A guide to building a sales process that identifies what buyers actually need across seven categories: information, understanding, assistance, reassurance, and transaction processing. Map your customers' needs by level, spot gaps in your current process, and ask better questions to turn one-time buyers into loyal ones.
Alright, so let's talk about designing your sales process so determining the purchase needs of your customer. So there's basically seven categories here in this document here goes into a little bit more. So basically customer need for information. You know, what are the facts I need to know. So for a buyer or seller, is this high medium supposed to be low here? Not supposed to say high. It's a typo. I haven't seen many typos here. Understanding, help me interpret the facts. So this is a buyer or seller and they're different. Right. So when you go through this exercise, indicate the general level of need your target customers have in each of the need categories by putting an X in the appropriate box. Use a B for buyers and an S for sellers. So do you think a buyer's need for information is high, medium or low versus a seller? I don't know. I would think for buyers, I don't think they, they have a need for as much information. There are other things like reassurance and those types of things. Maybe transaction processing if they're a first time buyer for sellers. I do think, you know, what are the facts. I think that's higher for sellers. So I'd put a buyer at medium low over here and a seller and the high. And so you're basically going through these and just getting an understanding customers need for these different things. Understanding help me interpret the facts needs clarification, help me understand my own needs when things are not clear to me. So helping them understand to sort of learn what they don't even know to tell them what they should do. So I think buyers, you could probably they need advice, maybe they don't realize it. Sellers, I probably still put sellers ahead of buyers here a little bit. Maybe sellers are high, buyers are medium. Assistance, help me do what I can't do for myself. I think buyers perceive they can do it all. I think most sellers are probably medium to high here. Reassurance help me get comfortable with my decision. Whatever it is, I think basic sales you want to do. Some reassuring is that need high, medium or low for buyers or sellers and then transaction processing make the purchase process as simple and as easy as possible. These are pretty basic things. But going through this process and just having a conversation in your mind about how your potential customers are sort of processing these different things with their decision with respect to using you or not, I think is important. And then the next section here is to think carefully on page 30. Think carefully about your customers, how your customers go about making their purchase decisions. Visualize them feel what they feel. I know we don't do enough of this. I know we don't actually think about what it's like to be a first time buyer. We've sold hundreds of homes, we're on over 1500 homes. We're not thinking about what a first time buyer is going through. So you want to visualize that target market. You want to feel what they feel. Then for each need category, briefly but specifically describe what your customers need and over what timeframes they need it in order to reach the right purchase decision for them. So your customer need for information so this is the facts providing information about the surface, how to get it, what it does, anything the customer wants to know. What's the buyer's need for information in getting to agree to sign a loyalty agreement and what's the seller's need for information and what's that information look like and when do they need it? Same thing with understanding interpretation of the facts. Customers want to know what conclusions to draw. They want to understand what it means for them. Needs Clarification Many customers don't understand their now needs and desires and are grateful for help in clarifying their needs. Advice Customers want advice from a source that is objective and impartial or biased in their favor friends, family, advisors and even salespeople Assistance Sometimes customers need more than information and advice. They need someone to help assist them without assist them with the process Reassurance Customers want to feel like they're making the right purchase decision. Providing them with reassurance based on their needs ensures a win win. Transaction processes this is the sales transaction itself money exchange for services so this is, you know when they sign a loyalty agreement or listing agreement, it's what gets you to closing. So they want the transaction itself to go really really smoothly. Preparing and executing paperwork for purchasing a home is a good example. So then you would go basically based on the information above. So your baseline process, what do you think is messed up about your process? Your buyer sales process changes would go on page 31. So are you really going through those seven categories? Are you really consulting with them? Are you really, are you just slapping them through some presentation? Same thing with seller sales process changes. And we're going to be going through this so I'll have examples. But this is not difficult stuff. You just got to slow down and actually think about it. And what are some quests? So how can you ask better questions? So as you think about ways to determine the specific needs of individual customers, use the space below to brainstorm a list of questions. This list will become the ammunition you'll get. You'll need to get more customers to become loyal clients and raving fans. So what are some better questions you can ask buyer prospects and some better questions you can ask seller prospects and then that's it. That is it. That's all I've got on the sales process.
