A leasing associate who doesn’t believe the rent is worth it. She’ll tell you without saying a word.
You can’t sell what you don’t believe in. The prospect always knows.
Zig Ziglar spent his career on the mechanics of the sale. He wrote the book called Secrets of Closing the Sale. And he still ranked belief in the product above every technique in it. He called selling a transference of feeling. Your belief crosses the desk to the prospect. So does your doubt.
You see it on every tour. An associate who winces at the parking lot and drops her voice before saying the rent. The prospect may not catch the words. They catch the flinch underneath.
Real belief takes two moves from leadership. Make the asset genuinely good, so there’s something true to believe in. Then make sure the team sees what’s good about it, so the belief is theirs and not a script they’re reciting.
She didn’t believe in the price, and it showed in the pause before the number, the little apology dressed up as a qualification. The prospect caught all of it. No lease. So build the product worth believing in. Then build the belief in the people who sell it. You need both.
When your people believe in what they’re selling, the tour sells itself. — Mike Brewer
Discussion Prompt: Ask each person on your leasing team, one-on-one, for the three things they’re proudest of about this property. Thin answers point to a product problem or a belief problem. Both are fixable.