Are you breaking the first rule of selling?
It’s been a lot of work immediately before a lot of travelling and the result is that over a month has passed since my last post and, while there are reasons, I have no excuses. I have broken the ‘blog regularly’ rule – the first rule of blogging.
Last week I ran into a couple of Spanish estate agents who blatantly broke the first rule of selling.
My wife and I were in the southern Spanish countryside, looking to buy a plot of land. We had exactly one week to see as much as possible and try and choose the place where our house will one day stand when we move to be closer to her family. A hectic task – and doubly so with a 20-month old child in tow – but we managed it. In the meantime, we got to compare the sales skills of well over a dozen estate agents, and two in particular stood out for entirely the wrong reasons.
One insisted on showing us the part of the countryside where he had grown up, even though we thought it was too far away. Our opinions didn’t matter and we had to politely go on his tour and listen to how great it all was (from his point of view). That over and done with, we asked to see land in another area, closer to the town. ‘I don’t usually take people there because it’s too expensive,’ he said. Needless to say, we were shocked, and I made a mental note not to bother with this guy if I ever had anything ‘expensive’ to sell.
A girl at another agency spoke enthusiastically about how she loved this one house (never mind that we were only interested in land) and thought it was very homely because the front door led to – wait for it – the kitchen! My wife and I looked at each other in stunned desperation at how our precious time was being wasted.
And what about you? Do you offer your customers what they want or try to sell them what you think (or worse, hope) they would like? Remember the first rule of selling: find out what your customers are after and focus on how you can provide it. It sounds so simple that it is so often overlooked.
Add comment August 18th, 2006