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October is here, which means we are officially entering the last quarter of the year. And I think this is a really important time to ask ourselves a question: What are we going to do with the next 90 days? There is a lot of uncertainty in our industry right now. Interest rates, affordability, consumer confidence, traffic and the economy are all creating questions about what the rest of this year will look like and what we can expect when we head into the spring selling season. We can’t control…
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The Builder Marketing Summit has wrapped up for another year, and after two fast and furious days in Dallas, I walked away energized, full of ideas and, as always, wishing there had been just a little more time to talk with everyone. This was my fourth year joining Greg Bray of Blue Tangerine and Kevin Weitzel of Outhouse for the Summit, where they once again gave me free rein to lead the Online Sales Counselor track. That opportunity means a lot to me because there simply aren’t many industry events…
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Recently, a seasoned OSC reached out to me because she knows I do mystery shops. She also knows about the Annual Mystery Shop Report we conduct every year to get a pulse on the state of the industry when it comes to customer experience and the customer journey. She had been mystery shopped. On a Saturday. Her day off. Actually, it was the beginning of a four-day weekend for her. And as a solo OSC, she needs to take time off. Gone are the days when we should expect an…
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Why an AI Tool Isn’t the Same as an AI Strategy AI is everywhere in new home sales right now. Chatbots, automated follow-up, texting, dialers, lead nurturing, appointment setting. There are some incredible tools available, and I am certainly not anti-AI. Used correctly, AI can help us respond faster, manage more opportunities and take some of the repetitive work off our plates. But buying an AI tool is not the same thing as having an AI strategy. You don’t just buy it, unbox it, plug it into your website or…
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One of the first things I ask for when I start working with a new builder has nothing to do with conversion rates, lead response times, or appointment-setting percentages. Well okay I ask for all of that stuff. But I also ask for this… I ask to see every follow-up sequence living inside their CRM. The automated emails. The texts. The videos. The call tasks. Everything. Why? Because before I can coach an Online Sales Counselor, I want to understand what the buyer is experiencing. Every email, every text message,…
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“Everyone knows something you don’t… learn from them.” It’s a simple phrase, but one that’s resonated with me for decades. I’m not even sure where I first heard it, but it’s become part of who I am and how I approach life. Long before Blue Gypsy. Long before I was speaking at conferences or teaching classes. Before I ever became an Online Sales Counselor. It’s a mindset I’ve carried with me from experience to experience…country to country. I learned it years ago while traveling the world. Every place I visited…
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In our last blog post about One Team, One Experience I talked heavily about alignment. If the move from online to onsite is done well, it should feel natural from the buyer’s perspective. Exciting, even. The OSC should be building anticipation, not creating confusion. It should sound more like: “I’d love for you to meet my good friend; they’re going to have a much better handle on those specific house questions and help you take the next step.” That is a handoff. Not: “Here’s the appointment. Good luck.…
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Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of joining an NAHB Shop Talk with a title so good I figured it deserved a blog post of its own: One Team, One Experience: Turning Spring Traffic into Sales. When a topic is this relevant, this timely, and this painfully familiar to anyone in home building, you don’t just leave it neatly tucked inside a one-hour conversation. You bring it back out, dust it off, and say, “Alright, let’s talk about what this really means.” The discussion was moderated by Kelly Fink,…
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I feel like I make a post about this almost every year… but spring cleaning isn’t just for closets, junk drawers, and that cup holder in your car full of receipts, hair ties, mystery crumbs, and old empty coffee cups from Starbucks. It’s for your follow-up too. Let’s be honest… somewhere in that CRM is a sales process you built with the best of intentions and then never looked at again. She’s out there. Collecting dust. Sending old emails. Possibly embarrassing you. This time of year, is the perfect excuse…
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Alright, friends. We’re closing out March Debunking AI Month with one more thing I need to get off my chest: I am deeply skeptical of these micro learning AI courses that keep popping up all over my social feed. You know the ones. “Learn 47 AI tools in 28 days!” “Become an AI power user by next Tuesday!” “Master the future with our daily 10-minute lessons!” Meanwhile I’m over here thinking… who has time to collect apps like they’re Pokémon? What do I need 10…or 28 different tools? And more…
Don’t Kill Your Unicorn
“They Are Cutting My Pay!” The worst text ever to get from a friend who is an online sales counselor. I’ve been there. I know it’s a gut punch. I remember that punch. Back in 2009 when I was an OSC, after two years of fighting the market downturn, my pay got restructured and I was expected to work just as hard, with no bonuses or incentives. Lucky for that builder I had a very…
The Inside Track on the Online Sales Track at the Tropical Sales Retreat
I’m pretty excited to be putting together the curriculum for the Online Sales Track at the Tropical Sales Retreat November 2-4 in Clearwater, Florida. (For more information on the retreat check it out here.) What I love about this program is that there will be something for everyone. Whether you are an OSC, an onsite sales person, or part of the leadership team there are wonderful takeaways on how to improve your sales program, your…
Guest Post: Remix Your PreSale Process For New Home Community Sales
Guest Post by Sara WilliamsDirector of SalesAnewgo In my 18 years in the new home industry, I have had the opportunity to help market and presell many communities. While I worked for a builder in Pittsburgh, PA, we grew from 11 communities to 33 communities in a few short years, and moved into two additional states. We worked and reworked our presale process throughout the recession and we made all the mistakes you can imagine.…
What Does Auditing Your Online Sales Counselor Program Mean for New Home Builders?
If you’ve had an online sales counselor program for a while, or you are thinking of starting one up, there are several types of audits we recommend you do in order to best assess the success of your program and decide whether or not it’s time to grow an existing program, revamp it, or start up a new program if you don’t already have online sales counselors. 360 Degree Assessments – This is a detailed…
Manifesting a Retreat for OSCs at the New Homes Sales + Tropical Retreat
When you look up kindness in the dictionary you may see a picture of Roland Nairnsey of New Homes Sales +. While he’s been in the industry for a long time, and I’d heard his name and wonderful things about him for years. I didn’t meet him until the end of last year. Immediately I could feel his positive energy and kindness resonate. Let me backtrack with a short story. Back in February of 2020,…
Company Culture and National Holidays
How many companies are giving their employees today off? Today is Good Friday and this evening is the start of Passover. Easter is this Sunday, and Passover lasts a week. Are your teams getting any time off? Other important world holidays include the fact that we are smack dab in the middle of Ramadan. (It started April 1st and ends May 1st) And this month there are a whole slew of important Hindu and Sikh…
Guest Post: When Markets Shift – Insights From The Field
Guest Post by Ashley Dailey Former Online and Onsite Sales Agent Current CEO – Rainmaker – REALTOR Dailey Properties When markets shift, it is time to think outside of the box! I came into real estate in 2010 – selling NEW construction homes- just when the first time buyer tax credit ended, rates were 6-7%, the foreclosures were everywhere & the buyers were scarce! H O W E V E R I chose to create…
Even Coaches Have Their Own Coaches – Join Mine at Unlock Live
As an online sales counselor trainer and coach I’m very good at identifying my trainees’ strengths and areas of opportunity for growth and learning so that I can coach them to be the very best. With a 16 year career in the building industry and the opportunity to work with many different builders across the country over the years, I’m also very good at helping to strategize with builders and leaders to work on their…
New Home Marketing: Don’t Race to the Bottom Pricing
Recently as I was speaking with one of my online sales counselors, we were talking about community pricing and marketing. She told me the secret of creating happy buyers… Ask any OSC out there and 99% of the time they will tell you their communities are marketed based on the lowest possible price. What that means is on the website, on signs, anywhere and everywhere that we broadcast a price, it says something like, “Buy…
Lessons from an OSC: 4 Strategies to Build a Successful Coming Soon Community Plan and Create Confident VIPs
Guest Post by Kaylee Daum Senior Online New Home Specialist Epcon Communities It’s 3:52pm on a Tuesday. Your inbox dings and you have a new email from your Marketing team– The VIP campaign to start promoting your next new home community is about to go live. The community signage has been installed on-site, promoted posts on social are ready to go, email blasts to your existing CRM database are about to commence, and 2,700 direct…