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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…
A Soldier’s Silent Night: How To Get Involved During The Holidays
I love this time of year. It’s pretty to drive down night streets and see lights and colors aglow. There’s the smell of cinnamon, spice, evergreen and woodsmoke in the air. Visions of fires in the fire place and chestnuts roasting take me back to my childhood. People are a little bit nicer as you smile and chat with strangers in stores. More bells appear to mark your entrance into shops and homes. Winter scenes…
Chanukah Ham…Is It A Hoax? A Little Holiday Humor
Today I opened up facebook and was greeted by this picture one of my friends posted. Hysterical—> The tag line on it read: Dear Walmart, I think you are barking up the wrong tree. Love, The Jews. This is a true case of not knowing your audience. And hopefully striking funny bones and not stepping on toes. Being the unobservant Jew that I am, (while born Jewish, I have more Christmas lights on my house…
Pay it Forward: Random Acts of Kindness and Deliberate Acts of Kindness
Hey folks did you get the invitation? It’s circulating around Facebook and it’s about Pay it Forward day. If you haven’t seen the movie it will make you cry! And then it will make you think why don’t more people do this kind of thing on a daily basis. What a better world we’d live in. I need your help paying it forward today. Every year there is a Dream Home giveaway in Hampton Roads…
What Level Do You Live On?
As we wind down the year, and especially during this season of giving, not only is it a great time to take stock of how we met our goals on a business level, but also on a personal level. It’s also the time of year to be calibrating those goals for next year. It’s important to set both business goals and personal goals. But sometimes it’s hard to decide or understand the importance of what…
Epic Change: Small Donations Create Cumulative Effects In The World
I can’t believe it was just one year ago that I was arranging Tweetsgiving in Virginia Beach with my friends Sonya Schweitzer and Karen Clements at Gordon Biersch. It was a wonderful evening of positive energy for an amazing cause to help build schools in Africa through Epic Change, a 501 (c) 3 organization, while giving thanks for all the things we have in life. I’m grateful that we were able to be a part…
What Do You Think Of Random Friend Requests From Random Strangers?
When I was a kid I liked to pull things apart and see how they worked. That meant that I had stuffed animals that had their little sound makers taken out of them, and ballerina music boxes that no longer played swan lake. I just like to know what makes things (And people) tick. One of the things that makes me go hmmmm the most in Social Media, is the random friend requests from complete…
November: Two Powerful Days of Reflection
In November there are two very powerful days of reflection. One just passed, Veterans Day. And one coming up in 10 more days. Thanksgiving. The following video drives home some powerful points to reflect on for both. These are secular holidays. These are days that effect all Americans and have so much to do with how we came to survive in this land, and how we continue to do so thanks to those who make…
Ya Gotta have A Plan: Goal Setting and Business Planning
To expand on my last blog post about creating a vision, the end of the year is always a good time to examine goal setting techniques, business planning, and creative visualization. This is true both for our personal lives and for our business lives. And the techniques are surprisingly the same. There are a couple of key points to include when creating business and personal goals for yourself. This is part of the road map…
Don’t Know If You Noticed But…..
I took about a month off of blogging, and clammed up on tweeting as well. I’m not going to lie, the bluesfest took a lot of energy out of me. Doing it all was exhausting and I’ve taken the last month to regroup. The Bluesfest went from vision to reality because I set a goal for myself to do it, and then progressed through the process of visualizing it, and creating it. While it was…
Blue Gypsy Bluesfest: Success! Planning for Next Year!
The first annual Blue Gypsy Bluesfest was a success!!! We had 350 people at the event and we were able to raise money for both charities! It was no small feat to put together an event of that magnitude all by myself, but as I’ve said before I had so much help from all the positive feedback and energy and ideas that were generated by those who participated. But only one person truly knows all…