Last week’s post about the Intangibles of the sales process  caused a flurry of conversations not only about the importance of the Intangibles, but also how difficult it seems to learn this stuff.

Masterful sales is about building rapport, building trust and building relationships.  If people like us, trust us and want to do business with us, our job gets a lot easier and more fun.

There are thousands of sales courses out there that will attempt to teach you how to do this.  They will supply you with scripts of what to say, information on how to stand, what facial expressions to display, how fast to walk, what tone of voice to use, how much eye contact to hold and hundreds of other “methods” to build rapport, trust and relationship.  You could spend your entire life memorizing the techniques and it might still come across as “salesy”, awkward and fake.

Is there a better way?

I’ve done a lot of research on this.  I looked into the businesses and personalities of a number of top salespeople.  A few of them had extensive real estate sales training but many had either no formal sales training or they had sales training from another industry.   It was this group I was interested in.  What set them apart and how were they attracting their clients?

The one thing that they all had in common was that they were genuinely curious about and interested in the people that they came into contact with every day.  They liked people and they looked forward to learning more about the people they met.

This mindset of curiosity and this sincere interest in people comes naturally to some people but not the majority.  In most cases, it’s learned behaviour.  

Interesting, professional business coaching, like the model we use at The Nature of Real Estate, focuses on the intangibles including mindset, communication, internal processing systems, understanding personalities and much more.  This is the stuff that the very top leadership and sales training institutes are using.  This is the stuff that will give you the skills to attract more clients, more referrals and more respect.

If coaching isn’t in the budget just now, consider a sales training course with us.  Another option would be to read the book, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Marilee Adams.