Filed under: life
We all know you can only make a 1st impression once, so you want to make it a good one…nothing is truer than in sales.
Jason and I went to look at some home builders today and one of our stops was Castle Rock Builders in Humble,TX. And was greeted by the worst 1st impression for a house sale person, EVER!!! To the point were as much as i liked the floor plan, i will not even consider building with them.
You know how you have to walk through the sales office before you can actually get into the model homes? (great sales technique)..and we all expect it…but this is what we were greeted with. "What are you looking at" (in a gruff tone) (I am not sure if I should point out to him aggression is not good for sales, or you don’t put at, at the end of a sentence) but the smart ass in me prevailed and i answered "a house" (i really wanted to tell him we were looking for a new car, but decided he wasn’t one to get sarcasm). so he asked us "what size are you looking for, small or large" (no not, "do you know how many square feet", or "how many bedrooms"). This is were i played Goldilocks and said "medium". This man was gruff, and blunt…and not what i would hire for new home sales. I am not kidding (i wish i was) he said "well this house is $165,000, if you can’t afford it i don’t want you to look at it". (insert my jaw dropping to the floor)
Normally at this point i would have u-turned and walked out…but curiosity got the best of me and i wanted to see the floor plan. Turns out i really like it. It was nice….not too small, not too big…medium….just what we are looking for. about 2500 sq ft, 4 bedroom, game room, fireplace (not standard in TX). Well the sales guy (whose name we don’t know at this point) came in to ask if we like it. And I couldn’t hold back, if there is one thing i CAN’T STAND is bad customer service. Jason and I agreed he probably told us a lot about the neighborhood with the way he greeted us. and Sales Guy tells us "well you can get this floor plan in Spring, but its $15,000 more. The way he talked about money money money and the tone he used made us feel that he assumed we couldn’t afford it.
i CAN’T WRITE how he spoke to use bc i can’t convey the tone of voice he used. but I did get fed up with him and told him he had lost our sale, and we would buy in another neighborhood so we didn’t have to deal with him. his response was "i never had a sale". WHOA…remember i really like the floor plan (and at this point its a good thing I really like Spring,TX..but will not build with them so it is a non issue) wow…i grabbed his card on the way out…now i know his name.
We headed to the Lennar Homes model next and was greeted by Wendall. who asked if we knew if we were looking for 1 story or 2, how many bedrooms, and what featured were important to us.
