Foundations - Course Outline

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Tailored specifically for real estate professionals, “Foundations” teaches how to use diagnostic techniques in a direct and pragmatic course that focuses on real life skills, not theory. It is aimed at changing your selling behavior, not simply education or short-term motivation tricks which feel good today but don’t help you next week. It teaches you the skills of getting listings; how to prepare for a sales call; to identify and analyze the physical environment and personality of the client / customer / prospect. How to handle objections; to question the client/customer/prospect and elicit information that describes their decision process and hones your ability to close sales.

Because it lays the groundwork for our practical approach to prospecting and selling real estate, both commercial and residential , the course is valuable and necessary for anyone who must get listings, close sales, deal with the selling or buying public on an on-going basis. Experienced salespeople will gain new insights into the process of selling from this course and are able to sharpen their existing skills to a much finer degree.

Our instructors are experienced sales people ,experts in the real estate business and outstanding teachers. Not the typical training situation where the instructors are primarily teachers and know little about real business or brokers who decided to “try something else” and think that a motivational “rah rah” session will somehow give you what you need to do a better job. This combined expertise and experience enables our instructors to translate consultative selling principles into functional, applicable skills. While other sales training companies may say they offer similar skills training, Marks & Associates will improve your performance immediately. We make no outrageous claims, don’t infer that you can’t survive another day without this training, do not attempt to fool you into learning the “7 magical steps to success.” There is no such thing. We will teach you new, practical, focused skills
to help you to successfully sell right now.

The tone of the session is open and interactive. Fear of selling issues affecting sales performance are dealt with directly, not avoided. Program content is realistic , not philosophical giving participants practical tools that they can apply immediately. Due to the program’s highly interactive style, class size is limited.

Following is a general outline of the course:

I. Real Estate and the Selling Process

A. Successful selling is more a skill than a native talent. Skills can be learned. Talent cannot

B. Selling real estate is different from selling insurance or anything else.

C. Recognizing and changing the negative perceptions that our customers and prospects have about real estate agents/brokers comes from understanding how we help foster those impressions

II. Typical or Traditional Selling vs. Consultative Selling

A. Why many real estate professionals have trouble in the sales role

B. How to differentiate yourself and your selling

C. Understanding the seller’s and buyer’s motivation

III. Preparing for the Sales Call
How to improve the chances of success before even going on the call

A. How to distinguish between information that can help you and what is just
background noise.

B. How to make call preparation easier

C. Thinking through the seller’s and buyer’s decision processes

IV. The Sales Call
Each of the areas below is explored in a highly interactive manner. Using consultative selling to solve a buyer’s or seller’s challenges.

A. Putting early observations to the best use

B. Using proper questioning techniques to gain information and improve chances of a getting a listing or making a sale

C. Role-playing to sharpen questioning and analysis skills that help you to better understand the motivation of the buyer or seller.

D. Handling objections by defusing the problem in order to move on to the business at hand - selling

D. Learning simple approaches to recurring objections

E. Understanding and using “trial closes”

F. Exploring closing styles and techniques

G. Handling tough situations

V. The Prospect - Getting the Listing or being a buyer broker
The most common complaint is that the agent/broker “does not understand my goals or motivation.” This section will help the agent better understand what may be going on inside the prospect’s thought process.

A. Exploring personality styles: How to identify and adjust to specific types of personalities.

B. Organizing the sales call based upon observations, pre-call research, and other factors.

C. Uncovering hidden goals or agendas - Conflict between selling/ buying partners. What to do when they disagree.

D. Match the problems with solutions

VI. Sales Follow-up
Following up with a prospect means more than just writing a thank you letter. It also means knowing how to stabilize a wavering sale, how to re-close when the prospect is suffering from buyer’s or seller’s remorse.

A. Developing a simple, systematic approach

B. Making the process of sales follow-up a habit

VII. Referral Selling
Referral selling is assumed to be the best source of new business but we really obtain very little business from referrals that we initiate. We will discover how to make this vital source of business work effectively.

A. Mining the single best source of new business

B. Getting through the reluctance to ask for a referral

C. Learning to develop a continual pipeline of leads from customers

VIII. Summary
There is a reason that many sales courses do not achieve long-term desired effects. They are often designed by people that have not worked in the real world - or worked there too long and have stopped growing and learning. It is true that almost any sales training is better than nothing and even the most basic sales skills can lead to improvement. However, with the investment that you have in your time for selling it is imperative that you receive the very best training that is available. Many courses are designed to educate or just motivate. That is really off the mark. Training is not education, it is designed to change behavior patterns! That is what Marks & Associates consultative selling classes achieve. Your results will be immediate and long-term.