TouchPoint Selling

Nov 6 2008 12:24PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
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By Rick Heaston

Some things change and some don’t. On one hand, we still seem to be in a “holding pattern” … and on the other hand, there are people still buying homes. Sure, the numbers aren’t anywhere near like they were before, but there are still people buying homes. To me, that’s an opportunity.

It’s a market share opportunity. If there are five builders and one buyer, one builder is going to gain market share and four are not. This reality leads me to my point. Who is going to win?

In the past it was the person that could provide the biggest discount or best incentive package. Today, that’s still true to some extent, but discounts are starting to equalize. Builders are getting better at keeping track of competitive pricing. And, at the same time, becoming more realistic about what they have to do to make a sale. Which leads me to my next point.

With an “equalization” in the market … prices, discounts, incentives and so on … how does a customer make their final decision? It’s an easy answer. The best sales person will win every time. And that means one thing. You need to be “on top” of your game.

Lately I’ve visited Nevada, Florida, Arizona and Texas … and while there, shopped various new home communities. I was shocked. I’m still finding the “Here’s a brochure … let me know if you have questions” approach to “selling”. It made me wonder. Do we need a new spark … or way to think? It gave me an idea.

Have you ever heard the term “Golden Package”? It’s a FedEx slogan. In their culture, every package is the “Golden Package”. And in their culture it means that every package needs to be treated like it’s the most important package in the world.

So if it works for them shouldn’t it work for us? Shouldn’t every customer be the “Golden Customer”?