Timeshare Sales: This is how it’s done. Part 3

Welcome to the start of another week and our final episode of Timeshare Sales: This is how it’s done. Today we begin with the Walking Tour, although the Anfi Training Manual shows this before the pitch, most sales decks tend to start this section directly after the warm-up.

Following the Walking Tour, we get down to the nitty-gritty and the pitch along with the T.O. hand-over, this part is where the Money comes into play and the hard-sell begins.

The Walking Tour is an essential part of the pitch, it is not just about “having a look around” the resort and the “wonderfully” appointed apartments, it is where your “sales rep” begins their “manipulation”.

The Anfi Training Manual begins with Sales Techniques, these are:

1. Third Party Stories

Use in order to overcome objections and to give the feeling of safety in numbers to the client. Rules:

(essential)

1. Serve a purpose

• Travel concern
• Objection to timeshare
• Cover DBM (Dominant Buying Motives)

2. About a third party
3. Be relevant
4. Names, dates, places
5. Based on truth

The best 3rd party is, of course, stopping and talking to an existing member whilst on the tour.

For the experienced sales rep, these are easy plus they have the added advantage of knowing which members to approach. For the newbie, this could backfire, just imagine if the people approached were not members but booked via hotels.com.

Third-party stories should also be taken with a pinch of salt, many will be made up from stories told by other reps and then regurgitated, number 5 tells you that. They are what you would call hearsay, not even recognised in a court of law.

The second section is:

2. Take-Aways

CAN ONLY BE USED WHEN A BUYING SIGNAL HAS BEEN GIVEN FIRST. A BUYING SIGNAL IS SOME FORM OF COMMENT OR QUESTION REGARDING THE PRODUCT

Takeaways normally involve the lack of availability of the product (e.g. no more 1 bed in ABC) that the client has expressed an interest in.

Used to create urgency.

This very brief description says it all, another is the inference that it will be too expensive and out of your price range, it is “manipulation” pure and simple. It is the old adage of “you can’t have it, so you want it”.

Throughout the “tour” the rep will be using “trial closes”, this is where he is gauging how close he is to you saying yes, or ensuring he covers those points known as “objections”. These are the main ones that Anfi point out:

3. Involvement questions

Trial closes used to asses the progress of the tour.

Always take the form of alternative questions:

1. “Do you think you would use the pool more or the beach?”
2. “Do you think you would eat in the apartment or use the restaurants more?”
3. “Would you come mainly to Anfi or exchange more?”

In the final section they briefly cover Features, Advantages and Benefits, this is further expanded in the sections Credibility and Discovery.

4. F.A.B Features, Advantages, Benefits

Anfi has many features that offer many advantages: Do they have a benefit to that particular client? The Discovery provides which features to sell to the clients.

A good guide to whether we are being relevant by pointing out a particular feature is by using a bridging statement first.

“Earlier you mentioned the importance of a beach as…..”

Again it is a very simple explanation, use what the client said, confirm the positive, and counteract the negative. Another “manipulation” technique is where you answer your own question how they want you to.

The walking tour will also include the use of the 5 senses, as Anfi put it:

“Used when describing things clients can’t see.”

“To put them more thoroughly in the picture”

These senses are listed as.

1. Touch
2. Taste
3. Sound
4. Smell
5. Sight

Very simple examples are given:

1. For the client to picture the place at night
2. For the client to smell the food from one of the restaurants
3. For the client to feel a massage

If the sales rep can invoke your imagination and make you feel as though you are there, then he has a better chance of making the sale, this brings us to:

Stirring emotion

A very short section, but it is very revealing:

“If-you don’t ask for the business, you won’t get it”

Getting under client’s skin, using their commitment to holidays established in the discovery and their dominant buying motives.

“What have the families you see around you done to deserve this luxury more than you”

The first statement is fair, you don’t ask you don’t get, but it is the way the Trainee is being shown how to do it.

“Getting under the client’s skin”, and using “jealousy” to manipulate you into making the initial commitment before he hands it over to the T/O for final closing. Once he has this commitment, the final close is more than likely to be a success.

Credibility for any business is essential, even more so in today’s world, where competition is fierce, especially in the Holiday/Vacation Industry. Timeshare has to compete with tour operators, and internet booking platforms, with a growing number of consumers now using Airbnb.

This is how Anfi put it in their Training manual:

Credibility Area

“IT’S NOT THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION, IT’S THE MESSAGE IT’S CONVEYING AND THE WAY IT’S PUT ACROSS.”

4 SECTIONS OF AREA

Section 1

Story of family, togetherness, life values, humble beginnings.

Section 2

To show that at Anfi we cater for the tastes of all types of holidaymakers.

Section 3

We understand that people do not like change. Anfi offers the familiarity of holidaymaking, with the same methods of booking and the same choices.

Section 4

The system guarantees that the gamble of the unknown is removed when taking holidays,

assuring standard guarantees. Also, the industry follows strict guidelines with rules and regulations.

Credibility Area must deal with

WHY this company

Essentials covered

• Uniqueness: Bjorn Lyng /Santana Carzola stories
• Successful backers – Their stories
• Vast choice – 5 different Resorts
• Credibility
• Travel agent associations
• Famous guests
• Gold Crown Awards

Why do you think we need a Credibility Area?

With what we know about Anfi, this “Credibility Area” is nothing short of propaganda, a story we have covered on numerous occasions. You can find the full Anfi story in Five Parts here.

The Discovery section covers everything the rep needs to know to tailor his pitch for you, this is clear with the opening statement:

“EVERYONE’S NEEDS ARE DIFFERENT. BEFORE PRESENTING THE PRODUCT WE MUST UNDERSTAND FIRST OUR CLIENTS’ HOLIDAY NEEDS AND THEN TAILOR MAKE OUR PRESENTATION FROM THEM”

Past: Have experienced

Present: Are experiencing

Future: Would like to experience

It lists three element that are of importance:

1 Travel concerns

• Location
• View
• On site amenities
• Off site amenities
• Safety
• Security
• Cleanliness
• Service
• Transport
• Accommodation standards

2 Dominant Buying Motives

• Health
• Education
• Adventure
• Status
• Relationship
• Legacy
• Family

3 Objections to Timeshare

• Price
• Difficult to use
• Bad press
• Nothing

They also provide the following chart titled Discovery Method, it is supposed to be a sign post on what you as a sales rep need to cover. Editing and proof reading does not seem to be the strong point of who put all this together, we seem to have an arrow going in the wrong direction.

This is followed by Information / Confirmation, it is short and is also an exercise for the rep to make their own summary.

Information / Confirmation

WHAT WE THINK WE UNDERSTAND IN THE CLIENT’S ANSWERS MAY NOT BE CORRECT. WE SEEK CLARIFICATIONS

Aim:

1. Evoke trust
2. Confirm DBM, travel concerns, objections
3. Permission to continue

Method: Bridging Statement

• Earlier you said …
• If I heard you correctly …
• To use your words .
• From what you said .
• Correct me if I’m wrong …

Make a summary and use information/ confirmation.

“If I understand you right, you and your family would like to ……… “

To help the Trainee Sales Representative, a short “pitch” has been provided, this is the basic script that will be used initially, more experienced reps will have over the years developed their own based on this.

It is to be learnt and used, but care must be taken that it is presented as naturally as possible, if it sounds “robotic” or as if it is being read, then it will not be convincing. In the early days of timeshare sales when the major developers had massive “road shows”, many of the reps employed tended to be “out of work” actors. Logical really, they can learn a script, they can improvise and change their personalities at will.

Anfi Vacation Club Pitch

Once you become a member of Anti here today you will be enrolled into the Anti Vacation Club (AVC). This will be your travel agent for all your future holiday needs.

As an AVC Member you will have the complete flexibility to holiday not only in the 5 Anti Resorts but also in any of the 4.000 resorts worldwide with R.C.I. whether you wish to come back to Anti or exchange your weeks to Florida for example, you simply contact the Vacation Club from the comfort of your own home and tell the Travel Advisor where and when you would like to holiday.

If you want to return to Anti they will, in most cases, book your accommodation there and then. If you wish to exchange to another resort they will do this for you via the R.C.I. system of exchange.

It is always advisable to request your exchange in plenty of time to give yourselves the best chance of getting what destination you desire.

The AVC will tend to all your needs should you wish to take extra weeks of holidays at any time worldwide. These weeks are from 125 € to 900 € for R.C.I. weeks and 450 € to 650 € per apartment here in Anti Resorts. Extra holidays in Anti Resorts cannot be requested until 2 months before the date you travel.

The AVC will also accommodate you with a number of extra requests for e.g. transport to and from the airport at discounted rates, welcome food packs, half board or bed and breakfast packages, boat trips, water parks, Palmitos Park almost any trips that are available on the island of Gran Canaria. You can check-out all of these services through the AVC Online Catalogue from the comfort of your home.

We like to call the AVC the one stop shop.

We are now at the Final Close and the T.O. Handover, this is where everything changes and is well orchestrated. Anfi suggests that the final close is done in the apartment “you” wish to sell to the client at the end of the walking tour.

It is also important for the rep to clarify which apartment the client “wants” to buy and to confirm the purchase “today” if the “product is affordable”.

The following chart shows how the “Handover” should be conducted, the seating is of importance, you will notice how the “clients” are place directly in front of the T.O., with the rep to one side. He should also stay completely silent during the T.O. close, only speaking when spoken to. The rep will be expected to play the part of the “good cop”, he is after all your new best friend, confirming with smiles and nods whatever the T.O. says. He is your “third party” encouragement”.

To end the Training Manual a little story is told about two choices, to be honest, it is just another of those “life changing, positivity” pieces commonly found on Facebook. It also has a final few tips and words of encouragement, but we will let you read it at this link at your leisure:

Two Choices – Final Word

As you can see from this little series, selling timeshare is not like selling any other product, who goes on holiday with the intention of purchasing a timeshare?

It is a product where the sale has to be well orchestrated with the emphasis on today and today only, urgency and need must be created. The manipulation of your senses and emotions is in the hands of the sales rep, and you may think you have got him beaten, but you still have the real hard sell to come with the T.O. Remember by this point you will have been on “tour” for at least four hours, you will be starting to get fatigued and information overload is about to confuse you even more.

Now you have had a look at behind-the-scenes and the psychology of timeshare sales, along with reports of tours lasting 9 & 10 hours, is it no wonder so many consumers end up signing on the day?

A friend pointed out the “spelling mistakes”, in all the Anfi text, these are as they appear in the manual given to trainees, not very professional, are they?

That is all for today, we hope you all had a great weekend, Baby Dog made his intentions clear when the Arsenal Man Utd match began, no he didn’t get his way, he had to wait until halftime.