PODCAST | S2, Ep. 6: Demonstrating the Home | Condo Artist: The Other Side of Real Estate - LV Luxury Condos | High-Rise Condominiums To Own In Las Vegas
NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY IN VEGAS
Ranked #1 U.S. housing market in 2018 by Realtor.com
ONE LAS VEGAS

PODCAST | S2, Ep. 6: Demonstrating the Home | Condo Artist: The Other Side of Real Estate

 

You’ve qualified your condominium buyer prospects. You’ve taken them on the physical path of presentation throughout the community, and now you’re at the door to a home – possibly their next home. What do you do?

 

In season 2, episode 6 of Condo Artist: The Other Side of Real Estate, condo sales and marketing experts Uri VakninShahn Douglas and Mark Bunton take you though the exact steps of demonstrating a condominium home.

 

They start with the four things a condo demonstration should accomplish, which are:

 

  • Make your buyers feel important
  • Obligate the customers to you
  • Allow objections to surface
  • Point out features that demonstrate the value of the home

 

Next they explain how to maintain control of the demonstration at all times, use “features, benefits, emotion” talk, and even where to physically place yourself in each room of the home. At the end of this episode, you’ll understand how to get your customers to identify their “one and only” home, which is what you need to close the deal.

 

 

This episode is brought to you by Juhl Las Vegas, loft-style condos located in the heart of vibrant, downtown Las Vegas. From the low $200s to over $1M. Learn more at JuhlLV.com.

 

This episode is also brought to you by One Las Vegas, luxury high-rise condos featuring two and three bedroom plus den residences. From the mid $400s to over $1M. Learn more at theonelv.com.

 

Subscribe to Condo Artist: The Other Side of Real Estate on Apple PodcastsSpotify, and Google Podcasts.

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Uri Vaknin  00:00

In the last episode, we got to the door of the home, right? And now it’s time to really demonstrate the home. And this is where I will say 99% of people who sell real estate fail, fail flat on their face. Because, you know, the key to demonstration is that this is where the selling happens. This is where the real selling happens. And this has to be done right, right?

Uri Vaknin  00:45

Welcome to another episode of Condo Artist: The Other Side of Real Estate. I’m your host, Uri Vaknin, a condo sales strategist who has developed and sold out 1000s of condos in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Florida, Detroit, Texas, Nashville, and all across the United States. Each week I along with my co hosts and colleagues Mark Bunton and Shahn Douglas, will bring you the latest insights, best practices and sales techniques to sell out more condos faster no matter the market. At times, we will delve into architecture, design and urban planning as they pertain to condos and condo living. I am an admitted podcast junkie. But in our search for podcasts about condos, we all realize that there really weren’t any out there. Throughout the series, you will get to know more about me, Shahn and Mark and our 53 years of combined experience in the world of condos. And one of the things that has become glaringly obvious to us is that most people, including real estate agents, buyers, architects, and even condo developers don’t fully understand condos. This podcast won’t hold back the curtain on the world of condos.

Uri Vaknin  02:02

Welcome to another episode of Condo Artist: The Other Side of Real Estate. Today’s topic is demonstration or demonstrating a home demonstration time Come on. Okay, I won’t sing. I think I think we may lose listeners if I sing. But this is actually a follow up to our last episode on it’s showtime or presentation. You know, in the last episode, we got to the door of the home, right. And now it’s time to really demonstrate the home. And this is where I will say 99% of people who sell real estate fail, fail flat on their face. Because you know, the key to demonstration is that this is where the selling happens. This is where the real selling happens. And this has to be done. Right. So let’s back which back up a little bit. What Why is demonstration so important? One, it accomplishes a bunch of things. And those things are it makes our customers or prospects or buyers feel important. Why does that make them feel important? Because we’re actually taking the time to show them what we have. You know, I’ve been to so many communities, whether condo communities or single family home communities, where they will literally tell you where the models are, and just let you willy nilly go look them by yourself. Or they’ll have a floor where all the models are and just you know, you just sort of wander around and look at them. Which then we can go into a very, you know, a whole very long episode as to why that is wrong. That’s an episode on its own. But we’re gonna really focus on demonstration time. And the other thing it does, it obligates the customers to you. It obligates them to be engaged with you because what you’re doing is you’re saying you are important to me. You are mop feeding them, which we’ve talked about my favorite the past it’s make other people feel important. demonstration is one of the number one ways where you can make the buyer feel that they’re important because you are taking the time to show them the home to show them the features and benefits of the home which we’re going to talk about more. But also why is demonstration so important, because it allows objections to surface because if you’re not with them demonstrating the home, you don’t hear what their objections are. And what what our objections. You know, for a lot of people objections cause anxiety. I love objections, because objections mean that they’re interested objections are the buyers way to try to Get themselves convinced themselves not to buy the home. But it really means that they’re interested. Because otherwise they’re not really going to raise objections. And I mean real objections, realistic objections. And so it’s also during this demonstration with the objections, it’s your time to respond to the objections, and to handle the the objections. And then once you’ve handled the objections, that natural progression from there is a closing. So that is so key. And then what demonstration also does, which is really important is that it points it gives you the ability to point out the features to prove the value of the home. So this is also when the real selling is done during this process of the demonstrate the demonstration. So, conceptually, what are we trying to demonstrate to our buyers, three things, the features and benefits that are particularly tempting and outstanding to the buyer, because in the sale center, we should have learned their hot buttons. And so now it’s our time to demonstrate those hot buttons, right? We want to also demonstrate the features that the competition does not have. Because if we’re good at what we do, we know the competition. And so this is our time to demonstrate, William, thank you so much for you know, you being here at the Ashby and I know you said having an open concept kitchen was really important to you. And from you know what you said to me, you know about having gone to the that the whatever the name of the building is, you know, the the babbington building, they don’t have open content for plans like this home does. And so differentiation is critical during demonstration, it is critical. And then we have to demonstrate the features and benefits that we know will appeal to their hot buttons, which is the real reason why they want to buy and we want to get them down to their unique and one and only home. The whole purpose of demonstration is to help identify the one and only because we can’t sell to them, if we don’t get their one and only right. So 90% of the reason why people buy is emotional, they get emotionally involved, and I don’t care if they’re even investors, I have seen investors get emotionally involved. And the emotion part is done during this demonstration.

Uri Vaknin  07:44

So we effectively demonstrate our product in an emotional way. It’ll be direct proportion to our success in selling to them. So demonstration is definitely key. So remember when we were back at the front door, and after we’ve taken them through the physical path of selling through the building, and we’re at the front door. This is where I like to kind of build them up. You know, Mr. Mrs. buyer, you know how you mentioned to me that you wanted an open concept floor plan, how you want to to home with a large balcony, how you want to a kitchen with a coarse countertop, how you wanted a a Western exposure, because you love you know, having the sun in the evening and watching the sunset. This home, Mr. Mrs. buyer has all those things. And I’m so excited to show them to you now. And so what do we do at this point? Do we open up the door? And we let the buyer just walk in? No, we’re not courteous. We’re not polite. nor are we courteous in our demonstration. And why is that?

Shahn Douglas  08:59

So want to stay in control of the demonstration.

Uri Vaknin  09:03

Right, exactly picking up where we left off. In our last episode, which was presentation, we talked a lot about maintaining control of the sales process. And this is such a key component of the sales process the demonstration that here more than ever, we need to maintain control. And what happens when you open up the door and let them walk in front of you. Where do they go? There’s no talent. Exactly. There’s no telling where they’re gonna go. And your entire like every component of you know from the moment they walk in that fail center to the moment they close, you need to be in control. And so what I like to do is that what I like to do with what I do and what we all do is when we opened up that door, we are having them follow us on a very specific path. And that path is very key. The path that we plan out for them is based on what we heard from them that what their requirements were from T.I.R.E, Mark TIRE, what tire tire is timing, investment requirement and experience. Exactly. And to our listeners, you are going to hear us in almost every episode talk about tire, because tire is so key, that is the critical path to fails. Obviously, now we’re talking about the physical path to sales. But you know, the requirement is so key. So here we want to talk about the requirements. But also, hopefully at this point, we have learned their hot buttons. So during the demonstration, we also want to base our pre or demonstration of the home on their requirements. And they’re hot buttons. But there’s another thing that we have to keep in mind. Things about the home, because if we let them wander, Mark, what happens? You lose control, you lose control. And Shahn, you know, in preparing for this podcast, you said where you remember Northstar Yacht Club and we always talk about Northstar Yacht Club, we learned a lot from Northstar Yacht Club, and I love talking about this with this demonstration is we had a for planning prior to bringing North our Yacht Club in North Fort Myers onto the market. I walked every single home to price downs. And several months later, we had you know, our agents call us and say or sales specialists call us and say, Hey, we’re having a really hard time with floor plan, you know, with the oh eight stack, and no one wants to buy it. I’m like why I bet it was an incredible floorplan with great views. Well, you know, the home overlooks Northstar Yacht Club was next door to a beautiful boat dock. And that was the whole naming of the places where you could have your yacht and so forth. And yes, next door was an old beat and kind of doc and doc house. And it had a tin roof. And just as the B 52. sang it, tin roof rusting

Shahn Douglas  12:27

that salt air will do that, won’t it?

Uri Vaknin  12:29

It will. And so they were like it looks down on this horrible rusted tin roof. So what I did with with our sales specialists was I said, Show me how you demonstrate the home. And they walk in the home and out the window of the living room. If you look down eight stories, you could see the 10 roof. But that wasn’t where the balcony was. And it was where the living room was. And what do you do in a living room?

Shahn Douglas  13:02

You sit down on the couch and live.

Uri Vaknin  13:05

Exactly. So I got into a sitting position. And I looked out the window and I’m like, Wow, what a beautiful view of the entire River. I didn’t see a tin roof rusted. But I said you know what? To feel specialist, I said, Let me demonstrate down for you. I’m the lead. And you be the buyers. And so we go to the front door. And I say Mr. Mrs. buyer, remember how you said you liked what your dream was to have a sunrise and sunset view how you went did have a beautiful balcony that overlooks the river, how you wanted, you know, a gorgeous open concept floor plan, you know, with a great kitchen and a big great room. So what I said this home has it all. So I opened up the door, and I literally took my arms out and spread them out. So I guided physically guided their direction, and I took them straight back or straight out to the balcony. I opened up the balcony door with such excitement, enthusiasm. And I put one arm to the left, which was the sunset sunrise view. And I put one arm to the right, which was a sunset view. And then I sang the song from Fiddler on the Roof, sunrise, sunset, sunrise sunset, and they kind of looked at me like I was crazy. But they’re like, Oh my gosh, this has a beautiful view. And then our sales specialists looked at me and said, we got it already. We understand. And I explained to them. I said don’t shy away from it because eventually you’re right. They are going to see tin roof rusted, but I said you know, then I took them into the living room. And I said remember this is your beautiful living room in the open console. Got the great room. And I said, Imagine sitting down here and looking out and seeing the entire River. And so what I did was I controlled, I demonstrated how they were going to live in the home and what their view would be. Yes, eventually, they would stand up, go against the window, look down eight storeys, and see the tin roof rusted. But that’s not what they’re gonna think about because of how I demonstrated the home. And so that was really key.

Shahn Douglas  15:39

This podcast is sponsored by One Las Vegas, luxury high rise condos, featuring two and three bedroom plus den residences, starting from the low four hundreds, located on South Las Vegas Boulevard, just minutes from Allegiant Stadium, McCarran International Airport, and the famous Las Vegas Strip. Discover your own private Oasis with unparalleled amenities, including resort Pool and Spa, full service concierge to story, state of the art fitness center, tennis court, dog parks, plus much more, visit us online today at theonelv.com or call us at 702-405-9020. Call One Las Vegas home today.

Uri Vaknin  16:35

So let’s talk about some key points, you know, in demonstrating a home what you do and what you don’t do. So first of all, you’re there to build value, you’re there to build value for the home, you’re there to, to, to prove the price point that you’re selling this home at. You want to highlight its subtleties and validate the price. You want to make it exciting and emotional. This is someone’s home. We just said 90% of why people buy is emotional. Well, you know, my demonstration of the home? Yes, I took it next level by singing. And I’m a horrible singer. And I know that and pleased with our listeners. Don’t keep on listening. I won’t sing anymore.

Shahn Douglas  17:16

Delphi is still by his upcoming album.

Uri Vaknin  17:22

album. I guess it’s a long play. But so what your real goal is with the demonstration is to get the buyer moved in, right? You want them to physically move there see themselves in the space. And you could tell by their body language, if you know they like the floor plan, you know, in their ways to get them moved in is like when you’re you know, if they’re their kids, you could say whose bedroom Will this be? You know, and where you could take you can’t you imagine you talked about you went Did you know The open the great room with the open concept kitchen? Isn’t this you know exactly what you wanted? And you never asked that question unless you know the answer is going to be yes. Because the purpose of demonstration is Getting to Yes. And getting to a bunch of little yeses, because a little yeses be to a big close, right. But so you want to listen to the prospect. But even more importantly, what do you want to do is you want to look at their body language. I always tell my buyers that I knew when which home they were going to buy because I could tell by their body language. I didn’t listen to them sometimes. I mean I listen to their their their objections, but I would focus in on their body language because it’s almost like their body sort of like they aspirate, they kind of relax a you could see their arms open up, they look around and excitement. And so you know you you want to really hone in on that. And then you know once you the whole idea of moving them in is because once they start thinking of themselves in this space, they’ll own the space which means they’ll buy the space. So one of the things you also want to do is prepared the the prospect for any challenges when demonstrating a home An example would be a really small second bedroom right? But if you did your homework in the sale center during your tire your timing investment requirements and experience your qualifying time, you’ll and they said to you you know that the second bedroom was just for either a home office that they may use or for guests that may come but they were really focused on the great room and the master bedroom you may say you know just as you said you wanted was the large bedroom and the great room you know this home has all that and you know the second bedroom you know all of the size is in those rooms which was really important to you. And so the second bedroom is much more efficient bedroom So you want to prepare them. And you don’t want to shy away from challenges, right? Right, you want to kind of, you know, build up, you know, obviously, for every rule that we present here, there are exceptions, like when I took the buyer straight out to the balcony, that’s not something you would always want to do. But you want to do it, if their number one thing was that they wanted to have that sunrise sunset view of the river, and that balcony demonstrated that. And so that’s why that case, I took them straight out there. And then that, you know, overcame any of the other issues, that there may be around views, like looking down on the tin roof rusted of the dock house, when you demonstrate the home, you know, obviously, all the things that we talked about where you want to keep that in mind, and you want to, you know, really feature the main spaces at first. But then what you do want to do is then you want to go back, and really highlight things like if there’s a whole closet, if there is a pantry, it’s there’s a side by side, you know, large laundry room, if you’ve got a stackable, you want to demonstrate how it’s not great for a full size stackable, and how it’s great for saving space, you know, so you could have all that square footage in areas that you really need it. So you don’t want to shy away from those things. But the key is, is really demonstrating every component of the home.

Uri Vaknin  21:25

So one of the things you also really need to do when demonstrating is be very cognizant of where you physically stand in the home, when you demonstrate, you never, you absolutely never stand in the middle of the living room, or stand in the middle of the bedroom. Because what you’re doing for the buyer by doing that is literally visually cutting that space in half. What I like to do is I like to leave the buyer, you know, at one end, and then I walk to the other end. And almost you know, if it’s an empty home is almost like, like sound a talk loudly. So they could hear almost an echo effect, which subconsciously in their mind makes them think that the space is larger perhaps than it really even is. And then what else I like to do is remember, right sells real estate. Don’t forget this. It’s actually I should have backed up, you know, what is one of the first things that we should have done when demonstrating a home prior to even going into the home is making sure that what is turned on all the lights, all the lights, and there’s a light that everyone always forgets to turn on. That to me is one of the most important lights. And that is if you have a you know, a fan, oven hide or a microwave above the stove, turn on those those undermount lights, because you want to highlight the stove, especially if it’s a nice stove. And oftentimes, if you don’t turn on those lights, the kitchen looks darker. Remember, light sells real estate, right sells real estate, turn on all the bathroom lights. If possible. Don’t turn on the fan, you may want to demonstrate the fan. But the fan you don’t want that noise. But make sure all the causes have you know the lights are turned on. Because lit spaces look larger lit spaces and look larger. So there are impact points, impact points. And as we said, never stand in the middle of the room. And I’m going to repeat this because it’s so key, it cuts the space visually in half, walk to the other end, speak loudly so it echoes. And then with you know the concept of like selling real estate, and invite them to come to you at the window or at the balcony and have them then look back at the space because then they will see all the space all lit up from the light streaming in from behind you and then from the lit home. So that is really key to do that. So make sure the home is lit. And then what you also want to do after you’ve pointed when you point things out, you want to use what’s called feature benefits, emotion talk, feature benefits, emotion talk. This is really important in demonstration. I’m going to repeat it again. I always say if you’re repeated three times it gets ingrained in people’s brain is features benefit and emotion talk. Now what does that mean features benefit and emotion talk? That is one of the most important parts of demonstration.

Shahn Douglas  24:53

Well, I think it’s important to build value. I mean I think that’s the key to to speaking like this or to follow This role because in the buyers mind it is building value of buying there.

Uri Vaknin  25:06

Right? So the features, so when you talk about features benefit, emotion talk, most people just talk about features, which is there’s primary, secondary and tertiary levels of selling. And we’ve talked about this before. Primary is saying, oh, look this. Look this beautiful outdoor terrace. Yeah, I could probably tell it’s an outdoor terrace. So I added the word beautiful. That’s a feature that benefit is. So this beautiful outdoor terrace provides you for an expanded living space, this becomes your second living room. That’s benefits, that’s secondary. That’s good. But it’s not great. It’s the emotion talk. That’s so key in the demonstration, the emotion talk. Imagine being out here in the spring, summertime and fall, or even the winter time because our weather so wonderful here, and the cocktails you can enjoy with your friends on a beautiful summer evening. And this wonderfully expanded living space. You see,

Shahn Douglas  26:08

yeah, wonderful views and fresh air. I mean, that’s very applies very, you know, very much to today’s world.

Uri Vaknin  26:15

How many times have we gone in, you know, when shopping, other communities and people say, Oh, this is the kitchen. Oh,

Shahn Douglas  26:27

this is the refrigerator.

Uri Vaknin  26:29

This is the frigerator like, what I can see that, you know, tell me what the benefit is based on what my hot buttons were, you know, here, you know, when we were selling the residences at the W Atlanta downtown in Atlanta, Georgia, and we had these Gaggenau appliances, you know, obviously you can see that the rug gagging out but what I would do is I would open up the refrigerator and I would demonstrate how the entire lining of the refrigerator was all stainless steel, how everything was like a thick glass where the shelves were and how there were little buttons that you could raise the shelves up and down electronically. That was like I said, can’t Can you imagine you’re coming home from the grocery store and you can’t get your bottle of Hello green in here. And you can just press this little button and and give yourself more space and not have to try to rearrange all the shelving. And then we also had I’m forgetting the name of the brand, it was the most high end brand of fixtures. And when you when you took the the water sprayer from the kitchen sink and you held it, it was like like five pounds and you could feel the quality of it. And I would demonstrate it that way I would make the buyers hold it in their hand. So I would demonstrate the value of a you know and how expensive it felt by just the weight of it was really incredible. So feet when demonstrating features, benefits, emotion talk is so key. If you don’t do it, you’re not demonstrating the home.

Shahn Douglas  28:17

This podcast is sponsored by Juhl Las Vegas lifestyle condos located in the heart of vibrant downtown Las Vegas, featuring a variety of floor plans including flats, two storey Lofts, brownstones and penthouses as well as an amazing variety of amenities, such as full service concierge resort, Pool and Spa, wine deck and Co Op working space, live the life you deserve, at jewel Las Vegas condos from the low to hundreds to 1 million. For more information, visit us at juhllv.com that’s spelled jUHLlv.com.

Uri Vaknin  29:09

And, you know, we can spend an entire, you know, episode on giving different examples of feature benefit and emotion talk. But you know, we gave you a highlight of it. And it’s really, really important. And what I like to do is, you know, I like to tell my sales specialists is you know, for every home, write down the feature benefits and emotion talk of every single feature of the home so that you’re prepared when you go in, and you know, not just one of them, but a bunch of emotion talk, you know, based on you know, it, it, it flows out naturally and you’re not trying to think of it off the cuff. And so, you know, if a buyer tells you what their hot buttons are, you’re ready to roll with it, you know. And so then, you know, this is When the buying signals really come in, and those buying signals are the objections, and then you want to while you’re demonstrating, you want to handle the objections, and we are going to do a whole episode on handling objections, because that, that we’re not gonna be able to cover that in this one episode, because that will take a long time. But so now that you’ve demonstrated the home, you’ve used the feature benefits, emotion talk, we’ve highlighted all of the features, it’s now time for you to review all those before you leave the home, because you want to kind of, you know, check everything off the box, we check everything off their list with a buyer. So then before I leave the home, when I’m at the front door, I literally will stand there, and I will review every single thing that the buyer said that they wanted. And then I would sometimes, you know, throw in a little bit more feature benefit emotion talk in here again. And then I would be getting yeses from the buyer. And so this not only helps me sell to them, more importantly, it helps the buyer get down to their one, and only, because if they don’t have their one and only they can’t buy and you can’t sell to them, because that is the whole key to it. So before you leave the home at the end of demonstrating this is part of demonstrating is the review, it is the absolute review. And so then, you know, if there’s three different homes, you know, I would even write this down, I would have a notepad, unless you’re, you know, whatever, you know, when you go to a restaurant, and then the waiter is taking your order, and they’re writing anything down, and you’re like freaking out, and you’re like, I know this is gonna come out wrong, I know this is gonna come out wrong.

Uri Vaknin  31:54

For the listeners, I’m allergic to garlic. And when they don’t write it down, I freak out. But then oftentimes, there’s that, where it all comes out perfect. You know, the order comes out perfect, and they never wrote anything down. If you are that person don’t you don’t have to write it down. But I think there’s 1% of the population who is that person. But this is a great and also when you write things down that the buyer are saying, what does that also do that MOPFI down, You’re MOPFIing them, you’re telling them that everything that they want and is and that they’re saying is important to you that you’re taking the taking the time to write it down. And so but what it also does is that after they’ve seen your three, remember, never show more than five homes, because if you show more than five homes, they all run into one, you can then review and you can get to their one and only, but we’re gonna end with this one last. And so important thought. So when you’ve demonstrated homes, and you’ve demonstrated vacant homes, so most people want to go from presenting the building on their physical sales path to the model after they’ve demonstrated all I have to present it all the demonstrated all the amenities, they want to go to the model. Ah, no, no, no, don’t do it. What you want to do is you want to show them and demonstrate the vacant homes that work for them based on what you learn from them in tire and from their hot buttons. Because you need to have a last hurrah. And that last hurrah are your models. Because that gives them because if they like the home vacant, guess what they’re gonna, they’re going to love it when it’s modeled. And then the magic happens. So when they go into the model, and they see and and hopefully you have a model that either the same floorplan type or similar to it, now they can start seeing furniture in it, and they can start seeing how they might live in it. Because we all know that empty spaces look smaller than they really are. And then here’s the magic. The magic is when they say Hey, Mr. Sales specialist, Mr. condominium specialist, can we go back to 26 II? Do you know what it is? They’re getting down to their one and only it’s the strongest buying signal there is. And you almost can like have that little Aha, I got it. I’ve got the sale or I helped my buyer figure out the right home for them. And for the buyer. I want you to recognize if you are a buyer and you You’re listening to his podcast, that’s your own buying signal. And then you take them back to 26 a. And now they could start better seeing their furniture in the place. And sometimes they may want to go back and forth a couple of times, which is great. And then once they’re done with all that you’ve done, finished that final demonstration, after they’ve seen the model, you probably have their one and only, and now it’s time to close. And for your buyer, it’s time to buy. So as we spoke about last time and presentation, you know, it’s showtime. Now, in this episode, we talked about demonstration time, come on, I Oh, shoot. I promised I wouldn’t sing again. So I’m going to stop. Those are the key highlights demonstration. We could talk for hours about demonstration, but we want to give you sort of, you know, you heard my dog again, she gets excited. And because she knows that demonstration of key just as you should know, to our listener deep she reiterated the point. So thank you again for listening to another episode of condo artists. The other side of real estate demonstration times Come on finger guys. Thank you