Business lessons …….... from selling a property for full price in a week

You are here: Home

Written by Stefan Drew

Business lessons I’ve just sold a residential property in a week for the full asking price. We’d bought it two years before and made a good profit on the sale, which was very satisfying when the housing market is in turmoil.

I’ve written about my property selling secrets in a previous article 'How to Sell a Residential Property for the Full Asking Price in a Week!', but can the techniques I used be applied to any business transaction?

The answer has to be yes.

Rule 1. Have a sales strategy … before you buy

The first lesson is that before you buy anything you need to think about how you might sell it. When we bought the property two years ago we did so with an idea of who our typical buyer would be … and this shaped our purchase decisions. This rule also applies to starting a new business; when you start a new business one of the first things you need to consider is the exit strategy. I’ve recently started a new business with a business partner and our strategy is to develop the business to enable us to sell it in five years. That impacts the way we will run the business, and on a myriad of business decisions we will need to make over the next five years.
Likewise if you are buying products to resell either as they are, or after adding further value to them by processing or similar, you need to have a plan before you purchase.

Rule 2. Presentation is all

My second thought is that presentation is all. Our property was in pristine condition when we put it up for sale. We’d painted parts of it, decluttered and depersonalised it …. It looked like a showroom … and so did the outside of the property. It had “kerb appeal”, the approach to the property was excellent, the grass was cut and the gardens looked great .. in other words “first impressions” were excellent. In business terms that means if people are coming to your premises the approach and outside of the premises need to look great. We’ve all seen premises where the weed-ridden car parking is surrounded with sagging wire fences. It doesn’t present a good impression, and you can lose a sale before your prospective customer even gets out of the car ...... in fact they may not get out of the car!

If you don’t have physical premises or sell online the same first impressions can be a problem if your website looks cluttered, has poor navigation, is hard to read and doesn’t make it easy to buy. Poor websites are an excellent way to kill your sales!

It doesn’t matter how much you have spent on the website and whether you like it. How your website visitors react to it is what really matters. So you need to have a good reporting or statistics package on it. I recommend Google Analytics as it provides all the information you are likely to need, is quick and easy to install, and is free.
Poor packaging is another sales killer .. make sure your packaging presents your business positively. This also applies to non-physical products or services as you need to ensure you “package” your offer in a professional way .. including answering the phone professionally, responding to emails within 24 hours, send out quotes in a timely manner and a host of other things that professional people do.

Rule 3. Think about benefits

Lastly let’s consider the product or service you are selling. Are you sure that your prospective buyers really understand how the benefits they confer match with their needs? That means you need to understand their needs and they need to understand the benefits. To determine their needs you need to ask a few questions and listen …. Many sellers fail the listening bit and wonder why the sale fails. You also need to educate your prospective buyer about the benefits you can offer.

Selling houses, products and services is far from easy at the moment, but these basic common sense rules make a huge difference. Ignore them at your peril.

Your next move

If you want to discuss any sales or marketing problems you may have please feel free to contact me via Stefan@StefanDrew.com or on +44 (0) 1926 632794.

Stefan Drew