 |
What Makes Selling to the Senior Buyer Different? Tips for Success in the Active Adult MarketBy Tracy Lux Selling to the active adult market can come as quite a shock to the professional used to working with the traditional buyer. Market-rate real estate decisions are usually based on a life-changing event that creates urgency or need. When the new baby arrives or a spouse is transferred to another state, buyers are under pressure to make a commitment in a fairly short amount of time. No so with the mature buyer looking to downsize from an empty nest or considering retirement. This buyer may visit a community a dozen times and in the process bring friends and family members, usually adult children, to weigh in on the decision. The active adult buyer can spend up to five years collecting data from numerous new-home communities, often in more than one area of the country. The challenge for the salesperson in the mature market is to create such an exciting buying and selection process for the customer that the thrill of owning a new home in that community makes the buying commitment attractive and inevitable. How does a salesperson create that magic?
Often, it is the salesperson from a totally different background who is best able to create this kind of excitement for the mature homebuyer. Leslie Rothschild, a salesperson at Centex’s active adult community Venetian Falls in Venice, Florida likens the motivation needed to sell to the mature buyer to her stint in professional theater—no matter how many times she played a role, it was always new to each new audience. Leslie says, “As every new customer comes through the door I need to look at them and think, ‘It’s Showtime!’” This attitude is especially helpful when the prospect comes back over and over again. In addition to working in the theater, Leslie worked for the well known and highly successful women’s apparel retailer Chico’s, whose marketing and sales strategies are legendary. She learned there that the relationship was a secret to success. In that setting, “It wasn’t just selling a scarf or a blouse—it was creating the whole picture by selling the whole outfit.” She observes when she now sells to active adult buyers, “It’s about creating a whole lifestyle.” Leslie’s regional director of sales and marketing David Lepow affirms the wisdom of his decision to hire a person with a background like Leslie’s. David says, “You don’t need to go to the traditional areas to find a really good salesperson because in this case, taking a person from traditonal new home sales means possibly having re-program them.” Building an emotional bond David feels that one of the keys to successful selling to the mature buyer and an approach he emphasizes in his training is the use of emotion-laden words that make people feel a certain way. For example salespeople can build rapport by using phrases such as, “Share with me….” With the mature home buyer, who has product and price information firmly in mind, rather than discussing price and features, salespeople should ask continually what is most important to the buyer to discover the real motivation in seeking a new home or new living experience. As rapport grows from intensive information gathering, the decision to buy will be driven by the customer’s “liking to do business with a person they like.” Persistence and perseverance With most areas of the country experiencing a downturn in the housing market, a salesperson has to work hard for every sale, meaning persistence and perseverance matter. For many salespeople the amount of time needed to stay in touch with a mature homebuyer prospect through continual follow up can seem overwhelming. When hiring it is very important to emphasize the need for extensive phone follow up. Many times we hear salespeople complain, “There is absolutely nothing to talk about. I have given them all of the price incentives, told them about new models, announced new phases and invited them to events at the clubhouse….What more can I say?” Building on the rapport developed and information gathered in the early stages of the relationship, conversations may be as simple as finding out how they enjoyed their recent cruise, when their sister-in-law will be back to visit the community with them or just inquiring about how the poodle’s surgery went. Managing the prospect However, this type of ongoing contact requires managing the valuable resource of time. Unlike the younger buyer, the 55+ prospect usually has a time on his hands and is happy to spend time on the phone, returning to the sales office with friends, neighbors and family and generally hanging around the “new best friend” salesperson who may have built up too much rapport. Cynthia Campbell who has worked at the highly successful community of Traditions at River Oaks in Paso Robles, California was shocked to find out how much time was taken by return and repeat-visit prospects. She reports that the key to managing the client was setting boundaries. Once a sale was in progress Cynthia began her follow-up phone calls by saying “This should take us about a half an hour.” Dick Willhoit, developer of River Oaks, provided a state-of-the-art information center with a virtual reality tour available to prospects very early in the pre-marketing process. The virtual tour and digital design center was so popular that boundaries had to be set there, as well. Prospects came back numerous times, brought their friends (very good for the referral process) and were inclined to spend hours designing their new homes. Sales staff had to limit prospect time at the design stations to keep buyers focused on the decision-making process instead of the “tourist attraction” the virtual tour turned out to be. Value-added service Another key to success for Cynthia was to not only meeting client expectations by finding out what “the lifestyle” meant to them but also exceeding expectations by providing extra information. Cynthia acknowledges that the active adult buyer is an “information junkie.” She provided lists of services in the area that included medical, veterinary, trades people, interior designers, etc. She also kept a list of who had used the services and sent new prospects to meet a neighbor who had used the provider and could recommend. Cynthia thus created a network that helped alleviate the anxiety of this “big move” through shared experiences and, coincidentally, helped to consummate the sale. Demographically targeted features More and more developers are building Universal Design features into their active adult homes. These features, which were formerly called "handicapped accessible" are now many times referred to as “designs for easy living.” The features include such things as wider doorways, raised counter heights and dishwashers, levered door handles and enhanced task lighting just to name a few. Although these wonderful features allow the mature buyer to “age in place,” the difficulty for the salesperson comes in the presentation. It is not diplomatic to say,” I see you are getting up in years and will probably have a difficult time bending over to get into your cabinets soon.” Instead we might say, “Please notice these pullout shelves in the kitchen cabinets. These have been especially designed to make using some of those platters we tuck away and can’t get to easier to reach. Does that feature sound like something that might appeal to you?” A complete training program will help the sales staffs learn to sell all the wonderful Universal Design features available. The more comfortable the staff becomes with presenting these features, the closer they come to distinguishing their product from others on the market. The benefits to the developer or builder are twofold. First Universal Design helps to set your homes apart from other competitors and gives you a unique selling premise (USP). Second, it increases you ability to sell more options and upgrades to your buyer, thereby increasing your profit. Demographically targeted selling Another training program that will improve selling skills for the staff is a short course in sensitivity to changes in the senior physiology. In this program several interactive exercises simulate the aging process. One of these glasses that mimic the effect of reduced vision that are used to look at images (type size, colors and graphics) that a mature person might encounter during the sales experience. Other exercises help demonstrate what seniors feel when walking on changing surfaces, such as “carpet to tile” and how different types of seating affect the aging body. This knowledge will change the way a builder merchandises the models, designs sales displays and most importantly structures the sales contract. Both Leslie and Cynthia report that various training programs of this nature have enhanced their sales effectiveness. Cynthia tells a story in which a new buyer’s name seemed familiar. As she probed deeper, she found out that she had sold a new home to the mother of a woman who had posed as a mystery shopper. Her sales skills impressed the pro so much that she referred her mother to the community. Keeping each presentation fresh and staying energized is key. To stay motivated, each morning Leslie puts on a tape and listens to the song “All Star” from the movie Shrek: Hey now you’re an All Star get your game on, go play It works for Leslie. She is still selling eight to ten units a month in off-season in Florida in a downturn market. And it works for Cynthia, who managed to keep all the 350 people in line for 250 home sites happy until the community was sold out.
Tracy Lux, President of Trace Marketing, Inc., has been involved in marketing to the senior housing industry for over 20 years. Trace Consulting Group (TCG) is a full service marketing firm that specializes in market research, strategic planning, advertising, public relations and mystery shopping, as well as executive search and sales training programs, all targeting the mature market and senior housing industry.
Back to articles |
Non-traditional sales backgrounds