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SALES CLINIC
Ralph Roberts diagnoses your selling maladies | ABCs of prospecting
Divide and Conquer
The key to increasing your sales: categorize your prospects. Also, collecting referral checks and networking your office. | BY RALPH R. ROBERTS How do I establish a system for organizing prospects? Jo Nichols Watson Realty Corp. Jacksonville, Fla. I organize mine into three groups--the As, the Bs, and the Cs. The As are people who're motivated to buy or sell and are basically just waiting for the right opportunity. I try to stay in contact with them on a daily basis. The Bs are motivated to buy or sell but can afford to take their time. They may be single people living with their parents or retired people who're thinking about simplifying their lifestyle. There are lots of Bs out there. My goal is to light a fire underneath them by showing them why it's in their best interest to put a deal together as soon as possible. I try to stay in contact with Bs every week or two. Finally, there are Cs, the people most salespeople forget about immediately after meeting them. Cs have legitimate reasons for not buying or selling in the near future. Maybe they’re retiring in a year and contacting you just to make an initial inquiry about how much their house is worth. I think of Cs as an insurance policy. I put them in my database and continue to mail to them on a monthly basis. Then, a month or two before the time they said they'd be ready to enter the market, I make a call. The goal at this point is to turn them into Bs. Classifying my prospects makes it easier to prioritize my day. I work the A prospects and let my assistant handle the Bs and Cs. The result: I make more sales because I'm only dealing with people who're strongly motivated to sell. How do you enforce referral fees between real estate companies in two different states? Jeanne Okamoto Gertrude Gardner, Inc. Metairie, La. It always helps if the salespeople you're referring to are members of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and have professional designations such as GRI, and CRS. These designations prove that salespeople are serious about their careers and likely to try to earn more referrals from you by taking care of both you and your customers. Of course, even if you know out-of-town salespeople well, you don't know how they'll perform until you give them a chance to prove themselves. Start by giving salespeople a single referral. See how they handle it. Get feedback from your customer. If it goes well and you receive your referral fee in a timely manner, send them more business. If you send a lot of referrals to a certain area visit salespeopleand brokers in the those markets. Make sure you're comfortable before you turn your clients over to someone else.
Are all your departments networked via computer or are interoffice communications and referrals conducted with paper?
Brent A. Fooks
The Fooks Team at DeWolfe
Warwick, R.I.
We use a combination of methods. All of our computers are networked so that everyone has access to important documents and databases. But I would be lying if I said we do everything electronically.
We're always striving to use new technology more effectively, but the larger an organization becomes, the more difficult it is to make major technological changes.
Most people are resistant to any kind of change, even if it'll be beneficial. That's why it's important to make sure ahead of time that any new technology--especially any new computer programs--will work.
Rule: Make sure you understand the system before you install it. The disasters I've heard about in the last few years have occurred when people blindly take the advice of consultants about what's right for their business. |
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