The Art of Sales (Chapter I)
The oldest book of sales says; “If they like you, they’ll listen to you. If they trust you, they’ll buy from you.”

Be the greatest businessman you can be by:
Understanding your product, your market, the process, put it all together, take personal responsibility, and you will be great at selling. — Mike ‘Chicago Mike’ Morton.
Before we get started, I want to take a moment to say ‘Thanks Mike. You’re a great inspiration. I’ve learned lots from ya, and in these chapters, I want to share what I’ve learned with the rest of the world.”.
CHAPTER ONE: DISCOVERY AND COMMITMENT
Discovery:
“What do you do? Where do you live?”
“Chicago.”
“Oh yea? What’s your city famous for? What do you do there? Oh so you’ve got all your toys over there?…You go snowmobiling in the winter.., bike riding in the summer? What do you do? What do you like to do back home for fun?”
There are countless questions you can ask new clients, prospects, or even when you’re networking with new people. Asking the right questions, helps create great first impressions, breaks the ice, builds rapport, trust, and ultimately inspires decision making, in a sales environment.
(Ask, ask ask.)
More questions:
- “Where were you born?”
- “Where do you live?”
- “What do you do there for fun?”
- “Tell me about your family.” (Now let them talk…)
- “Do you have kids? What do they like to do?” Ask them what are their names!
- “How did you get started in your business/career?”
- “Why are you here?”
- “Do you have a deeper purpose with being HERE in Chicago?”
- “(Real Estate) The house is just a formality; what is your dream?”
- “Where have you previously been? Which was your best vacation ever?”
- “Can I ask you a personal question? If you had one year left to live, and you knew that whatever you chose to do during this year, you would be very successful at it: What would it be?”
- “What PROPERTY are you looking for? Beds, view, pool, proximity, near special activities?”
- “Where is the money gonna come from? Do you have the money ready cash?”
- “Have you been pre approved for a mortgage? Are you ready to go?”
- (If not ready) — “Hey, we can still go look at houses on the computer, maybe even go see one or two, but I already know that you’re not gonna do anything for two years, so it’s really pointless for me to take you out all day to look around the different properties. Do you agree?”
- (If ready) — “Great! Should we agree on a date and time for our first viewing?”
- “Have you been here long? Seen any other properties before? Different agent viewings? Did you put an offer in on something else previously?”
- “Are you familiar with the buying process here?”
- “Great, before we begin: Imagine that we are one week into the future now. You’ve found your dream home. You’ve put in an offer on it, and the offer was accepted. You are now evaluating what we have been through during the week… — What must have happened for you to say that it has been the BEST WEEK OF YOUR LIFE?”
- “Mary… John… I don’t know if I can, but IF I can find you a house between three hundred and three fifty, that has a beautiful view, two bedrooms, and it has it’s own private pool; are you gonna consider making an offer on this?”
- “What would the offer be like? Are you gonna lowball them, or are you gonna come in pretty strong? “— “Ok, sounds good.”
The more that you know about them, the more they will start liking you, and they start to ask you questions.
Every time a client asks you a question, you turn it around and ask them another question!
For instance, a client will say: “Where were you born?”. You flip it around and say, “I was born in Chicago, where were you born?” — You know, so you control the conversation by asking questions, questions, questions, questions, questions.
That’s called a DISCOVERY. A discovery is about discovering everything about your client, by asking questions.
Us: “Oh, so you bought a house back at home… When?” — “Ooh, right after you got married?”.
Client: “Yea, she made us buy a house right after we got married.”
OK BOOM! There you go…
Now you’ve got your DOMINANT BUYING MOTIVE. That’s what you’re really looking for.
— What’s a dominant buying motive? — That’s something that you’ve discovered makes your client buy, and what was it? It was the wife who forced the husband into buying, when they got married.
So you can use that again, for her to force him to buy something else, if you position yourself right.
It really has to do with the psychology of the sale, is what we’re talking about here.
Commitment:
After the discovery, you move on to ‘mini commitments’.
Mini commitments are used, after finishing the initial client discovery, and sounds something like this:
“What kind of house do you wanna buy?” “OK, two bedrooms.., (take notes) and a view.., and does it have a pool, or does it HAVE to have a pool?.. Ok, how about proximity to town and such? Ok.”
— ASK THEM EVERY QUESTION YOU POSSIBLY CAN. —
(…At this stage, you are discovering your client, by asking as many questions as you possibly can. You are now aware of what your client wants to buy, and as a realtor, you have at least five or ten places that would fit that model already! …)
COMMIT THEM: “John and Marry… I’m a really busy guy, and this is a busy market here. Let me ask you a serious question. If I can find you a house between $300.000 — $350.000 that has a beautiful view, two bedrooms, and it has it’s own private pool (assuming these are their criteria), are you gonna consider making an offer on this?”.
You see how gentle that was?…
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When I first got into sales, I had no idea that I was gonna be presented to. Being this direct with people — almost a ‘in your face’ sort of environment — that you don’t even know, talking about huge sums of money, that they have worked through blood, sweat and tears for.
That’s sales my friend. Actually most ‘salesmen’ are not using this approach, and therefore they have less sales. You know, when you’re asking your client a question that’s very, very serious, you have to be REALLY close with them, and they have to trust you.
If you’re doing this within the first five minutes of meeting them, just forget about it. I mean, this is hours into the conversation.
Since you’ve already talked with them for a couple of hours, they like you, and they trust you. So you’re just prefacing it; “Hey, let me ask you a serious question.” “Do I have your permission to ask you a serious question?” —
That’s the brilliance of that one…They can’t get mad at you, because you asked for their permission, to ask the question! Ha!
Here’s another way to put it:
“Let me just ask you; I’m a really busy man, you know, I’m always showing people houses, so you know, I don’t wanna waste your time, and I don’t wanna waste any time, so let me just ask you a serious question”.
— (AND LOOK IN THEIR EYES WHEN SAY THIS) —
“John… Marry… IF, I can find you…(your dream home)…, are you gonna consider putting in an offer on it?”
John: “Yea, we’re ready to go man.”, “Right on, sounds good.” Shake their hands right there!
So you commit them. Don’t get mixed up though, as you are not closing the deal right on the spot, but you do get a mini commitment from them. By getting mini commitments, you are not just being a tour guide, as in driving people around for nothing, listening to answers like; “Ok, we’re gonna think about it”.
The more commitments you get, the more likely they are to make an offer.” Of course, it doesn’t mean that they can’t still say “Naah, we’re gonna think about it”, or “Uhh, I’ll call you back.”.
I mean, they can still do all that, but it’s less likely that they would, cause you’ve got these commitments. You know what I mean?
Like my old boss used to say:
The more hands you shake, the more people you meet.
The more people you meet, the more tours you give.
The more tours you give, the more offers you write.
The more offers you write, the more accepted offers you have.
The more accepted offers you have, the more deals you have.
So it’s just numbers, you know? Numbers, numbers, numbers.
So COMMITMENT is part of that.
The best advice I can give you, is to save yourself as much time and effort, as you possibly can. Many people loves the thrill of going on a ‘Saturday afternoon property showcase’, even when they have no intentions of buying whatsoever.
- Now you may ask yourself: So how do I save myself more time and effort?
That’s what you look out for during the Discovery. When you find out that they’re actually a year away from buying, you say “Well let’s just look at pictures, cause it’s pointless to go look at houses…All these houses that are for sale now, are gonna be gone, and it’s gonna be all different houses in a year. Let me just show you what your money can get you here , and then when you’re ready, give me a call.”
You know what I mean? This will definitely save you lots of time, energy, and money…touring people around for nothing. — That is why we ask questions. You know, you gotta wake them up, you gotta slap them around a little bit.
“Hey, you know what? All these houses that are on the market now; two years from now, they’re ALL gonna be gone. They’re ALL gonna be different houses.” “Oh really?” “Yep, everything moves pretty quick here, man.”.
You know. Just be real with them.
More Mini Commitments / Mini Closes:
- “You are gonna put in an offer, right?”
- “What would you do, if I found you THAT house?”
- “What would your offer be like?
- “Would you lowball them, or come in pretty strong, near the asking price?”
And whatever their response may be, be understanding and make sure that the client feels that he or she is always right! “Ok, ok, sounds good.”
And you know… There are lots of questions that can’t be answered, but at least you have an idea of where these people are coming from, and of what they want exactly. After all this, they can still walk away from the deal of course, but they are less likely to, if you have all kinds of commitments, along the way.
Setting up your Tour:
Now it’s time to setup the tour. Usually, I would show my client the house that you want to sell them, LAST. The house that fits the best, last. Don’t show them too many! You should limit the tour to four of five properties. It confuses people if you show them more than four of five. Even five may be too much. Three or four could be enough. It depends on the client. If you are dealing with a really intelligent person, they can handle five or six. But if it’s a slow person, he gets confused easily and in that case, definitely show three to four MAX.
But the commitments, that will be our first lesson for today. That’ll be definitely scoring you some points. Especially when the boss hears you do some shit like that, he’ll be like “wow that’s some serious fucking professional salesman right there.” Because nobody does it, right? Nobody does that, nobody does it. I know they don’t, but that’s the way you’re supposed to sell. See everybody think they’re a salesman until they try to do it, and eventually a lot of people just end up being tour guides. You gotta sell the scissile, it’s an emotional buy.
EMOTION:
You have to give a lot of emotion and make it very emotional.
‘Put them in the picture’ — “Wow you imagine watching the sunset from here every night?”.
“Here, sit down in these chairs, you guys gotta see what that feels like”.
You gotta really get emotionally into it man. It’s an emotional deal. But it’s a lot of money. So if they say “Mike, you know, we really like this house, and we’re probably gonna put an offer in, but you know: it’s a million dollars man. We’re gonna have to sleep on it tonight.”
And you go: “Okay, so you’re gonna put an offer in tomorrow then, if you sleep on it tonight”.
You know, if they say that it’s a lot of money, agree with them “Yea I agree with you, it IS a lot of money and you wanna sleep on it, absolutely I agree with you, sounds good to me. You know? Lock them in , make another mini commitment to when they’ll decide.
They’re saying they need the night to decide, and you agree with that. Sounds good. Most people would do that. So the next day, you just go back with the same emotion and the same energy! Usually the next day, they’re gonna be a little bit down from where you left them, so you’re gonna have to build them back up again. PUT THEM BACK IN THE PICTURE: “You remember when we were just leaving, with that view when the sun was just going down… That was something, huh?” You know, you kind of put them back in the picture so they start to feel and remember how it was when they were there yesterday. It makes the difference though man, it does make the difference.
I hope you liked this post. Let me know your thoughts. Stay tuned in for my next project: “The Art of Sales (Chapter 2)”.
Alright. I’m checking out, with an awesome quote:
“Keep looking up, till you get where you want to go.