|
|
|
|
|
An Open Mind I’m glad you are here. You clicked through to my weekly report. If you read last week, you are expecting to learn more about lowering the costs of marketing, increasing sales, and having fun. I have a little story to tell you that you will enjoy, even if you didn’t read the last one. I know that you want a grin and to learn a little more and will feel comfortable reading this through. It’s worth your time. You can make up your mind when you get to the end. We were at dinner at Chili’s on our way home from an outing this week when my fourteen year old daughter, Elizabeth, turned to me and said, "Dad… I have something I want to ask you about, and I want you to have an OPEN MIND. Is that Okay?" I had never realized that I was raising a timeshare salesperson before that moment. It came out so naturally. It was a question that I had asked in some variation thousands of times. But this time, I wasn’t doing the asking. She was. And I knew what it meant. She’s been bringing up "Driver’s Education", "Learner’s Permit" and other "car talk" periodically. She knows she has to sell me. She’s growing up, and I know she’ll be driving sometime soon. But she still thinks she is going to need my permission or approval or something. It was amazing how I reacted to the words "…and I want you to have an OPEN MIND." I had an idea what the question was about when she asked. It was like a bear putting its foot in a steel trap. The instant it was uttered... my mind reacted. What does she really want? …Driving. No way. Not now. I want you to stay young a while longer. MIND CLOSED. Deflect the question. Delay the solution. So I said, "Sure, I’ll have an OPEN MIND." She asked if she could get her learner’s permit when she turns fifteen. I said whatever I needed to get the subject dropped, delayed, and taken off the table, at least for now. It was an "I’ll think it over" response. Definitely delay with a hint of agreement. As this was happening, I was simultaneously noticing the dynamic. It was amazing how quickly, and instinctively I knew what was going on, and what to do. When put on the spot, I turned into something familiar. I got slippery, very quickly. So quickly that the whole procession took about a minute, maybe less. I knew the question in advance. I know what asking for an OPEN MIND means. She wants to sell me something. The reaction is instinctive. It’s a real trick getting someone to have an OPEN MIND short of truth serum and a long needle. When our guests arrive for their presentation or tour, they know the question… "We want to sell you something". We’ve disclosed it to them fully. To get your gift, premium, discounted mini-vacation, or whatever, you are going to have to take a TIMESHARE PRESENTATION. Plenty of time on the way to rehearse the response. A big pact. What do we do when they arrive? Schmooze them. Soften them up. Ask them to have an OPEN MIND. But do they? If they react like I did to my daughter’s question, there is no way they have an OPEN MIND. Asking for it is like ringing a bell. Pavlovian response. Closed Mind. You’ve noticed that many times. You’ve wondered why, and worked to do something about it. Asking people for an OPEN MIND, along with Qualifying for a First Day Decision, is part and parcel of virtually every sales training. They are steps two and three of most conventional pitches, and are buried within the Intent statements of most of the hipper, more modern, consultative sales presentation styles of today. They come right after the Meet and Greet, and the Warm Up. And if your guests are anything like me, when the question is directly posed, the reaction is automatic, the mind closes instinctually, as a survival instinct, and the rest of the tour can be like walking the dead. Happily, not always. Most salespeople will tell you that they can sell over half of the people who walk in with an OPEN MIND, and they probably can. Luckily, the survival instincts of at least 20% to 30% of the people in the market are weaker than average. They don’t react to the question or request. They can honestly open their minds on request. The others react. Their real challenge is getting the guest to have the OPEN MIND, not just agree to have an OPEN MIND, just like my challenge of enticing you to read the whole piece. The payoff is at the end, and you want the payoff if you’ve come this far. The first paragraph of this article was a way of opening your mind to reading the whole piece. It is "presumptive". It makes certain assumptions about you and states them. Things I know about you if you made it to this page. You want more, you like to read. You are either a customer of our industry, a working professional in the industry, or part of a development team. Someone suggested that it was a good read. There is a reason you are here. The first lines rang true to you. We were on the same wavelength from the beginning, and you want to scroll at this pace that suits you. There is a reason that our guests show up for the tour. Yes, they may have made a blood oath not to purchase anything today. Yes, you need them to have an OPEN MIND, for them to feel comfortable enough to get to know you and buy from you. If you ask them for an OPEN MIND, you will most likely close it. You need a Mind Opener, that works like a can opener. A can does not need to agree for a can opener to work on it. Your guests need a different form of MIND OPENER than you are using. They don’t need to agree to have an OPEN MIND. Presumption is a tool that comes from NLP, neuro-linguistic programming. NLP was derived from the work of the late Dr. Milton Eriksen, the world’s foremost clinical hypnotherapist. Tools of NLP have been incorporated into many of the leading sales technologies being used by most other sophisticated sales industries. Presumption only works when you and your guest are in a state of "rapport". This is much different than the "rapport" that usually happens during the warm up, after the greeting. That rapport is making a friend and being a buddy. According to Eriksen, "Rapport" is a state of OPEN MINDEDNESS that happens when the parties in a communication agree on a very basic level, more basic than stated agreement. Like you may feel now. The most basic level available is the truth of the current moment. The guest walks in. They met the receptionist. They waited for a moment, or more. The drove into the resort and sales center a certain way. They saw certain things, much the way that you got to this moment, by reading my introduction, and my story about my daughter, possibly looking for the answer to last week’s riddle. The guest has certain perceptions, and undefined feelings. You do too. You know you are in an unusual situation. If you picture yourself exactly in the position of your guest, you will have the information you need to formulate a statement of obvious fact to use during your introduction with them. It creates a deeper state of rapport. The guest feels in an odd situation. If you can state something about their situation that is truthful, in the most basic and obvious way the instant of your first meeting, their MIND WILL OPEN…like magic. Just as yours has done while you read this. I didn’t need to ask. You don’t need to ask. If you practice, and do this well, you will have your OPEN MIND within 30-60 seconds of meeting your guest, during the MEET and GREET. That way you can spend your time together more productively for both of you. Once you have "rapport" with your guest, you will need more tools to pace your communications with them. Once you put these together, you will make more sales. More sales out of the same number of tours means a bigger check for you, and breathing room for your organization. All of a sudden my marketing programs start looking a lot better, and your developer is feeling good too. This gets us back to last week’s riddle of the week; What’s wrong with a half a point response that closes at 10%-12% at a cost of sale of 45% for a non-branded developer? A lot of things are working right and when you come back over the next few weeks, we’ll parley them into a notch or two higher efficiency for you. I asked about the 1990 out of 2000 who were marketed to that didn’t respond or show, and the 1999 out of 2000 who didn’t buy. What happens to them? To simplify the answer, our style of marketing repeatedly programs the target audience to respond when they think, believe or know they are capable of keeping their minds closed for 90 minutes during a presentation. The responder market takes this bet, and puts down their time. Less today than yesterday, at a higher cost to everyone in the industry. Hence our need to adapt and become our future. It’s a matter of survival. We program the market to think we are in a different business than we are actually in, and spend millions and billions to prove it by offering freebies and discounted getaways as our primary messages to the world. This happens repeatedly, by multiple sales organizations working the same universe of responder and compiled files over and over. A statistical few respond and cannot resist having an OPEN MIND, and end up buying despite our methods, techniques and tactics. To get the volume we need to sell out our projects and keep the investors happy, we crank up the message machine another notch using continuous mass marketing, purveying our direct response offers, not our products to this responder marketplace. This numbs the market, and never truly educates them about what our products can do for them. We never get to those who can resist a one time special offer. All of the "top" people in the direct marketing world recommend going for response, not direct sales, and we have listened to their advise. The guests operate on assumptions about our business based on our giveaways, not the reality of our product as a result. They walk in thinking we are in the "gifts for time" business or the "discounted mini-vacation" business. Most of our marketing dollars are spent to educate the prospect that is who we are. The trick to moving to the future is one that Bob Miller identified in the early 1990’s when Marriott Ownership Resorts was dealing with growth and laying the groundwork for its move to the future as Marriott Vacation Club International. "How do you change a tire while the car is rolling down the road?" The easy answer is to start with the right tires on the car, although if you’re already open you are rolling down the road. There are no easy answers. We’ll talk about some strategies and tactics next week. There are numerous projects and companies that have bucked the trends and begun to lower marketing costs. It takes having an OPEN MIND to new ideas for our business to ditch the exclusive "tour flow" model, and look for alternatives that can lower costs, increase sales velocity and enliven the marketplace. It takes some risk, but you have an open mind. Next week, you’ll find yourself clicking on Marc Saxe, The Saxe Report, because you want to understand more
about the business you are in, increasing sales and lowering costs, and becoming more willing to take some risks.
Others around you will wonder why you’re doing better, and you’ll mention it to them. You’ll reach me by email
at msaxe@resortopportunities.com. When you learn more about
OPENING MINDS, then you and your team will sell more. You’ll make more money. You might cure cancer. You will have
more fun. There’s more on the way, now that you have an OPEN MIND. |
|
More Saxe | Home Marc Saxe is the owner of Resort Opportunities, a sales and marketing services and consulting firm specializing in resort properties, vacation ownership, fractionals and club memberships. Marc has been in the industry since 1979 and has worked with Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Intrawest and more. Recently Resort Opportunities has provided marketing and sales consulting or services for the start-ups of The Manhattan Club, The Hyatt Mountain Lodge in Beaver Creek (for Integrated Marketing), Intrawest Resort Ownership in Palm Desert, California, The Grand Timber Lodge in Breckenridge, Colorado, and Cimarron Resort in Palm Springs, California. Email: msaxe@resortopportunities.com |
|
To report broken links or other problems with
this site please contact:
© The Timeshare Beat |