Staying in Touch in a Challenging Market

This is Episode 62 of Selling More Homes, the Monday Morning Sales Meeting, featuring an interview with Robert August, and you’re listening to the Builder Radio Media Network.

Welcome to Selling More Homes, the Monday Morning Sales Meeting. I’m your host, Scott Stroud. Every Monday by 8 a.m. You’ll find a new program featuring interviews with new home sales and marketing experts who share techniques and strategies to help you find more buyers, close more sales, and earn more money than ever before. In addition to the audio program, a written outline of each episode is posted online for you to read or print and save. And each episode will remain online indefinitely, so you can come back and listen at your leisure.

Selling More Homes, the Monday Morning Sales Meeting, is presented by Jay Relo and Associates and is a production of Builder Radio. For more information on this and other resources for new home sales professionals, visit our website, www.builderradio.com.

Welcome to another episode of Selling More Homes. I’m Jerry Rouleau. I’m Scott Stroud. And welcome, everyone. We’ve got a great program for everyone today, and I think we’re going to have some fun at the same time. We’ve got Robert August, and he is always fun. Yeah. And for those people who are going to the IBS International Builder Show in Las Vegas next week, actually, you’ve got to check out Robert August’s presentation he’s doing with some of our other speakers that we’ve had on the air. Robert August is going to be on a panel with Bonnie Alfred, Brian Fluke, and Kay Green, which you haven’t heard on our program, but we’re doing an interview with her on February 6th.

And it’s, I believe it’s 105-foot marketing tips. And they’re going to be running that same program twice at IBS because typically, Scott, they’ve had such a great turnout that they’ve had to turn away people, so this year they’re doing it twice. Wow. They’re doing it on Tuesday the 20th at 10.15, and Friday the 23rd at 10.15. So make sure that you catch Robert not only this week here on the air, but next week. And, you know, I think we mentioned last week, for those going to IBS, if you go to our front page, and it says, if attending IBS, click here. And what we’ve done is we’ve taken all of the people that we’ve interviewed in the past year, and a couple that we’ve got coming up in the next couple of weeks, and we’ve listed other programs that are going to be at the International Builders Show.

So you have a quick guide there to go back and listen to them. And there’s even one with you and I on there. That’s right. We’re doing a program on creating traffic to model home centers.

So, yeah, make sure you’ve got to catch Scott and I. So come by and chat with us. And we’ll each be heading up tables for the Sales and Marketing Council? We’re doing a workshop. Yeah. And one of the workshops is going to be on basic 101 Internet, and the other one is going to be on public relations. Uh-huh. And I don’t have that calendar in front of me right now, but it’s the SMC workshop. That’s correct. Yeah. I think it’s, I know it’s from 2 to 4. I think it’s on Tuesday. Yeah.

So, I also, before we get, we get Robert on the air here, this week already, we’re, going to be in Austin, Texas. So if you haven’t registered to attend the program that we’re doing, Builder Radio and the, Austin Sales and Marketing Councils and Home Builders, make sure you check it out on our website. So with that, Scott, why don’t we get, S. Robert August on the line? How’s that? Sounds good. You know, he goes by the name S. Robert August, and I’m going to share this before we get the day of the day. I was talking with him, and I said, Robert, I says, I figured out what the S stands for. And, the S stands for Senior Ambassador Robert August.

And that’s what I think about Robert. He, he’s just so well-liked in the industry. He’s a senior ambassador for our industry. That’s a very fitting title for him. Senior ambassador. I think he’ll like that. Yeah, yeah. Well, let’s get him on the air here.

Hello, Mr. Robert August. How are you today? Delightful thank you. And how are you, Jerry? Boy, it’s great to have you back on the air with us. I always enjoy chatting with you and, looking forward to our little interview here. Well, it will be a pleasure for me. And, once again, thank you very much for the opportunity. Well, you know, we chatted here, prior to, setting up, you know, a call with you. And, we talked about how, you know, staying in touch and follow-up is, is such a critical, key now for, for salespeople and, and REALTORS, and, you know, in the housing industry. And those that are staying in touch and doing a follow-up are, are finding those extra sales.

And, you mentioned this might be a fun topic for you to chat about with us. Well, it certainly is. And, I’m looking forward to visiting with you and, and reviewing a series of different ways in which we can make a difference, for the listening audience today. Great. Well, why don’t you, why don’t you just dig right in and share with us some of your, your great gems? Well, thank you. One of the, the issues that we have in, in a challenging market, or frankly for any market, is to be able to, earn the information from the buyer as to how to, stay in touch. And one of the things that we tried to do in the, the initial meeting and greeting phase is get to know the customer and build enough confidence in that individual so that it, that individual will become our buyer and not someone else’s.

And, through the end of the initial presentation, hopefully we’ve been clever enough to receive all the contact information for the prospective buyer. And we found that it’s important to not ask the buyer ever to fill out a prospect card. It’s more important for our sales team to do that. And the reason is, double fold. Number one, it shows an interest by, the salesperson to obtain this information directly, the same way that, when we go to a doctor’s office, we, we get excited when somebody’s taking notes and listening to us. And, and, and as a result, we’re more apropos to give information to someone who is taking an interest in what our concerns may be. You know, I like that.

And if I remember, back a couple of years ago when we did an interview with you, you also mentioned that, you get a lot more valuable information or truthful information. I forgot the word that you use, but you do it towards the end of the presentation versus when they walk in the door and you say, fill this out or give me some info. And I always remember that, that little tip you, you shared with our, with our people. Well, we, I appreciate that. And it’s true. And not, not only that, at the end of the day, one also is able to get more reasons as to why someone actually heard about us rather than initially. Typically if, if, in that scenario, Jerry, most salespeople have a stroke count that they provide to the sales and marketing professionals in the company indicating how, a prospective buyer came to, to, that salesperson.

And if there were 22 people that came out this week, there would only be 22 answers and, and, or reasons. And in fact, or 22 different stroke counts. And each individual who comes out could actually have a series of five or six different points as to what actually drove that person to visiting that environment today. That information is extremely helpful to us in trying to define what it is that we’re doing, to better be of service to that buyer. The other reason that we like to take to fill out the information is that many times a customer will not fill in all of the information. And as we’re visiting and using, the, the prospect card or the asset management card, what it does is it gives us the ability to make sure that we have all the pertinent, answers to the question and that we answer, ask these questions in a conversational manner.

And, and, and as we’re filling out the information, later on in the presentation, we find that the customers are more apt to give us this information. The other point is that if a customer were actually to fill out the prospect card, well, or guest registration, if you will, what happens is that we may not be able to read the handwriting. And, and we may be too embarrassed to say that we can’t read the handwriting. Yeah. So, all of these points are helpful for us in the gathering of information so that we can jump into the process of making sure that we have the appropriate way to get back in touch with an individual. A lot of people today like to receive, email contact and, and we believe that, yes, it’s important, but more importantly, it’s essential for us to be able to not only receive the email address, but also to receive the, the phone numbers of the individual, not just the cell phone either.

We need a landline, cell phone, and, and we also need, cell phone numbers of all the participants with whom we’re speaking. A lot of times, a phone, a cell phone may not be working or, or, we may not be able to get in touch with one of the, the prospects. So, if there are two or more parties in one buying group, it’s helpful for us to get that, that important information. Great. Now, you know, I, I think, and I caught this as you started. And here, is, I probably want you to kind of get in a little bit further, but getting any information to the buyer. And I think you were going, as to what, what is the best way to get in touch with them also?

I think you, you kind of alluded to that. Well, phones, phones, email and fax, are three ways. Of course, you could always send out a Goodyear blimp, Jerry, but that might be too costly. We have found that, the phone is an essential way because a lot of times when you first communicate with an individual by email only, that person may not recognize your URL. Right. And many times we have people on site who are not affiliated with the company being represented or the company being represented, is not the same as the community. So the buyer believes that they came to, to, Alconquin Meadows and don’t realize that Alconquin Meadows was developed by Rulo Enterprises. And so there may be a disconnect, when a customer sees a particular URL that it’s not familiar with, even though that individual or individuals had just recently met you.

So email is important, but it needs to be followed up with snail mail as well. And as, as, we have discussed in the past, the more imprints that we can have of our name, our brand, what we’re trying to accomplish, through a message to the consumer, that consumer becomes our buyer. So we found that initially, within the follow-up process, many people go to a series of seminars and they’re always taught to follow up within a week. We believe that it’s not a week, it’s not four days or three days, it’s the same day. And in that same day, you need to be able to earn the right to call a buyer back within two hours. And a lot of people often say to me, well, why two hours?

I, and, and my point is that within two hours, it gives you the opportunity to let the person know that you’re bridging the gap from the prior meeting to the fact that right now that buyer is extremely important.

You know, for example, you know, we’re, we’re tracking a buyer right now. And in that process, we’ve been calling the buyer every two hours, just to let the buyer know, that we’re interested in doing business with him. This is a business to business situation. Yet at a consumer scenario, we would follow up within two hours and not be as forceful with the buyer. If we’re lucky to get to that buyer right away and visit with that buyer, we want to ingratiate ourselves and our company by thanking the individual for coming back out. We also want to make sure that if there had been any questions that had been left unanswered, that we can answer them if we have that information. Or, even if we have one point of four points that need to be addressed, we still want to call that buyer back within that two hour period of time and let the buyer know that, that we had, it was a pleasure meeting with the buyer.

We have information for the buyer and we’ll, and here is the information and we’ll be, following up with additional information, to meet the needs of the buyer. The other thing that also happens within a buyer, within the time that a buyer leaves our office, we also find that that individual may come up with a series of other questions that it had not posed to us when we had our introductory or meeting our presentation. So, it gives us another opportunity to raise the awareness, for our product, that we were trying to introduce and close. And we found that that’s very, very helpful. So, you know, just by the very nature that you take the time within a couple of hours to make that phone call, whether you reach them or not, it, it, it, it shows the, the potential customer that you’re interested in their business and, and want their business and are there more and, you know, recognize them.

And it, yes. And in addition to that, you’re building rapport. You’re also building trust. In the economy we are in today, people need more trust. They need hope. They need, they need the knowledge that if they are to make a change, that they want to make it with a stable, solid team of professionals that are ready to provide product and service to them, with a confidence that it’s, it’s the right, it’s the right time in the right place. And, and it gives that, that buyer the ability to say yes to you rather than your competition. So the more that we can, impact that customer with the knowledge that we’re interested in, in working with, with, her or him or them, it gives us the, the ability to make them our buyer. Additionally, we have found that, that we would also like to send out a note that same day. It should be a handwritten note, could be an email as well, similar in nature. And when we find that the email is the same, the repetition of the note getting to the, to the buyer in two or three days through the U.S. Postal Service is helpful.

And sometimes when we’re fortunate even to have a fax, to send to someone, that’s helpful too, based upon, making sure that, you know, that we’re constantly getting information in front of them. The fax is becoming, less of a recognizable communication force today. Yet it, it, it still provides the ability for us to get in front of the customer. It’s also important that as we follow up with the customer to constantly, entertain the opportunity to have the customer return to our neighborhood and to set up that next meeting in order to engage that individual to become our buyer.

Oftentimes, I found that many of us in the new home construction industry, hold on to our sales offices like a fort. We never want to leave it. And whether I’ve been working in the East Coast or the West Coast or certainly from border to border, I found that the more that we can educate our sales team to get out and meet the customers in their homes and or their offices, it even helps us cross the bridge and get into the customer’s turf so that the customer becomes more relaxed with us, taking the initial effort and the extra effort to really reach out and make a difference. So oftentimes, that’s a, that’s a really great point because, you know, how many other salespeople or companies are going to take that extra effort to get out there to, you know, set up, you know, go to the customer’s office or home and so forth. I mean, to me, you’re going to gain so much more trust in, in confidence with that customer by doing it. And I know the years back, you know, that was the way it was done, but for some reason, it got away from that.

Well, we find that also, if we are able to, return to that customer’s home, as we said, you know, they’re in the comfort of their own turf. Yeah, yeah. When they walk into a sales environment, they know that they’re in a sales environment. They know that they’re going to be sold. And it’s an uncomfortable, first meeting. And one of the things that we try to do in establishing rapport right away is, is get out of the sales office as soon as we’ve qualified the, the, the buyer and recognize that we actually have a buyer for our product or service. And so by getting out of the sales office, it’s amazing to see how the customer relaxes and gives us more information than we ever thought we would receive, certainly in the confines of a sales center or a discovery center. So the whole concept is trust, reward relationship. The more trust that we can get, the more reward of information from the buyer we receive.

I like that. Let’s repeat that again. Trust. Again, what’s the three points you said? Trust. Well, the reward relationship. Well, we were talking about the fact that the more trust that we can build with a buyer, the more rapport that we can establish through that process, we develop a better relationship.

And by developing the relationship, the customer becomes more relaxed with us and more confident that we are providing that individual, with a comfort that we can accomplish the goals for, for her or him. Our reward is of course the sale. The reward for the buyer is, is the knowledge and the comfort that, that, they don’t have to look anywhere else. All of those buyers now know that we are the trusted parties and that makes a huge difference when we’re establishing the ability to follow up with these individuals. They’ll also be more responsive, Jerry, to our phone calls, our emails, our faxes. And, and as a result, the more that we can engage and constantly, follow up with him, the more likely they will become our buyer.

You know, the, the, those three key words or the, or the four key words, I, I have more than four written down here, but it, it just so, it makes it the whole thing all come together and simplifies it. I know in my mind, in visualizing it, you know, trust, you gain the trust, it equals better response. It’s once you get the response, you know, you, you, you, you, you get a better relationship. I mean, I love it. Great. And then the reward. Yeah. So reward is twofold, which I picked up there from you is the reward for the customer is the extra information they’re receiving and the reward for you is, is the sale. And I think that, you know, at the same time, when we’re establishing the ability to follow up in the, in, the buyer’s, business and or home, we’re seeing how that, that buyer is treated by, for example, business to business by the buyer’s peers. We’re also seeing in the home, how, all the parties respect one another. We’re getting an opportunity to see, you know, how that person lives within the home and how we can, understand that and then correlate it to our new home product, that we have to bring to that consumer. And, and so as we’re, we’re understanding it, the consumer.

Actually becomes a buyer more instantaneously because now we know how the furniture needs to work within any one of our homes as well as the lifestyle opportunities. And, and, many times we’ll often do a bubble diagram with a, with a customer or a series of, customers within the same buying group and we’ll determine, within this, this bubble diagram of the home as to which areas are most important for that buyer. So by going into that, that home with that buyer or buyers, we can see how they live and how they would like to interpolate this opportunity into a new lifestyle experience for them, within the neighborhood that we’re, we’re building with them for that. Nice. You know, I, I know some salespeople who, who do this and, and typically they are the ones that are the top producers because, you know, they’re making that extra effort. And I’m sure, you know, you work with salespeople who are, who are using this system also and probably find the same thing. Scott, you’ve been listening, quietly there. I’m sure you’ve got a ton of questions. I’m going to keep it down to one question here. And that is this, you mentioned earlier that customers today need hope and trust and confidence given the state of the economy and the housing.

Industry. What would you recommend that salespeople can do to build that kind of confidence that now’s a good time to buy? Do you have an hour and a half? You got three minutes. When one thinks of the opportunity, there’s the one thing, that we know, more pointedly than ever before, homes are built better today than they’ve ever been built before. The, the codes, the building codes that we have with our building officials are much more stringent. Our products are so much superior to those than we had five, 10, 100 years ago. And as a result, we know that the quality of product, that will be introduced to the buyer is better. We also know that as a result of the recent, price increases that have been introduced to our builder public throughout the United States, that the prices are not going down. Land may be stable in certain markets. If the, to the jurisdictions, it’s still extremely difficult, to have the opportunity to get land planned, and developed and bought to market. And so the price of land, is one commodity that can fluctuate from market to market. But when you’re dealing with, appliances or carpet or other wood, or wood related products and services,.

We know that the prices are going to go up, based upon the, the directions that we have been given the notice from the manufacturers, the vendors, the suppliers. So now is a better time to buy based on that because we know that the prices will increase. We also know, that the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India, and China, continue to, utilize more products and services, from our manufacturers and worldwide manufacturers, pushing the prices up. And although the, those economies, you know, are stalling a bit, they’re still flourishing, you know, while, while ours is not. So manufacturers are, are leaning towards other markets globally to, bring those products and services to the market. Another point is that when you look at the existing market, a lot of the product needs to be remodeled.

We often can’t see inside of a wall. So after, a series of inspections and, and, remodeling bids, we often find that, that buying new is, much more superior to buying an existing home. We also know that we’re, when we buy new, we’re also obtaining a warranty and the warranty is not just from the builder, but it’s from the related, manufacturer products, that we have in the marketplace. And all of those can make a tremendous difference to and with and for us. So there are a myriad of reasons. The other point is, interest rates are low. They’re extremely low. And so if we’re able to look at purchasing a new home, it gives us the opportunity to know that, we can obtain a mortgage instrument or a permanent mortgage instrument that’s going to be at a lower price than, than they come up. Again, most people who were not participating with us, Scott and Jerry in the eighties do not remember a 14 and 15 and 16% interest rates for mortgages, let alone construction loans that were 21% and higher.

So we financially, it’s a wonderful opportunity for us to, engage a customer. The other thing I would share with all of our listeners is that anybody that comes into our sales office today, those folks are, are not just, looking to see pretty, model homes or getting decorating ideas. They’re buyers. They’re on an expedition, of economic opportunity. And so we have to make sure that we do all the right things to make those customers feel very comfortable. And then again, as we said at the beginning of today, to make sure that we’re following up with those people, in a positive, productive manner, gaining the confidence of the buyer and also, also gentlemen asking for the referrals because we, we as people travel in packs. And as we have buyers who are coming to us, they also have friends who are interested in purchasing new homes as well. Wow. Great. Excellent. Well, Robert, once again, I always enjoy talking with you. I love the interviews. I always love meeting with you at conferences and chatting. You’re such an upbeat individual. You kind of get me charged up and I hope all the rest of our audience is charged up to just get on the phone and make the next call. Okay. Well, we thank you. And, and, this has certainly been a tremendous opportunity.

For me to work with you, Jerry and Scott, you know, and share some of these, these concepts and ideas. And hopefully our listeners will be putting them to action immediately. Great. Well, thank you.

Staying in touch. What an appropriate topic to talk about, especially in this challenging market. And, you know, there’s sales out there, but it’s all about staying in touch. More now than, than ever. And I appreciated the fact that he’s talking about right now, what it takes to earn customers, earn their attention, earn the right to call back, earn the information. So right now we need to build that rapport and build that trust with him as he brought out and, and earn the opportunity to get their business. You know, Scott, if there was ever a time to, break away from the pack and make the extra sales as now, because some people are so negative and they’re thinking that they don’t do follow-up. So when you do the follow-up, it’s, you know, I kind of laugh at it. It’s actually easier to do follow-up now because everybody else is not doing it. So it’s all about staying in touch.

It is. It is. And, you know, he made a point right at the very beginning about when, when you first talk with a prospect, and how to get their information, don’t have them fill out the prospect card or information card, do it yourself. And that’s always been a pet peeve with me, but, and, and I, I don’t understand why people are resistant to that. You know, Jerry, just a few months ago, I had a person leave one of my coaching classes because, you know, I stressed that point that they needed to fill out the card instead of having the prospect fill out the card. They thought that was ridiculous and they left.

Well, I guess it does. Everybody doesn’t want to listen. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, some of the things that, you know, Robert talked about, like, even getting in touch with them within a couple of hours after they leave to make sure that, you know, that they got the information they were looking for. I think I wrote down like seven, key items here on my notes as, as Robert was talking. Yeah. I also wrote down here, build trust with your customers. And I love the, the other one I wrote down, send out a handwritten note, which is so hard to do nowadays because we’re not used to it anymore. Yeah. You know, we, we used to email, but he mentioned snail mail. He mentioned, use the facts.

He said, any opportunity that you can come up with to touch the customer, to have another contact, to engage them, use it because that builds relationship. And I think that’s the point of this whole thing is that what we want to do, our, our goal here is to build a relationship that is trusting and then has rapport with it instead of trying to sell. Because if we’ve got the relationship, we’ll get the sale. You know, I, I know we, we just listened to Robert here and, and I wrote some notes down and I don’t know if I got it all right here. You know, but I’ll have to re-listen to the recording here, but I think he put, he said something to the effect that trust equals rapport, equals better relationship. I don’t know if you wrote those same notes down.

Yeah. I had trust and reward in relationship. You build the trust, they will reward you with the relationship. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And one thing that, that he mentioned, and I don’t know if he stressed it as much, it’s amazing builders that I’m talking to who go out and meet the customer. Okay. I’m not just talking about waiting for them to come to the sales center. You got a customer, you know, stopping by their place or in the area, stopping by, you know, talk about their house plans and so forth. Oh, that, that goes a long way in today’s market. Yeah. He’s a, get out of your fortress, get out of the office and go meet him. You know, I got a phone call once and, the fellow said, I’m going to buy a house to the first person who comes to my office to sell it to me. Yeah. And I met him there, I think at eight o’clock that night. Huh. Yeah. And got the sale. I’ve heard stories all, all of my travels all over the country about people who go out and meet with the customers. Again, that just shows the customer that you appreciate their business and want their business. It does.

And he made the point that they’ll open up a lot more when they’re on their turf. You come to see them and any information, they will just pour information to you. Anything that they think will help you sell them a house. Well, that was great. This, in fact, we’ve got plans to have Robert August on the air again later on this year. Believe it or not, Scott, our, our, speaking or interview, schedule for the 2009 is, just about filled up. Wait a minute. This is January. We’ve got, we’ve got the whole year planned. I think that I think right now there’s probably, eight or nine spots that are, are still open in 2009. The response that we have gotten from listeners of who they wanted to hear, some new authors, books that we’ve read that I’ve contacted, got them scheduled. It’s, it’s going to be an unbelievable year.

Wow. Wow. You know, I want to remind listeners too, that, that the program is growing in ways that, that we can’t even count. We’re finding it listed on more podcast directories, on blog directories. You know, so people are, are getting the, RSS feed and it’s, it’s really growing. We, as you’ve seen, we’ve got an international audience now. So our program is continuing to grow and we very much appreciate the listeners and the readers that, come back each week. Thank you. Thank you for your, your support, your comments and, for coming back every week. You know, we, we also have some new features on our website. We now have the consultant of the month, and this month, we’re featuring right there on the front page is Ross Robbins. You can click on Ross Robbins and go right to his website and contact Ross Robbins for, any needs that you may have. And we also have a new archive button right on the front page. Hit that one archive button and you could scroll down and you could see all of the people we’ve interviewed in the past, oh, I guess about 16 months now.

It’s, yes, 61 as of today in the archives. Also, just reminder about the Austin, Texas thing this week. If you’re in the area, come on down and also, check out our social networking site. There’s a button on our website, builderradio.ning.com. Here’s a chance to connect with other builders around the country, ask questions, share information, look at articles that other people are posting, et cetera. And the, the book that, you and I have coauthored, the insider’s guide to Selling More Homes. We’ve got a fresh shipment in from the publishers and that’s ready to ship, isn’t it? There sure is. Yep. So, it’s right online. And again, 21 chapters, 21 authors. Next week, we are going to have, the, renowned, Bob Schultz on the air with us. And, a lot of our listeners, sure have heard Bob Schultz over the years, well-known in the housing industry. And, he’s going to be on the air with us next week. So, until next week, I’m Jerry Rouleau.

I’m Scott Stroud. And thanks for listening to the, Builder Radio Media Network. I’ll see you next week.