Stephen M. Haines - Tips for sales professionals

I remember being one of the first in my division in 1999 to get a digital camera to aid in selling homes. It was so painful uploading pictures with the dial-up modem, but my customers LOVED it! I would make a point to take a picture during almost every demonstration, then I would email them the picture as follow up - "remember how much you loved this homesite?" (or kitchen, master bath, etc) NOW the possibilities are endless. Videos, virtual tours, the sky is the limit! Here's a couple I recommend incorporating immediately: 1) Sherwin Williams virtual house painter - for those that just can't picture how the paint would look on their preferred elevation, you can now upload a picture onto their website, tell it the SW colors, and the computer will allow you to "paint" it! Beware, this takes patience, but worth it for your buyer to spend time doing if they are just that uncertain 2) Autocad for iPad. Not for the faint of heart, but now you too c...

One of my favorite things to hear as a sales leader is when a salesperson is presenting the terms of a potential deal, and throws in..... "...and, they've gotta have an extra $2000.  It's a deal killer!" You know, Ben Affleck said it best in Boiler Room.   In every interaction a sale is made, just sometimes the Buyer sells the seller on why they can't or won't buy!  As a sales professional, you are responsible for both how the value of the product and/or transaction is portrayed, and in my humble opinion, the deal killer is usually.... US! I'll let you off the hook... slightly... and acknowledge that SOMETIMES customers can get price fixation, and thereby overlook the true value of the produce you are selling.  We've all been there - the buyer has been given or set a specific price in their mind, and all logic, begging, and value-adds cannot budge them.  What I am suggesting today, however, is that this is rarer than we like to believe.  That t...

As I've shared with you before, If you're not growing, your shrinking (I'm in trouble!).  Each of us should spend part of our week sharpening the saw- gaining knowledge, insight, and abilities.  We should challenge our thinking, techniques, and style to always lean into our personal and company strengths. On that note, in some of our more established communities, we face resale and foreclosure challenges that are unique because they are the same floor plan!  The buyer struggles to not see that as "same-same" because their eyes tell them they are the same. Well, when you pop into a straight-off-the-showroom- floor new car, your NOSE and eyes tell you it's brand new compared to a "same body style" version of the car that's 3 years old.  The leather has some visible sings of three years of wear. But more than this, The ODOMETER of a new car tells you it has 3 original miles versus the 52,000 miles on the used one.  In other words, even a novi...