From “Talking the Talk”

Because nobody really wants to move from their home when they first think about it until they start having a chance to think it through, you have to be able to build conversations and get what we call “change talk” going on with them. You can’t get there unless you can ask the right kinds of questions, listen appropriately and help them reflect.

This is not a deadline thing, because while this is a deadline business, actually that’s a misperception. The sales business is not a deadline business. The sales business is an expansive prospect business. So, while it may be in the early stages of the development work that you know you’re running deadlines because you’re all upset you can’t close a case, that’s really a problem of a start-up person. The real professional has learned the pace of marketing where their relationships are so effective that they keep building a very wide pipeline, so these things will close on their own organic volition, not because you’re trying to jam a person into a home some place because you need to make a commission check and/or you need to meet a deadline.

To do that, you need to have to have this influence, what we call psychological reciprocity with them, being able to connect and then be able to help them set up a conversation to help them start articulating things about the issue of moving, and then from there, those opening will allow you to phrase or summarize or reflect back and be able to start figuring out their desire and commitment and how that’s all going to work in favor of them making the decision.

That to me is very effective as opposed to, I mean, I’ve had people ask me “how many marketing calls should I make?” or what have you, and my answer to them is “don’t make any.” Because if you aren’t connecting with [prospects], the calls are useless. They look like they’re doing something, but they’re really not effective.

This is a relationship business with people who have a lot of ambivalence and fears about transitioning from where they live. So, either you have some way of connecting with that and can help them work through that to move, or not. In which case you are a commodity and you’re just dropping off mailers and hoping for the person who is self-selecting and already ready to move. But for the other people, the majority of people, who have to cross this ambivalence frontier, you have to have the difference that is skills going in, some insight into that, and have practice with the language in being able to know how to conduct those conversations.