In 1976 Jon and his wife were looking for their first new home and visited a model home. The sales person was driving a big Cadillac and wearing a suit that was better than his. It took them two hours to convince the salesperson to sell them the home. “If he can do that and be as bad a salesman, I need to look into this” he told himself. Two weeks later he was working for the same company, Fox & Jacobs. Business went very well for him and he was soon promoted to Sales Manager. He had a propensity to take on difficult situations and finding solutions for the consumer.
The first year as an area Sales Manager he and his team closed 1200 homes. Two years later Jon moved to Houston to take over a new region for his company and eventually left and went to work for a high-end developer in Dallas when the market began to suffer. Jon then went to work for Centex Homes in Charlotte to be a General Sales Manager. In 1991 Jon moved from Charlotte to Chicago where a year later he became the Division President for Centex and remained in that position for 7 yrs. 1998 he moved back to Dallas to become VP of National Sales until Jan 07 when he retired. “I flunked retirement” he says so 5 days later, he joined The Berke Group as a Senior Partner and now describes his expertise as selecting and growing sales managers using his 33 years of experience and knowledge.

Jon’s passion has always been to help sales people succeed. Understanding what causes people to buy then designing processes and training for sales people to use in order to help them align their skills with those needs. The Berke Group is a management consulting firm that works with CEO’s and company leadership to help them get the most from their people. We help them remain competitive in this changing environment and as a result, our clients always out performed the market. “I realized that the techniques I taught 5 years ago are no longer effective.” The customer will no longer allow the sales person to have the control. The sales person and the consumer now must collaborate to arrive at a decision together because now more than ever, the consumer is informed. “The sale is no longer just about the house, the price or the features. It’s about which problems the consumer is trying to solve. Why are they there? Something has to be going on in their lives that drive them to look at new homes….what is that problem?” The sales person has to be more interested than interesting. Today’s most successful salespeople are problem solvers not just process administrators.

I couldn’t agree more. The consumer is much more interested in the genuine human element today and less and less enthused with the sterile sales processes of the past.

I asked Jon what makes his company different than similar companies. His answer was one word.
BRASS – Berke Relationship Acceleration Selling System – we work with organizations and their people to grab a better percentage of the market. BRASS aligns a “System of Persuasion” with a “System of Sales Management” for sales leaders and has 3 major components.
1.) Assessment – what are you currently doing? We analyze the organization’s sales performance, culture and people. Here we can identify the risks of how a new system will effect the organization and its leaders.
2.) Learning – BRASS training for the salespeople. It is 9 days of intensive learning. About 50% of the time is taught via simulation to firmly develop new habits and unlearning the old ones. Many times a change of core convictions or beliefs is necessary. We try to help sales people determine what those beliefs are what they need to be in order to be effective in today’s market.
3.) Management System – Here we put into place concrete tools and processes that form a measurement system that allow managers to leverage the process as time passes. We continue to work with the organization for several months to make sure the changes are permanent. Because our commitment requires so much time, we have a limited number of client’s at any one time. Our overall goal is to provide a method in which sales people can predict their success.
Jon believes that our industry is slow to change – "many in the industry are trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. We teach our clients to solve today’s problems with today’s solutions This means that we are constantly evolving and adapting and reassessing. Many believe that their current process is a religion instead of an art or science that needs to adapt and remain agile with changes in the market."

With that, I asked Jon if he has noticed any changes in our industry and whether or not he thinks that the industry is evolving. I found his answer to be very entertaining and very revealing.
Consumers are paying us back because the most popular closing statement 5 years ago was “next! If you don’t want it, the next person will”. We had more customers than we had homes and many took advantage of the consumer. Now it’s their turn and if we can’t grab their attention and give them the interaction and real solutions that they seek……….“next! Maybe another builder will.”
In order to adapt to the changes Jon had to change the assumption that his own convictions were always right and had to re-think what he thought was correct. Now, everyday I need to challenge myself in what I believe is right today. "I recognize that nothing is written in stone. I never thought that I would need to make the radical change in the sales process to adapt to today’s home buyer. I don’t know when it will shift again, but I need to challenge myself daily to keep learning. I will never be smart enough."

I asked Jon why so many builders pull their marketing dollars or let go of their marketing director when times get tough.
Many organizations have a hard time determining the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. We believe salespeople can learn how to do much of their own “marketing,” to leverage the efforts of the marketing professionals. As traffic continues to decline, it is paramount that salespeople generate their own business (note: I said business, not traffic).

Briefly we have identified that there are 4 sources of business
1.Walk ins – with a success rate of 1-15, 1-30
2.Realtors – with a success rate of 1-4
3.Referrals – with a success rate of 1-2
4.Internet – with a success rate of 1-2
Each has a very different success rate, with the walk-in being the least successful and the business source completely out of the salesperson’s control. The salesperson can be in complete control of the other sources of business, and success today requires systems and processes to leverage all. This is a different job than most of us signed up for, but once learned is extremely rewarding.
I had a great time talking with Jon and believe that he has a wealth of wisdom and experience to offer any company or organization. Here’s how you can find Jon.

Jon's profile on LinkedIn
Jon's webpage
Jon's email : jfogg@berkegroup.com
Jon's Cell Phone 214-755-0534

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