One-Call Close Secrets: 4 Hidden Buying Signs in Home Improvement Sales
Prefer To Watch: Here’s The Video
Summary
One call close training on spotting real buying signs
Early resistance often means strong interest
Questions in the close signal you’re close to the sale
Complaints about urgency = desire to buy
If you’re in the home, there’s opportunity
One Call Close Training – 4 Hidden Buying Signs in Home Improvement Sales
When you do in home sales on a one call close like selling home improvements it’s easy to get excited when you get buying signs during your sales call. The best ones could be anything from “my neighbor just hired you” which means automatic credibility plus they already know how much it is. Translation: Unless you mess this up it’s a laydown. To more subtle but still buying signs like in the warmup if they ask you if you provide financing or how soon you could get the work done. There are other buying signs that are sometimes hidden but just as real.
Spoiler it's not what you think so their almost like secret buying signs.
Being able to recognize these buying signs will help you make more money because of instead of frustrating you they will motivate you. After being in over 16,000 homes here are four of the favorite things I like to see or hear when I am selling. It’s important to know these because until you recognize them and what they mean you might give up too soon when instead you should be pushing harder. Listen to hear all four so you don’t miss anything especially the last one as it’s the biggest one.
One Call Close Training Buying Sign #1 – “I’m Not Buying Anything Today”
The first buying sign I like to hear is when I first get there and they start by saying “I just want to let you know that I’m definitely not buying anything today and I’m just looking. Or some variation of that like “I told the person on phone that I wasn’t doing anything until next century but they said that was fine.” The main reason I like to hear that and you just have to trust me here is my experience. After doing this for 35 years I know that when I hear that that it’s usually a sale.
If you don’t believe me talk to anyone who’s been in this business for more than 5 years and they will confirm that. The reason I think this is a big time buying sign besides what my experience has shown me is that it tells me a lot of things. The biggest thing it tells me and please don’t troll me because of how direct this is but it tells me that as a customer they are weak and they know it. Why else would they be giving me their excuse up front.
They are trying to put up a defense because they know that either they buy easily or that against a great sales person they can’t resist so therefore they are starting to build up their sales guard now. If you came to my home and I wasn’t planning to buy anything I wouldn’t say anything. I would be polite and at the end if I still wasn’t sold I would just say no and offer you some water for the road. In fact if I liked you and out of respect I might offer to let you practice your close on me. I know that I am strong and can say no easily. The people who aren’t give you their defense in advance.
Pro tip: related to all of this that my experience has taught me is that his job is about opposites. The ones you think will never buy are the ones that will buy and the ones you think will buy never buy. The learning experience is that just do your job every time and stop trying to figure it out.
In fact that’s why anytime you go to someone’s home and they start to give you any type of resistance at the start I think it’s a buying sign. They say things like I if it’s more than 5 dollars your probably wasting your time. , I wasn’t going to do this but the person on the phone was pushy and wouldn’t take no for an answer or I have no money and I’m not planning on doing anything until the year 2085. Or they complain at the start how pushy the other sales people were that came to their home earlier.
To me when they do these types of things it shows me that they really don’t like the idea of having a sales person come to their home. You know the type you can tell they hate the whole idea of this. So step back and look at the big picture. They obviously don’t like the idea of a sales person coming to their home and yet they still set the appointment. They’ve had pushy sales people come to their home and they invite more over. To me that is big time buying sign because if they are willing to subject themselves to something they don’t like that it means that they really want the product. When you recognize this something you once hated becomes something you recognize as good. Once you get past the initial resistance you’ve got a sale waiting for you.
One Call Close Training Buying Sign #2 – Questions During the Close
The second buying sign happens when you are in the close. The buying sign is that people start asking questions. When they starting asking questions like in the close:” how soon can this be installed or what’s the interest rate on the financing” it means they are close to buying. The biggest one and means you are really close is the infamous “is this your best possible price”. In general it’s the last thing someone says before they agree to do it. When you start hearing buying signs like this it means you are close and after answering the questions it’s a great time to ask for the order.
One Call Close Training Buying Sign #3 – Complaints About Urgency or Today Discounts
The third buying sign that happens is if you have today discount or some way of creating urgency and the customer complains about it. “I feel like you are putting me on the spot.” “You mean if I call you back next week that I can’t get the same price.” “What if you didn’t have to come back and I went to the office to write this up?” The reason I call this a buying sign is that if they didn’t want it they wouldn’t be complaining about it. Doesn’t that make sense if they weren’t planning to buy why would they care if you offered a today discount. It’s the fact that they want to buy it that makes them complain because now they are put on the spot. It means you are closer than you think. The trick here is to get them away from arguing about the today discount but to the real issue of why they aren’t buying.
For example “ I understand what you are saying but regardless of whether we have this discount or not or what’s the real reason you just aren’t doing it?” Or if you want a more philosophical approach the close I like to use is this one. “If you don’t mind can I make an observation.” Sure Ron. “The reason you are feeling pressured is because your mind is telling you to do it but you are fighting it”.
Be sure you smile after you say that and you would be surprised how well it works. Just to clarify even though someone may not like something doesn’t necessarily make it bad or wrong. For example when I went renew my Office 365 subscription I originally only wanted to do it for one year. That’s until I saw the three year signup was way cheaper. Did it make me a little mad…make me feel like I was being sold….felt pressured to commit for longer than one year….absolutely. Did I like it? no Then I signed up for the three year subscription. :)
One Call Close Training Buying Sign #4 – The Biggest Sign of All: You’re There
The fourth buying sign is the biggest buying sign of all that every customer you see gives you. Are you ready..it’s that you are there. There is only one reason you are there and that’s because they are not happy with their current situation and they don’t have a valid solution. There is no other reason they would let a total stranger come to their home and give up their valuable time to ..and let’s call it for what it is. Let someone try to sell them something. When you understand that you won’t prequalify (think any lead is a waste of time) or get frustrated because you don’t understand that you really do have a valid opportunity, and the real issue is that you don’t recognize it or know how to handle it. They want to do something… all you have to do is sell them on the value of what you do and that your product will solve their problem. All leads suck equally the variable is the quality of the sales person. I hope these tips have given you more insight to what’s really happening in the home and help you make more money.
If you want to dig deeper into this topic check out my video on “Is This A Good Lead?” or check out the posts on one call closing.
Happy Selling!
