Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Have you ever walked into a show home and felt unimportant, or worse, felt like you were interrupting the salesperson's day? If so, you're not alone. We've mystery shopped dozens of home builders across our local market here in Edmonton, Alberta, and we've discovered some shocking truths most builders are missing. Critical opportunities to connect with potential buyers. But here's the good news. By mastering just a few key elements of the show home experience, you can dramatically increase your chances of turning that walk in traffic into future sales. And in this episode of the marketing minute, I'm going to share some key strategies with you that will help put your show homes into the top 10% and turn them into true sales centers. Welcome to another episode of the home builder, marketing and growth show. I'm your host, Jeff Schneider with Velocity 23. Today we're talking about a really interesting topic. How do we improve the customer experience in our show homes? So just a bit of background on this episode. Every summer we go out and we mystery shop the local builders here in Edmonton, Alberta, and we do this just to get a feel for what's new, what's going on, what are the builder promotions looking like? And to also kind of get a grasp on how well trained the different salespeople are in the show homes and how good of a job they do with engaging that walk in traffic. Well, we did that this summer and I have to tell you that I was actually quite shocked. In the vast majority of the show homes that we went into, there was very little interaction and on only but a few occasions did the salesperson attempt to get any kind of contact information from us so that they could follow up. And it really left me with my jaw open. The idea of what I want to share with you here today is some very simple steps that you can take to drastically improve that customer experience in your show homes, which will translate into future sales. So the first thing I want to talk about is how do you greet walk in customers? That first 60 seconds really sets the tone for the experience that somebody's going to have in your show home. And what you want to do is you want to create a welcoming and engaging environment and you want to make a positive connection with that prospect as quickly as you can. So the first thing that we noticed when we did these mystery shops is that very few sales reps will stand up and get out from behind their desk. And as a potential buyer, it really left me feeling like I wasn't being taken seriously. It almost feels a little bit disrespectful Maybe that's just me being a little bit traditional, but I would expect when I walk into a show home that that salesperson really wants to put their best foot forward and do their best to impress me, knowing that I have a ton of choices out there in the market of where I could move to. So the first thing that I would recommend is make sure that your salespeople get out of their chair, get out from behind their desk, and greet that customer, greet that prospect when they walk into the show home. It makes a world of difference. Try something like, hi there, welcome to ABC Homes. How are you today? Something that short and simple can have a real impact on a potential prospect when they walk in. And you'd be surprised how few builders do this. Lots of times people said hello when we came in the show home, but they wouldn't even tell us what builder I was visiting. And that came as a bit of a shock to me. I think the key part in this, though, is asking how that person's doing. It's a simple question, and maybe it doesn't feel overly genuine, but it starts a conversation and it does make that prospect feel a bit like they have your attention and that's what they want. They're potentially shopping for one of the biggest purchases of their life. You need to make them feel good. The other thing I noticed from my experience, too was how much more of an impact that greeting made when somebody came out from behind their desk. When a salesperson's sitting behind their desk, it feels very salesy. It feels like there's a barricade or a wall in between the two of you. And when they came out from around their desk to talk to me, it really felt like we took that wall down and it made it feel a lot more warm and a lot more friendly of an environment. So that was another experience that I had. And the next thing that shocked me was out of all of the show home shops that we did this summer, dozens and dozens, one show home, one person introduced themselves and gave me their name. Right in the beginning, only one salesperson said, hi, my name's Jeremy, and you are. And something like that really stuck out in my mind because now we're on a first name basis. And I think that's a really important part in that sales process because you want to establish comfort and rapport really quickly with that potential prospect. And the easiest way to do that is to be on a first name basis with them. Plus, one of the sweetest things for a person to hear is their own Name. So I think that's really important. And like I said, that can be simply, hi, I'm Jeff and you are. And just get their name right away. And when that person says their name, well, thanks for coming in today, Jeremy. Thanks for coming in today, Anna. Whatever it happens to be and what you're doing in that process is starting to establish familiarity and to start build a bit of a layer of trust there. The next thing from my experience that kind of struck me as a little odd was at that point, most salespeople would just say, have you been here before? And I would say, no, I haven't. And they would say, okay, great, we'll go in and have a look at the show home and let me know if you have any questions. To me, that felt like there was a really big missed opportunity there. So what I would recommend instead is to begin with a little bit of discovery and some questions there. So some of the salespeople ask, well, what brought you in today? And I would give them a standard, I'm shopping for a new home. Well, most prospects that come into a sales center or show home are shopping for a new home. Not many salespeople dug in to find out why exactly I was shopping for a new home. And I think that's the biggest opportunity there for a salesperson to start to understand who this prospect is. So I would recommend asking the question, so what brings you in today?
[00:06:01] And understand that the majority of people are probably going to say, well, we're looking for a new home. And maybe they may not tell you why they're looking for a new home, but I think at that point it's important for a salesperson to ask that question, to try to dig in a little bit. So what has he looking for a new home. What I would have found helpful was if that salesperson would listen to my response and then repeat it back to me. That's called active listening. So when they say, so what brings you into the show home today? And I say, we're in the market for a new home, you could say something like, ah, so you've outgrown your current home and you're looking for a new home, is that right?
[00:06:39] All that does is just reaffirm with that prospect that they've been heard. And that's one of those small building blocks towards establishing that trust and developing a bit of a relationship. So at this point, rather than sending me the prospect into the show home to go look around, what I found was really helpful was a couple of the reps that I Talked to would ask me, so what's wrong with your current home? That was a really powerful question because it helps them to understand what my pain point is. So my standard response to that question was, well, we only have one main bathroom. So now I've hinted at what my main problem is. Now, any good sales rep is going to understand without asking why that's an issue. We all know that there's going to be lineups, and it's just not convenient to utilize one bathroom with a group of people living in a home. But you need to make sure that that's the actual pain point that that person's experiencing. And so the most logical thing to ask at this point is, why is that a problem if I live by myself or if it's just me and a partner? Maybe only having one bathroom is not really a big deal. But they don't know yet what my family situation is. They don't know if I have kids. They don't know if I have people coming in from out of town on the regular or maybe I have roommates. They don't know the full situation. So ask the question why? And dig into that a little bit deeper. So why is having only one bathroom a problem? And so when you ask that question, the prospect, me in this case, would have said something like, well, there's a lineup in the morning, and it makes it hard for everybody to get ready to go at the beginning of the day. So now what I've done as your prospect is I've just given you a real example of how my current living situation with only having this one bathroom directly impacts my life. I've revealed a major pain point.
[00:08:33] So as a sales rep, you want to utilize that pain point moving forward. And so the way that I recommend doing that is you utilize a tactic called agitating the pain. And so what you want to do is you want to repeat back again what you heard from the prospect, but turn the heat up a little bit. So you might say something like, oh, wow, I can imagine how frustrating it's got to be waiting for your turn to use the bathroom. I imagine you all have to wake up earlier in the morning just to get ready to go.
[00:09:04] So that second part of that sentence, I just agitated that pain. And what you're looking for is a positive response from that prospect that's like, yep, you get me. You understand my pain. So they might say that to you, or they might just give you a nonverbal cue, like nodding their head or something like that. But that's what you're looking for. After you agitate the pain, you want to make sure that you've hit the nail on the head. You've discovered their why and you've uncovered what that particular pain point is and how it directly impacts their life. All right, from this point now, I would encourage them to get in and do the show home tour, but I would pre frame that tour. So what I found really helpful as a secret shopper or a potential home buyer is when the sales rep told me a little bit about the home first before they encouraged me or invited me to go in and have a look at it. So one of the best ways that I found from my experience was when a sales rep was like, well, you're visiting the Zenith model today, and this is a four bedroom, three bath home. It's about 2200 square feet, yada yada yada. So tell me a little bit about that particular show home that I'm walking into, but use that pain point that you just uncovered with me to pre frame this particular model as being a solution to my problem. So you could say something like, you'll notice in this model that the main bathroom on the upper floor has two sinks and the toilet and the shower are both in a separate room so that more than one person can get ready to go in the morning.
[00:10:47] So what you've done is you've just painted this picture of this particular model solving one of my biggest housing problems.
[00:10:55] So that's a way that you can pre frame that show home tour as being a potential solution for me and get me excited to go in and do that tour. And that makes a major difference to me as a buyer or a potential buyer when I walk into the show home. Because without some kind of pre framing that this is going to solve my problem. I'm just looking at yet another house. I've probably been in and out of a lot of different show homes in your area or in surrounding areas. And after a while, they all kind of look the same. They all have similar finishes, they all have different options. But generally speaking, there's not a lot that changes between one home and the next. Besides subtle little design layouts and that sort of thing.
[00:11:39] Really what's going to make your home stand out to me is my experience with you as the salesperson and in my experience doing these mystery shops for dozens of builders in my area, that was the major difference point for me was the person I was dealing with. I walked out of some of those different show home tours thinking if I was legitimately looking for A new home. Right now, I would be speaking with that person. And if that was because of the experience that I had in that show home. All right, so you pre framed that tour. Now invite me to go and look at the show home and take my time, right? So I'm going to go in, I'm going to view that show home. I'm specifically going to look for that feature that you told me that it had. So 10, 15, 20 minutes later, when I walk out of that show home and I come back into the sales area or the show office, now you need to engage me again. So almost every salesperson's first question was, so, what did you think? And my standard response to all of those salespeople was like, it was nice. I like the colors. I really made sure as a secret shopper not to give them anything solid to go on because I wanted to see how they were going to engage me and dig into what I. I really liked or didn't like about that particular model.
[00:12:59] So my response, like I said, it was pretty nice. I really like the colors. Or, you know, the walk in closets were big. Something really simple like that. So as a sales rep, what you should do here is repeat back to them what they said to you. Again, you want to use active listening. Every time that you repeat back what somebody says to you, you're communicating to them that they were heard. And again, that helps to establish that familiarity as well as a really good feeling of comfort and trust. So repeat back to them. Oh, you really like the colors. Oh, you thought the walk in closets were big. That's great.
[00:13:34] Now the next thing that you should do is ask a more specific question. What was the thing that you liked the most about this model? Wait for the prospect to respond, and then again, repeat it back to them. Using that active listening. Asking them what they like the most about a particular model home is usually a good indicator as to what that prospect is looking for in a new home. Because they're going to point out the things that kind of check their boxes that they're looking for in their new home. And the next thing that you want to do is you want to go back to that pain point that you agitated before they went on their tour. So in the case of the example that we used, you'd ask something like, so what did you think of that main bath? Did you see how that could solve your problem with the lineups in the morning and waiting your turn to use the bathroom? When we ask that question specifically like that, what we're Doing is again, planting that seed, that this is the solution to your housing problem. That's what we want to point out. So unless this model didn't meet their needs, they'll tell you that. But most, in most cases, if you've planted that seed in advance, that this is going to solve their problem, usually you're correct. And if not, then that client's going to expand on that problem a little bit more. Well, you know, it wasn't bad, but you know, and tell you the reason why maybe it doesn't completely solve that problem. And the next question that I would have liked to have been asked, that really didn't come up a lot. And I have talked to sales managers before, and they feel like this one's a little bit controversial. But one of the questions that I would ask is, what didn't you like about that model?
[00:15:09] I think as a prospective buyer, that it's pretty silly to think that your model home is going to meet all my needs. Every buyer's different. Every buyer's looking for different things. It's safe to assume that it's not going to be a 10 out of 10 match for me. So I don't think there's anything wrong with asking somebody, what didn't you like about that model? And the reason why I think that that's a really important question is because you want to uncover what those potential negatives are. And I believe that this sets you up for the transition to the next component of this really awesome customer experience. So if you asked me that question, I said, well, one of the things that I didn't like is I didn't like how close Ben bedroom 2 and 3 were to the master bedroom. What I'm looking for in the model home that I want to buy is I want the master bedroom to be at the back of the home. Then I want the bathroom and the laundry room and that rec room or the living room in between my bedroom and bedroom 2 and 3 where my kids will be, because I want that space in those walls to act as a sound barrier between us and them, to put some distance between us. That's something that's important to me and what I'm looking for in my next home. So when I tell you that and you realize that your model doesn't have that, what that allows you to do at that point is transition to consultation. Now what you're going to do is you're going to invite that person to come and sit with you. You can say, oh, that's a really good point. Yeah, this model doesn't have that, but I have two or three other models that do have a setup like that in the upstairs. And they also have the bathroom that you're looking for. Come and have a seat for a minute. Let me show you.
[00:16:57] Now we've got a reason to have that person come and sit knee to knee with us at our desk, right? And now we start that consultation process. All right? So salespeople are really good at what they do. So I don't need to talk to you about how to go through that consultative selling process. You know how to do that or your salespeople know how to do that. But once you have them need a knee, what you should be doing is starting to ask them these qualifying questions. How soon are you looking to move into your new home? Now, do you currently rent or own your home? Questions like that. Where you start to identify budget needs, timeline, that sort of thing. The other thing that made my experience feel a lot better when I was doing these mystery shops was when the salesperson took more of an advisory role with me. So when they would mention a couple of things and then ask a question, how does that sound? Do you think this would work for you? What else are you looking for? And really made me part of a conversation rather than just trying to tell me stuff. That was a.
[00:17:59] That made a very big difference between my experiences being out in those show homes and now I'm going to skip forward to the very end of this process. So you've sat down with this person, you've gone through all of this different information.
[00:18:12] One of the things that absolutely shocked me is that only about three people that I visited asked me for my contact information. And that just blows my mind. Because here's the thing. We all know that nobody goes out. No. Like nobody wakes up on a Saturday and goes out to the show home and says, my home doesn't work for me anymore. I'm going to go to a show home and I'm going to write a contract that day.
[00:18:36] As a salesperson, I don't understand why you would put the power or the control of the sale in the prospect's hand and hope that they will contact you again. Hope that when they shop, all the other builders in that area, because you know they're going to. Why you would hope that you had the best experience, that they would reach out to you. So you need to collect people's contact information, but you need to do it ethically.
[00:19:06] Now, here's a couple of strategies that you can use to do that. Offer Them some kind of digital asset. So it can be, you know, available lots in the area have it as a digital PDF that you email to people. Or maybe you have a needs versus wants checklist offer to send that to somebody as a digital PDF. Or maybe you have a brochure of all the homes and models that are available in that particular community, offer to send it to them as a PDF.
[00:19:40] If when you're talking to somebody you make an offer to send them these digital assets, the only way for them to receive them is by giving you their contact information.
[00:19:49] Also, what makes this really powerful is you've already set the precedent that they will hear from you. So that's a really powerful method for getting that person's contact information. If there's a perceived value exchange there for that prospect and they look at it and believe that they're getting good value in the asset that you're promising them, they're going to say yes. So that's a really great method for collecting a prospect's contact information, but doing it in an ethical way. And then the next step is follow up. So you want to make sure that you follow up with these prospects after you've gotten their contact info and given them those digital assets. So first and foremost, send those digital assets to them and do it as quickly as you possibly can. Absolutely do it the same day, but as soon as you can. But then follow up with them in a few days and make sure that they actually got it. You can use something like, hey, I just want to make sure that you were able to download that file. Okay. Or hey, I just wanted to see if you had an opportunity to dive into that brochure or look at the lot map, check in to make sure that they've actually accessed that particular digital asset that you've sent to them. Then I would recommend following up again with them like a few days after that. Just find out like, hey, how are you making out? Do you have any questions? Did this turn up anything new? Is there anything that I can do to be of service to you right now or help you to understand after that? I would look to start following up with those people like once a week and then start to space it out over time. Right? Once a week, every two weeks, that sort of thing. If you find that that lead kind of starts to fizzle out and it's not a hot lead anymore, then you can probably space it out even longer. But I would recommend following up with people like at least once a month, even long term, because people's situations change. All the time. I might be shopping today, but something could happen in my life two weeks from now that stops me from shopping. You know, maybe some other major event happened in my life and now I'm like, now we're going to look at it, you know, three months from now. Well, then put a note in your calendar to follow up with me again later.
[00:21:53] But you shouldn't stop following up with a prospect that's coming to your show until they either buy or they die, or they tell you to go away and they don't want to talk to you anymore. You should always be doing that follow up. And I recommend that you utilize some form of marketing automation tool like HubSpot has sequences that you can use as a sales rep. But utilize some form of marketing automation tool to put those longer term colder prospects on some kind of an automated follow up. That way you're not putting all your time investment into doing it manually. But follow up with those people until you can't be of service to them anymore. That's what I would recommend. So like I said, this has just been based on my own personal experience being out doing these mystery shops in my local market and really understanding, like what kind of experience people are getting out there. I think there's a ton of room for improvement. And I think that by implementing even just a couple of the ideas that I shared with you today, you really can position yourself into the top 10% of your competition out there. Because from what I saw, the bar set really low. But the big thing that you need to take away from this today is that every prospect that comes into your show home is an opportunity to sell another home. Most people in this day and age that come into a show home are somewhat serious because everybody's couch surfing, everybody's shopping from their couch these days. The latest knob report is that a hundred percent of buyers start their search online and about 80% of that home buying journey is done before we even engage with sales. So if they're coming into your show home, don't write them off. Give them the benefit of the doubt that they're an actual shopper and engage with these people and put your best foot forward. Know that it doesn't take a lot to really make for an incredible customer experience.
[00:23:53] And based on my own experience, I can tell you that the people that really made that great first impression in the first 60 seconds and the people that asked me questions about my situation, those were the ones that I felt most of the draw to. So after having done dozens and dozens of these Mystery shops. If I was legitimately in the market to buy a new home, there are very specific builders that I would go and reengage with because of that customer experience that I had. And I'm just like the rest of the market. We want to make sure that we're in good hands doing business with people that we know, that we like, that we trust, where there's some familiarity and some comfort there. And you can develop that depending on what your initial show home visit is like for those potential prospects. All right, I hope you got a lot of value out of this episode today. And I just want to say I'm not a Jeff Shore. You know, I'm not one of these really well known industry sales trainers by any means. I'm a marketer first and foremost, not a sales guy. But the experience that I received, I hope that you'll take that with some value in that I am a potential home buyer and I was out there and these were my experiences and I'm giving you that feedback of what would have made my own experience feel that much better and likely be a lot closer to leading to a sale. So thanks again for tuning into this episode of the Home Builder, Marketing and Growth show. And if you got some value out of this, please share the episode with one of your friends or colleagues. We're a new show. I'm still learning. I'm green, but we're looking to build our audience and just trying to help as many builders as we can out there. So please share it with a colleague. Subscribe to the show if you haven't already, and we will see you on a future episode. Love you guys. Take care.
