Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/684297
JUNE 2016 26 THE JOURNAL Turn Your Business Into A Sales Machine BY SCOTT STROUD MARKETING CONSULTANT Right now, the market for new homes – your homes – is hot! Buyers are flooding back into the market; unemployment is down; family formation is increasing, and rent costs are steadily rising while inventories are nearing record lows. However, if there's one thing we've learned through the past eight years it's that the housing economy is cyclical; what goes up eventually comes down. To make this point, housing economist Jeff Prager in a recent interview stated, "It's only a matter of time before the next 'shoe' falls. It may be in five years; it may be more, but it is going to happen." So, what that means is that you have a window of opportunity, the next five or so years, to make back the wealth you've lost since 2008 and to po- sition your business to survive the next down cycle. To do that, you need to make as many sales as you can and generate as much revenue as you can now. You need a sales machine. Why you need a machine. Think about what a machine does, as opposed to doing something manually. A machine delivers consistent, predictable results with the least amount of effort. A housing plant is, in effect, a machine – materials go in one end and a house comes out the other, with consistent results and with less time or labor than building on site. It's a similar process to onsite construction, but it's templated and automated, so you get better re- sults. To build your own Sales Machine, then, all you need to do is use templated, automated processes that result in consistent sales. The processes you need are: 1. Attract new buyers 2. Capture and Engage; motivate action 3. Close the sale and get the deal funded 4. Repeat the process through upsells, resells and referrals. These four processes can be streamlined to de- liver consistent results, and are actually the first four of the 7 Key Numbers that are the foundation of Cash Flow Engineering© (www.cashflowengi- neering.com.) So, let's look at each process indi- vidually. Attract New Buyers The objective of your marketing is to generate enough qualified buyers to meet your sales goal. That's the process that we can construct, and it has two parts: our message and our placement. Message: Here's where you as a local business and we as an industry have a huge opportunity for growth. Most MH websites or ads focus on fea- tures and pricing, instead of on lifestyle and ben- efits. That's backwards, and results in lots of traffic, but few qualified buyers. If you find you're spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get prospects funded and only getting a small per- centage financed, then you need to change your message so that you attract more qualified buyers. You message needs to address the reasons why your buyers are shopping for a new home now; the problems that they are experiencing that your new home can solve. Reasons why people are in the market for a new home can include: growing fam- ily (house too small); retirement (house too big or too old); commute (house too far from work); or the need to stretch their fixed income (house too expensive). When you offer a solution to a per- ceived problem or pain that they are currently feeling, you'll attract their attention. Placement: 90%+ of all new home shopping is done online, which is a really good thing for us, because driving buyers to your website is a matter of science. Through Google Adwords, Facebook and Search Engine Optimization, you can virtu- ally guarantee that you'll generate as many leads as you need to make your sales goals, and at a cost per lead that continues to drop. Making sure that your website communicates the right message is critical, and that's where we find most retailers and communities need help. Capture and Engage Most websites only get about 1% - 2% of their visitors to identify themselves. That means 99% of your potential buyers remain invisible, and if you can't see them, you can't sell them. Offering an article, such as: Free Report: 6 Questions To Ask Before Choosing A Retirement Home can increase the amount of leads you capture by 500% or more by requiring that your visitors register to receive the information, giving you their name and con- tact information. Then, it is absolutely imperative that you fol- low up with an automated nurture campaign to build interest, stimulate desire and motivate those online leads to become onsite buyers. Again, you don't have to "reinvent the wheel"; these processes are being used throughout the industry with stellar results. Close & Fund The above processes will guaranty you get as many qualified buyers into your sales center as you need, where they will be greeted by your profes- sional sales team, each of whom is trained and coached according to your specific sales process to achieve maximum results. This is where the sale is made or lost, so 1) clearly define your sales steps and processes, and 2) train to those standards – and accept nothing less. If you're still attracting too many prospects that you simply can't get funded, then go back and check your messaging and your qualification processes. These non-fundable deals can clog up your entire machine, wasting your time, energy and money. Repeat When the sale closes, it actually opens up ad- ditional opportunities for smart businesses – refer- ral sales, upsells (skirting, garages, landscaping, etc.), and trade-ups. To earn these additional sales, implement a Loyalty or Customer Appreci- ation Program. Keeping in touch with current and past buyers is the fastest, easiest and least expen- sive way to grow your sales exponentially. Define and automate these four key processes and you'll have a sales machine that will generate consistent and predictable sales, month after month. You might need some help automating these processes, since the tools that yield the greatest results are fairly new. So, if you'd like to learn more, just give me a call. Scott Stroud has been marketing new homes since 1980. He's an in-demand speaker and author of sev- eral books, including the re-release of The Complete Guide to Selling More Homes, due out in the fall of 2016. Scott is a marketing consultant and Cash Flow Engineer, and can be reached at sstroud@me.com, or by calling 606-416-2078. Visit his website, www.CashFlowEngineering.com. T J