Episode 31: How To Qualify Your Leads On The First Call With Russ, Sky & Andy
In episode 31 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, we’re joined by Co-founders of the Association of Professional Builders Russ Stephens and Sky Stephens, along with APB’s Head Coach, Andy Skarda. Throughout this episode, the trio go over how you can qualify your leads on the very first call.
Episode 31: How To Qualify Your Leads On The First Call With Russ, Sky & Andy
In episode 31 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, we’re joined by Co-founders of the Association of Professional Builders Russ Stephens and Sky Stephens, along with APB’s Head Coach, Andy Skarda. Throughout this episode, the trio go over how you can qualify your leads on the very first call.
Show Notes
Transcript
In episode 31 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, we’re joined by Co-founders of the Association of Professional Builders Russ Stephens and Sky Stephens, along with APB’s Head Coach, Andy Skarda. Throughout this episode, the trio go over how you can qualify your leads on the very first call.
During this episode, Russ, Sky and Andy discuss why qualifying your leads is so important, and what makes this process so different for builders in comparison to other industries.
The trio explain the tough process of letting down clients you don’t want to work for, and conversely, review the questions you need to be asking in order to identify the quality leads you really want to pursue.
During episode 31, Russ, Sky and Andy also bring to light what potential clients themselves may be looking for when deciding to build a home, and highlight exactly what NOT to do on any sales call.
Listen to the full episode to discover how to qualify your leads on the very first call.
Russ Stephens - Co-founder
Russ Stephens is a Co-founder of the Association of Professional Builders, a business coaching company dedicated to improving the residential construction industry for both builders and consumers. Russ is a data analysis expert who has introduced data-driven decision making to the residential construction industry. Russ is also a proud member of the Forbes Business Development Council.
Sky Stephens - Co-founder
Sky Stephens is a Co-founder of the Association of Professional Builders, a business coaching company dedicated to improving the residential construction industry for both builders and consumers. Sky is a proud member of The National Association of Women in Construction and she was also recognised as one of 2021’s Top 100 Women.
Andy Skarda - Head Coach
Andy Skarda has owned and led businesses in South Africa, the United States, South-East Asia, and for the last decade, Australia. With 30+ years of business experience, Andy heads up the coaching team at the Association of Professional Builders (APB), helping business owners in the building industry identify and implement the skills and systems they need to be successful, without needing to go back to school or more importantly, without going bust.
Timeline
1:28 Why qualifying your leads is so important.
3:17 Why the qualifying process for builders is so different to every other industry.
9:32 Why you need a documented sales process.
11:47 How to get rid of clients you don’t want to work for.
14:06 What you need when starting a qualifying call.
16:11 The questions you need to be asking to qualify your leads.
28:52 What consumers are looking for when deciding to build a home.
32:12 What you must NOT do on any sales call.
38:33 How the sales process is evolving in the construction industry.
Links, Resources & More
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Bosco Anthony:
Hello and welcome to the Professional Builders Secrets Podcast, a podcast by the Association of Professional Builders (APB) for building company owners, general managers, VPs and emerging leaders. Here, we discuss all things running a professional building company from sales processes to financials, operations and marketing. We have another exciting episode from the Professional Builders Secrets Podcast. I'm joined today by Co-founders Sky and Russ Stephens, as well as Head Coach Andy Skarda for APB. Thanks for joining me today, everyone.
Sky Stephens:
Hey Bosco.
Andy Skarda:
Hey Bosco.
Russ Stephens:
Hey Bosco.
Bosco Anthony:
Lovely to have you in here again. My first question to start this conversation is around the sales process. I'm really excited because I actually started my career in sales as a telemarketer, selling timeshare in North America. This podcast episode really is going to take me back to my roots. Now, why is qualifying a lead so important and beneficial for home builders today?
Russ Stephens:
Maybe you can draw on your experience and tell us on that one, Bosco. But for me, there is a great moment at the end of the film Wolf of Wall Street. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort; he addresses a room of business people and salespeople who paid to attend a seminar in New Zealand. He goes around the room, and he says, “Sell me this pen.” Each person spews out a long list of features and benefits before getting cut off mid-pitch by Jordan as he moves on to the next person. The camera just pans out and the audience is left wondering, “Well, what is the correct way to sell a pen?”
Russ Stephens:
The answer is ‘qualifying’, because what these guys should have asked is, “How long have you been in the market for a pen?” To answer your question as to why qualifying is so important for home builders, it's because unless someone wants or has a need for what you are selling, then you are really wasting your time. For home builders, that's not a 10-minute conversation. That could be weeks of work, preparing a quote for a consumer who either could not afford to build, or maybe was using you as a price check, or maybe they were just contacting six other builders looking for the lowest price. This is why qualifying prospects is just so important for builders.
Bosco Anthony:
I've actually seen that movie and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It brought back a lot of memories as well. But it's an interesting thing that you bring up about asking the right questions to determine if there's a demand, if there's a need, and if you are even talking to the right person. But take me through the sales process for home builders specifically, because I'm assuming it's a bit different to everything else out there.
Sky Stephens:
Totally. It’s absolutely different, and it has to be, because of what we are selling. Let's compare it to a pen. Well, this is so much more expensive than a pen. We need to understand that. In most cases when we are designing and building a custom home, this is a consumer's largest ever purchase or largest ever investment. Firstly, the sales process goes for a really long time in this industry. The perfect sales process has to plug into an incredible marketing process.
Sky Stephens:
Without even covering marketing, let's just talk about from when that lead actually makes contact, because they're going to come through from so many different channels. It could come from social media, paid advertising, referrals, partner networks that you have, signage, literally anything. They're either going to make an inbound phone call to you, or they're going to make an inquiry via your website.
Sky Stephens:
Maybe they start downloading things. Whatever way they get in touch with you, they all need to be filtered into some sort of online CRM system, a builder specific CRM system, because that's your database. At that point, that's when you need to start categorising. You can't just have a whole page of leads in front of you. You need to know who's good for you to keep talking to. Who's an actual opportunity? Who's qualified versus who's not?
Sky Stephens:
The perfect sales process really does begin with the qualification and might I say disqualification of those leads before you can go any further. Past that point, if they are qualified, this is when you need to speed them up and move through the sales process. You want to get them into meetings. You would love to meet with them. You would put them into concept design agreements, the preliminary building agreements before getting them into a building contract. But you cannot do any of that if you do not have the very start of the sales process, which is qualification.
Bosco Anthony:
What are some of the biggest challenges that home builders face in today's changing world? Obviously, you're talking about systemising a process, but what are some of the frontline challenges that they face?
Andy Skarda:
Parking at The Home Depot is a real big one. It gets very busy at Home Depot on a weekend. No, I'm joking, of course. I'd say time more than anything else. I think virtually every one of the guys who comes into our Private Mentoring program is time poor, if not time desperate. With what we are talking about here, what we are really doing is assuming, as Sky has said, that you've got a marketing process of some sort that's delivering leads. You really want to be able to sort through them and get to the ones that are worth progressing as quickly as possible.
Andy Skarda:
Talking about qualification, that's really what this is doing. If it’s not getting rid of, if it's not going as far as disqualifying, it's at least qualifying and identifying those people who are ready to build, which is key because obviously you want to then focus your attention on those people. If there are other people who will build at some stage down the road, that's fine, but you can give them stuff to get going with in the interim and then you can focus on the ones who are actually potentially going to turn into a sale for you and ignore the other. The real answer there is time above all else. This qualification process above all else is going to save a builder time.
Russ Stephens:
I think the danger is that builders want everyone to be qualified, don't they? Especially when they are looking for sales and this is where emotion comes into it. If they don't have a process and qualifying criteria, they tend to chat to a new prospect. They get excited and just end up trying to put a square peg into a round hole. There’s a lot of times when we talk to guys, and they say, “Ah, I saw the warning signs. I knew I shouldn't have signed this guy up,” and that's what qualification's all about. It takes the emotion out of the process and really helps builders to follow a structured process and be disciplined.
Andy Skarda:
I think Russ, just to kind of latch onto the backend of that, most builders don't like selling. Most builders, given the choice, if they didn't have to sell, would be the happiest people in the world. What this does for them, giving them a process, takes it into a place where they can systematically work through a process rather than trying to be manipulative and in some cases cheesy and all the rest of it. It really turns it into a process: first do this, then do that, which is not cheesy or manipulative.
Russ Stephens:
Yeah, that's right. Because what you're really saying is, “Well, hold on. Before we go any further, let's just see if we're going to be a good fit.”
Andy Skarda:
There you go.
Russ Stephens:
“Let's just see if I can help you with what it is.” Like you say, it's not being salesy at all at that point, it's being helpful.
Andy Skarda:
Yeah. I was waiting to play that card, but you've brought it out so early in this conversation. I think the key for most builders is to get rid of the word ‘sales’ in their mind and replace it with ‘help’. If you think about what the sales process does, it effectively takes a potential home builder and helps them to get the best home possible for the money that they have available in the shortest time possible. We're talking about qualification. If that's the kind of people you are talking to, there's no sales gimmicks involved. It's literally helping people, as Sky said, through a process that for them is probably very scary because of the amounts of money that we're talking about.
Bosco Anthony:
Is the barrier for liking sales more mindset? You talked about the fact that most builders don't like to sell. Is it a perception based thing that just makes them feel really uncomfortable? I'm going to tagline this with another question, too. I'm just curious how many people come into this coaching program with an operational sales playbook that says, “Andy, or coach, here's all my sales qualified questions.” Do they actually have this, or do you end up finding that you have to build it for them?
Andy Skarda:
No. I always tell clients, everybody has a sales process if they've ever sold anything. But generally it's not documented. If it's not documented, it's not repeatable. If it's not documented and repeatable, you can't test what’s working and what's not, in order to improve it. Everybody comes along with something that they have used to sell in their business or whatever they do, whether it's remodelling or new homes, but it's not professionally constructed, sequenced and optimised. That's really what we're talking about today.
Bosco Anthony:
All right. Well, let's talk about the documentation process and let's get into the magic formula, because what you're talking about is actually re-engineering mindset and re-engineering process to have a strong system out there. Let's start off with the home builders when it comes to sales, when it comes to helping people. What is it that home builders are looking for first?
Russ Stephens:
You are talking about the actual builders themselves rather than the people building homes, yeah?
Bosco Anthony:
Yes.
Russ Stephens:
What they're at actually looking for, most of all, they're looking for guidance for structure because when you don't have a process, like Andy was describing, you don't have a documented process that you can follow. It's not repeatable. A lot of people in business, generally, not just builders, are kind of just winging it, really. They know all about the inquiries on an ad hoc basis. For a fair percentage of the time that can work and up to a certain point that can work, but you can't scale, and you can't grow by doing it ad hoc.
Russ Stephens:
At some point, you're going to have to bring team members into those positions and at that point you've got to have a structured, repeatable process. I think that's what builders come looking for from APB. They're looking for that structure, that step by step process. “What do I say? How do I establish if this person is a genuine inquiry or if maybe they're just putting their plans out to six or seven builders looking for the cheapest quote?” That's what they come looking for from us.
Sky Stephens:
For a lot of builders, if they're sold on the idea of systemising their process for qualifying and disqualifying, another big thing that professional builders are looking for is, “How can I get rid of the people I don't want to build for as professionally as possible so that it's not going to tarnish my company or my reputation. How can I do that?” “Can I do that,” is probably the first question and they're looking for the process, the easiest way to do this, to let them down easy.
Bosco Anthony:
Sky, as you were saying that, I just realised that you're actually talking about managing risks. You're not just qualifying leads for revenue generation, but you're also managing a risk because most builders probably also don't want to deal with that client from hell who's going to create problems for the business.
Sky Stephens:
Totally.
Bosco Anthony:
There's a lot of risk management if you do this properly, as well.
Sky Stephens:
Totally, and you have to think about everything; you have to think about your margins. Maybe you have the perfect clients in front of you, maybe for example, you're doing a renovation, or maybe it’s a new build. But as you are going through the sales process, you might discover that they have neighbours either side of them and you have found out what those neighbours are like. You could disqualify someone based on those neighbours even. You are vetting a lot, really. The initial qualifying process needs to be very simple, otherwise it does end up being a few days’ worth of questions and work.
Sky Stephens:
You're constantly qualifying throughout the sales process, but what we have really been talking about is what initial questions you can ask to really qualify and decide, “Yep, they qualify for us to do business with them, on the surface. Let's proceed through the rest of the process.” But anything can come up as you keep going. Say, you do a site visit and you're checking out that site and that's where you come across those neighbours. They're not adding points or reasons as to why you should take on this project. Like you say, you're managing your own risk, your own margin, your own company.
Bosco Anthony:
I'm going to ask a question that's going to open this whole conversation into the actual qualifying side of things. But before I do that, tell me a little bit about some successful sales tips to have going into a qualifying call that builders can apply.
Sky Stephens:
We've used this word a couple times so far already; a big one would be mindset. There are so many tips if we were to really simplify it. The first one I would say is mindset. I think it's actually reversing it rather than having a mindset of, “Can I qualify these people?” Have the mindset of how “Can I disqualify them? What is going to disqualify them? Can I look for reasons not to do business?” Really as a professional builder, you should be having such an influx of leads into your building company, you want to be looking for reasons not to do work with a lot of different leads, so you really can cherry pick the best ones. I would say definitely flipping that mindset would be really important to look for reasons to disqualify based on all of your criteria.
Sky Stephens:
You’re not trying to find anything as a reason not to build for someone, but at its simplest form, that's a big tip. Obviously, following a script is another tip. The way a proper qualification should work is that qualifying questions typically are closed questions. You can answer them with either yes or no. Really, the client is qualified or they’re not, quite simply. Where I think a lot of people go wrong is they're not asking qualifying questions. They're actually asking discovery questions. These are really open ended, emotionally charged, emotionally driven questions and answers that really take them away from, “On the surface, do they qualify for us to do business with them?”
Sky Stephens:
You're trying to ask them all these really detailed questions. But then after an hour and a half on the phone, you find that the block of land is in a location that you don't service because it's way too far away from you and you’ve actually wasted your time. It's having a structured script and a process to follow with a mindset of disqualifying them so you can get through the most important factors for someone being qualified to do business with you first, then you can go on to a deeper dive, an emotional discovery with that person.
Russ Stephens:
Think as well, where some people go wrong with the whole disqualifying part of the process is when they have their questions, they treat it as an insurance form without really listening to the answers. They're kind of running down their checklist and it's not a great experience for the person on the other end of the phone.
Russ Stephens:
Closed questions really are like Sky says; it's about disqualifying people quickly so that you don't waste your time. But as you then progress into the discovery questions, you've really got to listen and go deep on each one. Not just move on to the next question, because part of the whole qualification process is to build rapport. That's really important. You're trying to get to the point where they know they can trust you. You don't want to lose sight of that either.
Sky Stephens:
But I think even with the qualifying questions, as much as you're saying they're closed questions, and the client is either are qualified or they are not, it sounds too scripted if you’re saying, “Okay, yep. Next question. Moving on.” You're not coming across as personable. You still need to be trying to build that trust and rapport on the phone. It still takes that little bit of acting.
Russ Stephens:
Absolutely. Asking where the build's going to be and knowing that area and talking about schools, these are great opportunities.
Bosco Anthony:
You're talking about open ended questions too, that actually require the customer to open up and give you a little bit more insight. It's not just a yes or no question or do you do a bit of both?
Sky Stephens:
Well, that's the thing. The qualifying questions have to be closed questions. The open ended ones are discovery. That's a really good point to clarify, but it's exactly the perfect example that Russ just said. “Where is the project?” Say you're building new homes, if you have land. The question is, “Have you settled on your land?” That is not where we move on. If they say yes, you would ask those follow up questions. “Tell me where it is? How big is the block?” You need to learn a little bit about it. They qualify in that they have land, and you need to know where it is. You’re not going to wait an hour on the phone to then ask those questions. You can see that it's like a closed question. They're either settled or they're not, but try to get the clarity behind those questions. That's the key. That's the kicker.
Bosco Anthony:
We've got two sets of questions here. We've got the discovery side and the qualifying side as well from what you're saying; that's great. Okay. I'm going to open up the curtains now. I'm dying to ask this question. What are some of the best qualifying questions that home builders can ask on a first call? Maybe each of you give me one or throw me one that I'd love to hear from each of you. But let's start off with anyone who wants to take a stab at this.
Andy Skarda:
Let me kick it off and say that what will make a good qualifying question is that it must answer one of your non-negotiables. Let's use the example that Sky has already come up with: where? If you build within 30 kilometres of Sydney and someone phones you from Brisbane. No matter what advert they've seen, no matter what they're doing, if they're the nicest person in the world, they've got $10 million to spend, their plans are amazing, but they're in Brisbane. There is no point in you spending 25 minutes getting into all of the emotion behind their home and their design and everything else.
Andy Skarda:
I'm going to start off by saying the general answer to this is going to be part of the reason why you can make these questions closed. You are really making sure that these people meet your non-negotiable criteria before you invest that extra time in them. In terms of giving you one actual question, I'm going to piggyback and steal Sky's in terms of, “Where exactly do you want to build?” That would be one question that I would think would have to be there.
Russ Stephens:
I'll give you one: “What's your budget?” Probably my least favourite one. The reason I want to bring this up is because of the way this particular question that is important to know is brought up and addressed. Generally it's brought up during the qualifying questions, the closed questions, and this is way too early.
Russ Stephens:
The budget question has to come right at the end. That's after you've gone through your qualifying questions, and you've gone through discovery questions as well. What that means is you are probably about an hour into a conversation with this person by the time you ask their budget. A lot of guys will say to us, “No way am I going to spend all that time with someone on the phone only to find out that they don't have the budget.” But here's the problem. When you go in too early asking the budget, you're not going to get a truthful answer.
Russ Stephens:
No one has enough trust in you or even probably understands enough about their own project to give you a realistic budget. What is the point in asking that question and potentially disqualifying people? It's absolutely meaningless. You have to use the structure that we lay out for builders in terms of getting through your closed questions first, moving onto the discovery and only then at the end of discovery, will you be in a position to get a truthful, honest budget. Even then, they will probably still need a bit of guidance. After an hour of chatting to someone about their project, a builder will have a very good understanding of where that project will most likely sit. You could probably say, “So are you looking to invest between $500,000 and $750,000 or maybe a bit more or a bit less?”
Russ Stephens:
This allows the prospect to self-select and someone who's really not comfortable with how much they should be investing will feel a lot more comfortable self-selecting. If they say, “Definitely less,” then you know you’ve got a bit of education on your hands. “There's no way you are going to get that project you've described for that kind of money. If anyone tells you they can build it for that, they're just going to be filling the contract with allowances. You are not going to get to the end of that project, paying that price.”
Sky Stephens:
That's a really good one, as a good example of what not to have as a qualifying question. I'll throw a bone; I'll give another example of a potential qualifying question you should ask. What we teach our builders at APB is that a really important question would be, “Do you have designs drawn up?” You want to know how deep they are into that sales process. This is a really interesting one, because this is exactly what Andy was talking about before.
Sky Stephens:
It polarises people. You either do, or you don't. If you’re a design and build building company, you only want to deal with prospects who don't have designs, so you can take that over from the beginning in the sales process. Quite frankly, if they already have designs, they are shopping around for a builder to do a quote and they will pick the cheapest price. It's a really good way as a design and build company to disqualify people who aren't your ideal clients. That's not who you're targeting in your marketing. You're trying to target people way earlier in the process.
Bosco Anthony:
I've thought of two questions. I feel like a game show host right now because each of you threw me a question. I had two questions and I'm curious if you would say this is a discovery question or a qualifying question or it's the question not to ask. The first question I have is, “Have you ever worked with a home builder before?”
Russ Stephens:
Love that one.
Andy Skarda:
Yeah.
Sky Stephens:
We're all smiling. That's the thing; we're all sitting here smiling.
Bosco Anthony:
The reason why I ask that is because technically you want to know if you’ll need to hold the customer's hand, if it's a new time customer, if they're going to be needy or they want that attention or if they know what to expect working with builders.
Russ Stephens:
It's a bit more sinister than that, I think.
Andy Skarda:
It is. You’re way too unjaded. We've all been in the trenches too long on this one, but if the answer was, “Yes, I have built before,” the follow up question would have to be, and here comes the next bone, “How was that experience?”
Sky Stephens:
Exactly.
Bosco Anthony:
Okay.
Andy Skarda:
That's a great question to ask, because the reality out there is a lot of the people listening to this podcast will be abused by potential clients because their brother-in-law is going to build for them. That's already decided, but because they don't really trust their brother-in-law, what they are doing is talking to five other builders to see whether the price he gave them is valid or not.
Andy Skarda:
I'm not saying to builders, “Don't throw your hat into that ring.” But what I am saying is, “Know that's what's going on.” The question you've just come up with allows the builder to ascertain whether this is a genuine inquiry or whether he's simply being used as a price checker. Then he can decide whether he's prepared to go in and just give them a price so that they've got a comparison, or he’s not. But it's a good question as long as it doesn't stand on its own. It needs a bit of further development.
Sky Stephens:
Because it needs further development, that is what defines it as a discovery question. It's not a qualifying question. The original question you asked, Bosco was, “Have you built a home before?” If they have, you might think , “No, I would never touch them.” Or if they haven't built before, you still might think, “No, I would never touch them. No.” That is an intel gathering question that you can do in a deep dive discovery. That was a fun game.
Russ Stephens:
The classic answer is, “Yes,” and you then ask, “How was that experience?” “Yeah, it was great.” “And is the builder quoting on this job?” “Yes.” “Well, why are you talking to me?”
Andy Skarda:
Yeah.
Bosco Anthony:
That's how you turn it into a qualifying question right there. Okay. I've got another one for you. This is the one that could be sinister as well. It could be also opening up a can of worms. “When are you looking to have your home built?” Because sometimes we want to know about capacity as well. We talked about construction slots in the previous interview as well. I'm just curious if that's a good question to ask. “When are you expecting your home to be built?”
Andy Skarda:
Yeah. A very good question, and you can ask it one of two ways: “When would you like the project to start?” or “When would you like the project to be finished by?”
Bosco Anthony:
Nice.
Andy Skarda:
Because if you've actually done your work and you've put together your construction slots and you've planned those things, you as a professional builder know exactly how many more jobs you can take on and when those will be starting, down to the day. The bottom line is, if somebody says, “I need you to start in three weeks’ time,” and you know you don't have a construction slot available until November, you are going to say to them, “I’m very sorry. I can't help you.” In most cases, the weird thing is they'll wait.
Sky Stephens:
Based on Andy's answer there Bosco, what do you reckon now that question is, qualifying or discovery?
Bosco Anthony:
Well, there's so many ways you can look at this, but you're basically asking the customer to wait if you're busy or you're asking the customer what their timeline is and if it matches what your capability for when you can deliver the project.
Sky Stephens:
Exactly. It's qualifying, isn't it? You either can hit that deadline or you can't. You either have capacity for them or you don't.
Bosco Anthony:
I'm going to make a bold assumption from this. I'm assuming you guys have all of these questions somewhere, because in the time that I've known you, I’ve seen that everything you do is systemised and articulated somewhere. Where can home builders find these questions?
Andy Skarda:
We're not going to answer that question at the moment, because that's a discovery question. Are we talking about qualification questions? No. I think if you are very nice to Sky, at the end of this podcast, she might flick you a link to something that'll help you with the exact questions that we use.
Bosco Anthony:
You do have a list of qualifying questions?
Andy Skarda:
Absolutely. Not just a list; we actually go as far as helping. We give builders a suggested script for each question; they can then customise that and all the rest of it. Just before we move off this though, if anybody's looking for a kind of a rule of thumb on these things, I always draw the comparison with dating. You cannot ask questions that have to happen after roses, chocolates, dinner and a clean motor car. You can't ask those before you've done all of that. You've got to see qualification as: I'm washing the car. I'm making sure it's properly vacuumed. I've had a shower. I've got chocolates, I've got roses, I'm on time and I've booked the best restaurant in town. Those are your qualification questions. If you get those right, well, then you might even be able to take the lady out to the movies afterwards as well.
Bosco Anthony:
This is the time you're going to tell us that you're also a dating coach, at this point.
Sky Stephens:
Andy, that sounds like a great date.
Andy Skarda:
I definitely am not. Don't take that advice from me at all. Definitely not.
Bosco Anthony:
Well, let's talk a little bit about the customers, because we've talked a little bit about what our home builders are looking for. But let's change the narrative now and go with the customer side of things. What are customers looking for today in a professional home building company?
Russ Stephens:
It depends to a large extent on the individual consumer, because there are three things that drive a decision. They are quality, speed and price. It generally comes down to one of those things; that's a real driver for a consumer in the market to build a new home.
Russ Stephens:
When you establish that quality is their main driver, it's typically someone who’s building their third or fourth home. Quality then becomes paramount because it could be the final home they're looking to build. For those guys, communication is generally key. It's very important. That's because they've built before. They understand what happens in this industry. Once they sign the contract, communication generally becomes very poor. They're also looking for expertise because they're looking to build a quality home. They're looking for someone who has got a lot of experience in the industry and can make suggestions to them as well.
Russ Stephens:
They're looking for a lot of guidance. They're looking for someone with a track record. On the other hand, when you establish someone who's driven by speed, these are typically the consumers who need to be in by Christmas because they got family coming over from overseas. They got to have the home finished by Christmas.
Russ Stephens:
There tends to be a smaller percentage who are looking for speed, but it is a very important factor to understand, because for these people, the way to sell to them is by showing them a timeline and giving them guarantees as well on completion. This is probably the easiest contract of all to win , because so few builders actually offer any kind of timeline or schedule as part of their proposal. For anyone who's really driven by a completion date, the builder who presents them with the timeline is easily going to outperform the other builders.
Russ Stephens:
Finally, are the consumers who are driven by budget, and this tends to be first home builders, the younger generation, typically. For those guys, obviously what they really are looking for is a fixed price. They don't want to see a lot of allowances in their contracts. It's really important for a builder to ensure that when they're dealing with someone who's very budget focused, that they can get to a fixed price, which obviously is very tough in the current climate with supply chain issues, but also to go that one step further and provide options to reduce the price. In the first instance, with quality, you're putting on plenty of different options to upgrade, but you have to look at going the other direction with someone on budget and give them options to actually reduce their price.
Bosco Anthony:
One of the foundational tips that I learnt at a very young age was never start a call with discounting. That was something that my coaches had always said to me, because you don't know what the price points are for a customer, and you could potentially be watering down your rates. Now, obviously in this industry, there's so many dos and don'ts. We've talked a lot about the dos let's get into the don'ts. What are some of the absolute crucial things that builders should avoid on a sales qualifying call today?
Sky Stephens:
I think any call, whether it's qualifying, discovery, closing or anything else, I think a big one is we should always avoid doing most of the talking. That’s especially important in qualification though because that's the theme of this episode. The prospect should be doing most of the talking. The prospect should be doing 80 per cent of the talking on that phone call. You want to be able to get them to really open up.
Sky Stephens:
Now it's a qualification, so these aren't open-ended questions, but the clarity is what you need. You are there to keep the call on track and really guide the call to where you want it to go. But hands down, I think one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make on the phone is doing most of the talking. But often builders think, “The client has called me; they've inquired with me and I’m just going to share all my knowledge. I'm going to talk about what I've done.”
Sky Stephens:
I think that leads to the next point, which is that some builders follow the prospect's lead, because the prospect is the one qualifying the builder and they kick off the phone call by asking all of the questions. They're asking, “Tell me a little about the homes you've built. What was this? I saw this project here, how much did that cost? How long did that take?” A big mistake is being on the back foot and not being able to regain control. The only way you can ever regain any control in any sales conversation or phone call is by looking down on your notepad, seeing your plan and the information you needed to get for your qualifying questions and getting that call back on track.
Sky Stephens:
I'm not saying you can never answer someone's question, but you're able to answer it, maybe clarify the question and then explain why you need to clarify it. “In order to give you that information, can I ask you a couple of questions first?” and get back on track. Get back onto your plan; take back control.
Sky Stephens:
I think probably the third thing that can see a lot of people in general do wrongly in sales and selling anything is trying to rush a prospect because they are near the finish line. You might be close. You can see that, either because you just want to get them off the phone, because they're not qualified at all, and you just do it too quickly and you can really burn that. Or you're really close to the finish line; you can sign them up, you can move them to the next step. Maybe you want to skip a step in the sales process because you get too excited. Rushing in any way is bad. You have to be able to go at the pace in which the prospect feels comfortable, not in which you feel comfortable.
Russ Stephens:
You should avoid finishing the call without a clear next step. That's a very common mistake. Don't leave it open ended: “I'll call you next week.” There has to be a very clear next step and really that is a meeting. It's an agreement. “Call me next week.” “What day? What time?” Send them an appointment. You've got to keep the momentum up and you've got to stay in control of this opportunity.
Bosco Anthony:
It's interesting you say to send them an appointment, because sometimes people just say, “Call me next week,” to get off the phone call. The fact that you're actually asking for an appointment is a form of a digital acceptance.
Russ Stephens:
Yeah, absolutely. That really does allow you to see if this is a genuine opportunity, because if someone squirms and point blank refuses to commit to an appointment, you don't agree to call them back. You leave it in their court to come back to you. You are a professional. You're in demand. If they're not prepared to make an appointment, you can't just keep calling in the hope you're going to connect. Your time is very valuable. If they can't commit to that, they're not right for you or maybe the timing isn't right, and you leave it in their court. You make that very clear that you're not going to be following up.
Sky Stephens:
One hundred percent. It's like calling their bluff, isn't it? I could just go on for a whole episode on tips at this point. But while we're on a roll, I think another massive mistake, especially in qualifying and discovery early on, is not taking enough notes. We're very busy people. Like humans in general, we are too busy for life as it is. It's more hectic than it's ever been. We cannot rely on our brains to remember everything. We quite simply just can't. You can barely remember what happened on the weekend when it gets to Tuesday. We can't expect us or our team to remember 15 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes phone call with someone. That's so much information coming through in that time. Detailed notes are important but try to make it as easy for yourself as possible.
Sky Stephens:
Have a one sheet of paper in front of you that has all the qualifying questions you need to ask as triggers so that you don't need to worry about what to remember to ask. Write down the answers and then clarify what they mean and literally scribble as you go. But then that leads to another point; what's another big mistake?
Sky Stephens:
That next big mistake is being littered with paper all over your desk, because you're never going to go look at those notes again. You must actually have the discipline to transfer it, put it into your sales system, your CRM system, put it into that deal or opportunity and take that information with you because we know it helps in sales. The client couldn't book an appointment on Monday because their husband was going into hospital for a very routine procedure, but she booked on Tuesday. You should make a point in that phone call on Tuesday to ask how that appointment went on Monday. That is how you can go further in sales. It's all about detailed notes.
Bosco Anthony:
Russ and Sky, you guys have actually triggered something for me going back to my roots and my memories. You're about getting commitment from people. One of the best questions that I actually loved asking people when I was on the phone was, “When is the best time to reach out to you?” Back in the day, mobiles were still coming into the market. If someone actually was willing to give me their mobile phone or tell me a time that worked really well for them, I knew that they were serious.
Russ Stephens:
Back in the day they answered them as well, didn't they?
Andy Skarda:
Yeah.
Bosco Anthony:
Yeah. It was almost like I was saying, “Hey look, I don't want to be chasing you. What's the best number to reach you and the best time to get you next week?” I remember going back, that was such a powerful question because it actually told me psychologically what they were thinking or if they were winding me up me in the first place. Yeah, kudos to you. That's a really good memory here. All right. I'm going to wrap this up with a final question and that is, how is the sales process evolving for the home building industry? Can any of you give us an industry snapshot?
Andy Skarda:
Well, I think Bosco, the important word in that question is process. The professional builder today is not winging it. He's not doing it by the seat of his pants. It is a process as Russ's has said. We've been focused pretty much on qualification today, but as he said, qualification must lead you to the next step. What is next step? They need to decide that and the format of that. Is it a phone call? Is it a Zoom session? Is it a face-to-face meeting? Even staying with the qualification, as Sky has said, you're going to let the conversation ebb and flow naturally, but there's certain minimum information that you must get in order to decide whether this person is qualified or not. The order in which those questions are asked is critically important, because your life moves. Let's go back to the example you gave us earlier.
Andy Skarda:
At the beginning of the year, you've got one job on the go, and you've got 11 slots available. When somebody wants you to start or finish is less important than when you’re having that same conversation in October, and you have one slot left. Although the seven or eight questions will remain the same as the circumstances in your business change, you need to be flexible enough to reorder those questions into what the priority is for you.
Andy Skarda:
I think that this is probably the fundamental reason why you need this to be a process. As a professional builder, you work out what is best for you, your team and your business, and then you look for people who meet those criteria. You don't want to build for everybody. You know you have a limited capacity, and you also know that anybody you build for who is wrong, is stopping you building for that ideal client.
Andy Skarda:
The real thing here is the professional builder is literally working through a process. What I'm seeing happen, which is wonderful to see, is the professional builder is moving himself further and further away from the start of the process. He's evolving his qualification calls script to the point that anybody in his organisation can run a qualification call.
Andy Skarda:
Yeah, absolutely. If you phone his company and the receptionist picks up the phone, she can run the qualification call right there, as can the bookkeeper, as can the project manager, as can the estimator. It's that detailed, it's that clear. It's all worked out. It's all scripted. It's easy to run. Again, you asked me right at the beginning of this episode what's the builder's biggest problem. In most cases, it's time. Literally every 15 minutes that he spends with somebody that he's not going to build for is 15 minutes wasted. Does that answer the question? Does that give you an overview of where it, maybe not where it's going generally, but certainly where we are taking builders in terms of the subject?
Bosco Anthony:
Absolutely. What you're talking about is systemising an entire process that used to be loosely built. The fact that there's a central point that anyone can do this would be amazing for any company.
Andy Skarda:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Bosco Anthony:
Well, yet another riveting episode. I always enjoy these episodes. I'm just going to do a quick round table. Any final words of wisdom before we wrap it up?
Sky Stephens:
I'll dive on in because Andy did tease it before. We do actually give away a full checklist of seven qualifying questions every professional builder should be asking what those questions are; why they are those seven qualifying questions and even some scripts of how to start that phone call; how to disqualify someone and get them off the phone. We actually give that away and you can grab that completely free of charge. We'll put a link directly to it in the show notes for this episode.
Bosco Anthony:
Well, thank you so much everyone. This has been a very insightful interview process and I always like to say that every time I chat with you, my MBA in the construction industry just gets bigger and bigger. Thank you for the constant teachings and I really appreciate your time today.
Andy Skarda:
Thanks Bosco.
Russ Stephens:
Thanks Bosco.
Sky Stephens:
Thanks Bosco.
