Headlines are tricky things.
They assert a mass opinion that everyone tends to believe as fact.
“Home Builder Confidence Drops,” is an example. It has been reported on all major news outlets this week.
Chances are that you’ve heard it. Your sales team has heard it. Your marketing team has heard it.
Your buyers have heard it.
How can home builders continue to build urgency with potential buyers in the face of negative headlines?
First, decide who is creating your reality. Is it you? Or is it a headline? Every action you take toward a positive result is 1,000 times more powerful than an opinion. Even if that opinion is reported by the Wall Street Journal, ABC News, and CNN.
Second, decide for yourself what success means to you today. Maybe you won’t sell five homes today or this month. What can you do? A new home sale is not built in one day. It is a series of smaller actions such as follow up calls, broker office visits, and more. What small actions can you take today? Are the headlines stopping you from taking them?
Third, keep your mindset on where you want to go, not the negative opinions about why you can’t. Your mindset is a collection of your thoughts. Are you waiting for the next positive headline to give you a reason to be motivated, confident, and believe that you will sell homes this month?
Last, understand what you’re up against. Not the economy or the administration or the latest housing news, but what you are really up against. We are still an industry that fails to follow up on new web leads more than 50% of the time. Fewer than 10% of new home sales professionals follow up more than once. How hard is it – really – for you to provide excellent service to a potential homebuyer in that environment? Service that builds trust and wins the sale?
Don’t let the “the tax credit ended and now there’s nothing but doom” sentiment stop you from focusing on the opportunities today, right now, for your next sale.
Make your own headlines about why home builder confidence is up – way up – at your new home community. Then broadcast it through your own news outlets: follow up calls, email marketing, Facebook posts, Twitter updates, online PR, Craigslist ads, broker outreach, in your sales meetings and sales offices.
In the face of negative headlines, silence doesn’t sell houses. Let’s go out and make our own headlines this week.
