”`Everybody knows they would like to avoid salespeople. They`ll bend over backwards to get out the door and miss one.”
Home builder Dick Randall
Patricia Lemberg traipsed through the snow into the brush on Lot 204 with a middle-aged couple. She tried as best she could to describe the view that they would have from their imaginary family room.
It didn`t make it any easier that the townhouse in question was not even off the drawing board, with room dimensions undetermined. Nor did it help that the model unit was still under construction, making a walk-through an exercise for both mind and body.
In an inspection-laden and question-filled three hours and five minutes, Patricia Lemberg`s Saturday afternoon had disappeared. And so, too, had the couple–closer, perhaps, to being residents of Lake Barrington Shores but as yet unwilling to sign the dotted line.
Adding the early morning switchboard duty and the noontime brochure packaging and the oft-repeated pitching, an entire sunny, cold February day had vanished.
But Sundays are even busier.
Welcome to the world of Patricia Lemberg. And Nick Ruderman, Barbara Henriksen and William Hill. Welcome to the world of new home sales.
”It can be a fabulous way to make a living,” Ruderman said. ”But you have to have the patience of a saint.”
No longer a matter of draping some streamers outside a subdivision entrance and watching eager buyers flock in, selling new houses has evolved into a complicated and exacting business that requires pinpoint marketing and precision accounting.
”Today is probably the epitome, as typical a day as you`d find for a salesperson,” Lemberg said as the office closed and she headed for some after-hours paperwork. ”It`s hard because after you`ve given your spiel 35 times, that one buyer comes in that you know is serious and you have to be fresh with all that pizazz again.”
In many ways, selling houses is no different from selling anything else. The same casual browsers, curious neighbors and certified buyers who might frequent any mall or garage sale also turn out to shop for houses.
But the one difference is a big one. For the people who set out to buy a new house, it will be the most expensive purchase almost every one of them will ever make.
”You have to realize that all the people who can afford to buy the houses we have for sale already live somewhere anyway. We have to create the need for them to move to a project,” said Roger Holloway, a California builder who served on a national panel looking at housing trends.
The panel of 100 builders, architects and interior designers was asked last year to predict what would influence housing in the next decade. One of its top conclusions: Builders expect a significant improvement in the industry`s salesmanship.
”It gets down to competition,” said Bill Davidson, a San Diego builder. ”It`s going to get stiffer and builders are going to have to use more merchandising.”
Builders predicted a variety of training methods would be used, including college course and in-house staff instruction, to increase the sales skills of employees.
”The industry will be selling lifestyle fulfillment, not houses, and builders will have to improve their understanding of the importance of interiors and the emotions aroused by interiors,” according to the study, conducted by the Color Design Art of California.
Despite such romanticizing, builders still must rely on the old-fashioned sales ability of their employees to close deals. A day at the sales center of Lake Barrington Shores, a $200 million townhouse and condominium development near northwest suburban Barrington, provides a case in point.
Sales of new units at Lake Barrington Shores are handled by Lemberg, Ruderman and Henriksen. Hill is director of sales and marketing for the project, which means he oversees the others and acts as a liaison with the developers and contractors.
The sales job is made tougher because competition comes not just from other projects, but from resales within Lake Barrington Shores itself. Unlike a traditional subdivision, Lake Barrington Shores is a long-term planned unit development where the first houses went up more than a decade ago. Nearly three-quarters of the proposed 1,360 units are completed.
Also hamstringing sales people is the continuing changeover in models. Like new car manufacturers, designers at projects like Lake Barrington Shores find they must constantly update products to appeal to today`s buyers. Lake Barrington Shores this spring will introduce six new townhouse and condominium units, for the first time replacing the entire current model line.
If those distractions seem confusing, they haven`t affected sales. In the first 38 days of 1986, 27 units were sold. Most of the model units have been sold and only a handful of units built on speculation remains.
”I guess we`re working backwards,” Hill said. ”Here we`re going to have a big spring for home buying (with interest rates down) and I don`t have any product left because I sold it all in December.”
The parade of homeseekers entering the sales center is treated to a vision of what life could be like at Lake Barrington Shores. Cross-country skiing, golf, biking and jogging around the lake, tennis, sailing and fishing are all part of the appeal of the project.
A scale replica of the 520-acre development sits in the middle of the entry to acquaint newcomers with the site (and more than once to provide children a place to jump from during the initial part of the sales pitch).
The approach of the three sales people is low-key. Nobody pounces on the unprepared house hunters the instant they are through the door, but someone appears reasonably quickly with brochure and registration card in hand.
The cards–which ask respondents their name, address, phone number and how they learned of the project–are an integral part of the salesperson`s duty. They not only allow for followup calls on the less hectic weekdays, but also provide marketing specialists with valuable consumer information.
The pace is irregular. No one may show up for hours on end, and then four or five couples will converge at once. A cloudy February Saturday saw just nine prospects, while a crisp day a week later saw nearly two dozen.
Each of the three sales people has a slightly different delivery, but essentially each homeseeker in the first encounter gets a brief history of Lake Barrington Shores and a short description of the products and amenities offered.
Then the ”suspects,” as they are referred to, are allowed to roam the adjoining models at their leisure and invited back to the sales center if they have any questions they want answered.
Because the models and sales center have been reconfigured over the years, there is no longer a ”trap” that forces the ”suspects” to exit through the sales center. Rather, they are free to wander away if their interest is not aroused by the models.
That low-key approach is pleasant–and necessary. The sales people realize there is no need to concentrate time and effort on unqualified buyers, those who cannot afford the $120,000 to $280,000 base pricetag on the units.
Although there have been buyers walk in and plop down the cash for a unit after one trip through the models, it is the return visitors, some on their fifth or sixth trips, that heighten the sales person`s anticipation.
”That couple, they`re a return from last summer,” said Lemberg, explaining the extra effort taken earlier with the husband and wife from Mt. Prospect. ”They want to live here eventually, but I don`t want it to be a year or two from now. You know it`s getting difficult when they start talking about leaving their old house. They have a lot of memories there and none here and that`s where the psychology of reinforcement comes in.”
The reinforcement comes from the other sales people and from Hill, who often is called upon to answer questions that are either too specific or too abstract for the sales people. A home buyer who is ready to talk over blueprint changes or decorating ideas–or wants to know what the long-range development scheme is–is in the latter stages of the sale, the point where all the previous work of the salesperson looks like it will return a dividend. ”I know it`s exhausting, going through it all,” Lemberg said. ”It`s exhausting for them (the buyers), too, with all they have to think about. But the payoff will be good, real good.”
