Paperback: 173 pages
Publisher: Sterling Learning Group (January 2013)
ISBN: 978-1-934-381-13-7
Secret #19:
Turn Off AutoPilot
“Some rules are just old habits that people are afraid to change.” −Therese Fowler, novelist
WHEN WE GO ON AUTOPILOT, we usually lose. In the case of a lot of new home sales professionals, “autopilot” sounds like this:
“You know what? Now is the perfect time to buy a home!”
Here’s the problem: That just plain doesn’t work.
Regardless of whether or not it is factually accurate, I can personally guarantee you that it will not get you back into the black in a down market. Here’s the number one reason: so many salespeople have been saying it in so many different market settings that it has now become completely drained of meaning.
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Prospects simply tune it out. They assume it is something that
slick, fast-talking salespeople say when they’re behind on quota.
Guess what—they’re absolutely right.
At the bottom of the market, people will always that assume
that because you are a salesperson, you are trying to manipulate
them into believing there is urgency in what they perceive as a
non-urgent market. But urgency is a one-person-at-a-time phenomenon.
If you have the right new home, in the right neighborhood,
at the right time, urgency happens on its own, one buyer at
a time—regardless of what is or isn’t happening anywhere else.
There is no such thing as a non-urgent market. There are just
urgent and non-urgent buyers, also known as “lookers.” What the
masters are good at doing is using tactics (like the ones I’m sharing
with you in this book) to find out where the urgency truly lies in
individual buyers—so they can activate that urgency.
Most of the salespeople who say “This is the perfect time to
buy” are saying that because they are afraid of making a mistake.
They have a limited number of arrows in their quiver. I’m not
saying that this line is somehow inaccurate or untrue. I’m saying
that the salespeople who use it are talking about their own
motives, not the motives of the person they’re talking to. They
need to broaden their skills. They need to find and practice some
different tactics, tactics that take into account that the motive
driving buyers in this market typically isn’t finding a good deal. As
we’ll see in the next chapter, the dominant motive is something
very different.
So stop talking about what a good time to buy it is. Turn off
autopilot and do what the masters do: Ask yourself what the buyer
is most scared of in this market.
THE TAKEAWAY: “Now is the perfect time to buy a
home!” is a sign of being on autopilot. It doesn’t work.
Stop saying it.
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