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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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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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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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One thing I’ve learned over the past 19 years of building and rebuilding Online Sales Counselor (OSC) programs, and 14 years of consulting with builders across the country is this: Hiring a consultant doesn’t automatically change a program. It’s what happens between consulting, training, strategy, and leadership that makes the difference. I can build structure. I can train skills. I can create systems that make your OSC team run like a machine. But if leadership isn’t plugged in, reinforcing, and managing the program after I leave, even the strongest team…
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Being an OSC in the homebuilding industry isn’t just a job, it’s a balancing act, a communication art form, and a powerhouse role that lives at the crossroads of marketing and sales. If you’re looking to level up your performance and stand out, these 7 habits of highly effective OSCs will help you build stronger relationships, streamline your workflow, and ultimately set more appointments that convert. Let’s break them down: Be Numbers Driven Know your metrics like your best friend’s birthday. If you’re not tracking, you’re guessing. Your numbers tell…
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Every year I walk into the International Builders’ Show with the same challenge. There is simply too much good content. IBS is one of the few places where you can find yourself staring at your schedule thinking, “I want to be in three different rooms at the same time.” Between sales, marketing, technology, leadership, and customer experience sessions, there is always more to learn than any one person can realistically absorb in three days. That’s honestly part of why I keep coming back. This year is no exception. I’m especially…
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When margins are tight, it’s tempting to look for places to cut costs. Too often, the OSC program ends up on the chopping block. On paper, removing a salary line or trimming bonuses may look like savings. In reality, it’s one of the most expensive mistakes a builder can make. An OSC isn’t just another role. They are the engine that converts costly digital traffic into real appointments and closed sales. Without them, your marketing dollars evaporate, your conversion rates sink, and the homes you thought you’d sell this year…
No One is Dying: Ways to Manage Your Time as an OSC
With the onset of COVID and the current climate in the building industry, having time as an OSC is nonexistent. Homebuyers are forced to begin their search online whether they like it or not. Even prior to the pandemic, the internet has become the top source when searching for a new home. With the amount of volume that builders are seeing across the country, OSC’s are becoming more and more spread thin. Imagine you are…
A Love Affair with CRM: An OSC’s Real World Ups and Downs with 3 Different Programs
In honor of Valentine’s Day, we give you a brief love affair with Customer Relationship Management tools (CRMs) and how one OSC describes her relationship with them. We will remove names to protect the innocent and the guilty – both the OSC’s name, and the CRMs. But let’s just call this a cautionary tale. CRMs are the foundation of everything for successful online sales counselors. We know in life just as with any romance…
Have Online Sales Systems In Place BEFORE The Home Building Market Changes
Systems need to be in place if you want to grow and maintain during the highs and lows of the new home building market. People will always be buying real estate, it’s just their methods and what’s important to our buyers changes as the market fluctuates. This is the toughest point to get across in the new home building industry… maybe it’s true of all industries, but since I work in this one, this is…
Quick Tip Tuesday: Possession vs. Ownership
This may be controversial in some circles but I feel this is a really important part of online lead management. If you are familiar at all with the online sales program — and lets face it, if you weren’t you wouldn’t be here — then you know that an online sales counselors job is to set appointments for the site agents inn the model homes. But I’ve realized over the years that there…
Metrics Aren’t Everything…WHAT?
There, I said it. Metrics are not everything when it comes to a well-oiled Online Sales Counselor program. Especially in the Age of COVID. I just blew the minds of many people including all my perfectionist OSC’s. You know how I know this? I’m nominating several of my past OSC’s I’ve trained for National Awards through the NAHB, and that means getting all their current metrics to report for a 12 month-period. What are the…
Online Sales Counselors Need to be The CRM Expert for New Home Builders
I am a coach, a mentor, a trainer, a consultant. I am not technical support or here to set up your Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM.) Why? Because the only way to become an expert in your CRM is to dive in, learn it, break it, fix it, and as Nike used to say, Just Do It! When I work with builders, one of the most important foundational tools they will ever use with their…
The Results Are In! Is Follow Up Your Weakest Link?
Blue Gypsy Inc. Partnered with Melinda Brody & Company and Denim marketing to shop 50 new home builders across the country. We spent 30 days tracking the follow up processes and examined speed, frequency of messaging and diversity of touch points. The results will shock you. Or maybe not. In our mystery shop we noted the follow-up behaviors of the group as a whole, as well as looking at those who did have online…
Quick Tip Tuesday Video – How To Optimize Live Chat
Today’s Quick Tip for Online Sales Programs in the Building Industry is about Live Chat. Watch this Quick Tip on YouTube → If you are going to have your OSC utilize Live Chat you need to make sure these 3 things are happening. I’ve always been on the fence about live chat because all too often I’ve seen this become a band-aid for a true online sales counselor program. If you only tend to your…
Don’t Burn Out Your Online Sales Counselor
Look, I’ve been doing this since 2007. Back when I began as an OSC we did not have the same kind of marketing and lead generation as we do now. I worked for a builder that sold about 350 or more homes per year, and back then we said if an OSC was doing 20-25% of overall sales for the company they were doing a great job. As a producer hitting 32% of overall sales…
CRM – Should it Integrate with Your New Home Builder Software?
So, I get this question a lot! Or I get this statement… “We don’t want to change CRM’s because it integrates with our contract writing, purchasing, building etc… software we already have.” Here’s the thing. Some of the companies tack on an inferior Customer Relationship Management tool, (CRM) so that you will utilize their entire system. They think this is a value add. It’s not that they mean for it to be inferior. At least…