Creating Value Starts With YOU
The following is a guest post by Angela Irizzary one of our Aspire Multifamily Scholarship recipients.
It’s common knowledge that building rapport is one of the most important steps in any sales pitch. Without it, customers can’t make the connection between you, the leasing professional, and the product. Creating value starts with YOU and your ability to effectively build rapport. Are we really taking advantage of this major step in the sale?
I heard someone say “I hate (baseball team a), except so and so when he played for them because he was from my home town”. Why do they have such strong feelings about the team, but talk so highly of someone that played on it whom they’ve never even met? Most likely, it’s because of familiarity and the common bond. Even with objections or negative perception at first glance, a positive tone can easily take over if feelings of nostalgia, childhood or other strong roots are present.
My sales pitch always contains something to the effect of “what city are you from” or “where did you go to school”. I do this hoping they’ll answer: close to my hometown, somewhere my family lived, or even somewhere I have visited so I can create the elusive apartment leasing professional customer bond.
The beauty behind having something so simple in common is that people tend to buy based on emotion. Simply saying that you have the same style apartment or even that you wish you had “this AMAZING floor plan”, will pale in comparison to expressing your opinion of the community after making a deeper connection.
In an economy that leaves much to be desired and has more options than we know what to do with, creating an emotional bond with your customer is of utmost importance. That emotional bond is more valuable than a string of amenities they may care nothing about. Are you asking the right questions? Do you personalize your pitch? If not, I urge you to try it. Not only will you see an increase of happy customers renting your apartments, but you have already started creating roots for them. Once the roots are planted, resident retention rates are bound to increase.
Written by Angela Irizarry
“Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make.”-
William Bernbach
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