• Be prepared to work twice as hard to make incremental sales. 
• Calibrate your time management!
• Sales in this market will come, not from expanding markets, but from sleeping  competitors. Make the Selling Edge Pledge!
• Closing is back big time!
• The worst suspects of today may be the best prospects of tomorrow. 
• Work each and every prospect till they buy or die! 
• Fine tune your closing skills! 

• 1. Can generate own traffic.
• 2. Can CounSELL and close what comes on site.
• 3. Can predictably generate referrals. 

Proactive means ultra-active. It means doing the things the others won't to make difficult and seemingly impossible sales. It means cleaning up credit or shopping a loan or helping get a resale sold or saving for initial investments. It means working smart and hard with people who will work to acquire a home.

A proactive salesperson takes positive steps to ensure a regular flow of customers. The rule is no less than 10 new registrations per week. Examples:

Self-prospecting with: 

• Broker Co-Operation 
• Referral Sales 
• Handout 50 Business Cards Per Week 
• Prospect with Special Outreach Programs
• Follow a Multi-Programming Formula 

Squeeze every sale possible from your database. Remember that demonstration sells new homes! The more you site, the more you write! 

*Total Onsite Proficiency 

Don't rely solely on corporate marketing. Create your own Personal Marketing Activities or PMA program.

Work your plan with Positive Mental Attitude!

Set Goals to identify the numbers of people worked to achieve a defined result.  Example: 

• Hand out 200 business cards per month...
• Achieve 5% result (10 prospects to the site)...
• Score one sale for the effort

Cook up some creative outreach disciplines. 

Technology (SST)... and your Personal Marketing Activities. With this strategy, you will write more sales than your competitors! 

Never let a week go by without 5 to the closing table.

1. Site (Tour' em to the site). 
2. 1-of-A-Kind (Confirm uniqueness). 
3. Work financing numbers. 
4. Project urgency. 
5. Ask for the sale (close). 

Never let a week go by without 5 Be-Back appointments.
  
Remember: 80% of all big ticket sales are made after the 5th close! 
 
Each and every week make 20 calls of contact. 

Get Back fast. Like instantly!
 
Try to get phone numbers. 
 
Goal 1 is to motivate the prospects to visit your site. 
 
Goal 2 is to get 'em on the phone and motivate 'em to visit your site. 
 
Goal 3 is to send a proactive package to prospects who can be motivated to visit your site. 

Tom Richey is president of Richey Resources, Houston, TX (7!3) 622-0877 or on the web:  www.richeyresources.com . Richey Resources specializes in operational marketing, merchandising, sales management and design analysis with intensive sales training for the front line salesperson. For forty years, Tom has been involved in all aspects of the building industry, from construction to land development, to sales, marketing and advertising. He has been directly responsible for managing over a half-billion dollars in new home sales.