Why Don’t You Close More Consistently (and How to Fix It)
Prefer To Watch: Here’s The Video
Summary:
• 2-2-6 rule: one extra sale boosts income 25–30%.
• Consistency comes from fast rapport across varied personalities.
• Handle resistance, mirror buyers, educate—not pressure—to win.
The 2-2-6 Rule: Why One More Sale Changes Everything
My view of home improvement sales is that out of ten people you actually get in the home with. 2 of them are going to be laydowns. That means if can talk for them for 2 hours without annoying them they will buy. 2 of them nobody can sell. That means the other six left can go either way and are totally up to you. Just learning to sell one more of the six left is huge. For most of you that will increase your income by 25-30%. Interested in knowing how to do this for the rest of your life? Then you are watching the right video.
Consistency Comes from Connection
Do you do home improvement sales and ever wonder why your income fluctuates so much. Some great weeks then some horrible weeks. The key to greatness and success doing home improvement commission sales is consistency. Anyone can have a great day, great week or great month but to do it year over year is what is going to give you a great life. One of the most important things you can do to be more consistent when doing in home sales is your ability to connect with a wide variety of people. What makes this job so fun and at the same time difficult is the variety of people we see. No other job has you seeing a truck driver in the morning, retired widow in the afternoon and a venture capitalist in the evening. That’s why your connection skills are so important.
Build Rapport Early to improve close rate home improvement
Connection or rapport is key in doing home improvement sales because rapport gives you control. People you have no connection with won’t tell you their name where people you have great connection with like your friends you can get them to give you money. Connection is also the difference between this job being the most fun you can have to a total nightmare.
The reason you see people who are not consistent because if they happen to get lucky and they get customers they can connect with they make sales and if they don’t they don’t sales. That’s when they say the leads suck. It’s not that the leads suck it’s that they happened to get more of the leads they couldn’t get rapport with that week then the ones they could. Most times when you hear sales people talk about sales resistance what they really mean is lack of rapport.
You not only have to get rapport with customer but you have to do it quickly. If you get the rapport at the beginning you can go through your sales presentation without them fighting you. (Assuming your sales presentation doesn’t annoy them and seems canned of course) If it takes you the whole sales call to get a connection it’s too late because until you get there you aren’t able to sell them effectively. In general getting rapport is as much a mindset you have as well as all the techniques you can use. Here are three things I do that will help you connect with more people and therefore make more money. Please make sure you listen to all three so you don’t miss anything.
Handle Initial Resistance with Empathy
The first thing in getting a connection is handling the initial sales resistance people give you. The best way to deal with this is for you first to understand what it’s about. If you don’t understand it then it just seems annoying and when people annoy you you aren’t going to respond in the right way. If you do understand it then you are more compassionate and that is the right way to deal with it.
There is a statement I love which is “To sell John Brown the things John Brown buys, you must first see the world through John Brown's eyes.” So do you understand what they are seeing. Do you think they are looking forward to you coming to their home? If someone was coming to your home to give you an estimate translation try to sell you something what would you be thinking? “I hope they’re not going to be here a long time”. “ I don’t want to go through some long boring sales presentation” “I hope that they aren’t going to try and pressure me into buying something” “I hope they know what they are doing” and let’s be real “I hope that they aren’t going to be a you know what.” By the way that word starts with an capital A. 😊 That’s why they seem standoffish and mean when you first meet them. If you understand more why you are getting resistance then you won’t take it personally and that will allow you to be nicer in your response and not make it so confrontational.
The best way to handle this is to lower that guard of being sold. As simple as that seems the easiest way to do that that is to tell them you are just going to give them an education on what you do and how much and that the estimate is good for 90 days so can think about it and then call back when and if they decide to do it. Just doing that alone will work wonders in lowering that guard and allowing you to get a connection with them. It sounds silly but learn to be nice.
One technique I learned from a book by Og Mandino is this….. The next home you go to treat the customer as if you know a deep dark secret about them. And the secret is that you know is that at 12 midnight they will die. Now if you knew that about them how would you treat them. Do you think you would be a little nicer to them? Would you be a little more patient and understanding of what they were saying? And if you acted like that how do you think they would respond in return. Try this . You’ll be amazed how powerful it is.
Mirror and Pace to Match Buyers
The second thing you can do to connect with more people is to adapt and change the style and way you do your sales presentation. The simplest way is to mirror or pace them. This works because when you mirror someone you become more like them. Everybody thinks that they are the normal ones compared to everyone else. So the more you are like them the more they think you are okay and like you because you are like them. Good sales people do it instinctively.
You have to have good emotional intelligence or in it’s simplest terms good street sense. It’s as simple as when the door opens to know whether you are going to say “How are you today?’ or “What up?” Pacing or mirroring them include speech patterns. If they talk fast you can talk fast like them or if they are slow and deliberate then you slow down and match the way you talk to them. It can even be in the words they say if they want their bathroom to pop then when you are selling them use their words. “Do you think this color would make your bathroom pop?” If they are white collar or blue collar dictates you saying “Does this make sense to you vs is this cool?”
We all have different sides to our personality… quiet or boisterous and depending on the customer I bring out that side of my personality. It’s not being false just amplifying the side that will relate to the customer the most. Now use your common sense…. that doesn’t mean you have to use profanity or get high with them. 😊That way you won’t blame me when you get fired!
Teach, Don’t Pitch to improve close rate home improvement
The third thing you can do to help get a connection and rapport quicker has to do with your frame of mind. Stop going there to try to sell them anything and go there with the attitude that you don’t care whether they buy or not but are there just to give them an education on what you do and most importantly to have fun.
The key is that you learn to give them an education on what you do in a way that sells them. That means learning to sell the benefits not the features and in a way that keeps the customers involved and interested. By giving them an education this way.. that will sell them. When you try to sell using the traditional methods of “wait until you see how great this is” or “ you’ll really love this if you get it” it scares the customer and they put their guard up. The customer can sense you and when you try to sell something they feel it.
Much like the way a lamb feels a wolf looking them or a women feels a creep looking at her in a bar. Plus when go there trying to sell them you seem desperate and that will kill your chances of making sale exponentially. Go there to give them an education and act as if you get paid the same whether they buy or not and watch your sales go through the roof.
Continue Learning
If you want a deeper dive into this check out the video on “Features and benefits” or if you want more closing training check out these articles on Closing.
Happy Selling!
