Practicing Pie = Practicing Scripts

On Friday I was told that I was being put in charge of pumpkin pie for the Thanksgiving feast at my cousin's house. Sounds simple enough for the average pie eater. I, however, am up against the legend of my Gram, Helen Sten. Gram made pies. Dozens of them as gifts for everyone from the mechanic who serviced her car to her hair dressers (students always at the local beauty school). She made real crusts that cannot be reproduced. Often I would see her with a small stack of white boxes with a clear plastic window each one with a fresh pie nestled into it. Pumpkin, squash, apple and her perfect lemon meringue's, flowed out her kitchen. Each with a handmade crust, each a work of pie art and Gram's love.

So when I learned that I was off green bean casserole duty and now on pie detail, my heart skipped a beat. My specialty is cookies not pie. Gram was the pie diva, I am the cookie queen. Cookies cook quick. Pie is an exercise in patience. So I set off this weekend to practice pie. Recipes from the internet yielded mostly the traditional pumpkin/sweet condensed milk pie with a couple of interesting exceptions. Notably the Paula Dean pie and a tofu pie. The Paula Dean recipe is of course, a heart stopper of a concoction. The tofu pie would be the first attempt to bake with soy products. This pie would have no eggs or milk to make custard part of the pie but would rely on silken vanilla tofu.

My office has been eating pie all week. But why practice pie instead of just make a pie? Because you get better at what you do when you do it over and over again. Practice makes perfect is the simple truth. The same goes for real estate scripts. Practice your scripts until you become one with them. Then you will have the right words flow when you are in the field talking to your sphere of influence. At the beginning you are going to feel foolish standing in front of the mirror with a piece of paper in your hand just reading out loud. But time goes on and sure enough you will have success. Scripts can set you above the rest because you are prepared for the conversation. The same goes for pie - I have test baked four pies now and have a handle on what happens in the life of pie. The agents in my office have tried all the pies and given great feedback on my technique. Like a script, I now know what to expect, how to conquer obstacles and deliver the perfect pie.

For all of you who have followed the pie saga on Facebook the overall winner in the pumpkin pie tasting was the TOFU PUMPKIN PIE~! Traditional pie came in second place. The Paula Dean pie was most often picked by people who started with "Well, I don't like pumpkin pie but..." So it just goes to show that we need several different types of scripts (and pie) in order to please all of our customers. So go spend some quality time in front of the mirror and practice what you are going to say. Let's get a handle on how to overcome objections and move forward to the closing table.
 
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Let's eat pie!