This week on The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast, Sebastian Jimenez of Rilla joins Greg and Kevin to discuss how sales managers can use AI to transcribe and analyze conversations between new home sales consultants and prospective home buyers and provide feedback that will improve dialogue and increase sales.
Speech analytics software can help new home sales managers understand how much salespeople are talking to versus listening to potential home buyers. Sebastian says,
“So much about sales is people think sales is about talking. A lot of sales is actually not about talking; it’s about listening. One of the studies that we published as well, and this is based on again, more than a million conversations that were processed and analyzed at the time, we realized that 1% of top performers in the country that are generating millions and millions and millions of dollars in revenue for their businesses, they are talking between 45 and 65% of the time versus the customer. The average salespeople, they’re talking between 75 and 85% of the time. Because they’re talking so much, they’re actually not paying attention to what the customer is saying, and that’s why they miss a lot of details.”
AI technology can also analyze the speed at which salespeople are speaking to customers. Sebastian explains,
“Another thing that’s super critical, the talk speed of salespeople. We figured out that the average talk speed of top performers of salespeople when they’re closing sales is about 184 words per minute, which is a little bit faster than the average human talk speed, which is about 156 words per minute. For that to make sense to people like, imagine listening to a podcast at 1.2x speed. That’s how a salesperson talks who’s a top performer. A little bit faster, but not too fast, but not too fast. Not too fast, because if you go too fast, then you’re actually going to start dropping.”
When speech analytics software tools are used, it’s important for sales managers not to bombard salespeople with everything they need to improve at all at once. Sebastian says,
“My number one recommendation is it takes 21 days to build a habit, and you cannot build a hundred habits at the same time. So, what I would recommend to sales managers is every time you’re coaching somebody, focus on one thing. Just focus on one thing. If they’re talking too much, just focus on the talk ratio. Let’s lower that and let’s just focus on that for this month with this person. And then once they get that right and it becomes a habit and second nature, then move on to something else. And that’s what I tell managers like, Hey, don’t get feedback on everything because you’re going to overwhelm your salespeople with too much data, too many things to do. So, it’s one thing at a time. Great coaching is all about building great habits and helping your team build great habits. So, one at a time, not all at once, but one at a time.”
Listen to this week’s episode to learn more about how speech analytics software can help new home salespeople learn how to communicate with prospective home buyers more effectively.
About the Guest:
Sebastian Jimenez is the founder and CEO of Rilla, the leading speech analytics platform for in-person sales. Rilla allows home builders to record their conversations with customers, use AI to transcribe and analyze them, and deliver more feedback and coach faster.
