“Next?” said the chipper sales clerk as she surveyed the gaggle of anxious customers clustered at her counter. I raised my hand and quickly placed my order. “You would never know the economy was struggling by the activity in this place,” I thought to myself. After paying my bill and grabbing my bag of goodies, I headed to the local NAHB affiliate’s Builders Council committee meeting.
I have been a member of this committee for the past three years and am now its chair. The committee meets monthly, and until recently, those meetings were sparsely attended by a half-dozen people. Then, out of nowhere, our last meeting had nearly 20 people show up. Needless to say, we were short on coffee and snacks. This time I wanted to come prepared, hence my sunrise visit to the best bakery in town. “Make sure you get some glazed and some chocolate-frosted,” fellow committee member Fred Kaler joked during our meeting-prep phone call the previous evening. “If they don’t like the discussion we’re having, they’ll at least appreciate the doughnuts.”
When I had e-mailed the group’s founder, a 15-year custom building veteran, to gauge why he thought interest in our group had spiked, his reply was simple and to the point: “Any port in a storm,” he wrote. He also expressed surprise that attendance had been so light, given current market conditions and the many business challenges builders are facing. “I have several tips to share that really do work for me and my company,” he added. I assured him that such guidance was exactly what our new visitors would be seeking.
When it came time for the meeting, I asked both new and returning audience members to introduce themselves and to explain why they had chosen to attend. Our agenda that day was to offer tips for seeking, identifying, and signing contracting projects when financing is tight, layoffs are ongoing, and a glut of both new and used homes has choked the market.
“Given our limited time, I’ve summarized the stated goals of everyone in attendance,” I explained. “Our committee members have compiled a list of real-world strategies that have proved successful in both good and bad times, and they’ve agreed to conduct several role-plays to demonstrate those techniques as they pertain to your concerns. Our main preaching point today is that there is always a demand for quality work, good value, and personable business. Buyers do business with people they like and trust. The prosperity of the last decade has caused some builders and remodelers to forget some of the fundamentals required for success. Once you have witnessed the scenarios we will be re-enacting, we invite you to question, comment, and offer your own suggestions and criticisms. All of us should benefit from this exercise,” I concluded.
Many in the room stared at me blankly. Some smirked. Others looked puzzled. Clearly, the audience was skeptical, despite the generous supply of doughnuts. We proceeded nonetheless, conducting four role-plays with these titles: Be a Rainmaker; Landing the Sale Using Features and Benefits; Selling Value; and Listen, Repeat, and Qualify.
What were the key lessons of our role-play vignettes? Here are the takeaways:
Do 80 percent of the listening and 20 percent of the talking. People like to talk. Show genuine interest in what your potential clients have to say. Ask questions, and probe for further information when needed. Quantify and qualify their wants and needs, then outline a plan to deliver on them. After your meeting, rehearse the prospect’s stated wants and needs with your spouse or a co-worker and role-play how to convince the prospect you can satisfy his or her wants and needs. Then ask for the sale!
Ask the right questions. When interviewing prospects, ask the following:
Use features and benefits to sell yourself and your company. Think of a typical TV commercial advertising a car, for example. The voice-over and visuals communicate the product’s features, which are then exemplified by its benefits. The feature: “Our coupe has a 325-cubic-inch V8 engine with an EPA fuel economy rating of 29 mpg,” the narrator raves. The benefit: You see the car zooming up a freeway ramp and merging into fast traffic. The takeaway for the viewer? The car is fun, has power, and is economical.
