Let’s get this out of the way right now: I am not a CRM implementation expert. My job is to train and strategize with Online Sales Counselors (OSCs) and companies to help them thrive in their roles and their adoption of the CRM across all departments. It’s important for the marketing, sales, and online salespeople to all be rowing in the same direction when it comes to big tools like the CRM. I’ll give you the ideas and the parameters, but I leave the nitty-gritty of CRM setup to the techies and specialists. What I do know is what a CRM should be able to do for you as an OSC in the homebuilding industry. It’s up to you to become the expert on the platform your company uses. And let’s be honest—often OSCs end up being the CRM experts in their companies. So, roll up your sleeves, dive in, and figure it out. Here’s the good news: there are resources everywhere. Your CRM likely has a support team, a knowledge base, and (bless the internet gods) YouTube. You can Google just about anything these days. Or—and here’s a crazy idea—you can play with it. Tinker, explore, and press all…
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Join Us September 14th for Head to Head on Abundance
I am lucky enough to have built relationships and genuine friendships with people in the building industry who have similar values as I do. Long ago my father – an amazing business mentor and coach – taught me that in order to truly be finding your passion within your work you need to have shared values and goals with the people you work with. While I don’t work within a big organization, I’ve found that…
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Upcoming Lasso Webinar September 22nd – Hiring A Unicorn
While my last post about the conference let you in on a little bit about me and live speaking in front of an audience, I’m pretty excited about the upcoming webinar with Lasso where I get to talk about hiring OSCs and what to look for in that unicorn. I really do believe that making sure you have the right person in that role is half the battle. It’s not the whole battle, but it…
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A Few Personal Ah-has and Insight From The Epcon National Conference
It’s 7am in Columbus Ohio on day 3 of the Epcon National Conference, and I have my 2nd presentation of the week in a couple of hours. I should be reviewing material, and then I think… but this is stuff I talk about all the time for the past 15 years. The details change as the market changes and technology changes, the concepts and ideas grow, but at the root of it is what I’ve…
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If 100% of My Sales Come Through Online Sales Counselors. Should I Restructure OSC Pay?
Noooooo! Not unless you are going to pay them MORE! I keep seeing this over the past year, as more and more traffic for new home builders comes to your online sales counselors. More leads are being set into appointment because there is less walk-in traffic. Some builders are having “heartburn” over how much they are paying their online sales counselor. Especially for appointments. WHHHYYYYY? Why would you penalize your online sales counselors for refining…
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How to Grow Your Online Sales Department
By now, and if you’ve read my last two posts – Don’t Break The Process and Can’t an Online Sales Counselor Just Take the Lead Through Sale? NO! – then you may be starting to consider growing your online sales department. Before a little thing called COVID, most walk in traffic really was digital traffic. Did I just blow your mind? Everyone in sales now is saying they’ve always had walk-in traffic. True. But…
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Can’t an Online Sales Counselor Just Take The Lead Through Sale? NO!
I saw this question recently asked in a forum. This goes right along with “Don’t Break The Process.“ You don’t want to take leads generated by marketing (The seed) and hand them off directly to the agents before they go through lead development for reasons discussed previously in Don’t Break The Process. Likewise, if your OSC became responsible for the entire buying process, it would be the same thing as handing off that lead to…
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