Marketing
Reinvent Your Sales Skills in a No-Call World
Creative marketing solutions can continue to grow your sales and your business.

BY DIRK ZELLER

The National Do-Not-Call Registry will limit the number of people you contact only if you let it. You have sole power to decide with whom you will do business and with whom you’ll pursue a closer relationship. You still have three other ways to achieve success when prospecting current and past client relationships—mail, face-to-face meetings, and, for the time-being, e-mail (some lawmakers are trying to create a do-not-spam list).

With these options in mind, here are some of the ways you can reinvent your sales skills in a no-call world.

Establish the Habit of Asking Everyone for Business

Many salespeople are afraid to ask for the business. They don’t want to be pushy or act too much like a salesperson, but they forget one key point. We are in sales. That is our job—to sell. This is why the prospect is calling us, surfing our Web site, asking for a brochure, or visiting an open house. They have a need, and we are exactly the right people to provide solutions for them to achieve a better life. We sell the solutions.

To be successful in sales, we need to ask to receive. We must establish the habit of asking everyone for his or her business at all times. We can’t afford to be secret agents in a no-call world.

The most important asking opportunity is when we are with a prospect or client. Believe it or not, too often we leave potential selling situations, where people could make a buying or listing decision and sign a contract, without asking them to do so. We assume that we will get another chance. We assume they will be offended if we push them to evaluate and make a decision.

The second most important asking habit we need to establish is asking for referrals.The most successful salespeople ask for and receive referrals from their past clients and sphere of influence regularly because they understand that people forget we are in the business. This is where personal contact is so important, because it’s hard to effectively ask for referrals through a mailing piece or e-mail newsletter.

Make More Face-to-Face Contacts With People You Don’t Know

Most top salespeople that I consider “high influencers” believe there are only two categories of people in this world:

• People you know
• People you don’t know
  
  The only question is, which one is larger? The answer is obvious … the people you don’t know. Getting to know the people you don’t know means transferring your prospecting away from cold calling, which is no longer an option, to more face-to-face contacts where you can start to build a more personal relationship.
  
  Going face-to-face with potential prospects will be more important than ever. You won’t be able to talk to as many people face-to-face as you would on the phone, but studies have shown that you can still generate the same number of qualified leads with fewer contacts. Door knocking will not be affected by the no-call rules. More importantly, most of us are more effective face-to-face than in a conversation over the phone.
  
  Try a face-to-face prospecting technique for the next few weeks. Go to the door of at least 30 FSBOs or expireds. Talk with them about their needs, desires, and motivation and how you can help them. Get out of your car and walk a farm area. Meet face-to-face with all those people you have been sending mail to for some time. Show them that you are professional and a good practitioner. Show them that you are someone they should do business with.
  
  Show Prospects and Clients That You Are Good
  
  People want to work with people who are skilled and exceptional at what they do. The best way to expand your business is to do an exceptional job with the business you have right now. One of the primary tenets of getting more referrals is to be referral-worthy. To be referral-worthy, you have to:
  
• Do what you say you will do. Surprisingly, very few people do this. We all have been in situations where service providers or salespeople didn’t keep their word. I often see salespeople promise so much to get the sale that they create problems for themselves in the future when they are unable to follow through. We should always underpromise and overdeliver.
  
• Help clients set reasonable expectations. Make sure you help set the client’s expectations at a reasonable level. Not only is it easier to provide satisfaction, it’s much easier to exceed their expectations.
  
• Admit right away when you make a mistake. An exceptional service provider or salesperson doesn’t make zero mistakes, but he or she should have the personal integrity to admit a mistake and move to resolve the problem quickly. Your clients don’t expect perfection, but they appreciate accountability.
  
  Start Showing People You Care
  
  In addition to showing that we are good, we also have to show prospects and clients that we care. Showing this compassion will engender loyalty in our clients—and a desire to work with us again and refer their friends and family to us. For this reason, we need to show existing and potential clients how much we care about them and the outcomes they receive from doing business with us.
  
  Each of us has our own way of showing that we care. You might be verbal in telling your clients thank you. “You could have selected someone else to work with. I appreciate that you didn’t … Thanks!” You might do it with a written note thanking them for their loyalty or their investment in you. There are many ways to show your clients that you care about them and their well-being. Choose a method that is comfortable for you and use it with your clients.
  
  Develop and Deliver Effective Personal Marketing Messages
  
  Delivering effective personal marketing messages doesn’t mean going out and renting a large billboard or buying a moving van and plastering your name and face on the side. Those are marketing tactics, or even gimmicks. We spend too much time and money on the gimmicks in real estate and not enough on the messages. We get excited when someone thinks up a new way to market himself or herself but spend too little time crafting the message. Here are some critical messages we must convey to our prospects, clients, past clients, and sphere of influence to maintain a successful real estate sales business:
  
• You are in the real estate business. How quickly our friends, family, neighbors, and even past clients forget us. We need to send the constant message to them that we are in the business.
  
• You are a successful real estate practitioner. No one wants to do business with a flop. Why would someone want to trust his or her largest financial investment to an unsuccessful real estate professional? You need to show people that you are a success.
  
• You do a great job for your clients. By showing quality service and doing quality service, you lower the risk to your future prospects and clients. The first rule of receiving lots of referrals is to be referable—which means to give exceptional service so that your current clients will want to refer you to others they know.
  
  We now live in a different prospecting world due to the National Do-Not-Call Registry. It will be a little tougher for you to get in touch with some prospects and clients, but this can be an opportunity rather than an obstacle. The way you respond to this challenge will set you apart as a real estate practitioner. If you find creative ways to stay in touch with your valued clients, show them your value, and continue to reinvent your sales skills, you will expand your sales skills and your business in the new no-call world.
  
  Dirk Zeller is a speaker, trainer, and coach and author of Your First Year in Real Estate. He is the CEO of Real Estate Champions, a coaching company based in Bend, Ore.