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Over the years, I’ve worked with home builders who have invested significant time, money, and resources into developing their Online Sales Counselor (OSC) programs. They’ve hired talented people, invested in CRM systems, provided training, and established performance goals. But somewhere along the way, something happens. The OSC program stops being actively managed and starts being measured. How many leads came in this month? How many appointments were set? How many sales came from online leads? What’s the conversion rate? Don’t get me wrong. Those numbers matter. I’m a big believer…
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Over the years, I’ve worked with home builders of all sizes, helping them build, train, and grow their Online Sales Counselor (OSC) programs. And one thing I’ve learned is that even the best OSCs need more than great training to be successful. They need ongoing coaching, leadership, accountability, and someone who truly understands their unique role. But here’s the challenge. Who is managing your OSC program? In many homebuilding companies, that responsibility falls on the VP of Sales, Director of Sales, or another member of the leadership team who already…
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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,…
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…
Agent, OSC, and Customer Communication for the Perfect Hand-Off
You know the old saying buyers are liars? Well they aren’t liars, but sometimes they get their information wrong. And at times that can cause strife between OSC’s and Agents. That’s why it’s so important to get the lead hand-off right. Often when we teach the lead hand-off between online and onsite it’s a one-time training and we just figure everyone will remember forever and always. But that’s not the case. The lead hand-off should…
The Power of Positive Energy and an Abundance Mindset
As we discuss collaboration, positive energy, and having a mindset of abundance – it’s important that we don’t just use these as buzz words but that we actually live in it and cultivate this mindset and energy not just in ourselves but for others. Most people who know me, know I’m a firm believer in energy, and our ability to utilize that energy to achieve our goals and create an abundance mindset. What most people…
8 Tips to Create a Successful OSC Program
Creating a successful online sales counselor program doesn’t happen over night, and it doesn’t happen by accident. Here are a few details to help you assess or get started thinking about how to start or improve your online sales program. There are so many more details I could share about setting up a successful OSC program, but I’m going to try to give you some of the 8 essential things you should think about when…
Collaboration in the Building Industry Raises Our Vibration
February is the month of love, and I, like many in the building industry, just got back from a lovefest in the building industry – also known as the International Builders Show (IBS). It was the first time in two years to see friends, colleagues, and clients in person. There was hugging, there was laughter, there were cheers. This year was the first year I’ve gotten to speak on a stage at IBS. And I…
Blue Gypsy Inc’s Top Pics for IBS 2022 Education
Hey all, lets face it…ALL the education is incredible at IBS. I love listening to other experts in the industry talk about the topics they are passionate about. This is by no means the list for everyone, but as I go and set up my schedule for what I want to attend these are a few standouts I hope to be able to attend. First, it’s important to be mindful of the schedule. There are…
Don’t Miss Extreme Makeover Sales Edition at IBS in Orlando February 9th
Are you going to IBS? If you are don’t miss this fun fast paced game show style presentation Extreme Makeover Sales Edition: Empowering your OSC to Guide Sales Conversion & Customer Experience. Wednesday February 9th at 9:15am in W-315. With a superstar group of Online Sales Counselor experts in the home building industry you’ll be able to walk away with a better understanding of how to pair your OSC with your marketing strategy to provide…
Company Culture: The Ever-Moving Target
Guest Post by Erica Lockwood Executive Partner & Managing Director Joseph Chris Partners 2021 was weird. Okay, maybe not as bizarre as 2020, but it had its moments, right? The clear and definitive onset of the “Great Resignation” was certainly something to see transpire and will certainly continue to trend in 2022. All told, over 38 million workers quit their jobs during 2021. While incredibly out of the ordinary, I think we can all agree…
Are You Going to IBS 2022 in Orlando?
Can you believe IBS is around the corner? Are you going to be there? I hope to be able to spend time catching up with all my industry friends and colleagues and as usual this year’s lineup of education is not going to disappoint. It’s not that there’s never enough to do at IBS, it’s that there is SOOOOO much to see and attend. This year will be no different. For any newbies to the show,…