Qualifying in sales process for construction industry

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hey everyone welcome to the presentation my name is russ stevens and today i'm going to show you how to sign more contracts without cutting your margin because anyone and i mean anyone can look busy by signing contracts with little or no profit in them and then just pull out a wage out of their building company however if you do that you may as well just go and work for someone else because you'll most likely end up on a higher hourly rate so if you plan on being in business for some time then you need to learn how to sign contracts without cutting your margin right down to the bone which means if you are building new homes and you are not marking up your jobs by 33 in order to get a 25 gross margin then you are in the right place because that is what we are covering today now just so that i can get a feel for who is online with me today uh can i ask you to let me know what type of building work you're primarily focused on is it new homes renovations commercial or maybe something else or even if you're not a builder type into the chat box and just let me know what industry you are in so i'll just give you a couple of minutes just to uh to fill that in just to give me a feel for the breakdown excellent thank you guys cool almost all builders so the marketing work there now we do have some special guests uh in the audience today um i'd like to welcome tom houghton who hosts a construction podcast called the building code if you've not already checked out this excellent podcast that is produced by builder trend then make sure you take 30 minutes out of your day each week just to listen in and if you enjoy learning and hearing how other builders are succeeding then this podcast is a great resource now i do have another question for you guys i want to make sure that uh i'm covering the most applicable strategies just for your building company so can completely let me know how many projects do you do a year just select the option that relates to how many projects you expect to start this year and that will enable me to make sure that i'm tailoring this presentation to be most relevant to your building company thanks so much guys looks like we are predominantly in the uh in the four to twelve range of some guys doing 25 plus um and a few on the lower side but uh yeah predominantly we are in the the four to twelves cool thank you thanks so much guys and um one final one final question here um let me just bring it up can you just let me know what size jobs you're targeting now some guys are focused on volume they tend to target a lower contract value in order just to keep the jobs simpler and other guys might be doing more complex builds which obviously has an impact on how the building company is structured because custom homes require more problem solving through the build process now your time is valuable so i want to make sure that you get maximum value from the next 45 minutes or so so thanks thanks guys we've got quite an even split there thanks everyone okay interesting cool now from what you guys have shared with me i think this is going to be a real eye opener for you so so let's get let's get started now i'm guessing for a lot of you this is probably not the first sales presentation that you've attended so the first thing i want to mention is that if you have ever employed a salesperson to do your sales for you or engage the business coach or consultant to help you sign more contracts and it hasn't worked out then it's really not your fault the problem is this industry has unique challenges that are unlike any other business the sales process is extremely long and complicated which means the cost to attract new business is extremely expensive and risky and the margins are tight because new builders are always entering the market with very little idea of pricing and they give consumers unrealistic expectations about their budgets before disappearing 18 months later and that's what makes it so difficult for people outside of our industry to really understand the problems residential home builders face when it comes to attracting new clients and taking them through to a building contract and as a consequence all their preconceived ideas that may work well in other industries actually prevent you from winning jobs at decent margins that would allow you to build up the cash reserves in your building company and invest in the people and systems that will enable you to have your business run without you now i'm just going to take a moment to i think i have outlook running um sorry my mail running in the background here which is uh just causing some some pinging to go on so i'm just gonna quit that there um but if i can just check before we we move on guys if you could just let me know i presume you're you're all hearing me okay i can see that i just make sure you can see my screen nice and clearly um now we should have a picture of demand and supply so if you can see that on the screen just let me know all good excellent cool now some builders they don't want to sign more contracts and that's fine but unless you're hitting a double-digit net profit after all expenses and drawing a realistic market ways then you certainly need to increase your margins and the only way to do that is by being over booked and having more people wanting to build with you then you can actually service and when that happens you can easily increase your margins because it's just supply and demand so if you have ever believed that consumers make decisions solely based on price and that the lowest price builder wins the job well i'm here today to tell you that is simply not true because while price is important it's never the determining factor unless you are selling a commodity like a a square box with three bedrooms to an investor because no clients signing a contract with another builder because they were cheaper is a myth and if you keep believing this rubbish it will prevent you from discovering a fundamental truth that has existed since the dawner time and that is that when a prospect tells you that they signed a contract with another builder because they were cheaper than you then they are simply trying to get rid of you as quickly and as easily as possible so the question is why do prospects tell builders that they got a lower price when they didn't well it's because buying decisions are made by the subconscious using emotion and they're then justified by a different part of the subconscious with logic now there may be a hundred different reasons as to why a consumer decided another building company was a better option for them at this particular moment in time however it is extremely unlikely to be because they opted for a cheaper price however once they've made their decision and all that's left to do is get rid of the two or three other builders that have spent weeks of their time quoting a job for free what do you think they say remember the real reason is an emotional one and that doesn't seem to hold up too well in a logical argument and let's be honest here now that they've made their decision all they want to do is get rid of you as quickly and as painlessly as they can which is why they say i've gone with another builder who is a hundred thousand dollars cheaper now what can you say when you hear that so guys that's why we're here today because i know you want to sign more contracts at higher margins so that you can spend more of your time doing the things that you really want to do in life and i want to show you how you can make that happen during this presentation now my goal for this presentation is to help two types of residential home builders for those who want to sign more clients without having to pressure prospects into signing the contract then you're going to get the sales process that allows you to seamlessly guide consumers into a building contract without any friction or difficult moments and for those of you who are already signing all the contracts you need but you'd like to increase your margins then you're going to get the formula that will drive up your demand and allow you to charge a premium for your services now the fact is the only way to sign more contracts or to increase your margins is by advancing more of your prospects from the initial inquiry stage to the preliminary contract stage in sequence and the only way to do that is by using the sales process for residential home builders now before we go any further at this point you may or you certainly should be thinking well who is this guy to tell me what to do in my building company so very very briefly i started working with builders back in 2011 as an online provider of workplace health and safety documentation of all things now at the time my daughter sky stevens was studying marketing at university however she'd become a bit bored with what was being taught and was keen to get started in the real world so we decided to set up accuracy services which was a marketing agency for residential home builders now things went well and the business grew and it grew so well that we decided to expand into coaching builders directly on sales and marketing and in 2014 we launched the association of professional builders and that gave us a unique insight into the challenges that custom home builders were facing however it wasn't easy and some of you guys you can be pretty harsh because when we first explained how to market a building company using lead magnets we got some bemused looks from builders in the audience and our very first live event in brisbane one builder that had traveled from the sunshine coast with his salesperson he literally got out and walked out when we started talking about charging for quotes and in melbourne some of the guys in the audience they literally laughed out loud when we talked about margins and the importance of pricing in a double-digit net profit but we kept going because we knew this was how business worked and when our clients started to get results we then had the proof and that made things a lot easier but really it was all down to the early pioneers like toby and elizabeth searle from high water homes who build custom homes down in new south wales and wayne white who runs a professional renovations company in queensland those guys paved the way for what is now the association of professional builders and today in addition to toby elizabeth and wayne the association of professional builders coaches more than 226 residential building companies in five countries making it the largest coaching company for custom home builders in the world now i'm not saying that to brag but i simply want to give you some context for the information that i'm about to share with you so let me tell you how i discovered this process i learned it from an american arie galpa who is now one of the most successful sales trainers in the world but that wasn't always the case 20 years ago ari was a salesperson for a large software company now the software he sold tracked user behavior on websites and their target market was large multinational corporations now re wasn't a novice uh at this stage in his career because he'd been trained by a lot of the big name sales gurus therefore he knew how to handle a sale and he knew the right questions that he needed to ask and because of the size of the deals ari would spend a lot of time prospecting and working relationships just to get to that very first meeting which is how he then found himself conducting a conference call from san diego in california with the stakeholders from a very large company in new york that had finally agreed to meet with ahri and hear his proposal now after all the the pleasantries were exchanged ahri then took the stakeholders through his demo and the responses on the other end of the call were exactly what he wanted to hear he was the other saying this is fantastic incredible how long have you guys been in business and how many clients do you have now all these questions contain buying signals and you know what it's like as a builder when that happens don't you you're in the zone it's exciting the questions roll in and the answers they just kind of dance out of your mouth because you're on a roll and you know that you've got a red-hot opportunity right in your hands so ari wrapped up the demo and the compliments just kept coming through the speaker they're like fantastic demo we sure do like the look of this and make sure you call us in two weeks time and with that ari reach forward to switch off a conference phone only he missed and instead of hitting the off button he inadvertently pressed the mute button now it was a total accident but instead of trying again a thought just crossed his mind he thought maybe i'll just wait a minute now on the other end of the conference call all of the stakeholders were under the impression that ahri had hung up and they were now embarking on a debrief of the call and all the time ari was listening in however what ari heard shocked him to the core what they said was we're not going with him that was the first thing that come out the speaker and then he said keep using him for more information and find someone cheaper now ahri was in a state of shock because he couldn't believe what he just heard he'd done everything that he'd been trained to do so how was this happening now the simple truth is that prospects are not comfortable telling the truth to a salesperson which is why they say things like send me more information or send over a proposal to builders like send your quote call me back in two weeks when they have no intention of ever buying so question is why do they do it why don't they just tell the truth well it's because they know what happens next because sales people are trained to overcome objections which means in a lot of cases applying pressure now it's second nature it's what sales people do and the way prospects protect themselves from having pressure applied is to avoid telling the truth now it's not their fault they are simply reacting to the sales process that they find themselves in which means until you learn how to take the pressure out of selling you will never get to the real truth and until you get to the real truth you can't build real trust and real trust is what every professional builder wants to base their building company on and in order to get to the real truth you must establish very early in the relationship is if this person is a good fit for your building company and that's not easy when you're desperate for work however by being objective when you qualify your leads you will save yourself a lot of time and heartache down the track now when ari decided that truth-based selling was the only way forward his life changed forever because instead of being a salesperson he transitioned into becoming a trusted advisors a trusted advisor now trusted advisors act in the best interests of the prospect regardless of whether that leads to a sale or not and the best part is that when you focus on helping your prospects rather than selling to them the process becomes very easy and even enjoyable now seriously if you hate the thought of selling and most builders do then using truth-based selling as part of your sales process is essential in order for your building company to survive and thrive in the 21st century and none of this is theory these are all strategies that we've applied to our own business before helping custom home builders apply them to their own building companies hundreds of builders from all over the world have gone through our sales coaching programs and have implemented truth-based selling into their own sales processes so here are the three secrets that i'm going to take you through today how to get your prospects to tell you the truth when you ask for their budget how to get paid in advance and avoid having to produce a free quote and my personal favorite how to close the sale without saying a word now some custom home builders might think well i don't understand how this new sales process would work for me so what i want to do is just share a quick story with you now one of the biggest challenges that we hear from customer home builders is that their prospects will not tell them the truth when they ask for a budget not only that but if they do somehow manage to get a budget and then by some miracle managed to actually meet the client's expectations and hit their budget then the client turns around at the 11th hour and tells the builder that they're coming with a cheaper quote now those experiences leave builders feeling used frustrated and completely disillusioned with the industry which is why the first thing that we did when we started working with residential home builders way back in 2014 was to map out the exact sales process that they need to follow for every new inquiry from changing their marketing to attracting the right prospects in the first place to building rapport when they first speak to a potential client to asking the right questions in order to qualify those leads to to asking the right questions to discover the emotion behind the decision to build you see people make buying decisions based on emotion but they then justify those decisions with logic so while price may be a contributing factor it's not the primary reason that a consumer chooses a builder otherwise they would all be going with the lowest quote and after surveying hundreds of clients ourselves and seeing the results from other associations who have also commissioned extensive surveys themselves to understand consumers buying habits we know that is not true however we also know that going with another builder who had a lower quote is the number one reason consumers give builders when they want to get rid of them so question is how do you become the builder that wins the job without being the lowest price in the tender and the answer is you follow a process however even with the right process some of our members were still struggling to get their prospects to open up and reveal their real budget and without a budget they either turned the prospect away which resulted in a missed opportunity or they quoted the job anyway which resulted in a waste of time and money now it made no sense to us two builders following the exact same process were getting very different results until one of our members and let's call him mike he started using a crm system that allowed him to record all of his sales calls and by reviewing those sales calls he could see very clearly that his salesperson wasn't following the sales process because instead of starting the call by spending time building rapport before moving through the qualifying questions to see if they're a good fit and then investing more time going deep and asking the discovery questions he was jumping in within the first three minutes and demanding basically to know their budget now it's crazy he expected someone that he'd never met before to reveal some very personal financial information that they probably only ever shared with half a dozen people before in their life now do you know why prospects weren't revealing their budget to this particular salesperson it's because without getting to know like or trust the person on the other end of the phone first they had no idea if he would abuse this information and use it to inflate the price of the build now of course we know that that really happens because in business market forces keep margins in check however when a prospect has only been speaking to someone for a few minutes that is what their subconscious is telling them it's saying to them danger don't reveal your budget because they will just spend it all when you could have gotten it cheaper now the prospect they mistakenly believe that they are negotiating with you on price from that very first phone call but from the builder's perspective you're just trying to understand if this person is a good fit for you or not now can you see the disconnect and this is why some builders miss out on good opportunities simply because they failed to follow a sequence from the beginning now it's important to remember that sequence is more important than speed now studies have shown that when it comes to the sales process if you skip steps then your prospects will feel assorted in order for a prospect to trust you they need to feel heard because no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care which means that when you get to the discovery questions you need to employ active listening now put your phone on you if that helps but let your prospects talk of course you don't want to spend an hour talking to an unqualified prospect which is why your seven qualifying questions always come first however those seven qualifying questions do not include the budget question because if it's not real then it's completely meaningless so save it for later in the conversation when you're going to get a more honest answer and that still probably won't be the figure that you're going to go a contract on but it will be something that you can start working with and that is the difference between builders that take the hottest prospects out of the market early and the ones that are left saying the leads are crap now max mills in the us he didn't even have a sales process before he started implementing this as a strategy but as soon as he started asking the right questions in the right sequence everything just clicked into place for him now you may be thinking i really don't see how this is going to work for me because i don't have the gift of the gab now that's just the point of this process because you're not the one doing the talking they are the days of fast talking super slick salesman they're over to sell homes in today's market you need to be able to listen more than you talk and that is not easy for a lot of people okay so that is how you get your prospects to tell you the truth when you ask for their budget are you getting this guys do you see how easy it is to build a relationship just by listening to your prospects go ahead and type in the chat box and let me know if you're going to move the budget question to the end of the conversation rather than bring it out right at the beginning and let me know if you're going to use more discovery questions as part of your qualifying process now i've got some frameworks for that by the way which i'll i'll tell you about later but uh go ahead guys and type in the chat box and let me know cool thanks guys paul darren val patrick april excellent good stuff guys awesome okay so a lot of custom home builders think i'm not able to charge for quotes because all of my competitors are already doing them for free so let me tell you a quick story late last year i suffered from a lot knee now it was something that was started happening more and more frequently and it was leaving me completely immobilized for hours at a time when it happened so after getting a referral from a local doctor i made a phone call to book a meeting with a specialist now a week later i arrived at the meeting on time and i spent 15 minutes answering a series of questions from the specialist just covering everything from lifestyle and diet uh where i was living and where i previously moved from now at the end of the meeting the specialist prescribed an mri in order to get a better understanding of what was really going on inside the knee now i left the meeting i went to the reception i paid the money for the mri i got booked in there and then for the scan now there's nothing groundbreaking about that process it's perfectly normal process for a professional i made a phone call i booked a meeting i attended a meeting the specialist then did a deep dive discovery and prescribed the next step so i paid the money and the service was delivered now what happens when you deal with non-professionals you call you attend a meeting have a discovery session where the next steps are outlined and in the case of builders a quote which costs between two to three thousand to produce is then delivered free of charge in the hope that a sale will subsequently be made now it's crazy giving away all that knowledge and experience and time and effort in the hope that your quote will be the lowest when compared to five other builders all doing the same thing so think about it who wins in that situation because it's not the builders that did all that work for nothing and it's not even the builder that won the job because the only reason they came in under the other builders was due to the fact that they'd forgotten to add something to their estimate like i know net profit maybe and even the client really wins in this situation because they find themselves dealing with a builder who is simply trying to get out of the projects as quickly and as cheaply as he can after realizing there's a good chance that they'll be losing money on that particular job now in order to be viewed as a professional builder it's important to act like a professional service provider and that means following your own process for selling rather than your prospects process for buying educate your marketplace and expect them to follow your process and don't be swayed by the fact no one else charges for quotes in your area or that your clients won't pay for a quote because no one else has had to now be bold and stick to your proven sales process because that has been proven to give you the best clients and the best jobs in the past but what would have happened if i'd said to the consultant well how about you give me the mri for free and then we'll see if you get the job later on yeah more to the point would i actually feel confident moving forward with a specialist that said okay i need the work so i'll do it for free and then i'll give you a really good price on the surgery now working for free in the hope of pulling in future business is not a smart way to run a residential building company and we've seen enough building companies to know that regardless of your size or location you do not need to work for free in order to win contracts now jeremy and sue from guy construction are just one example jeremy recently cited charging for quotes as the key change they have made to their business since joining the apb they were getting some great referrals but they also needed to charge um sorry they also needed to quote for architects and they ended up when they did that being used as a price check now they were entering tinders where other builders were all competing on price and the key change they made to their sales process was to take clients out of the marketplace earlier by working with clients at the beginning of design now as a result they created the opportunity to build really good relationships with the clients so that when it came to construction they didn't even attempt to get any other quotes in now that key change has allowed jeremy and sue to grow guy construction and be a lot more successful however it wasn't all plain sailing and a big learn for them came about when after doing stage one of the works for a client the client wanted to do stage two which meant an architect was required now they approached someone that was recommended to them and handed them the job rather than retaining control of the relationship with the actual consumer the the architect then ended up giving the job to another builder whose quote was significantly lower now the end result was the project did end up taking twice as long and ultimately cost the clients more than jeremy's quote but jeremy said he said to me he thought by we thought that by giving the job to an architect they would then just naturally pass it back to us but it just doesn't work like that with some people so we decided there and then we're not going to do that again once we get a client we've got to keep them so now when they meet with a new prospect they outline the advantages of working with a builder in conjunction with an architect or a designer through stage one and stage two of the design and prelim process now the bottom line is this just because that's how other builders do it or because that's what the client wants you to do does not mean that you have to give your time away and quote their project for free quoting a custom home or a large-scale renovation is very different to quoting a deck or a bit of remedial work now it would be very hard to expect a client to pay for a quote on a low value job you know like a deck or or something like that because it takes very little time to produce and that's why the process of getting three quotes and picking your favorite one you know it works fine in those cases however they are trades people they're not professional builders managing big complex jobs like you guys are so this is why you need to educate your marketplace rather than simply appeasing them because in the long time you sorry in the long term you are enabling them to enjoy a better building experience now just recently todd lake a custom home builder in canada he shared his story with other apb members after seven years of building custom homes without a sales process he joined the apb and then he realized what he'd been missing in his business now todd shared how they would wait for a phone call and then rush out to meet the prospect there was no qualification there was no discovery and in most cases there was no contract on the end of it either however when todd implemented a strategy that included getting paid to be involved in the design process doors started to open up and now todd has a sales process that locks in their prospects at the design stage so they don't lose them what's more they now sell themselves with confidence which is a key factor to winning more projects now you may be thinking well that's great for other builders but i couldn't do that in my area because the people i deal with would never pay for a quote by other builders are simply providing them for free and if you put it like that i've got to agree with you but be honest with that kind of delivery would you pay for a quote people hand over money in exchange for goods and services that have a higher perceived value than the cash itself so if you can't convince someone of why they pay you to quote their job it's simply because you have not presented them with a good enough offer now we've seen this work over and over for builders that have never previously charged for quotes and builders that operate in areas where no one charges for quotes and the only time that it does not work is when the builder refuses to try it but add value to your service if you're pricing plans then add in components that make it less about paying for your time to price the job and more about the package that they're receiving that's the key to this we talk about charging for quotes but really the way we present it we're not charging for quotes we're charging for a package a service so that is how you get paid in advance and avoid having to produce a free quote for every prospect is this making sense guys can you uh can you see how this can help you to hone in on the best clients when you very first start talking to people and how it can help you avoid competing against other builders because you've taken them out of the market at the design stage so go ahead guys let me know in the chat box how many of you are charging for quotes right now and uh and let me know if you're going to start charging for quotes from this point on now let's see we got some comments here um april i thought you weren't allowed to charge for a quote this is obviously a misconception yeah i don't know who told you that april um i hope it wasn't uh a consumer that just told you you weren't allowed but that is a misconception yeah but the key like i said you're not actually saying i'm gonna charge you for quote you build that value up so you talk about consulting with a uh with the builder on the project um you can you can do lots of other things like you can have a meeting to inc to go through the inclusions so it becomes the selections as well so we start to value add um i'd also like to know what's a reasonable amount to charge for quoting the job this will all depend on your package and the builders that we've worked with the easiest way because a lot of this is psychologically uh psychological is to start low and keep putting your price up so we get guys that will start by simply charging maybe 500 as a nominal fee and uh when you actually manage the uh the design obviously when you're doing the design that the quote isn't there the quote comes later that's more of an estimate you use the design to take them out of the market if you find yourself um quoting plans that have already been designed you want to package that as a prelim agreement so that's when you can start to add in things that allow you to put a quote rather than an estimate another thing that's really important to educate your client base on is the difference between an estimate of a quote because most consumers don't understand that uh they think they're talking about the same thing and this is again how other builders will allegedly provide a free quote when really they're just providing a free estimate which is not the same thing at all good stuff guys okay uh paul we usually charge a cost plus a percentage so uh do you think those uh these quotes should also be charged um if you're talking about in the premium stages you charge a quote with a percentage the thing the only thing i don't like about that is you're bringing price as the focal point here and it's the same when you do cost plus contracts can be a good way of doing things in some instances we do have some members that are working on cost plus in a very hot area and their cost plus 30 percent now you can't really argue with that because your downside is all protected but in a in a normal market it's not easy to to get those kind of uh plus percentages on a cost plus contract is why we'd always generally recommend a fixed price and that goes through the design stage as well when you when you talk about a fixed price and you're not exposing your cost you're then talking about the value of the service you you've got to try and pull it away from cost as much as you can good good good excellent a lot of guys uh are saying they're uh they're gonna be starting val darren patrick um magellan uh tim we need to start val i need to start uh david yes we design and build that is that is the model david that's um yeah design and build take them out the market um and darren i will start fantastic darren julie we do this and they still go to others okay this uh this can happen when you're not charging enough so you need to think about putting more value into your service and increasing the price because when you do that you increase the commitment you shouldn't find yourself in that position where people are paying you money and then going somewhere else there's something dramatically wrong there um either in the price you're charging for the commitment or the service it sounds like you're losing the um the relationship with the client because once they pay you money you uh you should be able to take them out the market and not have them even talk to other builders let alone go somewhere else cool uh scott uh feature quote fixed fee percentage of budget or hourly rate um fixed fee absolutely you define your package place a number against it i ideally place a value and then make them an offer to help close that deal on the spot but uh that's probably another conversation for another time but closing this out really really important okay i love this one guys uh this is how you can close a cell without saying a word so no pushy cheesy sales line not even objection handling it really is that easy now let me share something with you that happened to one of our private mentoring clients um called ryan now ryan who is a custom home builder in queensland australia was dealing with a very successful businessman called gareth now gareth owned a large company that developed software for gaming machines and uh the last few years have been very good for gareth's business and that had enabled him to embark on designing his dream home which was a 3.75 million dollar mansion set on two acres now it was a big project and it had taken 18 months just to get through the design and the prelim process and the relationship between ryan and gareth was easygoing and friendly because they had a lot in common their kids the same age they were both business owners and they both had a keen interest in fishing so after 18 months when it came to getting the contract signed ryan the the builder was very confident that this was now simply a formality the expectations had all been met the price had been agreed to the specifications all documented the timeline had been explained and after 18 months of designing and quoting and making changes there were no surprises everything was clearly detailed now ryan was a professional builder as uh he he was also in the enviable position of dealing with a professional businessman who wasn't banned in his job around town to six other builders in order just to find the lowest price because he trusted ryan he appreciated the expertise ryan had brought to the design process and he was comfortable he wasn't going anywhere else so when it came to a contract sign signing gareth requested that they meet in his office because he was busy and they could just get the contract uh signed after doing the the final walkthrough so ryan the builder he arrived on time for the meeting he sat down exchanged pleasantries as you do uh re-established that rapport before getting down to business and when the time was right ryan pulled out the contract and he then took gareth through all the key points explaining everything he took gary through all the inclusions the payment schedule uh that was expected and then he explained the clauses in the contract that were necessary as well like the rock clause then he said and if you just sign here where i've put across we can get this project started for you and with that ryan placed the pen on the building contract and slid it towards ryan before uh sorry but towards gareth before sitting back in his chair now that point gareth didn't move a muscle instead he just smiled and the silence was deafening the pressure on ryan to say something to break the tension in the room was just immense but he didn't buckle instead he just looked at gareth and smiled back at him now gareth who had successfully negotiated many multi-million dollar deals in the past three years he was totally unfazed because he did this for a living and because of the industry that he was in he'd negotiated deals with some of the toughest negotiators on the planet now for him closing the deal with a small custom home builder that was just going to be a little bit of fun a bit like a cat playing with a mouse that has no hope of escape so he didn't utter the word he just sat there staring at ryan and smiling and it went on however what gareth didn't realize was that ryan the local custom homebuilder had an ace up his sleeve because for the previous five days he'd been preparing for this moment with his business coach now various potential scenarios have been played out in detail along with the strategies to deal with whatever negotiating tactics ryan might face on the day because the business coach knew that there was no such thing as a done deal now the strategy that grant gareth was using on ryan here was that the the next person to speak loses tactic you see in most cell situations the salesperson will actually talk past the cell and end up inadvertently bringing in new objections for the buyer to consider and it happens a lot more frequently than you probably realize and you may have even done it yourself in the past you know out of nerves fear of silence or simply because you are being out negotiated by your potential buyer and because custom home builders are dealing with very successful business people who negotiate deals for a living chances are the odds are stacked against you however when you're prepared and you know what to do you can hold your own in a negotiation regardless of who you're up against now gareth knew that he was going to sign this contract but he was just curious to see how this local businessman was going to close a 3.75 million dollar contract but after seven excruciating minutes like he just could not hold out any longer so he leaned forward he picked up the pen and signed the contract and with that they both had a bit of a laugh because they both knew what had just happened now it wasn't always that easy for ryan to hold back and bite his tongue rather than in silence because ryan he's uh an amiable easygoing genuine guy that can talk to anyone about anything it just comes naturally to some people but when ryan learned the hard way that by keeping things light and fluffy and fill in the air with constant chatter was actually working against him he decided to change and then as a result his margins got the protection that they needed now the reason that i'm sharing this story with you isn't so you can go out and become a hard-nosed negotiator that intimidates their clients by staring them down it's it's just to make you aware that when you sign a contract you're invariably going up against people that negotiate for a living now these are successful people who for them it's all about winning now some may have the confidence to sit back and leave you to battle with the ensuing silence in the air but others will use different tactics so be aware all they're doing is negotiating so don't allow yourself to be pushed around because it's your net margins that are being negotiated away also you must get comfortable with leaving silence in the air now this could be on a discovery call when you encourage the prospect to go deeper and open up even more on a particular thread or when you present the concept agreement to a qualified opportunity and ask if they'd rather pay by visa or mastercard or when you get to the final stage in the sales process and the only thing left for the client to do is sign the building contract you just need to practice getting comfortable with leaving silence in the air now a lot of the builders that we work with they feel the same way that i do they they feel uncomfortable asking a client for money to sign a concept agreement or a prelim agreement while they're face to face in the office or even a building contract when everything's been explained to them in a proposal but the truth is when you are hesitant then you create uncertainty in your prospect's mind and uncertainty leads to procrastination and procrastination prevents your prospects from reaching their goals now remember confidence sales and that's why as soon as you close a big deal then you can't wait to jump on another opportunity just to see if you can move that one forward as well and your self-confidence it flows through to your prospects who as a consequence they naturally start to trust you and your building company even more so do your preparation and expect the outcome that you're looking for because when you do that you'll find that the sale will happen automatically now you may be thinking i couldn't do that because i just keep talking out of nervousness and that's perfectly normal however this is simply another skill that you have to master and remember all skills are learnable so you can do this and a good way to practice is on your discovery calls when you need the prospect to go deeper into their answers and reveal the emotion behind their decision to build so in order to practice start by focusing on those calls and just hit the mute button whenever you ask a question and when they finish answering that question just wait a few more seconds before unmuting yourself now in most cases you'll find that the person you're speaking to will continue talking and then they're going to go deeper into an answer which will reveal vital clues that's going to enable you to advance the sale and by practicing the silence on your discovery calls you're going to feel a lot more confident doing it in person when the next contract proposal comes around now one thing i can tell you it is fun i guarantee you either i had a meeting not so long ago with a builder who wanted to engage us to manage manage their marketing uh for them so after following the sales pro the sales process qualifying discovery and then presenting the solution i sat back and i just waited for the response and there was silence but i didn't feel uncomfortable because i'd presented the offer and it was the builder's turn to speak and after about 30 seconds which i've got to be honest it felt like 30 years at the time he laughed out loud and he just said okay let's do this now he said to me i was always told that the next person to speak loses so right from the start i was determined to just sit here in silence until you spoke but he said i just can't do it so go ahead and sign me up and and that's what you're up against negotiation is a game that successful people like to play so don't go throwing your margin away stay strong and just enjoy the ride okay so that's how you can close the sale without saying a word and without using any high pressure sales tactics either so guys do you see how this makes closing the cell um part of a much bigger natural process that you're working through and can you see how negotiation it's really just a fun game that people play it doesn't have to be hard or stressful just have fun with it now i've got to be honest i used to hate negotiate and i mean i really hated it you know to the point i would rather pay full price for everything rather than haggle however once i started learning the rules of the game it started to become fun now i now sell stuff on on facebook marketplace in my spare time just so that i can haggle with complete strangers and then practice and sharpen up my negotiation skills so let me know in the chat box who's up for the challenge of practicing silence now it could be when you're performing a discovery call or when you're asking to meet someone for the very first time or selling a design package or even sign the contract but who's up for the challenge of hitting the mute button on themselves on those calls excellent yeah i like it david when i have clients that want to negotiate or lower the price uh i could like respond sure which items would you uh wish to remove yeah it's absolutely right yeah we need to get got to go cheaper on the price no problem at all what would you like to take out yeah um i'd love to see some sort of prelim agreement or a concept april can probably help you that i'll be covering that um a little bit later yeah yeah i can give you some help with that yeah april said i'd love to see some sort of example of a prelim agreement or a concept um darren i like it um patrick i am tim you make it sound like a good time i'm up for it it is it's fun good stuff julie paul peter thanks guys cool okay guys so let me ask you a question if you were able to get prospects to tell you the truth when you ask them for their budget using the strategy that i outlined in secret one and then you got paid in advance and became part of the design process with your prospects just like i outlined in secret too and then you use that simple technique that i gave you in secret three to close the sale without saying a word now if you did all that do you think you'd have more clients for your building company type in the in the chat box and and just let me know and also type in the chat box and let me know what was the number one thing that you got out of this presentation what did you learn that you're now going to implement into your building company so go ahead guys type in the chat box and let me know remember to be more successful you don't always need to build more homes because by growing your demand you can choose to increase your margins and stay the same size if you prepare to truly shut up and listen cool peter yes the sales process fantastic sales process that is one of the most important things if you're lacking a sales process in your building company that is the number one thing you need to get in place um so so important because even if you get in the sales that you want you're probably not getting the margins without sales process mitch always charging for a quote good stuff mitch thanks guys keep them coming okay and uh for those of you on this presentation who are not currently members of the association of professional builders can i just ask you a question how many of you are excited about the opportunity that lies ahead of us in 2021 and how many of you are feeling a little overwhelmed right now because you just realized how much needs to be done in your building company now let's be real at this moment in time we are facing some potentially tough times ahead most likely we are already in the grip of a recession we just don't know it yet however it really doesn't matter what the economy is doing or how bad it gets there will always be people building houses and all you need to do in order to win is to be better than your competition now that is why it is so important to access the templates scripts and coaching that can fast-track the learning curve and allow you to sign more contracts without cutting your margin and it will come faster and easier than trying to figure out everything yourself now we do have something special to uh to offer those of you on this presentation today so is it okay if i spend the next 10 minutes taking you through what we've put together let me know in the chat box while i grab a quick drink of water if that's something you'd like to see tim tell me about it okay to call tim thanks paul sure cool and and look guys it's fine if you don't want to follow this advice because we're happy to share what's working for other residential building companies just like yours but if you'd rather go it alone then that is fine but just let me know in chat box if you'd like to see not only what you get as a member but i can also show you how it's helped other custom home builders just like you excellent thanks mitch wayne james bradley cool excellent okay guys so have you ever felt alone in your building company or that you should be earning more money from the amount of hours that you've put into running your building company or even that you'd like to get better organized so that you can provide an even better service to your clients now this is something we hear all the time from custom home builders