There is too much wasted time spent by the most expensive employees
This is because there are so many periphery tasks in our business.
Why should salespeople get stuck helping new owners pick out marble countertops? Why should they sit at a desk robotically dialing the phone hoping to find a pulse in their pipeline? Those tasks are productivity killers and marketing ROI will surely suffer.
The sales team is a real estate developer’s most valuable asset and they should be free to focus on only those tasks that will enable them to make sales, nothing else.
A real estate development’s on-site sales exec is easily the most expensive employee (or contractor) in the entire project.
This is because the successful (and most expensive) ones are good at doing the most difficult things, like building relationships, listening, handling objections, and negotiating… otherwise known as selling.
But what are they actually doing? If you were a fly on the wall, what would you see during a typical Tuesday? A lot of yawning.
Because those expensive employees, critical to the success of a project, are often buried in administrative tasks that are way below their pay grade.
The complaint I most often hear by salespeople is the endless hours spent chasing leads, more specifically, leaving voicemails or sending emails that don’t get returned.
These administrative tasks are part of the daily grind because sales people don’t know which leads are truly interested.
Not knowing which leads to focus on can delay the sell out of a real estate development for years.
What Sales Executives should be doing with their precious time each day
Spending time with prospective buyers who are on site is the obvious first priority.
This is the best time to build rapport, answer questions and move a prospective buyer from merely interested to truly engaged.
When a potential new owner is on site, no matter how far along in the sales process, everything else takes a back seat.
But after that, priorities tend to get cloudy.
Focus on building the pipeline first, then close them second. It sounds backward, but it’s not.
Most sales managers would say handling late stage leads – those nearing a close. But this is out of order.
Building the sales pipeline, talking with early stage leads is more important that holding a late stage buyer’s hand.
Late stage buyers with detailed questions only reach that advanced level of interest if a salesperson connects with them early. All that time and attention paid to buyers that are close to purchase takes away from building a larger pipeline.
Put another way, the less time sales execs spend having meaningful conversations with early stage prospects, the fewer late stage buyers will be putting down deposits.
Focus on building the pipeline first, then close them second. It sounds backward, but it’s not.
Building relationships with current owners.
Those salespeople who build the strongest relationships with their new owners have the most success. Traditionally, owners refer their friends and family because of their love of the property and excellent relationship with their salesperson.
Yes, incentives can move the needle from time to time. “Refer a friend and receive half off of your annual HOA fees” is a common strategy, but incentives are typically not the real reason an owner makes a referral. Referrals happen when owners are happy. They are treated like family and have genuinely becoming friends with the staff, and the sales team.
Personal growth and training.
Even the best salespeople in the world admit that they can improve. Nobody is all knowing and in my book, improving one’s own skills is senior to sitting at a desk dialing for dollars all day long.
Hone skills, a better timed phone call, a better voicemail, a better email or more confident phone delivery can make all the difference in the world. Salespeople should know their competition inside out and prepare for what to say when that conversation inevitably happens.
This is how Clearview Elite tells salespeople which leads to call and precisely when
Common Time Wasting Tasks
Here are a few items that don’t make the list that many good salespeople do too often.
1. Dialing for dollars
When consumers request additional information that’s exactly what they want, additional information, not just a brochure full of fancy pictures. Knowing which leads are spending the most time reading that additional information is the secret sauce to eliminating “dialing for dollars” almost entirely. Here’s how we do that.
Someone else should be tasked with these next items, a sales admin most commonly. They are huge time wasters for a salesperson who could be spending their time having meaningful conversations moving prospects towards close.
2. The closing process, document management
3. Interior design consulting, decorating logistics
4. Sending out brochures
5. Coordinating sales visits
Developer Homework:
- Sit down and have a conversation with the sales team. Better understand what they spend their time on everyday. Figure out what items should be reassigned to someone else.
- Check out our sales efficiency tool – learn how you can use our technology to keep your sales team focused on talking with the right leads at the right time.
A more productive sales team is the key to a faster sale and improved return on your sales and marketing investment.
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Clearview Elite creates custom, web-based presentations for real estate sales teams, delivers them instantly and automatically and sends notifications as to which prospects are reading them, when and how often. Watch our video
About Eric: Real Estate Sales & Marketing veteran and founder of Clearview Elite. Driven to make life easier for real estate salespeople. Very lucky husband and Dad, slightly above average golfer, food and wine fan. Lives in Boise, Idaho with wife Julie and kids Nicholas and Grace.
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