What about the car in the driveway? Is it a Lexus or a Mercedes? If so, that says the person is willing to pay a lot for a certain look and feel. On the other hand, what if they have a three- or four-year-old car that’s clean and well-maintained? That says they’re not buying the latest and greatest but are interested in long-term quality. For instance, if you were selling a deck to this prospect, these observations would tell you that you’d be wasting your time trying to sell them high-end posts and fancy accessories. They’d want something that’s well-built, strong, attractive, and more basic.
Also look at the overall condition of the house. Is it well-maintained? The main thing is the upkeep. If the house is obviously well-maintained from the outside, it indicates that the home-owner takes pride in the look of his home. That should be front and center in your sales presentation. You need to show how what you’re selling will add to the homeowner’s pride in his home.
WORK QUICKLY All this information will help you sell. What you don’t want to do is use it to give yourself permission to do a less than stellar presentation or to just blow the lead off entirely. Once I left my son’s soccer practice to run a lead. I was all keyed up driving over to the prospect’s home. The house was on a channel of a lake, on a valuable site. Promising. Then I pulled up. I thought: What a waste of time! The grass was unmowed, the house in disrepair. I felt like leaving. Then I gathered my wits. Out of the corner of my eye, in the garage, I caught a glimpse of a brand new John Deere tractor.
The guy who owned the place came out. It was pretty much the person I expected. He was wearing cut-off shorts and a T-shirt. We did a walk-around. As we passed the garage I complimented him on the tractor. “Oh yeah,” he said. Then he explained that he and his wife had just come into an inheritance and had decided that now was the time to fix the house up. “So,” he said, “I figured I’d start by cutting the grass.” He gave me a check for $5,000 on a $15,000 deck.
Prospects call you out to their home for a reason. It’s your job to figure out what that reason is. The way you find out the reason is by asking questions. And not just asking questions for the sake of asking questions or to feed the fire of conversation (when you do that it quickly becomes apparent and only serves to annoy people and sabotage your purpose). Ask direct questions that give you the information you can use to sell, the kind of information that’s not going to be obvious just by looking at the house. Ask, “How long have you lived here? How long do you plan to live here? Has the neighborhood changed much?”
Then let them talk, and actually listen to what they’re saying. Many salespeople love to hear themselves talk. Prospects know this and are impatient for the salesperson to be done. In contrast, there are other salespeople who prospects actually enjoy talking with because the sales rep has established that he or she is genuinely interested in the prospect and his or her family and wants to meet their needs.
CREATE THE CONNECTION Before going to the prospect’s home, always call to make sure the homeowner knows that you’re coming. For example, I say: “This is Dennis. We have an appointment at six and I wanted to make sure that it’s still convenient for you tonight.” This prevents the situation where you get to the door only to find that the homeowner forgot about the appointment. If he forgot and you go ahead with the presentation anyway, many times the homeowner isn’t going to be open to buying anything.
People’s possessions say everything about them. What I look for inside the house is a theme. Whether it’s a picture of the son in military uniform on the mantel, or some kind of collection, you don’t have to take a visual inventory to get the overall theme. If you’re alert, you should be able to discern all you need to know at a glance.
Awareness of your surroundings provides two things. One is a sense of who the homeowners are and where their interests lie. The other is a talking point. And never judge. I once entered a house and was immediately struck — if not overwhelmed — by pictures, statues, calendars, you name it, of wolves. I inquired about this interest and later I explained that we could build a deck with a privacy wall, to screen from the neighbors, and that we’d throw in wolf prints, just like you’d see in snow, cut from redwood. Which is what we did. The wood cost less than $25 but it sold the job. The prospects bought from me because I took an interest in their passion for wolves and brought that passion to what I was selling. I expressed interest. They wanted a project with their signature on it. Looking around the room, observing their decor, and integrating that into the presentation made the sale.
DO’S AND DON’TS Here are a few quick warm-up do’s and don’ts.