On Monday we published Part 1 of Timeshare Sales: This is how it’s done, which covered the first three sections of the Anfi Sales Training Manual: Initial Welcome & Core Values, Welcome and The 5 Why’s. Today we cover the following: Steps of the Tour, 10 Steps to Success, the Meet and Greet and the most important part, The Warm Up.
As a prelude to Steps of the Tour, the manual covers Emotions, it begins with: If you cover the 5 Why’s – the EMOTIONS make it all come together, it then explains what Emotion is and how to use it in the next phase:
“Emotion is not the same as being animated and many people struggle to understand what it means to have emotion. A better word to use is passion. It is easy to see when someone has passion for what they do and passion comes from doing what you love.”
It goes on to tell the trainee that “Selling is the transferring of emotion, making them feel the way we feel about our product,” with an example of what to use, such as “How do you feel about the company, the product, the industry and yourselves?”
They also have a warning, that negative emotions will also be transferred and then give a hint on how to deal with this through “Practicing affirmations”. There are three of these:
- “I am a great sales person”
- “I work for the best company”
- “I sell the best product and Anfi changes people’s lives for the better.”
I’m not sure about you the reader, but if the company and product were that good, why would you need to be “Brainwashing” yourself with these affirmations?
As for changing life for the better, well that depends on your experiences at the hands of the timeshare industry.
We now move to the Steps of the Tour, 10 steps are listed along with a chart titled 10 Steps to Success, considering there are actually 14 shown on the chart, it would appear the company is not as professional as it makes out.
The 10 Steps are as follows:
- Meet and Greet
- Warm up
- Intent Statement
- Credibility Area
- Discovery
- Information / Confirmation
- Pitch
- Walking Tour
- Final Close
- T.O. Handover
Please note, that many sales decks will place the Walking Tour directly after stage 6, with the sales pitch after the resort walkabout.
The first on the Tour list is the Meet and Greet. It is the first meeting between the sales rep and the “potential buyer”, it is the handover from reception and “qualification,” so it is important as first impressions, especially negative ones, are hard to get by.
The training manual starts with the title Meet and Greet and the banner:
YOU NEVER GET A SECOND CHANCE TO MAKE A FIRST IMPRESSION
It then goes on to list the 5 Essentials of a Meet and Greet:
- Smile
- Eye contact and firm handshake
- Empathy (Take their bags)
- Polite (Ask permission to call by first name)
- Take control (Get them on the move)
The first four are just common courtesy, which we hope all staff in any industry would use with clients or potential clients, it is number 5 which is the important one, “Take Contol”.
You will notice in brackets “Get them on the move”, this refers to getting them away from reception, we can’t have the UPs changing their mind and creating a scene. If the rep can’t take control, then he has already lost the sale.
The rest of the page is dedicated to the “exercise” which involves a lot of role play, for which you will need a partner and practising till the cows come home. It then asks you to answer the following question, What did you feel about this person’s first impression? This is followed by Did your partner
- Smile?
- Have eye contact?
- Have a firm handshake?
- Act polite?
- Take control?
- Would you like to go on tour with your partner?
I very much doubt that any of the answers will be negative, on the next page is Viewpoint with yet another statement to the trainee:
“PEOPLE ARE AFRAID OF THE UNKNOWN.
THEY DON’T LIKE BEING KEPT IN THE DARK”.
With their own “Mini Agenda” on how you are going to:
- Build trust and credibility
- Point out what the resort is
- Relieve fear for the unknown
- Create expectation
The trainee is then asked to write down their own Mini Agenda, which now takes us to the Warm Up.
This begins with what is probably the only true statement made so far:
“Most people would associate sales people with pressure, harm, dishonesty and other negative attributes. Even though we all feel this way, we still all buy from a sales person.”
“Trust is a major factor and there must be a feeling of trust between buyer and seller.”
Although essentially true, it really does depend on the product we are purchasing and the company involved, a new car salesperson at a renowned dealership is probably trusted more than a second-hand retailer, would you trust Boyce from Only Fools and Horses?
They now give their list of Essential Topics of Conversation to be followed during the warm-up phase, these are:
- Who are you?
- Family
- Hobbies and interests
- Location
- Weather
- Pets
- Friends
- Common interests/ experiences
- Body language (volume, speech, behaviour, facial expression, posture, gesture)
- Matching and mirroring
Rather than Topics of Conversation, they are in fact a fishing trip, or should that be phishing?
The first three are the essentials, who the clients are, their families such as children and grandchildren, working, retired, and whether they have their own business. What they like doing in their spare time, hobbies and interests along with common interests and experiences can create a very relaxed atmosphere and will ease the tension of the UPs.
With location and weather, that speaks for itself, in the case of the location of the resort, it may be on the line of, look what we have all year round compared to you, creating a little bit of jealousy, or should we say envy.
Pets, well again this can be a great warmer, especially when both parties have a dog, owners do just love talking about them, I know I do.
Friends, well that speaks for itself, your friends may just be potential clients, and later on during the presentation, you may be offered an incentive if you purchase, let’s say a free holiday for yourself if you get a friend to attend a presentation. It is a common practice in timeshare.
All of this is essential information for the rep to tailor his tour to the people in front of him, maximising his chances of converting the no into a yes.
The last two Body Language and Matching & mirroring are what the rep should be looking for in the clients and also be very aware of his own. For example, if the client is just laying back, with his head in the air and staring into space, the rep has obviously not got his attention. These two cannot be taught in a few days, anyone who works in customer care or sales will tell you it takes a lot of experience to get it right.
The session ends with things We must not talk about:
- Timeshare
- Holidays
- Anti features
I know what you are going to say, yes, they are on a timeshare presentation, but during the Warm Up, it is forbidden to mention the dreaded timeshare word upon pain of death.
They then ask the trainee to write down what they would say to a person they have never met and make them feel comfortable. To be honest, that is virtually impossible to predict, until you actually meet that person in the flesh, you cannot decide how to proceed. Body Language would be the clue.
It then asks to write down the 5 WHYs, then find a partner and “Try to make you partner “feel comfortable” with you by doing a mini agenda (write down).”
Don’t you just love role-play.
The last item today is the Intent Statement, with the same paragraph “Most people would associate sales people with pressure” from the Warm Up section being repeated.
Also known as The Statement of Intent, this is either given at the start of the warm-up or at the end, depending on the sales deck. It is really a quick agenda of what the tour consists of, and how you are going to be “guided” through each stage and is supposed to be given in an upbeat and friendly way.
This is one example of the Statement given by Anfi in their Training Manual:
If it’s all right with you, as I said at the viewpoint I will explain what we will do today.
1st we take a look at the outside of the resort. our right is the 1st resort built, Anfi Beach Club, opposite the beach, we call her the old lady of the resort, but as yuo will see later, she is beautiful. Next to the left they continued and built Club Puerto Anfi overlooking the harbour. Next one is Club Monte Anti on the top of the mountain. The last resort was Club Gran Anfi, just going round at the end, Gran for Gran Finale. That’s the outside of our Resort; if it’s okay with you we will take a stroll back over the bridge and go up onto our Deck Area where I will show you a little bit of history about Anti and how we became Europe’s No 1 Vacation Ownership Resort. We will have a cold drink, something to eat, I will explain how the membership works and ask a few questions on your holiday. Then we do the best thing, we go into the resorts and we see the apartments. At the end of the presentation I will give you enough information to make a comfortable choice today on how you want to continue to holiday, either continue what you are doing now or choose to holiday like thousands of members who fell in love with Anfi. Come guys, let’s have some fun.
Once this statement is given, the tour proper begins, this is the start of the wow factor, seeing the resort and having the perfect picture for your future holidays being painted for you. The hard sell comes later, that is when the money is put on the table, and it is your money they want.
In our next episode, we will be looking at the walking tour and the pitch, again they follow a very familiar pattern, convincing you to say yes.
