Small minds don’t generate big business. To grow your business, you need to think big. Really big. Widen your view. Expand your vision. And you diversify and multiply your options. It’s not about how much money you invest but how much quality time you put into growth.
Broaden your vision.
Brendon Burchard said, “I will not let my small business make me small minded.
Instead of thinking within very tight, well-defined boundaries, think bigger. Go where no one else is going.
There is a myth-conception that says it takes money to make money. This implies that you must start with a lot of money to make a lot of money. If that were really true, how could Steve Jobs, David Oreck, Bill Gates, Rachel Ray and countless others have succeeded? They had very little seed money. And they didn’t let the lack of cash limit their success.
Jobs founded Apple with $1,300. Ross Perot founded Electronic Data Systems with $1,000. Adolf Coors invested $2,000 to form Coors Brewing Company, one of the largest in the world.
Michael Dell, a pre-med student, started his computer company with $1,000 in his dorm room, then dropped out of college at age 19 to build it. Through his foundation, Dell has donated $100 million to the University of Texas at Austin, the college where he never completed his education.
In 1978, John Mackey and Rene Lawson borrowed $45,000 from friends and family to open a small natural foods store in Austin, Texas, called SaferWay. You might know it better by its eventual name, Whole Foods Market.
Young newlyweds Ruth and Elliot Handler started a business in their garage in 1945, making picture frames and using the scraps from those frames to manufacture doll furniture. The company was known as Mattel Creations and expanded to become the top toymaker in the world, Mattel. Ruth designed the Barbie doll in 1959, inspired by watching her daughter dressing paper dolls and realized that actual dolls were limited to babies. She saw an opening in the market…and filled it,
In 1995, in Pierre Omidyarʼs living room, he wrote the technical code for an online auction site. Pierre launched Auction Web on Labor Day, 1995. Two years later, he changed the company’s name to eBay. Within three years, it was ranked number 326 on the Fortune-500 list of companies.
Two teachers and a writer—who met while attending the University of San Francisco—invested $1,350 each in 1971 to open a coffee bean store in Seattle. In 1987, the founders sold the company, Starbucks, to their former marketing director, Howard Schultz. And you know the rest.…
Are you allowing the lack of money to hold you back? How badly do you want to succeed? Are you ready to open up your mind and think bigger?
Be resourceful.
Each one of these small business owners proved that you donʼt need unlimited resources to succeed. You just need unlimited resourcefulness. That means being creative and diligent about dealing with obstacles and managing objections. You don’t take “No” as an end but as a cue to move in a different direction.
A resourceful new home sales professional doesn’t just sit in the sales center and wait for people to walk in. They drive traffic, brainstorming and collaborating with the marketing team to explore new tactics. They don’t rely on “the way we’ve always done it” because these sales pros know that the same old thing isn’t going to deliver different results.
Big businesses are grown by people who prove they have the resourcefulness to grow small companies.
Being resourceful means making the most of the time, energy, money, connections, health, talents, passions, and other assets you have. Use them to overcome obstacles, to find overlooked clients, to achieve over-the-top results and to overtake your competition by envisioning success where others see failure.
In her book, New Market, New You, my friend Ronda Conger quotes Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance:
“Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month. But for years and working really hard to make that future a reality.”
Are you thinking too small?
Most new home sales professionals are like small business owners. They are alone in a model, responsible for all the sales activity for that community.
And they need to think like a business owner—about lead generation, conversion, and other KPIs that determine success. New home sales professionals should recognize the need to keep training, to strengthen their skills, like negotiation and sales presentation. Improve the ability to ask the right questions, to actively listen to a buyer, and to cultivate trusted relationships that lead to sales and referrals. If your chosen career is new home sales, you need grit and resourcefulness. Do you have enough of both?
When you’re sitting in your model without a customer present, think about how you can generate big business.
- Contact buyers who didn’t buy. If they bought elsewhere, why not from you? If they’re not yet ready, why not?
- Keep learning. Education never stops unless you let it. Read books and articles, listen to podcasts and TED Talks, catch up on recordings for all those webinars you registered for but didn’t attend.
- Reconnect with previous buyers. Ask how they like their home, the neighborhood, and if there are any particular features that really matter. Send a note on their birthday, anniversary, or any special occasion. Remember, your best source of referrals is your past customers.
- Dig into your CRM. Scroll through your notes to look for opportunities to communicate with people in your database. If you haven’t stayed up-to-date on your CRM, use your available time to make the most of it! Enter notes, dates, reminders, and ideas.
- Network. Connect with new home sales professionals in different markets. Talk about what works and doesn’t work. Follow sales leaders on social media, and be sure you post for yourself. Also, keep adding contacts to your lists.
- Review your metrics. Where can you improve? Where can you increase your lead generation? Be honest with yourself. Then seek training to get better.
For starters, here are 8 ways you can be a better sales professional.
Stop stagnating. Think bigger. Be resourceful. Need a boost? Sales training? I’m here.
