The Product Seminar

Every sales team will have a standout demonstrator. She is often the one with the most product knowledge.

Consider upgrading the product knowledge of your entire sales team to increase overall performance. Team up the top demonstrator with a site construction expert to organize a product seminar. Usually a superintendent is happy to spend a day with the "suits.” He can assist in coordinating major sub-trades to each make 30-45 minute presentations followed by questions.

Include framing, mechanical / HVAC, insulation, roofing, and your customer service manager on the "faculty." Manufacturers’ reps for flooring, appliances and plumbing fixtures are valuable at this training. Perhaps, also include the utility installers and landscapers.

I’ve found vendors will often provide exhibits, gifts, trinkets, or snacks.
The seminar should be at an active site so the trade partners can point to their components and provide tips and benefit language to the people who sell them. Use a finished home or model as the classroom. Use homes or sites under construction, as your laboratory. Remember, you will need hard hats, suitable clothing and footwear!
I recommend the training take an entire day, spaced by frequent breaks. Your traffic counts will determine which day is least harmful to close sites to prospects. Generally, it’s Friday. Have sandwiches sent in so that the trade-partners can have lunch with those who were previously considered prima donnas.

The confidence building in our salespeople will be obvious.

Immediately after a product seminar, I watched a sale made because the salesperson could tell a prospect that our homes had a safety clip on any widows that a child could reach. This protected against little ones opening a window and climbing out.
This was, in fact, a Code requirement, but was positioned as a benefit to the prospect. “It’s just another example of something that our builder cared enough to include. Have you seen any other new homes that do this?”

Another sales professional had learned her homes’ Richter rating from the framer. Being able to quote this was something her competitors could not do. Every prospect was given “our” Richter rating, followed by a question about what the ratings were at other communities. The sales asset would successfully position against used houses and the other builders whose salesperson had no similar knowledge!

The GE vendor showed how the top of a GE range could be opened with a baby finger and thus be easily cleaned. Probably all appliances can be lifted this easily, but isn’t it a powerful demonstration? The GE representative also encouraged the sales professionals to add more benefit language, pointing out that theirs was a “Pot Scrubber” dishwasher.

Invite representatives from accounts payable, forward planning, and purchasing to attend. You may be surprised at how much your own design center team may learn. What is the downside of inviting a preferred lender?

Be sure to thank all the participants and circulate an appreciation card for sales staff to sign and personalize to everyone who made a presentation. You might even prepare nice certificates of appreciation and have them framed. You may still see them years later on a vendor’s wall! It’s great goodwill at negligible cost.

And, if your salesperson ever needs a favor, a quick turnaround, or some third-party objective advice to a prospect, the trade partner or vendor will almost always oblige.