How to Convert Prospects to Buyers Using a Multi-Step Sales Funnel Overview: The goal of any sales funnel is to make a sale. You don t get married on the first date and most prospects don t become a customer in one step. You need to design a sales funnel that puts you in control of the sales process AND makes the prospect feel like you are helping them make a well informed housing choice. If you ve been using the critical path to sales as a template for your sales process you re in luck! A multi-step Sales Funnel is designed to work in conjunction with the Critical Path, NOT replace it. I teach my clients a sales process called the Transformational Sales System (TSS) Steps. The original critical path to sales is buried in the TSS. The 11 sales steps look like this 1. Preparation- Who is your target market? What appeals to them? What personality types are you dealing with? What psycographic profiles are you appealing to? 2. Greeting- How are you lowering the defenses of your prospect? 3. Needs Analysis- The more you understand your prospects problems the more sales you will make. The discovery process starts early and never ends. 4. Presentation- This is where you build credibility and trust. The 3 parts of the presentation are your community, neighborhood and company story. 5. Demonstration- The homesite, the model, the design or available home. 6. Urgency- Narrowing down to one available home, one plan and/or one homesite. 7. Objections- You must be ready to address the top 6. Behind every objection is a benefit. 8. Logically Justifying the sale with finance- You ve gotten this far. Now make sure the numbers make sense.
9. Final Close- This is natural if you ve been using test and trial closes throughout. 10. Follow-up/Referrals- Nearly all your prospects won t buy after the first consultation. Determine their educational needs and deliver it via email, mail, phone and in-person events. They should trust you at this point and there s no reason you can t get referrals. 11. Customer Experience/Referrals- Now they ve purchased but you need to deliver. There will be many mechanical experiences that happen as part of the construction process. What humanic experiences will you tie to them to create a raving fan?
Multi-Step Sales Funnel Phases: Your sales funnel begins the moment a prospect calls, emails or meets you in person. Each of the phases will occur as part of the TSS steps. Your funnel will have 8 phases. 1. Identify Problems. Part of your preparation is identifying your target market and the problems that are driving them to consider building or remodeling. 2. Sales Environment. Your sales environment has to pop and utilize all 5 senses to your advantage. Visual, auditory, smell, touch and taste. 3. Engage. The engagement phase is designed lower the defenses of your prospect and establish the foundation of trust. 4. Education. Education positions you as the expert and go to person. Everything you do in your sales funnel revolves around educating prospects to your unique position in the marketplace. 5. Lifestyle. 90% of what you do is exactly what your builder or remodeler competitors. Never focus on the sticks and bricks. Always focus on the lifestyle that can be obtained by utilizing your company. 6. Be Proactive. Anticipate and brag about the top 6 objections of your prospects. 7. Control the Knowledge. Information can be obtained on Google in.21 seconds. Knowledge is something only you possess. You must keep a reason for your prospects to come back and meet with you. 8. Build Trust. Prove the Value of Your Services. Does Your Prospect Feel They Know You? The goal of your sales funnel is to establish these 3 things. When you accomplish that the sale is made.
Building Your Sales Funnel: You ll have to answer the following questions in 8 areas to build your own funnel. The next page is a template to help you put all the pieces together. 1. Your unique position. What do your prospects think you do? If they think you re a home builder or remodeler you re in trouble. No specialty = no margins & few sales. Focus on niche/niches and separate yourself from the competition. It s not why you re better. Answer the question, Why are you different? 2. You re Facilities. How do you leverage your sales facilities to differentiate? Are you utilizing all 5 senses? At a recent Remodeler s Showcase Tour one of my clients was grilling hot dogs outside (smell & taste). Inside they were serving cookies and coffee (smell & taste). They had made up photo boards of the before and after (visual). Music was playing in the background (auditory) and every single person was greeted with a handshake (touch) even though hundreds attended. 3. The Hook. It s your responsibility to start the relationship. The best way to do this is give something away for free. What are your prospects looking for? What will help them in their research? What can you offer them that your competition can t or won t? The hook is simply a way to lower defenses, prove you are there to help and get you into a conversation. The resort in Mexico hook was help getting a taxi giving us an overview of the area. What s yours? 4. Believability/Visual Aids. Seeing is believing. How do you establish trust and credibility? What do you have to show people? Why would someone get excited about what you have to offer? Why would they feel a connection to you? Your collateral materials need to comprise of photos, videos, a GREAT/RELEVANT builder story, customer testimonials and location overviews to name a few. Only 10% of the adult population learns from listening. What are you doing to get through to the other 90%? 5. Building Value. Do you rely on the brand names of your products to build value? Or do you use words like family owned, number of years in business and my favorite, quality?
If you re relying on your sticks and bricks to prove to people you re better- keep this in mind. The only person that believes you (or your competitor) are better is your prospect. And people don t buy logically. How many sales have you gotten after you ve had the you re not comparing apples to apples conversation? 10% of what you do is different that your competitors. And none of it has to do with your products or building techniques. Any of your competitors at any time can copy the products and construction techniques you use. Lifestyle is the focus here. 6. Anticipate Objections. We used to be able to JUST build or remodel homes. No more. Today s consumers are too fragile. What are the obstacles of owning your homes or remodeling services? What are the most common objections you hear? You can t afford to wait to hear them. Your sales funnel needs to address the most common objections and nullify them BEFORE they come up. 7. Consultations. If a lead represents a possible registration and a registration represents a possible consultation- what reason are you giving people to meet? You can t make a sale without a consultation. Yet, prospects are reluctant to sit down with you because they don t want to be sold! Great salespeople are great educators. They impart knowledge and help prospects make wise informed choices. What knowledge do your prospects need to know so they can make the choice of buying? Remember- your prospects only have 3 choices. They can do nothing. They can buy from someone else or they can buy from you. 8. Getting the Sale. We like to call this closing. Saying some magical words at a magical time to get someone to buy from you is a fairy tale. Getting the sale is a process. A process that builds trust, establishes a solid relationship and places your company in its own category. Getting the sale is about doing all the big things right AND doing all the little things your competitors won t. Be ethical. Be honest. Communicate and do what you say you re going to do.
Developing a Multi-Step Sales Funnel Worksheet 1. Review the answer the above questions. 2. Use the Transformational Sales System and Multi-Step Funnel Phases as a guide to answering the questions. 3. Use the Developing a Multi-Step Sales Funnel visual aid to build your funnel. This takes time and a collaborative effort. Once you have your funnel built, you ll need to develop scripts around it. Like any good sales techniquepractice on one another first and tweak when something isn t working. Happy Selling! Rick
Developing a Multi-Step Sales Funnel Transformational Sales System Preparation Greeting Needs Analysis Presentation Demonstration Urgency Objections Logically Justify with Finance; Final Close; Follow-up/Referrals; Customer Experience/ Referrals Multi-Step Phases Identify Problems Sales Environment Engage Education Lifestyle Control the Information Be Proactive Establish Trust, Prove the Value of Your Services, Let them get to Know You Your Sales Funnel Your Unique Position Your Facilities What is Your Hook? Believability/Visual Aids Building Value Consultations Why Meet? Anticipate Objections Getting the Sale Rick Storlie New Home Sales Coach, LLC www.nhsalescoach.com