what is assignment selling

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10 Essential Things to Know About Real Estate Assignment Sales (for Sellers)

— We take our content seriously. This article was written by a real person at BREL.

What’s an assignment?

An assignment is when a Seller sells their interest in a property before they take possession – in other words, they sell the contract they have with the Builder to a new purchaser. When a Seller assigns a property, they aren’t actually selling the property (because they don’t own it yet) – they are selling their promise to purchase it, along with the rights and obligations of their Agreement of Purchase and Sale contract.  The Buyer of an assignment is essentially stepping into the shoes of the original purchaser.

The original purchaser is considered to be the Assignor; the new Buyer is the Assignee. The Assignee is the one who will complete the final sale with the Builder.

Do assignments only happen with pre-construction condos?

It’s possible to assign any type of property, pre-construction or resale, provided there aren’t restrictions against assignment in the original contract. An assignment allows a Buyer of a any kind of home to sell their interest in that property before they take possession of it.

Why would someone want to assign a condo?

Often with pre-construction sales, there’s a long time lag between when the original contract is entered into, when the Buyer can move in (the interim occupancy period) and the final closing. It’s not uncommon for a Buyer’s circumstances to change during that time…new job out of the city, new husband or wife, new set of twins, etc. What worked for a Buyer’s lifestyle 4 years ago doesn’t always work come closing time.

Another common reason why people want to assign a contract is financial. Sometimes, the original purchaser doesn’t have the funds or can’t get the financing to complete the sale, and it’s cheaper to assign the contract to a new purchaser, than it is to renege on the sale.

Lastly, assignment sales are also common with speculative investors who buy pre-construction properties with no intention of closing on them. In these cases, the investors are banking on quick price appreciation and are eager to lock in a profit now, vs. waiting for the original closing date.

What can be negotiated in an assignment sale?

Because the Assignee is taking over the original purchaser’s contract, they can’t renegotiate the price or terms of the contract with the Builder – they are simply taking over the contract as it already exists, and as you negotiated it.

In most cases, the Assignee will mirror the deposit that you made to the Builder…so if you made a 20% deposit, you can expect the new purchaser to do the same.

Most Sellers of assignments are looking to make a profit, and part of an assignment sale negotiation is agreeing on price. Your real estate agent can guide you on price, which will determine your profit (or loss).

Builder Approval and Fees

Remember that huge legal document you signed when you made an offer to buy a pre-construction condo? It’s time to take it out and actually read it.

Your Agreement of Purchase & Sale stipulated your rights to assign the contract. While most builders allow assignments, there is usually an assignment fee that must be paid to the Builder (we’ve seen everything from $750 to $7,000).

There may be additional requirements as well, the most common being that the Builder has to approve the assignment.

Marketing Restrictions

Most pre-construction Agreements of Purchase & Sale from Toronto Builders do not allow the marketing of an assignment…so while the Builder may give you the right to assign your contract, they restrict you from posting it to the MLS or advertising it online. This makes selling an assignment extremely difficult…if people don’t know it’s available for sale, how they can possibly buy it?

While it may be very tempting to flout the no-marketing rule, BE VERY CAREFUL. Buyers guilty of marketing an assignment against the rules can be considered to have breached the Agreement, and the Builder can cancel your contract and keep your deposit.

We don’t recommend advertising an assignment for sale if it’s against the rules in your contract.

So how the heck can I find a Buyer?

There are REALTORS who specialize in assignment sales and have a database of potential Buyers and investors looking for assignments. If you want to be connected with an agent who knows the ins and outs of assignment sales, get in touch…we know some of the best assignment agents in Toronto.

What are the tax implications of real estate assignment?

Always get tax advice from a certified accountant, not from the internet (lol).

But in general, any profit made from an assignment is taxable (and any loss can be written off). The new Buyer or Assignee will be responsible for paying land transfer taxes and any HST that might be due.

How much does it cost to assign a pre-construction condo?

In addition to the Builder assignment fees, you will likely have to pay a real estate commission (unless you find the Buyer yourself) and legal fees. Because assignments are more complicated, you can expect to pay higher legal fees than you would for a resale property.

How does the closing of an assignment work?

With assignment sales, there are essentially 2 closings: the closing between the Assignor and the Assignee, and the closing between the Assignee and the Builder. With the first closing (the assignment closing) the original purchaser receives their deposit + any profit (or their deposit less any loss) from the Assignee. On the second closing (between the Builder and the Assignee), the Assignee pays the remaining amount to the Builder (usually with the help of a mortgage), and pays land transfer taxes. Title of the property transfers from the Builder to the Assignee at this point.

I suppose it could be said that there is a third closing too, when the Buyer takes possession of the property but doesn’t yet own it…this is known as the interim occupancy period. The interim occupancy occurs when the unit is ready to be occupied, but not ready to be registered with the city. Interim occupancy periods in Toronto range from a few months to a few years. During the interim occupancy period, the Buyer occupies the unit and pays the Builder an amount roughly equal to what their mortgage payment + condo fees + taxes would be. The timing of the assignment will dictate who completes the interim occupancy.

Assignments vs. Resale: Which is Better?

We often get calls from people who are debating whether they should assign a condo they bought, or wait for the building to register and then sell it as a typical resale condo.

Pros of Assigning vs. Waiting

• Get your deposit back and lock in your profit sooner
• Avoid paying land transfer taxes
• Avoid paying HST
• Maximize your return if prices are declining and you expect them to continue to decline
• Lifestyle – sometimes it just makes sense to move on

Cons of Assigning vs Waiting

• The pool of Buyers for assignment sales is much smaller than the pool of Buyers for resale properties, which could result in the sale taking a long time, getting a lower price than you would if you waited, or both.
• Marketing restrictions are annoying and reduce the chances of finding a Buyer
• Price – What is market value? If the condo building hasn’t registered and there haven’t been any resales yet, it can be difficult to determine how much the property is now worth. Assignment sales tend to sell for less than resale.
• Assignment sales can be complicated, so you want to make sure that you’re working with an agent who is experienced with assignment sales, and a good lawyer.

Still thinking of assignment your condo or house ? Get in touch and we’ll connect you with someone who specializes in assignment sales and can take you through the process.

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Raj Singh says:

What can be things to look for, especially determining market value for an assigned condo? I’m the assignee.

Sydonia Moton says:

Y would u need a lawyer when u buy a assignment property

Gideon Gyohannes says:

Good clear information!

Who pays the assignment fee to the developer? Assignor or Assignee?

Thanks Gideon 416 4591919

Melanie Piche says:

It’s almost always the Seller (though I suppose could be a point of negotiation).

Fiona Rourke says:

If there are 2 names on the agreement and 1 wants to leave and the other wants to remain… does the removing of 1 purchaser constitute an assignment

Brendan Powell says:

An assignment is one way to add or remove people from a contract, but not the only way…and not the simplest. Speak to your lawyer for advice on what makes the most sense for your specific situation. For a straightforward resale purchase you could probably just do an amendment signed by all parties. If it’s a preconstruction purchase with various deposits paid, etc it could be more complicated.

Katerina says:

Depends on the Developer. Some of them remove names via assignments only.

Haroon says:

Is there any difference in transaction process If assigner or seller of a pre constructio condo is a non resident ? Is seller required to get a clearance certificate from cRA to complete the transaction ?

Nathalie says:

Hello , i would like to know the exact steps for reassignment property please.

Amazing info. Thanks team. I may just touch base with you when my property in Stoney Creek is completed in. 2020. I may need to reassign it to someone Thanks

Victoria Bachlowa says:

If an assignor renegs on the deal and refuses to close because they figured out they could get more money and the assignment was already approved by the builder and all conditions fulfilled what can the Assignee do. I have $33,000 dollars in trust in the real estate’s trust fund. They sent me a mutual release which I have not signed. The interim occupancy is Feb. 1 and the closing is schedule for Mar. 1, 2019. I have financing in place, was ready to move in Feb. 1 and I have no where to live.

Definitely talk to your lawyer right away. They’ll want to look at your agreement of purchase and sale and will be able to advise you.

With assignment sales, there are essentially 2 closings: the closing between the Assignor and the Assignee, and the closing between the Assignee and the Builder. With the first closing (the assignment closing) the original purchaser receives their deposit + any profit (or their deposit less any loss) from the Assignee. Can I assume that these closing happen at the same time? I’m not sure how and when I would be paid as the Assignor.

What happens to the deposits or any profits already paid if the developer cancels the project after an assignment?

Hi, Did you get answer to this? I did an assignment sale last year and now the builder is not completing apparently and they are asking for their money back. Can they do that? After legal transactions, the lawyer simply said “the deal didn’t go through”. Apparently builder and the person who assumed the assignment agreed on taking out the deal. What do I have to pay back after it was done a year ago

This is definitely a question for your lawyer – as realtors we are not involved in that part of the transaction. I would expect that just as the builder would have to refund your deposits, you would likely need to do the same…but talk to your lawyer. As to whether the builder can cancel a project, yes they always reserve that right (but the details of how and under what circumstances would be in your original purchase agreement). It’s one of the annoying risks in buying preconstruction!

I completed the sale of my assignment in Dec 2015 however the CRA says I should be reporting the capital income in 2016 when the assignee closed his deal with the developer in July 2016. That makes no sense to me since I got all my money in Dec 2015. Can you supply any clarification on that CRA policy please?

You’d have to talk to the CRA or an accountant – we’re real estate agents,so we can’t give tax advice.

Hassan says:

Hello, You said that there are two closings. The first one between the assignor and the assignee and the second one between the builder and the new buyer (assignee). My question is that in the first closing does the assignee have to pay the assignor the deposit they have paid and any profit in cash or will the bank add this to the assignee’s mortgage?

The person doing the assigning usually gets their money at the first closing.

Kathy says:

What is the typical real estate free to assign your contract with the builder ?

Hi Kathy While we do few assignments (as they are rarely successful, and builders do not make it easy), in past we have charged more or less the same as we do for a typical resale listing. While there are elements to assignments that should be easier than a resale (eg staging), many other aspects of assignments are much MORE time-consuming, and the risk much higher since attempts to find a buyer for assignments are often unsuccessful. It’s also important to note that due to the extra complication, lawyer’s fees to assign are typically higher than resale as well–although more $ for the purchase side vs the sale side.

Mitul Patel says:

If assignee has paid small amount of deposit plus the original 25% deposit that the assignor has paid to the builder and gets the Keys to the unit since interim possession has been completed, when the condo registration is done and assignee is getting mortgage from the Bank or Pays the remaining balance to the Builder using his savings and decides not to pay the Balance of the Profit amount to Assignor, what are the possibilities in this kind of scenario?

You’d need to talk to a lawyer to find out the options.

David says:

How much exactly do brokers get paid at sale of Assignment? i.e. Would the broker’s fee be a % of your assignment selling price or your home’s selling price? I’m really looking for a clear answer.

I am using this website’s calculator associated with selling your home in Ontario. But there is no information on selling assignments. https://wowa.ca/calculators/commission-calculator-ontario

Realtors set their own commission, so there is no set fee- that website is likely the commission that that agent offers. We often see commissions of 4-5% for assignments. The fee is a % of the price of the assignment – for example, you originally bought for $500K; you’re now assigning for $600K – commission would be payable on the $600K.

Candace says:

Question: if i bought a pre construction condo, can i sell it as soon as it closes or do i have to live in it for 1 year after closing in order to avoid capital gains taxes?

Or does the 1 year start as soon as you move in?

I would suggest you talk to your accountant re: HST credit implications and capital gains, but if you sell it for more than you paid for it, capital gains usually apply.

You mention avoid paying HST when you assign your property. What is the HST based on? It’s not a commercial property that you would pay HST. Explain. Thanks.

HST and assignments are complex and this question is best answered specific to your situation by your accountant and real estate lawyer. In some cases HST is applicable on assignment profits – more details can be found on the CRA website here:

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/gi-120/assignment-a-purchase-sale-agreement-a-new-house-condominium-unit.html

If you are a podcast listener, the true condos podcast is also a great resource.

https://truecondos.com/cra-cracking-down-on-assignments/

heres one for your comment, purchase pre construction from builder beginning of 2021, to be finished end of 2021, (semi detached) here we are end of 2022, both units are now ready. Had one assigned but because builder didnt accept within certain time frame(they also had a 90 day clause wherein we couldnt assign prior to 90 less firm closing date (WHICH MOVED 4 TIMES). Anyrate now we have a new assinor but the builder says we are in default from the first one and wants 50k to do the assignment (the agreement lists the possibility of assigning for 12k) Also this deal would include us loosing our whole deposit and paying the 12k(plus fees) would be in addition too the 130k we are already loosing. The second property we are trying to close but interest rates are riducous, together with closing costs(currently mortgage company is asking that my wife be added to that one, afraid to even ask this builder. Any advice on how to deal with this asshole greedy builder? We are simply asking for assignment as per contract and a small extension for the new buyer(week or two) Appreciate any advice. Thank you

Dealing with builders/developers can be extremely painful, much worse than resale transactions in our experience. Their contracts are written to protect THEM. Unfortunately all I can say is follow the advice of your lawyer.

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What is Assignment Selling? The Comprehensive Guide 

If your business is creating content consistently as part of your overall inbound marketing strategy, you might assume that if you publish often enough, you’ll magically generate more traffic, leads and sales than you can possibly handle. However, the true story is very different.  

Everything You Need to Know About ‘They Ask You Answer’

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If your business is creating content consistently as part of your overall inbound marketing strategy , you might assume that if you publish often enough, you’ll magically generate more traffic, leads and sales than you can possibly handle. However, the true story is very different.  

What we see here at RedPandas is that when businesses publish a lot of content, they do get periodic spikes in traffic, but the translation of that traffic to sales is a slower burn. Why is this and can you quickly turn content into revenue?  

In this article, we’ll be answering this question. In particular, we’re going to explore:  

• What is Assignment Selling?
• The impact of Assignment Selling
• Using Assignment Selling with video
• Why Assignment Selling won’t work
• How to prepare your company for effective Assignment Selling

What is Assignment Selling? 

Assignment Selling is when we assign “homework” to our prospects in the form of educational blog articles or videos anytime during the sales cycle.  

Assignment Selling can be implemented at various stages of the sales cycle; before the first sales call, after the first sales call, before a deal is signed, and so on. 

Examples of Assignment Selling 

An example of Assignment Selling in practice might look something like this:  

“Hi, Harry! I’m looking forward to meeting with you next Wednesday. I’ve attached a guide to read before our meeting that will answer all your questions in advance and go over options you need to consider. This way, when we meet, we can make the most of our time together and focus on your specific needs. If you can’t read this before our meeting, let me know and I will reschedule for a better time. Can you confirm you’re able to do this before Wednesday?”  

This is so effective for a bunch of reasons:  

• Gives a definitive “why” this assignment is important from the perspective of the buyer (it will answer your prospect’s questions so you can better use your time together). 
• Offers a tease about what’s in it for them  
• Shows your prospect that it’s important to complete the assignment before meeting with you (if they can’t get to it, you’re rescheduling). 
• Asks for confirmation they will complete the assignment (so you can be sure when you go on that sales call, you’re not wasting your time). 
• Importantly, it positions you as an authority, a trusted advisor and not just another salesperson trying to hit commission. 

What to do if Prospects Say “No”? 

Firstly, let’s assume you’re not giving them a ton of homework and like the example above, you are clearly demonstrating the value of completing the assignment for the buyer.  

If someone isn’t willing to make time to read your content, then education doesn’t matter to them and they’re basing their decision on price. If this is the case, they’re probably not a good fit for you.  

Do you want to work with people that are only shopping on price? If you do choose to work with these prospects, you’ll always be undervaluing your products and services, and whenever a competing company finds a way to sell a similar product or service cheaper than yours, where do you think your customers are going to go? 

If someone isn’t willing to do the assignments, you can say something like, “This will prevent you from making mistakes and will help us make the best use of our time, but if you can’t, it’s OK. It just means we aren’t a good fit.”  

It might sound brutal at first but remember, you’re evaluating the prospect for a right fit as much as they are evaluating you.  

You are the teacher, and it’s your right to ask your prospects to learn what you put your time and effort into creating. Selling is an equal partnership, where you are educating your prospect on how to find the best solution for their problems, and as such, they owe you their time in return. 

To sum all of this up; when we have a formal Revenue Team meeting where sales team members help marketers write articles that answer buyer questions and concerns, and when salespeople use Assignment Selling in their process, you’re going to get a result where traffic, leads, and most importantly sales, all increase in tandem with each other.  

You can learn more about implementing Assignment Selling by learning about They Ask, You Answer , or talk to an advisor if you have questions about how this could work for your business. 

The Impact of Assignment Selling 

Assignment Selling ultimately increases sales close rates and decreases the length of the sales lifecycle, ultimately resulting in more business revenue.  

However, there are also other positive impacts that Assignment Selling has on your company. Let’s take a look at these.  

More sales because you’re now a trusted advisor, not a salesy salesperson 

When you educate your prospects through content, your prospect ends up seeing you as a trusted advisor as opposed to a salesperson, because you’re helping your prospect actively solve their problems and become educated on the solutions to solve their problems via content.  

The truth is, no one wants to be sold to. However, when you’re perceived as a trusted advisor, the game changes completely. Prospects want to talk with you, and they want you to help them. This makes sales significantly easier to tackle. 

Assignment selling has this profound effect of subconsciously reframing in the mind of your prospect that they need to sell and prove themselves to you as opposed to the other way around. 

Saves time on education 

We usually spend too much time educating prospects on our sales calls and not enough time actually selling. The truth is, educated prospects are much more likely to buy from us, so it makes sense that we would want to educate our prospects.  

We have two choices: we can either educate our prospects over the phone, or we can let our content educate our prospects and spend our time on the phone selling and bringing in revenue.  

When we do this, we shorten the sales lifecycle, increase our sales close rates, and save our salespeople a bunch of time.  

Strengthening good-fit leads and weeding out bad-fit prospects 

These assignments act as a qualifying mechanism that helps bring the right customers to your salespeople and sends bad-fit prospects away, so that your salespeople don’t waste their time. 

How does this work?  

When we give Assignments to our prospects, there are only three possible options:  

• The prospects read our assignment but doesn’t complete it, however they still show interest in purchasing from us.  
• The prospect reads our assignment, doesn’t complete it, and is no longer interested in buying from us.  
• The prospect reads our assignment, completes it, and is interested in buying from us.  

In cases 1 and 2, we’re best to NOT work with these prospects. For example, if you were to work with a customer who is excited and interested in working with you but who isn’t educated on the process, tools, and more involved in the project, then the project probably won’t run as smoothly as it could. In this case, you end up wasting more time educating the prospect during the sales call and during the project, which slows everything down and wastes time and money.  

On the other hand, when the prospect completes the assignment, you save time on education and you have a smoother project experience, which ultimately leads to a happier customer and a repeat-customer – in other words, more revenue and more wins for everybody involved.  

You might be thinking, “our target audience isn’t really interested in reading blog articles”. However, you couldn’t be further from the truth. More often than not, our buyers are willing to consume more content than we think. If we integrate content into our sales process using Assignment Selling, we’re going to be dramatically more successful. 

Closer to the magic number 30  

If a prospect visits 30 pages or more of a website, there is an 80% chance that they’ll buy. If they view 30 pages or fewer, there’s a 15-20% chance that they’ll buy.  

This statistic, which was discovered by Marcus Sheridan when he tested groups of buyers to find what factors influenced their buying decision, is the key that underpins the concept of Assignment Selling.  

It helps increase our close rates and shortens the sales cycle, because prospects become educated and move closer to that having viewed 30 pages or more. 

Once Marcus discovered this, he began assigning prospects at least 30 pages to read before each sales call to see if it would help closing rates. After implementing this process, his closing rates went from 25-30% to over 80%. 

When we use Assignment Selling, we move closer to this magic number and the positive impact that comes with it.  

Using Assignment Selling with Video 

Leveraging video as opposed to blog articles with Assignment Selling can produce some pretty significant results.  

Instead of sending your prospect an email with homework to finish reading a blog article, you can instead ask your prospect to watch an educational video or webinar. This works better for three reasons:  

• Videos are better at persuading a user to purchase a product or service than any other form of content. For example, 84% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video (HubSpot). 
• With video, you can see if your prospect has watched the video to completion by using certain video tools like Loom or Vidyard. This gives you power to see whether or not prospects are actually completing your Assignment Selling homework.  

  53% of sales pros who use custom-recorded video report that is has increased their close rates.  

When we use video in the Assignment Selling process, we can speed up its effect and create extraordinary results quickly.  

Assignment Selling Won’t Work If You Don’t do This… 

So, you’re producing content consistently, traffic has started to pick up, but for some reason, the number of sales you’re making isn’t really changing. Why is this happening and what can you do about it?  

Usually, this happens for one reason: marketing and sales aren’t aligned, resulting in blog articles being written that don’t answer buyer concerns and questions. 

And when marketing and sales aren’t aligned, it’s impossible for the sales team to utilise assignment selling to increase their close rates and shorten the sales cycle.   

If the main requirement of article generating content is that it speaks directly to your customer concerns and questions, then who in the business would be best at revealing what these concerns and questions are? 

That’s right, the sales team. They are on the frontline, dealing with prospects every single day, and because of this, they know better than ANYONE else in your company the questions and concerns that your prospects have.  

However, when the marketing team sits in their own silo, separate from the sales team, they end up writing content that, while being entertaining and interesting, does not directly speak to the customer’s main questions and concerns. And how can you blame the marketer? Sure, they can create their buyer personas and build content based on this, but it’ll never hit the nail on the head – it’ll never be just right.   

That’s why it’s absolutely essential to get the sales team involved in the content ideation process, so that they can provide rich, real, necessary information for the marketer to utilise. 

Unfortunately, more often than not businesses don’t align sales and marketing, resulting in increased traffic and leads with no real impact on sales. This is why businesses struggle to dramatically increase sales.  

Why The Revenue Team is Key to Generating Sales 

Getting your sales and marketing teams working together all starts with forming a formal Revenue Team.  

The Revenue Team meets weekly or fortnightly and is made up of key players from your sales and marketing teams. The revenue team’s main goal is to increase company revenue, and they do this by developing and executing content to be used in the sales process to accelerate the sales cycle.   

In other words, the marketing team sits down with the sales team and finds out the exact customer questions and concerns that the sales team deals with, and the n the marketing team produces articles around these. Once the articles have been produced, the sales team uses those articles in the sales process as educational tools to provide prospects with at different stages of the sales cycle , depending on the specific questions and concerns that the prospect has. 

Because the sales team was involved in the content creation/ideation process they actually respect the content, use the content in their sales conversations and provide feedback to the marketing team with what is working and what isn’t.  

Our experience shows that once a Revenue Team is established and content is being generated and used, the sales cycle is shortened and close rates improve significantly because they do the obvious job of proactively answering buyer questions and concerns.  

When articles that DIRECTLY answer prospects’ questions and concerns are produced in tandem with the sales team, a strange thing happens. Your company is perceived as the trusted voice in the space , and everyone wants to buy from your company, because trust is the emotion that guides the buying exchange . And it is this, which is the key to success. 

If you need guidance on setting up a revenue team for your business, you should learn more about the framework called They Ask, You Answer (TAYA) , and then, if TAYA Coaching is right for you , reach out to us here.   

How to Best Prepare Your Company for Effective Assignment Selling 

There are a few things you need to do in order to get your company prepared for effective Assignment Selling, these include:  

• Get buy-in from sales and leadership 
• Hire a content manager 
• Form a revenue team 
• Build an internal content management system 

Get Buy-in From Sales & Leadership 

Your entire company must be bought into the mission of becoming the #1 Teacher in your industry, with an obsession on answering all of your ideal buyer’s questions as honestly and thoroughly as possible.  

Chances are, you’ll be met with resistance when trying to get buy-in from sales and leadership. It’s only natural, humans resist change, and implementing this system is a BIG change (but a necessary one).  

Most will say they don’t have the time or it’s not worth it, but this is an indicator that they don’t see the value in it BECAUSE they don’t understand it. And this becomes your responsibility to educate them so that they can see the value in this system.  

How Can You Educate Your Team on They Ask, You Answer? 

The first step is to make sure everyone in your team has read They Ask, You Answer . The second step would be to get everyone to read our Comprehensive Guide on They Ask, You Answer . And then, you should have a formal meeting with your sales team, marketing team, and leadership to discuss the framework, the benefits of it, and the fact that it must become a company focus to implement it. Once you’ve done this, then you can ask these questions to test whether you truly have buy-in from sales and leadership:  

• Does your website adequately educate prospects about the thing you do , and are you willing to address your buyers’ questions?  
• Do you all agree that establishing trust is what ultimately gets a prospect to buy ? 
• Should your sales and marketing teams focus on establishing trust with buyers?  
• Do you believe buyers’ habits have changed ?  

If your sales team and leadership agree on these points, then you’ll be in a better position to use Assignment Selling to dramatically increase sales.  

Hire a Content Manager 

You will need just one person who purely owns the content production, focusing on picking the right content marketing tools, creating the publishing calendar, writing content, interviewing subject matter experts – everything. This is what we call the Content Manager. 

It’s important to hire someone full time for this position who isn’t wearing a bunch of hats, otherwise this will never get done. A good Content Manager should:  

• Love and have a passion for writing – they’ll be writing A LOT, so it’s important that they actually enjoy the process of writing.  
• Have strong communication and interviewing skills. They’ll need to interview subject matter experts in order to get the information they require to write their articles.  
• Possess the top soft skills that a marketer requires , including drive, passion, and attention to detail. 

Form a Revenue Team 

If you truly want to implement Assignment Selling, you’re going to need to establish a Revenue Team so that your marketing and sales teams can work as one.  

This is a fundamental step in the process. Every week, the Revenue Team should meet to:  

• Brainstorm which pieces of content your sales team can use in their selling process to close deals faster,  
• Understand what content isn’t useful to the sales team so that marketing won’t waste time creating it.  

By doing this, you can ensure that content which can be used in the sales process is being developed, and sales can confidently use this content by implementing Assignment Selling.  

Build an Internal Content Management System 

You need to have an internal resource where sales can easily find the content they need and share it. Sales team members already have so much to do, so it’s important to make it easy for them to find the content that they need to use in the sales process. On top of this, you need to make sure your system notifies sales team members when new content is created.  

There are many tools you can use to store and organise this content for sales team members. Some of these include:  

• HubSpot  
• Paperflite  
• Contentful  

To sum up, there are a few things you need to do in order to get your company prepared for effective Assignment Selling, which includes:   

How to Use the Assignment Selling Process 

So, we know what Assignment Selling is and we know how to prepare for it’s use in our company, but how do we actually use Assignment Selling? 

The key to using Assignment Selling is to map out an Assignment Selling Timeline. This means mapping out your sales journey and then preparing specific Assignments for each part of that sales journey. For example, the ‘Sales Qualified’ stage might require different homework to the ‘Presented Offering’ stage, for example. 

In the above sales journey we can see various different stages, including:  

• New Lead 
• Attempted to contact 
• Sales qualified 
• Scoping / auditing 
• Presented offering 
• Quoted 
• Customer  
• Potential future 
• Unserviceable  

In each of these stages, we could have very specific pieces of content that we want to use as homework in the Assignment Selling process. In the earlier stages, we want to send emails with links or documents that answer top-of-the-funnel questions. An example of this might look like:  

“ Thanks so much for filling out that form. We bet you have a bunch of questions about xyz, and we’ve produced a guide that’s going to walk you through them.”   

In the earlier stages, we want to be mindful of the time it takes to complete assignments to prevent loss. The shorter the time it takes while still providing value, the better.  

In the middle and later stages of the sales journey, you can start focusing on assignments that help prospects decide whether or not you’re a good fit for them. For example, you might include blog articles around pricing, or comparing competing businesses in your industry. In the latest stages of the cycle, you might include content that teaches buyers how they can best prepare working with you, what the process is like, and so on.   

Ideally your Revenue Team should meet frequently to brainstorm which assignments go out at which point of the sales journey, and this process should be refined over time. Every piece of content should be extremely intentional and should help your prospects move further toward a sale or out of your pipeline.  

So, what’s next?

So, you’ve decided you want to use Assignment Selling in your business to increase sales close rates and shorten the sales cycle?  

Great! Here’s your next best steps:  

• Learn about the framework of ‘They Ask, You Answer’ (TAYA)  
• Write blog articles that rank and generate leads  
• Read a copy of the ‘They Ask, You Answer’ book  
• Get in touch with one of our TAYA Coaches to learn more about how you can implement this for your business 

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What is Assignment Selling?

Do you find your business spends too much time on bad-fit customers and answering the same questions over and over? If so, assignment selling could be the solution.

Assignment selling is a hugely effective way to build trust, reduce poor quality leads and get higher click-through rates.

In a nutshell, assig nment selling is about creating content to answer your customer's most asked questions before they make a purchase. By making this content available, and using it in your sales process, you allow customers to find the answers they need so that they can decide if your brand will be a good answer to their problem.

Before your sales team tries to make a deal, the customer has already taken the time to educate themselves and are less likely to drop out of a purchase because they know exactly what to expect. 

At Vanguard 86, we believe in using the assignment selling method as part of the ‘They ask, you answer’ framework. Using informative blogs, videos, and FAQ articles to answer the burning questions of their customers, we attract the buyers that are most likely to make a purchase and give them the answers they need. With customers feeling empowered and brands making more sales, it’s a no-brainer. 

Assignment selling is an uncomfortable concept for many salespeople because it involves giving the prospect homework. Why is this offensive to some salespeople? Because they see their role as doing work for the prospect, not giving them more.

Some even see their role in the relationship as being there to take work off the customer’s hands. It’s this misconception that stops many good salespeople from becoming great salespeople.

Assignment selling in a nutshell

During the sales process, a salesperson can lean on assignment selling for several reasons. These reasons include:

Educating the customer on their options

Vetting the prospect’s suitability as a customer

Testing the lead’s level of interest

Reducing the chance of issues after the sale.

All of these are great reasons to use assignment selling. They benefit both parties equally and build a very different relationship between the salesperson and the prospect. Let’s explore each in more detail.

Educating the customer

This is one of the most valuable ways in which assignment selling is used. The homework you set the prospect could be to gather more information to ensure the solution you, as the salesperson, propose is the correct one. It may involve completing a survey, taking a quiz or asking other decision-makers key questions.

This application of assignment selling can help a salesperson consult on the best solution with greater levels of accuracy, and makes the customer feel more involved and like the solution is tailored to their needs.

Vetting the prospect’s suitability

This additional homework can also be beneficial in the salesperson’s vetting process. You don’t sell to everyone in the world, and some people are better customers than others. Assignment selling helps you to weed out the good fit prospects from the tyre kickers.

For a busy, or apex salesperson focusing efforts on the leads that are more likely to generate success is key.

Many prospects say all the right things, have an urgent need and have an approaching deadline yet, somehow, they suddenly go quiet. This could be because their level of interest was lower than communicated.

Assignment selling helps you to assess their actual interest by giving them a small hoop to jump through. If they’re not willing to put in a little bit of work then chances are they’re not actually that keen.

A quick sale is a good sale but not if it’s because someone bought something when they thought they were getting something else.

Assignment selling can educate a customer on the long-term maintenance requirements, common challenges or situations for which your solution isn't suitable so they can avoid any post-purchase regrets.

How does it fit into ‘They ask you answer’?

The framework of ‘ They ask you answer ’ is built on the idea that customers are more likely to buy from a business they trust. By creating relevant content that addresses customer concerns, a business can foster that trust and build a rapport with them.

Giving prospective customers content to actively engage with before you make a sales pitch makes them feel connected, understood and well-informed. Assignment selling can often pull on articles created under the Big 5 as the sales people set the ‘homework’ of reading an article the company has produced, as an example.

The Big 5 

There are five key categories for this kind of content marketing, which are known as ‘The Big 5’ . These categories include all the topics that customers are most interested in and are likely to search for.

By creating content about each of these five categories, your business can intercept prospective customers, give them relevant answers to their questions and build trust with them.

Let's break down the big 5 to help you get started assignment selling today.

Before making a purchase, customers want to know how much they’ll need to pay, and why. But in reality, many companies choose to shy away from this question for the fear of scaring customers off.

However, even if a customer is attracted in the early stages, that doesn't mean that they won't back out later. That’s why providing clear, informative content about your pricing from the beginning can put you well ahead of your competition by building your authority in the industry and reducing wasted leads. 

For some industries, giving a set price isn’t always possible, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still create this kind of content marketing. At the very least, you should be explaining what factors can affect the pricing and why the quotes you give are as high or low as they are.

In this way, customers will be assured they’re getting a fair price and know exactly where their investment is going. You can also discuss the long-term costs of a certain product or alternative solution. The costs that may arise from getting the decisions wrong are also good to cover in blog articles.

If you’re concerned to be talking about costs in your industry, then don’t be. Another perspective on this is to think back to your feelings the last time you wanted to know the cost of something but couldn’t find the price. Did you cut the business some slack and pick up the phone to talk about it or did you move on to the next Google search result to see if they were more transparent?

Examples of cost articles : 

• HubSpot software pricing explained
• How Much Does It Cost To Be Successful With LinkedIn Ads?
• How Much Do Google Ads Cost?

Problems 

Similarly to pricing, businesses tend to avoid talking about the problems with their product or service. But customers know nothing is perfect so by not disclosing this information, businesses can seem deceptive and deter customers without even realising.

On the other hand, you can cultivate an open, honest relationship with your customers by giving a clear, informative explanation of everything that can go wrong with your product or service. For the most part, customers will feel more comfortable making a purchase knowing they’ve heard all sides to the story, and if not, then they weren’t a good fit anyway. 

A great way to format a problems article is to give clear, helpful information for each potential issue, including why it might occur, and follow it with solutions your company is offering to counteract it. This way customers are aware of the problems from the beginning but also know exactly how your company is addressing them. 

Problem articles can help bad-fit prospects opt-out when your solution doesn’t apply to them, as long as you are transparent and honest about it. For example, a digital marketing agency like Vanguard 86 isn’t a good fit for a business that wants a completely hands-off approach to its marketing. T

he reason for this is that we still need ongoing input from the business, such as relevant details, approvals and feedback to ensure the marketing is working. 

Examples of problems articles : 

• Problems with Review Tui customer feedback software
• Avoid these critical LinkedIn mistakes
• Problems with customer feedback

Comparisons 

If customers are wanting to make a purchase, it’s common for them to compare one brand to another. The best way to target these customers is with content that gives objective evaluations of each version of the product, and what each brand caters to. It can be tempting to talk your competitors down here, but be wary of this because it can detract from your authority.

The key is to be unbiased so that your readers continue to trust your brand and the information you provide. If you make baseless claims you can leave your customers feeling misled and disappointed, and more likely to look elsewhere. However, by stating your bias openly and sticking to the facts, you can reassure them that your brand is reliable, honest and knowledgeable. 

As long as you’ve been clear about your bias previously, the outro is a good opportunity to include a prompt for customers to engage with your brand further. Whether it be a link to your website, a call with a sales rep or a products page, you can frame this in a way that encourages customer buy-in without detracting from their trust in you.

Examples of comparison articles

• Which social media platform should I use for my business?
• Ask Nicely vs Review Tui - what's the difference?
• Blogging vs Content Marketing – what’s the difference?

‘Best of’ 

Just like with comparisons, customers like to know they’re buying the best possible version of a product. That’s why marketing content that outlines the best of a certain product is a great option for assignment selling. No matter what industry you are in, your customers are looking for the best fit for them, so all you need to do here is reassure them. 

The blog content can be specific to a certain location, target market or style so that anyone looking for the best version of that specific product is more likely to find your website.

It doesn’t always mean you’re targeting every customer within your industry, but rather the customers who are most likely to buy from you because they are a great fit for your brand. This situation is a win-win because both you and the customer find your ideal match, and can be confident it is based on shared values and expectations.

Examples of ‘best of’ articles : 

• What is the best tool for customer satisfaction surveys?
• Top 10 customer feedback management platforms

With a flood of advertising content reaching customers, reviews are a great way for them to distinguish the good from the bad. People tend to trust other customers’ reviews and an online review can influence up to 67.7% of purchasing decisions , which makes it well worth spending the time to create your own review content.

In this case, we don’t mean reviews like star ratings or forum comments, but rather a full summary of a product or service, written out in an accessible, objective way. Using a blog is an excellent way to do this as it can present all the benefits and drawbacks of a given product or brand in one location, and can also link to other useful blog marketing.

Picture this, a prospective customer is searching for a “review of X product”. Now think about what information might come up for that search, is it likely to convince them to buy from you? If not, you should be producing your own blog content for that search to be part of the conversation and generate positive sales leads. 

Examples of review articles : 

• An Honest Review of HubSpot Video
• Squarespace Review: Is It Right for Your Business Website?
• Review: What Are the Real Limitations of HubSpot Marketing Pro?

How to get started with assignment selling

For assignment selling, a good place to start is with a collaborative strategy session including your sales team, marketing team and senior management.

In these sessions, you should list all the commonly asked questions about your brand and what customers are most interested to know. This conversation needs to include the customer service team because they deal with customers directly, and the marketing team because they’ll create the content. 

It’s a good idea to start with the most asked question so that you can link back to it in future content, and build authority as you go. This way, as your marketing team continues to produce more and more content, your customers will have a wealth of information to find.

You should also use an SEO strategy throughout your content to ensure you get higher clickthrough rates and increase traffic to your website. 

Within a few months of implementing an assignment selling strategy, your brand will build authority and become a trusted voice within your industry. Your customers will respect you and be more loyal to your brand, and you’ll have much better rates of return on your content overall. 

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What is assignment selling: building trust and accelerating sales

Assignment selling is a sales technique where a salesperson assigns their prospect specific tasks to complete during the sales process.

As a marketing expert, you may have thought that consistently publishing content as part of your inbound marketing strategy would generate a flood of traffic, leads, and sales. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. Businesses generally undergo a gradual increase in growth once publishing content, with occasional surges in traffic; however, the process of transforming that traffic into sales takes more time.

So how can you convert your content into revenue quickly? The answer is assignment selling. 

What is assignment selling?

Assignment selling is a sales technique where a salesperson assigns their prospect specific tasks or actions through educational blog articles or videos during the sales process. 

There are numerous stages in the sales cycle where assignment selling can come into play – before the first sales call, after the first sales call, before a deal is signed, and more.

Below we highlight the importance of assignment selling and how it can benefit both the salesperson and the customer.

Benefits of assignment selling

• Well-informed leads: By guiding leads towards the most relevant content for their needs, assignment selling enables them to be better informed about your business, service, and what it entails.
• More effective sales conversations: As leads are already well-informed, sales conversations can concentrate on the prospect's particular requirements and challenges, without the need to cover general background information.
• Quicker sales process: Less time spent on educating leads means that the sales process can proceed more swiftly. Deals can close faster, while unsuitable leads can be disqualified promptly.
• Empowerment to conduct more research: Modern buyers prefer to own more of the buyer's journey. With assignment selling, they can investigate products and solutions independently without going through a salesperson.
• Ability to qualify or disqualify themselves: By providing educational content, buyers can more easily determine if your solution is what they truly need. If you create and distribute honest, high-quality content about what it's like working with you, they can assess for themselves if you can fulfil their needs and if they can afford your services.
• Reduced time wasted in sales meetings: When buyers can self-qualify or disqualify, they and your business save time by avoiding sales meetings that go nowhere. They also make sure that their time is spent on questions and solutions that are specific to their needs when they do contact sales.

How to implement assignment selling in your organisation in three steps

1. figure out what content you need to create.

To implement assignment selling in your organisation, it's important first to figure out what content you need to create. 

Review all of the content on your website with these questions in mind:

• How much of your content focuses on educating your audience rather than promoting your business?
• How much of your content provides valuable assistance to consumers in their decision-making process?

Your content should be friendly, informative, comprehensive, and truthful to truly stand out. It should address the important questions that potential customers may have (or should have) before committing to a purchase.

2. Teach sales when to use the content created

Once you've created the right blog articles, it's time to equip your sales team with the valuable content. Your sales team has identified prospects' most pressing questions, and marketing has provided the answers through content.

By sharing this content with your sales team, they can save time and assist prospects in preparing for sales conversations or disqualifying them if necessary.

Marketing should educate sales reps on the different use cases for each piece they create and we suggest using a regular sales meeting (or another regularly scheduled meeting between sales and marketing) to keep sales up to date on what content has been created and explain how they can use it. 

Examples of assignment selling 

An example of assignment selling in practice might be useful after a prospect fills out a form on your website. 

After someone fills out a demo request or sales call request form, you could simply send them an email introducing yourself and organising a date and time to meet. 

With assignment selling in mind though, we'd suggest going the extra mile by sharing some resources to help prepare the prospect for the meeting. You might say:

"Hey Beth, I'm excited to meet with you on the 21st. To ensure we're on the same page and you have all your questions answered, I've attached a helpful guide for you to read beforehand. This way, we can focus on your specific needs during our meeting and make the most of our time together. If you need more time to review it, just let me know and we can reschedule. Can you confirm if you can review it before next week?"

3. Make the content easy to access

Make sure your website visitors and salespeople can easily find the answers they're looking for by ensuring that your content is easy to access on your website.

In most cases it's worth showing your sales team how to navigate your company's website and make sure your sales enablement content is readily available on your service pages or blog.

Start using assignment selling today

Now that you're equipped with the knowledge and tools to implement assignment selling, it's time to put it into action and start reaping the benefits.

Meet with your sales team and get their top list of most asked questions on a sales call and figure out if you already have these questions on your website. If you don't, add those questions to your content calendar as soon as possible.  Make a repository for sales so they can easily access links to the content, and educate them on how and when to use the resources.  It's important to periodically check in with your sales team to see how assignment selling is impacting their sales calls and if there are any new needs or improvements that can be made. Keep the lines of communication open and continue to collaborate to ensure the success of your inbound marketing strategy.

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How To Shorten Your Sales Cycles: Assignment Selling

As a salesperson, how much time do you waste on bad-fit prospects every month? Or answering the same questions over and over again? Or chasing a prospect with emails like "Just checking in to see if you have any questions on the proposal I sent" because you haven't heard back yet?

Let's face it: salespeople love and thrive on meeting with ideal-fit clients, but get very frustrated (and rightfully so) with the amount of time they are wasting on the way to getting to the good stuff. This affects not only the morale but also the performance of the team.

On the flip side, what impact would it have on your team if you only spent time with good-fit, highly-educated leads? In this article, we will discuss how to utilize specific content throughout the sales process, resulting in better-fit, higher-educated buyers, faster sales cycles, and, therefore, higher closing rates. This is called assignment selling. After reading this article, you will have a proven and highly practical way to implement this method in your sales process.

What Is Assignment Selling?

Although some companies have used content in the sales cycle before, the term assignment selling originated from Marcos Sheridan's They Ask, You Answer framework. Back when he was still a pool guy in deep financial trouble, he decided to look at his sales data a little closer.

His mission: to find out what distinguished the leads that had requested a quote and bought versus those who didn't end up buying. He found that those who had looked at 30 or more pages of content closed 80% of the time, while those who hadn't looked had only a 25% likelihood of buying. 

💡Leads who read 30+ pages of content had an 80% likelihood of closing!

Since 2008, this concept has been studied more thoroughly in a B2C and B2B context, and while the numbers vary slightly, the overall statement proved to hold. 

Definition: Assignment Selling

Assignment selling refers to the process of actively using content (text-, video-, or audio-based) during the sales process to intentionally educate your buyer about your products and/or services with the purpose of addressing your prospects' main questions and resolving their major concerns, making them dramatically better prepared for sales appointments. 

Benefits Of Assignment Selling

This serves multiple purposes:

• You differentiate yourself quickly from your competitors. Because you start the sales conversation from a position of a teacher and place so much emphasis on educating your buyer, they will start to see you as an expert or trusted advisor. This allows you to build a unique relationship based on trust and authority.
• Promotes self-discovery. Today's buyers would rather clean toilets than speak to a salesperson. They prefer to do their own research as they see it as a way to get more unbiased information, allowing them to make the right choice for themselves. Consequently, they prefer to work with companies who respect their needs and minimize the time spent with pushy sales professionals.  
• Leads to higher-value sales appointments. On average, 80% of the questions asked in a sales appointment are always the same. By assigning a buyer's guide that answers these questions before the appointment, the salesperson can have more effective conversations and focus on providing higher value to the prospect, resulting in better meeting outcomes.
• Reduces the amount of time wasted on bad-fit prospects. Bad leads will self-filter themselves out — either by reading the material and realizing that your product or service isn't a good fit for them or by not doing the assignment, which 99% of the time means the only criteria for them will be price. 
• Faster sales cycles. Because you address fears, concerns, and worries proactively and head-on, and your buyer is a lot more educated than they'd be without assignment selling, you move much faster through the sales funnel. 
• Higher closing rate. When you practice assignment selling, your sales professionals spend more time with your best leads, resulting in much higher closing rates.

Take the course on Assignment Selling now.

How Do You Shorten Sales Cycles With Assignment Selling?

Implementing assignment selling doesn't have to be complicated or over-engineered, but it does require some thought and pre-planning. Follow these five steps to do it successfully:

1. Map out your sales process and identify ideal assignment selling points

First, bring your sales and marketing teams together and map out your sales process. This can be done in PowerPoint or Google Slides, or in a whiteboarding app like Lucid. The important thing is that you document your entire sales process from beginning to end, including:

• What are the major milestones in your sales process, e.g., lead fills out TOFU form, demo, trial, or proposal sent?
• What red flags do you encounter that tell you this lead isn't ready to move to the next step?
• What criteria do they meet to move to the next steps, e.g., meeting ICP definition criteria to become a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) or Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline (BANT) has been confirmed?

Once you have identified the critical milestone points, think about what questions, concerns, or objections you face before and after those milestones. These are your key points for assignment selling. For example, do you have to "follow up" with a lead once you send them the proposal? Do you have a big drop-off after a demo? 

All these bumps in the road indicate that you could smooth out the process and make it more streamlined. For example, assigning a buyer's guide that discusses ballpark pricing, implementation timelines, and major integration options BEFORE a product demo will often yield a more engaged demo and smoother proposal process than holding a demo and then, in the end, discussing pricing.

2. Make sure you have the content you need for assignment selling

Next, you want to ensure you have the content you need to address your buyer's concerns at each point of the buyer's journey where you identified a need for assignment selling. This can be a Selling 7 video, a Big 5 article, a buyer's guide, or something entirely different. The important thing is that it is helpful and unbiased. 

Audit the content you currently have in-house and determine which pieces of content should be used for assignment selling. Identify any gaps you might have and create an editorial calendar for those topics that you are missing.

Remember : Always create assignment selling content in close collaboration with sales. They know exactly what questions, concerns, fears, or objections a buyer has and, most likely, why. 

3. Manage all assignment selling content in a central place & teach sales how to use each piece

All assignment-based selling content should be stored in an easily accessible repository so everyone can find what they need without having to ask the content manager for it every time. Make sure, you add context around each piece. Many sales teams like to have a quick snippet of text that they can copy and paste — something that summarizes the content and briefly explains why the prospect should read/watch/listen. 

One of the biggest mistakes I see companies make is not teaching sales how to use the content, which results in awkwardly assigned content, leads not bothering to complete the assignment, and frustrated sales professionals who then refuse to use the content. 

4. Create assignment selling scripts

Most sales professionals are great person-to-person but they aren't good copywriters. It is a good idea to create email and even phone scripts to position the assignment correctly. Those scripts need to:

• Address the why. The prospect must clearly understand why they are being assigned content, what they will learn from it, and how they will benefit from it. 
• Get a commitment. Simply giving the assignment to buyers won't work. You need to get their commitment that they will complete the assignment in the given time. 
• Lay out the consequences. Here is where most people chicken out. For this to work, we need to state that we will not proceed to X if they don't do Y. For assignment selling to work, we need to commit to not taking meetings if the prospect hasn't completed the assignment.

But there is a right and a wrong way to go about this, and scripts help your sales professionals to find the right words and tone. We will address specific situations and give you script examples in a different article very soon.

5. Measure and report on the outcomes

Finally, to know what works and what doesn't, it is crucial to measure and report on the results achieved with assignment selling. This could include:

• The percentage of leads you move from stage to stage,
• The number of days in each deal stage,
• The overall length of your sales cycle,
• The size of the discount given (which should decrease as educated buyers better understand the value you offer), and
• Other sales analytics KPIs you might track that relate to the velocity and quality of the sales cycle. 

One metric that isn't often mentioned but is very useful is the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures your buyer's happiness with the sales process.

Assignment Selling Related FAQs

How do i ask a lead to complete an assignment.

While asking a lead to complete an assignment isn't complicated, it also isn't as simple as writing an email saying: "Thank you for your time yesterday. Below, I have attached some helpful documents I think you should read. Let me know what you think."

You first have to clearly explain how they benefit and why you are assigning the content. This is crucial. Secondly, you will need to be bold and get their commitment that they will complete the assignment before the next meeting with you. Finally, you will need to clarify that there will not be a next step unless the assignment is completed. This might sound a bit harsh, but if done carefully and right, the content will be tremendously helpful to the buyer and is a necessary step in the process.

What if the prospect doesn't complete the assignment?

What could cause a lead to not complete the assignment? Usually, there are two reasons. They say they don't have the time (which simply means it isn't important to them to make it a priority), or they aren't really interested in learning what makes you different from your competition and are only interested in one thing: the price! Either way, if you take the meeting without them having completed the assignment, you will end up frustrated. 

A better way to handle this is to give them a call before meeting with them to ensure that they have read the article or watched the video you assigned. If they haven't, then you ask them something like: "We created this video specifically to answer the top seven questions everyone always asks in a demo so that we can spend more time on your unique problems. By when will you have finished watching the video so we can reschedule our meeting?"

If I do assignment selling, won't this scare some people away?

Yes, there will be people who aren't willing to do the assignments but that's actually a good thing. Rather than wasting time with unengaged or bad-fit leads, you can focus on those that are eager to learn more and have a higher chance of closing. 

Conclusion: Sell  Smarter, Not Harder

Now that you know what assignment selling is and how to implement it, it is time to get your marketing and sales teams together to kick off the process. Start by mapping out the sales process and collecting the top 25 questions your sales team faces. Create the content you need and start using it right away. If you have doubts, start with a single point low down in the funnel and work your way up. 

You've got this! And if you ever get stuck, you know where to find me!

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An Extensive Guide On Assignment Selling With HubSpot Sales Hub

Abdul Ahad Qureshi

Today in our latest HubSpot tutorial we’ll be sharing how you can effectively sell one of the most critical assets of the digital world – content.

Chances are you might have not heard of the phrase ‘assignment selling’ but, it holds significant importance in business marketing and is built on the foundations of “Content Is The King” .

Assignment selling is one of the tried and tested content marketing strategies that can be firmly integrated into your sales process to give you astounding results.

In fact, we highly recommend assignment selling with HubSpot Sales Hub if you’re looking for a strategy that qualifies prospects by gauging their interests. It’s the best way of adding value to a prospect’s buying experience because it requires them to read and interact with specific content pieces. As a result, it helps them in educating more about your brand before they connect with a salesperson.

Let’s see how you can implement the assignment selling process with HubSpot effectively and enhance the buying experience for your customers.

What Is Assignment Selling?

The term was actually coined by Marcus Sheridan , author of “ They Ask, You Answer ”.

Marcus noticed that although his content was driving an abundance of traffic, it wasn’t closing any deals. He took his query and discussed it with HubSpot where he identified two types of leads that are entering his marketing funnel – for this article, we’ll refer to them as Lead A and Lead B .

Lead Type A

Type A is defined by the following pointers:

• Viewed a fewer number of website pages
• Instantly booked a call with the sales executive
• But, had low chances of the deal getting closed

Lead Type B

Type B is defined by the following pointers:

• Viewed a higher volume of pages on your website.
• Took some time in booking a call
• But had a significantly higher closing rate compared to type A.

What was the difference between the two scenarios?

Marcus compared the two leads and found that type B had reviewed all the content and was reasonably educated before requesting a sales call. As a result, lead B was ready to make a purchase decision.

Finally, Sheridan came to the conclusion that all prospects should be provided with some educational content pieces. It will ensure that they are prepared for the sales call and helps you in establishing that they are a good fit for your offerings.

So this is how assignment selling came into the picture.

How To Define Assignment?

By studying the scenario Marcus Sheridan shared, we can say:

Assignment selling is the practice of leveraging content on-hand to assist you with the sales process by educating and qualifying your prospects.

The content pieces include assets such as –

• Blog articles
• Video testimonials
• Case studies
• Buyer’s guides
• Downloadable PPTs

Check Out The Amazing Success Stories Of Our Customers

Now that we’re aware of the concept, let’s skip to the most awaited part of this blog article which is assignment selling with HubSpot Sales Hub.

How To Efficiently Sell Assignment With HubSpot Sales Hub?

HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and service platform that helps businesses create delightful customer experiences to grow better. It’s a complete package and has everything your business needs to increase leads and accelerate sales.

However, for this article, we’ll be talking about one special HubSpot Software – the Sales Hub .

A Brief Overview of HubSpot Sales Hub

HubSpot Sales Hub is a powerful sales software that helps teams close more deals, deepen relationships, and manage the sales pipeline more effectively.

Some of the top benefits of selling assignments with HubSpot Sales Hub include:

1. Frees Up Your Sales Reps

The HubSpot Sales Hub frees up your sales reps from unnecessary and repetitive tasks. As a result, they can put in more effort towards closing more deals and scaling the growth of your business.

With tools like email scheduling, sequences, predictive lead scoring, and many more to automate repetitive tasks most of the tasks are automated which frees up sales reps.

2. Helps In Building A Loyal Customer Base

Did you know that just increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25-95% ?

Having a huge and loyal customer base is a dream for every business. And with HubSpot Sales Hub it is totally achievable. With HubSpot, you get tools that make customer retention a cakewalk.

3. Performance Monitoring

Performance monitoring is one of the most powerful features of HubSpot. The sales software offers an interactive dashboard where you can closely monitor the performance of your sales department.

You can create custom reports in your HubSpot CRM to track the performance of your products, sales teams, forecast revenue, and much more.

So these were some of the top benefits of HubSpot Sales Hub that help you in building a streamlined sales process for selling assignments. Also, check out our review guide on HubSpot Sales Hub where you can find all the details of the software along with the pricing plan and setup.

Selling Assignment With HubSpot Sales Hub

Finally, it’s time to unleash the true potential of HubSpot Sales Hub and use your content assets to close more deals faster. But before you start with assignment selling make sure you have worked with your team and produced the right content assets.

To review the content on your website start by asking the following questions:

• What is the ratio of promotional versus educational content on your website?
• How much content you are producing on your website which helps the consumers in making a purchase decision?
• Also, most important – What portion of the content is biased?

This will help you plan a content strategy that is relevant and educational for your audience and persuade them to make a positive purchase decision.

Let’s begin with the process.

Step 1: Create Email Templates Using HubSpot

One of the primary requirements of assignment selling is that the content should be easily accessible to your audience. Also, it should be easy for your marketing and sales teams to send the assignment to the relevant audience.

With HubSpot’s email template builder, you can easily make the content accessible to your audience. Setting and creating an email template is a 2 step process in HubSpot –

#1 Upload Documents On A Collaborative Platform

Start by creating content on a shareable platform such as Google Docs, where your team can collaborate and review the content to suggest edits. Once the content is finalized, you are ready to create a template with HubSpot.

#2 Setup Email Templates

Log in to your HubSpot account and on the navbar, you’ll find an option for creating templates where you can easily insert the assignment content.

Here are all the steps you need to follow for creating a template:

• Now from the Templates page, you can create a new template either from scratch or by selecting a theme from the HubSpot assets marketplace. For now, we’ll be selecting the From Scratch option.
• When you choose the Create New Template option, a popup editor will open where you can insert all the content of your assignment selling template.

• Personalization: You can use personalization tokens in your emails wherever you want to put information such as first name or company name.
• Meeting Information: If you’re giving an option to schedule a sales call make sure you’ve mentioned all the information properly. The information should include – meeting time, place, and any RSVP actions you need the prospect to take.
• Assignments: Finally mention the most obvious and important thing is the list of assignments that you want the prospect to read before booking a call.

Once you’ve prepared the email template, test it to check if the formatting is correct and is in the way you want it to look.

Step 2: Expediting The Sales Process With Snippets

Just like templates, snippets are also a very helpful tool of the HubSpot Sales Hub for assignment selling. In HubSpot, snippets are reusable blocks of text that can be used on a contact, company, deal, or ticket record for logging activity or notes.

In simple words, snippets are similar to templates but, instead of comprising the entire email, a snippet is typically a couple of lines or paragraphs of information.

Let’s understand with an example. Suppose you need to insert a meeting link for recipients of a specific email:

Last, enter a suitable shortcut name for the snippet and click on the Save Snippet button.

So this is how you can enhance the assignment selling process with HubSpot using snippets.

Step 3: Build A Content Library For Your Audience

HubSpot offers a Document tool with which you can build a content library for your teams they can easily share with the prospects. With the help of this tool, your sales professionals can effortlessly create a shareable link and add them to the email templates.

As a result, the recipients can view the educational content by simply clicking on the link, and the HubSpot system tracks all viewers of the documents.

For creating a shareable link for the prospect with the documents tools:

• Now from the upper right corner click on the Upload button and upload an assignment to the documents library.
• Lastly, select the document you want to share, and using the Actions button choose to Create Link option.
• This will open a pop-up editor where you’ll be asked to enter an email address that is the recipient of the assignment.

Step 4: Result Analysis

The last and the most important aspect of assignment selling with HubSpot – analyzing the results.

As said by H. James Harrington:

Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.

The quote rightly describes how measuring things is important in life and the same goes with marketing. HubSpot’s Sales Hub offers a performance dashboard where you get valuable analytics for the assignments shared with your audience.

How to analyze the sales content in HubSpot?

For viewing the performance of your assignment selling templates follows these steps –

• From your dashboard click on Reports → Analytics Tools .

• You’ll be directed to a page where you can easily view the performance of your content marketing strategies.

• Whether the prospect is consuming the content.
• If they are sharing it with others (if applicable).
• Also, you can attach the information to the contact record so that you can see content viewing stats.

So this is how you accomplish “assignment selling with HubSpot Sales Hub”. These are not sequential steps but some methods you can follow for using your content to close more deals.

Whatever method you follow, remember one thing – the HubSpot Sales Hub is just a tool that you can invest in for carrying out your assignment selling strategies efficiently. It makes doing stuff easier for your sales professionals and shortens the sales cycle.

Tips & Best Practices For Assignment Selling

HubSpot Sales Hub is just a tool that helps you in carrying out the assignment selling process effortlessly. But the success of your assignment selling strategies completely depends on the number of prospects you’re able to educate before they book a sales call with you.

Well, the blueprint to a successful assignment selling strategy may differ depending on the business. However, there are some tips and best practices that you can consider.

The 4 tips or best practices for implementing assignment selling with HubSpot for your business are –

1. Start By Reviewing Your Current Content

The key to the success of assignment selling is having the right content on your website. Therefore, the very first thing you should do is start reviewing the current content.

It’s highly recommended that you start by assessing the following two aspects of your present content:

• Firstly, how much of the content is promotional, and
• Secondly, how much content is educational on your website?

Once you are done assessing your content the next important step is to align it to the different stages of the buyer’s journey. For example, keep the educational content for the awareness and interest stage and the promotional content for the decision stage.

Reviewing content pieces is also a great practice for assuring that you have offerings for different stages of the marketing funnel or if you need to prepare something for filling the gap.

2. Involve Your Sales Team

Involving the sales team is a tip that we ourselves religiously believe in because it helps us ensure the following two things:

• First, the content we are developing and delivering is answering the customers’ questions.
• Second, the sales team uses the content because they have given some important feedback that adds value to the content creation process.

It is often seen and heard that stakeholders aren’t convinced by the fact that –

Content generated is an important part of the lead generation process.

Therefore, involving the sales team (even other teams) is a great way to prove how content adds value to a buyer’s journey and solves his/her problems related to the products and services.

3. Assigning The Job To The Right People

Content creation is quite a tough job and just like any other business process, it requires professionals. Whether you have an in-house content team or outsource an agency or a freelancer, you’ll be needing someone –

Who can gain a deep understanding of your buyer persona and accordingly produce a content strategy.

If I have to put this in straight words – “Never invest in a non-writer or camera-shy individual for creating quality content. Instead, look for experts who have plans for projecting your brand’s persona and produce content that appeals to your target audience.”

4. Invest In A CMS

You will agree with me if I say – “things work best if they are well organized”.

Investing in a CMS will help you in centralising all the content assets of your website and gives the users one easy-to-access location.

Multi-language content creation

HubSpot CMS has made managing content for multiple language domains easier. It gives your users a toggle that allows them to easily switch between the languages.

Video content management

Videos are widely used by businesses for showcasing their products and services. With HubSpot CMS Hub you can easily host, manage, and embed videos with a single click. Also, you can very easily insert CTAs and forms for capturing leads through your videos.

Team permissions

Collaboration of teams is very easy with HubSpot CMS as it lets you keep your team organized as you scale your business. Business owners can grant access to specific areas of your website and limit the permissions to edit, publish, or configure.

Conversations platform

HubSpot CMS is a conversational platform that allows you to integrate platforms like – live chat, team email, Facebook Messenger, etc. As a result, you have unlimited access to personalized conversations with prospects and customers at scale.

Check Out Our No-nonsense Guide On Why Choose HubSpot CMS

Final words….

Assignment selling is the best application of content marketing which is both engaging and rewarding. It saves adequate time for your sales professionals by educating the prospects about the products and services enough before they book a sales call.

If you ask me the low-hanging fruits of assignment selling it’ll be – positive feedback for your business, a client list who are engaged and invested in your brand, and word-of-mouth marketing.

So this was our take on – Assignment Selling With HubSpot . Now it’s your turn to share your valuable feedback in the comments section.

About Abdul Ahad Qureshi

A computer science engineer by education but a writer by profession. Ahad started his career as an SEO Executive and soon got attracted to writing and sharing information through blogging. Now Ahad is a content writer and marketer with a passion to share his experience and learnings of online selling and inbound marketing through his articles. Apart from writing and learning, you can find him lifting weights or gorging on delicious food.

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Assignment Selling: A Completely Different Approach to Sales in the Information Age

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Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Assignment Selling’ ? Chances are, you haven’t, but let me assure you it may be the most important part of your business’ marketing and sales success in 2012 and beyond, if you’re only but willing to embrace the following concepts.

We all keep hearing the phrase ‘Content is King’ again and again, as well we should. But what happens when we produce content and information but it never gets read? What happens when a potential client just breezes through it without truly making the effort to absorb its teachings?

The answer, as we all know, is Nothing. Nothing happens . Nobody learns . No trust and authority is established. And no progress is made.

When it comes down to it, ‘Content is King’ needs to be paired with the phrase ‘As Long as Someone is Actually Listening’.

To explain what I’m trying to say here let’s look at my other field—the swimming pool industry. (Note*** Other than teaching folks about social media and content marketing, I also own an inground swimming pool construction company in Virginia .)

Often times prospects will excitedly call my store or send us an email requesting to have someone out to their house so as to give them information and a price quote for a swimming pool. This process is rather typical of the swimming pool industry but unfortunately, most pool companies are pitiful with this initial conversation.

I say pitiful because I used to be incredibly less-effective in my approach with customers as well. They’d call, we’d talk, and bam —appointment made. But before long I realized I was making one grave mistake— the prospect didn’t have enough responsibility on their end . In other words, they were looking for someone to teach them in their home what they could already learn from the countless pages of content and video on my website.

Teaching vs. Selling

Because of this lack of responsibility, I found myself spending too much time teaching prospects on sales calls and not enough time actually selling . And regardless of what anyone in the world might say, selling, and not teaching , is what ultimately pays the bills.

Upon realizing the error of my ways, I became much bolder with clients. In fact, I started giving them ‘homework’ before I’d come out to their house.

Yes, that’s right, I did just say homework .

For example, before I would go on a sales appointment with an inground pool prospect I would send them the following information:

• Our company reference list of over 600 customers
• A 50 page eBook all about swimming pools and options
• 3-5 Significant Articles/Videos from our company blog

As you can see, this is a lot of information—as well it should be. If someone is serious about a purchasing a swimming pool and knows they are getting ready to spend 30-100k, then they likely don’t want to make a mistake on their purchase—hence the call for great content and information.

So whenever I would set a sales appointment, I would also request that the prospect take the time to thoroughly read each piece of information.

I would also let them know that if they were unable to do their ‘homework’, we would just delay the appointment until they were more prepared to make an informed decision.

That’s right, if they didn’t do their part I would not go on the sales appointment.

You see, when it comes down to it, if a consumer isn’t willing to do their due diligence when researching an expensive product or service, this means only one thing:

All they care about is price.

And as we all know, when it comes to running a successful business, Price Ain’t Nice .

Since our company made the switch to assignment selling a few years back, we now find sales appointments are incredibly more effective. Prospects are clearly informed. Trust, because of the content, has already been established long before we arrive. And what about closing rates?

As you might imagine, they’ve shot up drastically while sales cycles have actually gone down significantly.

Needless to say, assignment selling has had an amazing effect on our business and sales staff.

Start Giving ‘Homework’ Today

So my question to you is what learning assignments do you give to prospects before your first sales meeting? Are you just asking a few simple questions or are you making sure the prospect demonstrates effort on their part as well?

If you’re not yet implementing this strategy into your sales system, please start today. Come up with some type of ‘homework’ for your clients and watch the dominoes fall as they may.

Over the past year, I’ve trained multiple companies to embrace this way of thinking and it has had a huge impact on their overall numbers, so please don’t think your company is the exception to the rule. These principles work, so please give it a try.

__________________________________________________

Marcus Sheridan, who writes at The Sales Lion , helps business increase traffic, leads, and sales through the power of content and inbound marketing. Make sure to get his FREE , 230-page eBook: Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy .

Featured Image Credit:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/insideview/5121023852/

Category: Sales

Tags:   Content Marketing , Social Media

The story of Marcus Sheridan is a unique one. In 2001, he stumbled across his first business with two friends and began installing swimming pools out of the back of a beat-up pickup truck. 9 years later, and with the help of incredible innov…

Hello Marcus-

At first glance, I took objection to the term “assignment selling,” because I am a firm advocate for building relationships with prospects as the first step. I always want to pre-qualify prospects. As an executive talent agent who represents senior level professionals, I personally put my reputation on the line every time I set up a networking meeting for a client.  Uniquely, not only do I engineer a guaranteed effective job search plan but I personally execute the strategy which enables JobWhiz clients to avoid cold calling and to dramatically expand their networking connections in a matter of weeks. This jump starts their career to the next level by making the insider contacts they need to accelerate their job search campaign and reach decision makers with hiring authority who will appreciate them and welcome their initiative.  Before I will accept any client or allow them to hire me, I thoroughly screen their background and make certain that their expectations are fully aligned with my  ability to deliver positive results.  Like you, I provide prospects with extensive educational materials which they must review before our first conversation.  If they don’t invest that time in preparing for a meaningful dialogue, it tells me instantly that they are not serious and that there is a very high probability this is not the right timing. 

Thank you for labeling the process as “assignment selling!” I just thought it was about setting expectations about benefits and evaluating prospects.

Debra Feldman, JobWhiz, Executive Talent Agent  

Since 2000,  have personally developed top-tier new career opportunities for senior level executives matching their personal selection criteria and produced thousands of productive networking relationships with hiring authorities to promote confidential, targeted connections and build swift pathways to unadvertised positions in the hidden job market

Debra, you really nailed this when you said: ”  If they don’t invest that time in preparing for a meaningful dialogue, it tells me instantly that they are not serious and that there is a very high probability this is not the right timing. ”

That’s exactly it. If they don’t put in some effort on the front end we certainly won’t get the business in the rear.

Thanks so much!

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How to Use Assignment Selling to Drive Staffing Sales

• January 18, 2021

For years, content marketing has been a popular marketing strategy for staffing firms to:

• generate organic traffic
• drive qualified inbound sales leads
• educate staffing decision-makers and influencers
• build authority
• advance sales and generate more orders

In our weekly team meeting, our CEO shared a another powerful (and underutilized) way for your staffing firm to use content in the sales process:

Assignment Selling.

What is assignment selling.

Assignment selling is the process of using your content (e.g., blog posts, videos, eBooks) strategically in advance of sales calls to:

• proactively address prospects’ concerns
• answer decision-makers’ biggest questions
• better prepare prospects for sales calls
• and ultimately, accelerate the sales cycle and increase close rates

Will assignment selling scare staffing prospects away?

Logically, account managers may have reservations about educating prospects too much in advance of a sales call. After all, providing detailed information about your workforce solutions, recruiting process or how your firm stacks up against competitors may make some prospects realize you’re not a good fit for their needs.

But if you’re not the right solution for an employer, isn’t it better to determine that early in the process – before your account manager invests tons of time and energy trying to close them?

How can your staffing firm start using assignment selling?

If your staffing firm has a blog, resource center, eBook library, company newsletter or any other types of content, you already have the building blocks in place. Here are a few steps you can take to give assignment selling a try:

• Make a list of your ideal customers’ biggest questions. Gather your sales team and find out the most common questions they hear from clients and prospects.
• Inventory your content library. Determine if you already have content to address your audience’s top questions. If not, add it to your content calendar immediately.
• Make your content searchable and easily accessible. Create a repository (e.g., a database or spreadsheet) account managers can use to easily find and share the content you need.
• Encourage your sales team to share content both proactively and retroactively. While every account manager sells differently, train them to use your educational resources both before and after sales calls. Personal messages with a piece or two of educational content are a great way to try out this technique.

As staffing buyers’ needs continue to increase in complexity, assignment selling will help you educate and qualify staffing prospects – so your team spends its time working with your ideal potential customers.

Mandy Wittschen

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Assignment Selling: How to use your marketing content throughout the sales process

Some businesses quickly see the value in content marketing and start producing content without hesitation; they hire in-house teams or outsource specialists and crack on with the vital job of building credibility and authority as subject matter experts. Other organisations are more sceptical. It takes a lot of time and resources to create content, and if it's not managed and distributed effectively, you'll get very little traction –– so, is the juice worth the squeeze?

If you apply a strategy and firmly integrate content into your sales process, you'll be astounded with the results. Assignment selling is one tried and tested way of achieving this. 

What is assignment selling?

Assignment selling is a way of qualifying prospects and gauging their interest before booking a sales appointment or consultation with them. This process requires the prospect to read or interact with specific content aimed at educating them about your product or service before they get on the phone to someone on your sales team.

Marcus Sheridan , renowned author of " They Ask, You Answer ", is the mastermind behind assignment selling. The idea was formulated after he noticed that although his abundance of content was generating plenty of traffic and appointments, it wasn't closing many deals. After consulting the data in HubSpot, he identified two different types of leads in his pipeline –– we'll call them A and B. Each lead type had a different closing rate. Lead type A viewed a low number of website pages, booked a call, but had a very low closing rate. Lead type B, however, viewed a higher volume of pages on Sheridan's website and had a significantly higher closing rate. Why? The answer is simple: By the time lead type B had reviewed all the content, they were reasonably self-educated and ready for a sales call that would ultimately lead to them making a purchasing decision.

As a result of his findings, Sheridan made it a prerequisite that all prospects review essential pieces of educational content before requesting a sales call. Sure, this impacted the number of incoming calls, but the closing rates and profit went up. And so, the concept of assignment selling was born. 

In summary, assignment selling is when you purposefully use the educational content you've created to ensure prospects are fully prepared for a sales call and have all the critical qualifying questions answered. This helps to establish that they're a good fit for your offering and your offering is a good fit for them.

Implementing assignment selling

Review your existing content.

Assignment selling can only be successful if you have the right content available on your website. So, naturally, the first step in implementing this model is to assess how much of your content is promotional and how much is educational. You'll also have to review where content fits into your buyer's journey – decision stage content is typically all about your products and services. In contrast, consideration and awareness level content will be more broadly educational. It's important to have content in place that answers your buyers' questions and does so in an authentic and engaging way. 

Get everyone – especially sales – on board

If content wasn't a priority before, or there wasn't a lot of buy-in from everyone else in your business, you'll first have to address the culture within your company. Involving your sales team in the content creation process is one of the best ways to ensure that:

Sometimes, the issue lies with not trusting the process – stakeholders aren't convinced that content generates anything useful for your business. In that case, your task is to share information and data that shows how content is helping to attract traffic and generate sales. By giving everyone insight into how content positively impacts your business, they'll be keen to participate and be part of that success. 

Have the right people for the job

Content creation requires a specialist –– whether you choose to hire in-house or outsource a content strategy and production team, you'll need someone who's going to gain a deep understanding of your buyer persona and produce a strategic content plan. Furthermore, this content plan needs to be produced and executed to a high standard so that your prospects will engage and gain real value from it –– in other words, don't expect non-writers or camera-shy individuals within your company to be responsible for the content. Choose experts who will project your brand's persona and produce content that appeals to your ideal buyers. Content is a considerable portion of your marketing activity, and you shouldn't burden other members of your team with the task of producing it –– it's a full-time job that requires experience and skill.

Use a content management system

Things work best when they are well organised. A content management system (CMS) will help you centralise your content, giving users one easy-to-access location for all the sales content they need. If your marketing content is spread around on various drives and folders, your sales team will be discouraged from using it because they simply won't want the hassle of trying to find things. Implementing a content management system will help you to store and effectively categorise everything so that it's always at your sales teams' fingertips. Most importantly, a content management system will ensure that only the latest and most up-to-date content is being circulated.

Using content to improve conversion

When your content is aligned with the buyer's journey, sales are far more likely to happen. It's essential to have content that fits each stage of that journey so that no question goes unanswered. Your content should focus on:

Overcoming objections - dispel myths and misconceptions. If some common concerns and questions pop up, particularly around the decision stage, you should be able to send some content their way that quickly clarifies everything. 

Customise content – if you serve more than one buyer persona, you should have content that will speak to them individually and get through the barriers that generic content can't get through. If you serve B2B customers, think about the role and position level of the individuals you are targeting and ensure that the content you assign to them is appropriate and relevant. 

Show proof – in a world where it's easy to verify the quality of a service or product based on customer opinion and experience, it's crucial to have social proof close to hand. It's essential to have case studies and customer success stories to share with your prospect. It helps them visualise the outcomes you can achieve for their business and reassures them that you're an expert in your field. 

Assignment selling is a great way to build a positive rapport with potential customers. It's engaging and rewarding for the buyer because it puts the power in their hands. If they've adequately educated themselves before making the purchase, they're far more likely to feel confident and pleased with their decision afterwards. In turn, this creates a positive feedback loop for your business, building a list of clients who are engaged and invested in your brand and who'll spread the good word about your business to colleagues, friends and family. 

If you'd like to learn more about this approach and how you can spend less time answering questions and more time making profitable conversions, we'd like to invite you to our Sales Enablement Service.

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Assignment Definition

Investing Strategy , Jargon, Legal, Terminology, Title

Table of Contents

• What Is an Assignment?
• What is an Assignment in Real Estate?
• What Does it Mean to Assign a Contract in Real Estate?
• How Does a Contract Assignment Work?
• Pros and Cons of Assigning Contracts

REtipster does not provide legal advice. The information in this article can be impacted by many unique variables. Always consult with a qualified legal professional before taking action.

An assignment or assignment of contract is a way to profit from a real estate transaction without becoming the owner of the property.

The assignment method is a standard tool in a real estate wholesaler’s kit and lowers the barrier to entry for a real estate investor because it does not require the wholesaler to use much (or any) of their own money to profit from a deal.

Contract assignment is a common wholesaling strategy where the seller and the wholesaler (acting as a middleman in this case) sign an agreement giving the wholesaler the sole right to buy a property at a specified price, within a certain period of time.

The wholesaler then finds another buyer and assigns the contract to him or her. The wholesaler isn’t selling the property to the end buyer because the wholesaler never takes title to the property during the process. The wholesaler is simply selling the contract, which gives the end buyer the right to buy the property in accordance with the original purchase agreement.

In doing this, the wholesaler can earn an assignment fee for putting the deal together.

Some states require a real estate wholesaler to be a licensed real estate agent, and the assignment strategy can’t be used for HUD homes and REOs.

The process for assigning a contract follows some common steps. In summary, it looks like this:

• Find the right property.
• Get a purchase agreement signed.
• Find an end buyer.
• Assign the contract.
• Close the transaction and collect your assignment fee.

We describe each step in the process below.

1. Find the Right Property

This is where the heavy lifting happens—investors use many different marketing tactics to find leads and identify properties that work with their investing strategy. Typically, for wholesaling to work, a wholesaler needs a motivated seller who wants to unload the property as soon as possible. That sense of urgency works to the wholesaler’s advantage in negotiating a price that will attract buyers and cover their assignment fee.

RELATED: What is “Driving for Dollars” and How Does It Work?

2. Get a Purchase Agreement Signed

Once a motivated seller has agreed to sell their property at a discounted price, they will sign a purchase agreement with the wholesaler. The purchase agreement needs to contain specific, clear language that allows the wholesaler (for example, you) to assign their rights in the agreement to a third party.

Note that most standard purchase agreements do not include this language by default. If you plan to assign this contract, make sure this language is included. You can consult an attorney to cover the correct verbiage in a way that the seller understands it.

RELATED: Wholesaling Made Simple! A Comprehensive Guide to Assigning Contracts

This can’t be stressed enough: It’s extremely important for a wholesaler to communicate with their seller about their intent to assign the contract. Many sellers are not familiar with the assignment process, so if the role of the buyer is going to change along the way, the seller needs to be aware of this on or before they sign the original purchase agreement.

3. Find an End Buyer

This is the other half of a wholesaler’s job—marketing to find buyers. Once they find an end buyer, the wholesaler can assign the contract to the new party and work with the original seller and the end buyer to schedule a closing date.

4. Assign the Contract

Assigning the contract works through a simple assignment agreement. This agreement allows the end buyer to step into the wholesaler’s shoes as the buyer in the original contract.

In other words, this document “replaces” the wholesaler with the new end buyer.

Most assignment contracts include language for a nonrefundable deposit from the end buyer, which protects the wholesaler if the buyer backs out. While you can download assignment contract templates online, most experts recommend having an attorney review your contracts. The assignment wording has to be precise and comply with applicable local laws to protect you from issues down the road.

5. Close the Transaction and Collect the Assignment Fee

Finally, you will receive your assignment fee (or wholesale fee) when the end buyer closes the deal.

The assignment fee is often the difference between the original purchase price (the price that the seller agreed with the wholesaler) and the end buyer’s purchase price (the price the wholesaler agreed with the end buyer), but it can also be a percentage of it or even a flat amount.

According to UpCounsel, most contract assignments are done for about $5,000, although depending on the property and the market, it could be higher or lower.

IMPORTANT: the end buyer will see precisely how much the assignment fee is. This is because they must sign two documents that show the original price and the assignment fee: the closing statement and the assignment agreement, respectively, to close the transaction.

In many cases, if the assignment fee is a reasonable amount relative to the purchase price, most buyers won’t take any issue with the wholesaler taking their fee—after all, the wholesaler made the deal happen, and it’s compensation for their efforts. However, if the assignment fee is too big (such as the wholesaler taking $20,000 from an original purchase price of $10,000, while the end buyer buys it for $50,000), it may ruffle some feathers and lead to uncomfortable questions.

In these instances where the wholesaler has a substantially higher profit margin, a wholesaler can instead do a double closing . In a double closing, the wholesaler closes two separate deals (one with the seller and another with the buyer) on the same day, but the seller and buyer cannot see the numbers and overall profit margin the wholesaler makes between the two transactions. This makes a double closing a much safer way to conclude a transaction.

Assigning contracts is a way to lower the barrier to entry for many new real estate investors; because they don’t need to put up their own money to buy a property or assume any risk in financing a deal.

The wholesaler isn’t part of the title chain, which streamlines the process and avoids the hassle of closing two times. Compared to the double-close strategy, assignment contracts require less paperwork and are usually less costly (because there is only one closing occurring, rather than two separate transactions).

On the downside, the wholesaler has to sell the property as-is, because they don’t own it at any point and they cannot make repairs or renovations to make the property look more attractive to a potential buyer. Financing may be much more difficult for the end buyer because many mortgage lenders won’t work with assigned contracts. Purchase Agreements also have expiration dates, which means the wholesaler has a limited window of time to find an end buyer and get the deal done.

Being successful with assignment contracts usually comes down to excellent marketing, networking, and communication between all parties involved. It’s all about developing strategies to find the right properties and having a solid network of investors you can assign them to quickly.

It’s also critical to be aware of any applicable laws in the jurisdiction where the wholesaler is working and holding any licenses required for these kinds of real estate transactions.

Related terms

Double closing, wholesaling (real estate wholesaling), transactional funding.

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GTA-Homes » Real Estate Info » Assignments

• Assignments

An Assignment Sale in the Pre-Construction Market

Simply put, an assignment sale is the sale - or an "assignment" of a contract to purchase a pre-construction condominium suite. An assignment sale is usually applied to the pre-construction condominium that has not been registered yet, so no one can take ownership of the unit itself. Only the contract can be sold.

When you purchase a pre-construction condominium unit, you will be given an assignment clause/right in the form of a contract. You can choose to sell your assignment before the condominium is even built.

• Assignee/Buyer is not buying a property from Assignor – Assignee is buying the “right” to acquire property from a 3rd party (usually a builder)
• Assignor assigns its interest and rights in the Original Agreement with the Builder (or original seller)
• Assignor assigns to the Assignee its interest in the original “deposit”
• Assignee “assumes” and agrees to perform all of the Assignor’s obligations under the Original Agreement

Once the building has been constructed and registered by the city, the ownership will be transferred to the buyer. Until then, it’s just the sale of a contract, but as you will see, there are many advantages to these kinds of sales for both the buyer and seller.

In this article, you will learn more about assignment sales, why they are used, the process of this transaction and how it can be transferred.

This way, you will be able to determine if an assignment sale is right for you. We at GTA-Homes strive to provide our clients with the knowledge of the pre-construction market, so that they can make a more informed choice when it comes to investing in their future.

An assignment sale can be mutually beneficial for both the buyer and the seller.

See all assignment listings, what you'll learn....

• What Is an Assignment Sale?

An Example of an Assignment Sale

• Buying an Assignment

Selling an Assignment

Assignments faq.

The Details of an Assignment Sale

What Is an Assignment Sale? Why Do These Kinds of Sales Happen?

There are many reasons why someone might want to sell the rights to their unit before it’s been built. For example, someone may have bought a suite that’s three years away from being completed, but recently had to relocate for a job. This buyer may need to sell their agreement to afford a property in their new city. Another common reason is that a buyer began the purchase process when they were single but during the pre-construction process they married or are now expecting a child. Suddenly they’ve discovered that the pre-construction one-bedroom suite they bought is not big enough for a growing family.

The “ assignment clause ” in the purchase agreement comes in handy when these things happen. It allows the original buyer to pass the contract onto somebody else without accruing financial penalties.

These types of transactions are common and fully legal, but whether you are the buyer or the seller, it’s important to work with both an experienced realtor and lawyer who know how to protect your interests.

These deals are more complex than a conventional resale and involve three parties: the developer, the assignor and the assignee. It’s a two-stage process that involves both interim occupancy and the final closing.

This is just the basics of an assignment deal. There are more details regarding mortgage rules, and other contract details. Keep reading to learn more! Or you can always reach out to talk with one of our agents. We love to talk condos! This is just a general overview, but each arrangement is unique with its own rules, terms, and conditions.

We advise everybody who is thinking of buying or selling a pre-construction assignment to seek advice from a real estate agent, lawyer and tax accountant. Contacting an agent is important because assignors may have to pay a fair amount of tax on any profits they received from the completed sale

Most builders allow assignment sales and you will often see these listings on REALTOR.ca. However, there are some rules in the original purchase agreement that must be followed. They are also more complicated than a regular sale because a mortgage cannot be obtained on the closing of the transaction, only once the building has been registered. Other issues such as occupancy, reimbursement of the seller’s deposits and more must be taken into account.

In 2017, John Smith buys a pre-construction condominium suite from ABC Developments for $400,000 with a total down payment of 20%, equalling $80,000. The project is set to be completed in 2022.

In 2021, John discovered he will be relocated to a new city. He can’t afford to buy a new home while holding onto his pre-construction condo.

Fortunately for John, the assignment clause allows him to sell the contract for his unit before the building is completed and registered!

John has decided to sell the contract to his unit to Jane Doe. Due to the changes in the market, he was able to sell the contract for $500,000.

Assignment Purchase:

• Assignment Agreement: $500,000
• Original Purchaser (Assignor) = John Smith
• New Purchaser (Assignee) = Jane Doe
• Vendor (Builder) = ABC Developments

Assignment Purchase Price by John Smith to Jane Doe = $180,000, due immediately. This includes a deposit of $80,000 + profit $100,000. The amount and timeframe for this payment can also be negotiated.

• In 2022 when the building is complete and ready for interim occupancy, Jane Doe will move into the unit during the occupancy period. At this point she will begin paying occupancy fees to the developer. These fees take the place of mortgage payments and condo fees until the building can be registered.
• Interim occupancy happens when the city has designated the property as safe to live in. The building will be officially registered once the municipality does a final inspection. Jane Doe can occupy her suite in the meantime until the building is officially registered.

Assignment Details:

• When the building is officially registered by the city, the official title transfer takes place between the developer and the new purchaser. Jane Doe can finally register a mortgage and start paying her mortgage payments and condominium fees.
• Funds required to complete the sale by Jane Doe to the builder = $320,000
• Jane Doe now has all the rights to the property, just like any homeowner. Any future re-sale of the property will consist of a regular real estate transaction.

Is It Worth It to Buy an Assignment?

Assignment purchases can actually give you some of the best deals in the GTA condo market because fewer people typically seek out these types of sales. In addition to fewer buyers, many real estate agents aren’t familiar with the structure of an assignment sale and often won’t bother to advertise these listings. Even lawyers may not know the ins and outs of an assignment sale.

The high demand in the resale market can potentially force buyers into bidding wars, which can cause people to overpay for their suite. Buying a contract through assignment gives you the opportunity to avoid excessive competition and often means you pay much less than you would for a resale unit.

The assignment condo market can be mutually beneficial for both the buyer and the seller. The seller can list their unit without having to wait until the building is completed, and the buyer can save time and potentially thousands of dollars.

Another advantage to buying an assignment agreement is that you will get a brand-new unit that automatically comes with the seven-year Tarion Warranty Program. Let’s not forget that you’ll likely move into the unit sooner instead of waiting the usual 3 to 4 years for the building to be completed!

Let’s Recap Some of the Advantages for Buyers:

• Options: More choices when there’s a shortage of listings in the market.
• Less Competition: Fewer people look at these types of listings.
• Peace of Mind: Fewer people looking at these sales means there’s less of a chance for a bidding war. You can avoid bidding wars and paying more than you can afford just to outbid another buyer.
• You Become A VIP: You will likely inherit VIP incentives like the seven-year Tarion Warranty Program and other incentives from the builder such as credits, upgrades, capped developing charges and much more.
• More Choices: Depending on how far along construction is, you may still be able to select your own finishes, colors and upgrades.
• Negotiate: Sellers usually need to sell because they need to drop their equity. This can give you leverage for prices, deposits, and closing dates.
• Brand New Suite: You will get your unit much faster instead of waiting 2-3 years like in a typical pre-construction contract. Oftentimes the occupancy date is just a couple of months away.
• Taxes: You may also benefit from saving on taxes like GST and HST.

We love to chat about the assignment sale market, so don’t wait, give us a call and let’s find you a great deal.

Traditionally, owners who wanted to sell their pre-construction units had to wait months or years for the final closing date to officially put their suite up for sale. By this time, they could have already put significant funds into occupancy fees and closing costs.

Assignments sales is not a new strategy in Canada, but compared to other countries where condos have been around much longer, the process is not always well understood by sellers, buyers, agents, lawyers, and even lenders. Sellers who have been taking the time to learn about assignments have been reaping the rewards by saving time and maximizing their profits.

These transactions are becoming increasingly popular. Think of it as a sort of condo flipping. Sellers can transfer their property rights during or before interim occupancy and avoid paying hefty carrying and closing costs, which helps them get their deposits back.

Most builders allow assignment sales, although they often have certain rules that must be followed. Even with strict rules in place, however, there are options available for you.

Let’s Take a Look at the Advantages for Sellers:

• Insurance Policy: In the event that your situation changes and you no longer need your unit, you are able to sell your assignment and pull out your equity.
• No Carrying Costs: You can avoid paying monthly fees like occupancy fees that can sometimes last for up to two years.
• No Closing Costs: You don’t need to take out a mortgage or incur any other closing costs.

What is an Assignment Sale?

It is the sale of a contract to purchase a pre-construction unit. This means, instead of selling an already built unit, what’s being sold is the contract or right to acquire the property upon completion. The original purchaser (the "assignor") of a property sells their obligations under the original contract to a new purchaser (the "assignee").

The assignee will generally assume all of the assignor's duties and obligations, such as interest payments, taxes, and maintenance fees during interim occupancy. Upon completion, the assignee is granted the title to the real property and will incur all final closing costs.

Can any kind of purchase agreement involving a real estate transaction be assigned?

Under normal circumstances, any purchase agreement can be assigned, providing the agreement doesn’t prohibit it.

Is an Assignment legal?

It is legally permitted unless prohibited in writing in the original agreement of purchase and sale. In some cases, the developer may charge the assignor a fee for this kind of sale.

Is it necessary to get permission from the developer to assign the contract?

That depends. You need to consult your purchase agreement to get the specifics. Generally developers will not permit an assignment sale without their consent, which means you’ll need to consult with them and a legal representative. There have been incidents where an unauthorized assignment sale has resulted in the original agreement being terminated, and the deposit withheld!

Is there a standard legal form for these types of sales?

Yes, there are two: OREA Form 150 Assignment of Agreement of Purchase and Sale Condominium and OREA Form 145 Assignment of Agreement of Purchase and Sale (including applicable schedules.) In most cases, the developer will have their own form as well.

Will either the assignor or assignee’s lawyer services be adequate?

It is essential that the assignor and assignee each retain a lawyer with expertise in this area of real estate.

Can the assignor’s realtor market the assignment listing on MLS or REALTOR.ca?

Sometimes. Double check with your builder, as it depends on whether they permit advertising.

What happens if the construction, occupancy, closing, or unit transfer date is delayed?

In the event of a delay, the agreement is still valid. This means the assignee has agreed to take on the agreement and all responsibilities associated with it, including delayed construction or occupancy.

What if the assignee doesn't close?

This is no different than any other property sale, meaning the assignor, in most cases, is not released from the obligations under their original purchase agreement. In this situation, both the assignor and assignee will be liable.

What is the cost of assigning an Agreement of Purchase and Sale?

If the developer consents to the arrangement, there will generally be an administration fee and legal fees. These fees will vary. Consult the original purchase agreement and the developer for specific information.

When does the assignor get their money?

This generally depends on the closing date and the terms of the agreement that the assignor and assignee agreed on. Usually the assignor is paid when:

• the assignee takes possession or,
• when the developer approves the process, if applicable or,
• when the assignee obtains legal title

Who gets the interest, if any, payable by the builder on the original deposits?

Unless otherwise specified, the interest is likely to be paid to the assignor.

Who pays the interim occupancy costs?

Once the assignment is finalized, the assignee will typically pay occupancy costs.

What closing fees are payable?

After the condominium is registered, the builder transfers the ownership title to the assignee. The assignee pays the balance to the builder and any amount still owed to the assignor. Some of the costs the assignor may pay include:

• Estimated property taxes for up to 2 years
• Hydro/water/gas meter installation and connection charges (approx. $500–$700 per meter)
• Development charges/levies (potentially thousands of dollars)
• Tarion New Home Warranty (ranging from $600–$1,900. See Tarion website for fee structure)
• Discharge of builder’s mortgages (approx. $200–$300 per mortgage)
• Builder’s lawyer’s Law Society charge (approx. $70)
• Two months of occupancy fees for reserve fund
• Other amounts set out in the Agreement of Purchase and Sale

These costs are typically not financed with a mortgage. The assignee is responsible for the following additional fees:

• Legal fees and disbursements
• Land transfer tax (provincial and municipal)
• GST/HST rebate
• Municipal levies

If you’re interested in either buying or selling an assignment, you need a realtor who is experienced in finding, negotiating and drawing up the offer for these types of sales. This means you’ve come to the right place! We have a wealth of expertise, knowledge and resources when it comes to assignment sales and we would be more than happy to discuss the idea with you.

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Teacher Secretly Sold His Students’ Art on Mugs and Shirts, Lawsuit Says

Parents of a dozen students at a school near Montreal accused an art teacher in a lawsuit of reproducing portraits from a class assignment and putting them on items that he offered for sale online.

By Sopan Deb

In January, students at a junior high school outside Montreal received an assignment to draw a classmate or a self-portrait in the style of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

“The challenge is to make an original artwork in Basquiat’s style; not to copy one of his images,” the teacher, Mario Perron, wrote to his students on the junior campus at Westwood High School in St.-Lazare, Quebec. “I am very familiar with Basquiat’s work and will return copied work, because it is considered plagiarism.”

The assignment was titled “Creepy Portrait.”

Basquiat was a worthy subject: He was the influential Brooklyn-born artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent who was known for a brief career in which he innovated with graffiti and other types of improvisational pieces. He died at 27 in 1988 .

But parents of some students who completed the assignment were shocked to find that Mr. Perron had copied the portraits and was offering mugs, cushions, bags, apparel and other items for sale online bearing reproductions of the artwork, according to a class-action lawsuit filed last week in Quebec Superior Court.

Joel DeBellefeuille, who learned what was happening from his 13-year-old son, Jax, accused Mr. Perron in an interview of perpetrating a “premeditated” scheme. A portrait of Jax by one of his classmates was among the student artwork being offered for sale, he said.

“ I freaked out,” Mr. DeBellefeuille said. “I was full of emotions. Still now, it’s really unbelievable.”

Mr. Perron, who did not respond to a request for comment, is not listed as a current employee on the school’s website . Darren Becker, a spokesman for the Lester B. Pearson School Board, which is a named defendant in the suit, said the school board “does not comment on internal investigations.”

It was not immediately clear if Mr. Perron had sold any of the items he listed, or how much money, if any, he had made.

Mr. DeBellefeuille first discovered that the art had been repurposed on Feb. 8, when his son, who had done a Google search, showed him that Mr. Perron had created a profile on Fine Art America , an online art marketplace. The profile had thousands of items for sale displaying the work originally submitted by the students, priced between $9.50 and $113 in U.S. currency, all apparently unauthorized.

Each item was labeled with the student’s first name followed by “Creepy Portrait.” The drawings themselves mimic the frenetic style of Basquiat — multicolored portraits that nod to the unconventional and imaginative, including many oddly shaped heads and contorted bodies. Mr. Perron was listed as the artist for all of the works, according to screenshots provided by Mr. DeBellefeuille.

In total, according to a demand letter sent to the school district on Feb. 13, there were 2,976 items for sale using works from the 96 students who were given the assignment. The student artwork was reproduced in 31 categories, including throw pillows, tank tops, tote bags and beach towels, according to the letter.

The works appear to have been removed from the Fine Art America website.

“It is evident that the trust of the public, the students, the parents, and specifically our clients, in the school board and its representatives, has been severely shaken,” the letter said.

Mr. DeBellefeuille’s brother Martin, a lawyer, initially sent the letter on behalf of Mr. DeBellefeuille and Edith Liard, the parent of another child in the art class. The parents of 10 other children have since attached themselves to the suit, Mr. DeBellefeuille said, including two who added their names after it was filed on Friday.

The plaintiffs are seeking 2.16 million Canadian dollars, or about $1.59 million, a figure that includes 5,000 Canadian dollars for each work reproduced in the 31 categories as well as punitive damages and legal fees. They are also demanding that Mr. Perron withdraw the works from all platforms, for him to be suspended and for a written apology.

Under the Canadian Copyright Act, a copyright owner may be entitled to between 500 and 20,000 Canadian dollars for each work that is unlawfully used. Under Canadian law, one does not need to file for a copyright to be considered a copyright owner .

The suit cites the Civil Code of Quebec as the reason the school board is named as a defendant. It says that “the principal is bound to make reparation for injury caused by the fault of his subordinates in the performance of their duties.”

Mr. DeBellefeuille said he expected that the school district would settle rather than go to court.

“For me, it takes a special kind of person to go that deep to do what he did to minor children,” Mr. DeBellefeuille said of Mr. Perron. “This is what enrages me.”

Sopan Deb is a Times reporter covering breaking news and culture. More about Sopan Deb

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