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Are you sometimes frustrated when you need to make an important buying decision? For example, if you want to buy a car, an apartment, a 5,000 $ Gucci bag (oh yes, for some people that’s really important) or a nice watch? What are your expectations in such situations from the sales person you are dealing with? And how do they satisfy your expectations?
Unfortunately, there are still way too many sales people out there who try to use all
kinds of tactics to convince you to buy from them. They may have learnt these tactics from old school sales training programs. Aren’t you tired of them?
If you are, then today’s article will give you some hints on how to counter these tactics and if you are on the seller’s side, how to deal with customers differently without annoying them.
I hope you’ll enjoy this article, which got published in SMART INVESTMENTS & PROPERTIES.
Let's keep progressing!
Charlie Lang
Executive Coach and Founder of Progress-U Ltd.
Author of The Groupness Factor
Tactics Against Sales Tactics
By Charlie Lang
Professional property agents are supposed to save you time and hopefully help you get that ideal apartment you are hunting for. But given agent’s own agenda for the need to close deals, can you really trust them to look after your interest?
Charlie Lang, a professional sales & leadership coach, makes a living dissecting sales tactics. Here, Lang shares his own experiences dealing with agents and through his analytic eye offers tips to identify the sincere agents.
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 A few months ago, I was considering buying an apartment here in Hong Kong. It was my first time and I didn’t know what I would discover on this journey.
If you want to buy a house, an apartment or pretty much anything of value, you typically need to interact with a number of sales people from different vendors.
In this article, I will share with you some of my experiences with various sales people who tried to employ all sorts of sales strategies and tactics on me, how to identify them and what to do to make sure your best interest is maintained.
What they didn’t know was the fact that I was a ‘sales person’ all my professional life with positions such as Sales Engineer, Export Sales Manager, Sales Director, Managing Director of some sales subsidiaries, and VP Sales & Marketing for APAC. Even now, I’m still involved in sales as Managing Partner of my sales & leadership training and coaching company.
The first sales agent I met, let’s call him Tim, welcomed me with a friendly smile into his agency. He asked what I was looking for and I gave him a list of requirements, specifying which criteria are a must, which ones are quite important, and which ones rather nice to have.
I noticed that he focused on the requested size, desired locations and the available budget and immediately said: “Oh, it will be very difficult to get something decent in these locations within this budget. That could take a long time, maybe we will never find it. I could show you some nice places which match most of your criteria, but will cost 20- 40% more.” He obviously already forgot that I said that I’m not in a hurry.
Lesson No.1: Sales people tend to look for easy and fast deals. Very attractive deals (for me) are rarely easy to find and take time and effort. If you are not in a rush, insist on your own criteria (including budget!). This is provided that you believe such deals exist, although they may just be a bit harder to find.
How an excellent sales person would respond: “Looking through your criteria, I notice that you’re looking for something below average market price which of course would be beneficial for you and make it a good investment. Though it might be a bit tough to find, we’ll do our very best to find something as close as possible to your requirements. It might take a bit of time, but you said that you’re not in a rush, so that should be ok then.”
So, I insisted on my criteria and noticed right away that his motivation to look for an appropriate place for me reduced considerably. I had pretty much the same experience with most of the other five agents I contacted. Luckily, there was one exception who seemed to be willing to go the extra-mile for me to search for something matching with my criteria.
The other agents said that they will keep their eyes open and let me know if anything by chance would show up.
Eventually, after a few weeks, some of the agents came back to me with apartments that at least fulfilled all my must-have criteria and most of my should-have criteria.
One of these agents, Annie, was a smartly dressed Chinese lady who obviously lived abroad for several years. Her English was very good and she knew how to express herself in a very enticing manner.
When we entered the apartment, she was highlighting all the good points of this apartment, such as proximity to subway (important to me), level of security practiced by the security guards (somewhat important to me), number of bathrooms (three instead of requested two, not really important to me), ‘beauty’ of installed lamps (absolutely not my style), large size of the terrace (important to me), etc.
Lesson No. 2: Sales people tend to list all advantages of what they try to sell independent of whether they are true advantages for you or not.
They do that to impress the buyer and believe that it will increase the motivation for the buyer to buy. However, the more they list things that are unimportant for the buyer, the higher the chances of their efforts backfiring on them. Many buyers then consciously or subconsciously start to think that they will be paying for attributes they do not actually want and will therefore be paying an unnecessarily higher price. They start mentally discounting the value of the sales item.
As a buyer, it is important to remain clear about what truly matters when considering the value of the object in question.
What an excellent sales person would do: Excellent sales people will try to get a clear idea on the true buying criteria of the buyer and highlight only those attributes that match with the buying criteria and ignore the rest, because they don’t matter. At best, if any apartment has a unique feature that was not discussed before, they would ask a question around that.
For example, if an apartment has two instead of one terrace, the excellent sales person would try to get a better understanding why the terrace was a requirement. If the buyer responds that she likes to get a sun-tan during her free time, the sales person could say something like: “I see, then you’ll probably like one special feature of this apartment: it has two terraces, one on the east side and one on the west side. This will allow you to take a sun bath at any time of the day.”
One time, I found a nice apartment with a somewhat right price. The agent asked me: “Since you like this place and since the price is very attractive, I suggest that I start preparing the purchasing contract together with the seller.” “I said, hmm, sorry, no, I first need to think it over once more.”
The seller, obviously trained in a technique called “Assume-the-Sale Close” which she just applied, made a puzzled impression and perhaps knew from experience that if she wouldn’t close it now, she might never do so. So she decided to be persistent and followed up with the “Better-Act-Now Close” and responded: “You know, these kind of places are very rare and I have two other people who showed strong interest. They will come to see the place again this afternoon. So I can’t guarantee that the apartment then will still be available.”
I responded, “Well, if that’s the case, then so be it. I’m not ready to make a decision right now.”
Still not deterred, the agent pulled out her last closing technique, the “Last Ditch Close” by saying: “If you decide right now, I will give a call to the seller to ask him to take over some of the government fees you’d need to pay. But I can do that only if you make your decision now. If you decide later, then this will not be possible anymore.”
I said, “Thanks for the effort, but I need to go now. I’ll let you know later.”
And I left.
Lesson No.3: Beware of closing techniques! Many sales people try to push you into decisions you might regret later if you agree right then. If you doubt, don’t! Even if you can’t explain why you can’t make a decision right now, don’t make it if you don’t feel 100% comfortable.
The reason why you have doubts or don’t feel comfortable is because your subconscious mind ‘knows’ of some criteria you are not aware of and yet still matter in your decision-making. Unless these criteria have reached your awareness and been answered satisfactorily, a comfortable and good buying decision can’t be made.
What an excellent sales person would do: Excellent sales people know that if a buyer is not ready for making a buying decision, some conscious and/or subconscious criteria have not been met, yet.
They will use questions like “Is there any important aspect that you are not yet satisfied with?” to check the conscious criteria. To reveal subconscious criteria, they will ask questions like “Is there anybody else, like your spouse for example, whose opinion you need to consider before making a decision?” or “Is there perhaps something you haven’t thought of so far but which might be quite important to clarify before you can make a comfortable decision?” or “Is the financing of this purchase fully clarified?” Top sales people have a lot of experience what these subconscious criteria could be in their industry and will ask appropriate probing questions when they see any resistance in making a decision.
Excellent sales people know that a sales person can not close a deal but need to assist the buyer in their buying decision process. Once all important conscious and subconscious criteria have been met satisfactorily, closing of a deal becomes a natural consequence.
I remember seeing one apartment which made an excellent first impression. I was almost about to go for it, but something was holding me back. As usual, when this happens, I ask for more time and perhaps a second visit.
The sales person told me that this apartment is really a jewel and I should really decide soon because it would be likely that other people seeing the apartment would be equally impressed and might just decide earlier and I’d miss a great
opportunity.
I resisted and went home. At home, I looked at all the data of the apartment and realised that the apartment covered actually only few of my ‘should-have’ criteria and almost none of my ‘nice-to-have criteria’. Considering purely the data, the price seemed way too high. So I wondered why I was so impressed when I visited the apartment. After going through the visit in my memory, I realised that I was impressed by the spotless cleanliness and perfect painting of the place. Everything was perfectly in order and well organised which made the apartment look so attractive.
Lesson No. 4: The owner of the apartment used a tactic that is often
employed by used car salesmen. It is called “dressing up”. It is based
on the principle that if an item ‘shines’ as if it was brand-new, the perceived value tends to increase.
Don’t get mislead by the first appearance. As the saying goes, “Not everything that shines is gold.” Be clearly aware of what is really important to you and determine the value of the property based on that.
What an excellent sales person would do in this situation: As stated before, excellent sales people have only the best possible outcome for their customers in mind. If they realise that an apartment just ‘shines’ but actually is otherwise not great, they will bring that to the attention of the buyer and try to work out a fair price for what the buyer would get and considering what the buyer truly values.
Eventually, I found an apartment that looked pretty close to what I was looking for, in fact, I really considered buying it. Even though it was within my budget, I felt it was a bit overpriced considering the actual size, location and state of the building. I told myself that I would buy it if I’d get an 8% discount.
So I asked the agent: “What is the best possible price you think I can get for this place?” He responded: “You know, this apartment is already below market value and a really good deal. I don’t think that the owner will lower the price any further.”
Lesson No. 5: Property agents, like many other sales people, work on commission basis. The commission is usually a percentage of the sales price. The lower the sales price, the lower the actual commission. Especially when it comes to high-value items such as apartments or houses, any reduction in the sales price means a significant reduction (in $ terms) in the commission. That’s why most sales people are reluctant to fight for the lowest possible price for their customers as it will reduce their income.
Do not get discouraged by the unwillingness of the sales person to fight for a considerably lower price. Let them know that if they don’t manage to achieve your target price, there won’t be any deal and they know that in that case their commission would be zero. If they see that you are serious, they will go fight for you with the owner.
What an excellent sales person would do: Excellent sales people want to have excellent customer relationships. To make the customer happy is their foremost objective. They know that even if they ‘lose’ a part of their commission today, they win it back and eventually gain more in multiple ways tomorrow through repeat business and referrals from their happy customers.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, the majority of sales people still believe that selling is a game they need to ‘win’, rather than focusing on the best possible outcome for their potential buyers – regardless of whether they close the deal or not.
If the buyer loses by making a decision that she regrets later on, the sales person will ultimately lose – if not the deal, then the reputation and missed future opportunities.
If you are confronted with such a sales person, identify the sales tactics and strategies and act accordingly to protect your interest.
You have one big advantage over all the sales people you meet: you are the one who makes the final decision! Make use of that advantage!
P.S.: I still haven’t decided on any property yet; luckily I still have some time to continue my search.
For more information related to Progress-U's Stop Selling! programs including our negotiation program, please click here.
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