollars have been spent through the years in an attempt to identify and understand the 'average shopper.' The conclusion is that buyers seem to consider three central factors in the shopping process.
1/18/2002

The Modern Rules of Selling New Homes
Like technology, new home selling has been evolving and changing more rapidly during the past few years than at any other time in history.
11/30/2001

Selling in a Slowdown
Within the past few weeks, many of my customers have expressed concerns that the current market and state of affairs are affecting their ability to sell real estate. They stress that current conditions are causing indecisiveness in their prospects, who...
10/24/2001

Closing the Sale: The Forgotten Art
There are strategies to follow in closing a sale successfully. Yet some sales-training professionals and salespeople say that to learn specific closing techniques is to revert to an obsolete era of the sales profession.
10/4/2001

Proud to Be an American
During this time of turmoil and transition, I make an impassioned plea to professionals engaged in new home and neighborhood sales to offer your unyielding support to the nation.
9/14/2001

Motivating Your People for Peak Performance
The greatest untapped resource in any organization - and its most expensive - is its work force. It has been estimated that the average person at any given time works at less than 50% of his or her capacity.
8/29/2001

Coaching Your Sales Team
If a superachiever such as Tiger Woods or a company such as General Electric can have one or more personal coaches, wouldn't your sales team benefit from coaching, too?
7/26/2001

Profile Your People
If you doubt the validity of administering a personality profile on all prospective employees, remember: Past behavior normally predicts future conduct.
7/18/2001

28 Darn Good Reasons Not to Make the Sale
Here are a few excuses a salesperson can use to encourage nods of agreement and maybe even elicit a word or two of sympathy.
7/10/2001

Take a Lesson From Procter & Gamble
For the most part, builders and developers have a habit of entering the marketplace with what is known as the 'Field of Dreams' mentality - if we build it, they will come (and buy).
6/18/2001

Leading ... Not Managing
How did you rise to a management position in your company? If you're like me (and I'm speaking from experience), you advanced through the ranks by practicing superior sales performance.
5/31/2001

Executive Time Management - A Guaranteed Solution
Regardless of our professions, most of us have an innate desire to become better organized, to get our lives and businesses under control and to find the time to do the things that are really important to us.
5/9/2001

Sales Meetings That Guarantee Results
Meetings are 'management in action,' and are opportunities for people to gather in groups to solve problems, make decisions, share information and exchange views and opinions.
4/25/2001

Friendly Competition? Yeah, Right!
Given the choice of having you in business or out of business, your competitors would probably give you directions to the unemployment office before they'd direct you to a potential sale.
4/6/2001

Five Common Selling Errors with Real-World Solutions
These simple solutions to five common selling errors will make your profitability and knowledge of the industry increase tremendously.
3/26/2001

Real-World Objections ... Real-World Solutions!
There are very few actual objections that are honest rejections. Most are just stalls from buyers hiding their true feelings.
3/26/2001

Seven Strategies that Sell the Co-Broke Community on Selling With You
The astute community sales executive realizes that there are actually two buyers involved in the home/homesite decision-making process. There is the actual buyer and the co-broker who serves as the customer's assistant buyer.
2/23/2001

How To Select & Staff An Effective New Home Sales Team
As a manager you get your results through others and a key executive talent is the ability to recruit, hire and build a sales team of competent people.
2/23/2001

The Best Prospects are Your Present Customers
Looking for new customers? Wondering where your next sale is coming from? Who isn't? You may not realize it, but you probably have countless prospects you are not paying attention to - namely, your present customers.
2/23/2001

On Line Or In The Bread Line
You are witnessing the beginning of the information explosion on the Internet. You have a vast frontier to explore -- or ignore.
2/20/2001

Failure is an Event - Not a Person
If you really want to accomplish your dreams, you must get into the marketplace, take calculated risks and be willing to experience failure.
2/9/2001

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