The Passionate Advocate: Guidelines for Increasing Sales From Homebuyer Referrals
A series of new articles by Bob Mirman
That title should have said “35+%”, but most of you would have dismissed that as an unrealistic tease. So, in the spirit of caution, I lowered the target to be closer to our builder clients’ national average of 25%.
My logic behind this more reasonable target emanated from the behavior modification research with which I was involved in psych grad school (University of Kansas) about 40-years ago. I was a junior researcher in a preliminary project designed to create a procedure for toilet-training toddlers in as short a period as possible. My buddy (Nate Azrin) then published “Toilet Training in Less Than a Day”, still a hot seller on Amazon. The publisher felt the title should be changed to ‘In one week or less’ because “no one will believe it could be done in one day” although Nate had confirmed hundreds of cases in which this process had worked in one day. Nate held firm.
So, I am being conservative but realistic in setting 30% as a target. In 2024, our surveys of new-home buyers from Eliant’s 237 builder clients verified an average of 24.6% sales from referrals, with a large number of builders 40-49% and two (incredibly) over 50%.
Why is it that some builders receive 10-15% of their sales from referrals when other builders are in the 40-49% range? What are these builders doing differently to earn such a strong percent of sales from referrals?
In 2024, I coined the term “Passionate Advocacy” to describe what every builder, lender, escrow firm, and design studio should be aiming to achieve: A group of customers that are so passionately positive about their new home purchase that they eagerly become an unpaid member of your sales team.
Over the coming months, I will be publishing a series of very short articles on the secret sauce for turning customers into Passionate Advocates who will then guide their friends into your sales office. Here are some of the topics I will cover:
- My key Psychological Laws of Homebuyer Behavior
- Guidelines for properly setting expectations and promises
- What is the #1 driver of buyers’ “Willingness to Recommend” their lender?
- Eliant’s guidelines for using financial incentives to create referral sales
- The difference between customers who are Advocates vs Passionate Advocates
- Emotionally engaged customers are more likely to recommend your firm. What are the best psychological techniques to create an EMOTIONAL CONNECTION with your buyers and owners?
Bob Mirman is CEO/Founder of 41-year old Eliant, with offices in California and North Carolina. He has written three complete issues of BIG BUILDER magazine, published two best-selling books and well over 160 articles in various building industry magazines. Using lessons learned during his first career as a Clinical Psychologist, Bob directs a seasoned team of Eliant’s Client Success Managers to assist homebuilders in managing their local reputations and driving sales from referrals.