Is your sales system really customer centered? I know you care about your prospects and customers. I know you want them to recognize how much you care about them. But when you look at how your company trains sales, how it talks about leasing and what steps you’re expected to follow, are they really all about the customer? Or are they all about your company’s process?

I’ve looked at a lot of sales training in this industry, and most of them teach a model that looks something like this:

The model teaches leasing associates how to handle a first contact, how to tour a prospect, how to deliver a quote and how to process a lease. Throughout this, it emphasizes things like

• Qualifying the prospect

• Establishing the tour path

• Selling “features and benefits”

• “Asking for the lease”—often accompanied by a secret shop scoresheet that gigs you if you tour somebody and don’t ask them if they’re ready to sign a lease

If this sounds familiar, then ask yourself how much of this is really about putting the customer first. I would argue very little—this approach is really all about our process and our objective to “make the sale.”

A customer-centered approach is one that actually looks at the decision process prospects go through and matches our behaviors to their journey. It’s less about selling than about helping the prospect make a decision. Most of our prospects are going to rent somewhere, so we don’t need to sell to them. We just need to authentically help them make a decision.

A little less on our process and a little more on their journey will connect better—and lead to more leases!