“If you want to sell what John Smith buys,
you've got to see the world through John Smith's eyes”
This old adage should be stuck on the screen of every marketer’s laptop. The ability to understand and empathise with the target audience is the bedrock on which every great creative concept is built. Our perception is our truth, but it’s not just visual inputs and signals that lay down the building blocks of a brand’s image. It is not just what John Smith sees that is important but also what he hears. Technical language and acronyms creep into every industry and housebuilding is no exception. It has a language all its own, but sometimes, sticking to the accepted script can make the content a bit mundane. Differentiation is crucial for brand stand out. Witness the way brands like Innocent Smoothies and Mutt Motorcycles have developed a language that reflects their personality and point of difference.
The words we use to entice, excite, and sell, are different to those we use for more functional tasks such as, say, Search Engine Optimisation. We exploit certain words in order to compete and stand out in a busy marketplace but need to utilise a different tone of voice to gain trust and build relationships with our customers. What you say and what your customer hears, must align. It must also chime with your visual content and the brand personality. It’s essential to use a language and style that make your readers feel comfortable and part of the ‘family’.
Whether you are aware of it or not, your choice of language has a huge impact on your ability to sell. Your conscious or unconscious use of vocabulary can make you seem infinitely trustworthy, alternatively, it can work against you. Successful use of language in sales is often learned by trial and error. Some of us have been lucky enough to stumble upon effective sales language and have developed the skill over time, others have been mentored.
You will almost certainly have enjoyed/endured sales training at some time in the past and been introduced to a whole variety of sales techniques. Crucially, experienced salespeople recognise that success comes not just from what you say and how you say it, but from listening and therefore establishing exactly what your potential buyer needs to hear; selling being the art of conversation, not just a pitch. I don’t want to fill this short blog with quotes, but one of my all-time favourites, and one worth remembering every time you sit down at the keyboard comes from the extraordinary Maya Angelou;
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Over the years, I have spent hours on the ‘phone carrying out mystery shops (yes, I am one of those people). Disappointingly, the majority of my call time is usually taken up by being bombarded with irrelevant information. Talking knowledgably and persuasively has no benefit if you do not know your caller’s ‘why’. What has driven them to make the call, to take the first (or second, or third) step on the buying journey; to convince a potential customer to commit to an appointment, view a brochure, visit the showhome, or to purchase, you need to tick their boxes, not yours.
The other thing sales people generally struggle to do, is say nothing – well for a moment or two at least. OK, last quote,
“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out”
Winston Churchill
I am frequently offered sales incentives that weren’t needed, probably cost the developer thousands but are of limited value to me; appointments I am not yet sure I wish to commit to and homes that don’t suit my requirements, timeframe, or budget.
Worse still, despite almost 35 years in the industry, I am starting to hear words and phrases that have no meaning or relevance to the average buyer. Homebuyers don’t dream about buying plots or plot-numbers, so those terms do not add value to your offer. How many times have you heard the phrase “people buy homes, not houses”? They especially don’t buy housetypes. It is true, and yet we allow this language to creep into our sales offices, web sites and marketing, undermining our value and detracting from the personal touch we pride ourselves on. Visit the websites of any of the top 10 housebuilders in the UK, and you’ll be hard pressed to find any non-customer facing language as they have spent considerable time and marketing budget ensuring that the language they use is the language their customers speak.
To find out is your sales teams are speaking the right language contact us at www.tfinsight.co.uk, or call on 07799 626942.
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