I have a phone interview soon and I want to nail it. I am so nervous can someone give me some good tips in how to successfully do this

I am going to throw in my agreement with Kim, Mark, and Steve... While measuring closing ratio is a dated, daunting, and completely skewed measureable, it is still done. Which is ridiculous. Doesn't take into consideration ANY of the marketing skills that we teach our leasing professionals, nor does it account for unqualified applicants, etc.
I preach and pride my staff on their connection, follow-up and ability to fill seats. I personally am a big believer in waiting for the right resident (i.e. qualified, interested, invested in my product, and connected to my leasing professional) rather than trying to forcefeed those same traits onto anyone who walks through the door.

Lol - Once again, I completely agree!!! I hope you have a great day!!!

BJ,

I hope that maybe after this discussion you may have a different perspective (even in an interview). How cool would it be if you presented the idea of closing ratios having too many variables, and that having leasing people focus on those doesn't really help achieve the final goal of actually getting to a sales goal. I'd let people know and a leasing team know what their sales goal is and have them strive to hit that. The ratio is essentially irrelevant as long as you're hitting your sales numbers.

We put this measurement practice into place about 2 years ago, and we went from having only 50% of our leasing people averaging 1 lease per week to nearly 75% achieving that goal this past year. It's just a better metric to focus on as it calculates real results. We publish a spreadsheet every Monday morning that shows where everyone in the company stands with average leases per week. Everyone knows exactly where they stand vs. their peers. We also reward people quarterly for maintaining their average about 1, and award our "leasers of the week" that have the most sales for the week. It's easier for everyone to monitor and strive for because its straight forward and simple. These are "net" leases we measure as well. Cancels and rejects don't count.

What we found when we measured closing ratios is that we would address low closing with people, do training on closing techniques, and then see that our traffic numbers would go down but the ratios would go up. So we basically didn't achieve anything other than testing people's integrity. In summary, if you want to see good closing ratios all you have to do is ask for them. People will record only their good traffic and achieve their closing goals every month. What they won't achieve is the actual leasing goal they need to hit to keep the property full.

OK, I'm had enough. I get more pumped up about this than cost per lead or cost per lease. That argument drives me nuts, but don't miss it today on #aptchat if you have a passion for that.

I totally agree with everyones posts...Unfortunately there are still companies that deal with closing ratios, instead of how you are to the residents as well as incoming traffic..I've been on interviews where that was one of the first questions asked...I feel that people in this industry can make more of a contribution and can succeed more if there is not this added pressure...A prospect can sense desperation in a person and it does not make for a desirable tour!! :)

Oh, some companies are still writing associates up for closing less than 30% - misses the whole point. Closing ratios are dynamic - goals to be set and adjusted often! If you have no availability, you close nothing, you can't stop the traffic from coming in....that's a good thing! Closing ratios are one piece of the whole marketing and sales puzzle. Macro goals, macro goals.... big picture....