Every month I am trying to think of ways to create urgency to boost sales, especially during the last half of the month. For this month's strategy I encourage you to think about your current methods of creating urgency and how you could beef them up. Whether it's for you personally or for your salespeople, you should be spending some time on this topic this month. Now I know you have probably seen strategies on this before but have you ever actually considered how much business you lose because you don't create enough urgency? What is even the value of creating urgency in sales?
The answer to the above question is simple...because sales is really just emotion + logic which leads to taking action (or not) it is important that you are in relationship with a seller/buyer at the EXACT moment they are thinking of pulling the trigger otherwise you risk losing the client to someone else. When sellers and buyers even have the slightest clue that they are going to be buying/selling they start telling EVERYONE and what happens from there? You know the drill..."Well you should use my aunt", "Oh my gosh, my brother is the best, you should use him" and don't forget about the "neighborhood expert"! Exactly, once a prospect declares their plans, everyone in the universe it seems at times, knows someone selling Real Estate and attempts to push them on your prospective client. Thus the need for creating urgency when you have a "live" one. Plus, it really is usually in the prospects best interest to take action now versus spending valuable time and resources deciding what to do. So how do you create urgency without coming off as pushy?
Creating urgency is actually nothing more than mastering a few scripts and being able to visually show a buyer or seller the benefits of doing something now versus waiting. It is important, however, that the prospect never feels for a moment that you want or need the sale for than they do and that is why proper script practice, working on body language, tonality, etc. is important. For the scripts to use, I recommend the following:
"Mr/Mrs Seller...If you knew that by selling now, versus waiting, you may actually be able to put more money in your pocket, would you want to know how?"
"Mr/Mrs Buyer...If you knew that starting to shop for homes now meant getting into your new home in time for the Summer AND you get to avoid some of the worst multiple offer situations, would you entertain the idea of starting sooner?"
Although the above scripts will help you in creating the urgency you are looking for, there is absolutely nothing better than the timing analysis. You have to enter most buyer/seller situations with the idea that they are thinking if they start looking at homes now, they'll be moving in the middle of winter and same thing with selling. The timing analysis really helps to show that is simply not the case. In fact, if they started selling (or shopping if a buyer) today and went under contract for purchase by the end of the month, they wouldn't actually be getting keys in many cases until the end of April or early May (taking into consideration inspection/appraisal issues, mortgage approval time, occupancy, etc.).
Let's have an unreal second half of the month!