Jason Forrest is a sales professional, author, professional speaker, and consultant to homebuilders.

No matter if you’re a broker or an individual agent, you want to know how to get the most success from yourself or your team. Agents and brokers can either blend into the crowd with every other agent and team, or stand out by providing an excellent process and presentation. Focus your energy on deeper aspects of selling for maximum results.

Your product and pricing can only distinguish you to a certain extent, so the most fruitful coaching/self-coaching focuses on the things that can really set you apart in the eyes of the customer – causing repeat business and the ever-important referral.

While each level has its place, brokers and agents who focus heavily on the sales process, presentation and people are most effective at building a solid, results-oriented team mentality. However, those who spend the most time focused on circumstances, results and behavioral activities (the most common and least effective) end up falling behind the pack. Following are the six levels of coaching, as well as the characteristics, principles and benefits of each.

Circumstances. Focus on the economy, traffic numbers, etc. 

Results. Target the number of sales, whether agents expect to meet monthly/weekly goals, etc.

Activity-based coaching. Focus on behaviors such as setting appointments, completing loan applications and making phone calls.

These first three levels produce the shallowest results and therefore should receive less of your valuable attention. The following three levels, however, yield the greatest results, because they work to actually change sales results.

Process-based coaching involves analyzing where in the process the sale got stopped and how to start it again. You may ask which home or neighborhood your prospects are considering and what is hindering them.

Presentation-based coaching really gets down to what motivates buyers. Questions may include, “What was your selling message with the prospects?” or “Why do they need a home to improve their life?”

People-based coaching is the deepest and most effective level of sales coaching. It gets to the crux of the agent’s goals and the motivations that drive them to perfect their sales presentation, move prospects forward in the process, and earn what they’re worth. Questions at this level include, “Why do you need to reach your sales goals this month?” “If you were your own coach, how would you advise yourself to improve your last customer presentation?” “What do you hope to accomplish in your career in real estate?” and “What part of the sales process makes you the most uncomfortable?”

The most effective sales team leaders and individual agents spend the most time in the deepest levels possible. Where do you spend most of your time?

The above is adapted for this audience from Jason Forrest’s upcoming book for sales coaches. 

Named one of Training Magazine’s Top Young Trainers of 2012, Jason Forrest is an expert at creating high-performance sales cultures through complete training programs. He incorporates experiential learning (rather than theory) to increase sales, implement cultural accountability and transform builders into sales organizations that build homes.

A sales professional at heart, Forrest is the author of “Creating Urgency in a Non-Urgent Housing Market” and “40-Day Sales Dare for New Home Sales.” As a consultant for many of the leading homebuilders in the United States, Canada and Australia, Forrest’s competitive distinction is his behavior-modification approach (which focuses on people, process, and presentation); his ability to create urgency; and his focus on culture change. Learn more.