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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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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…
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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…
Online Sales Counselor Recognition – National Silver Winners
Being an online sales counselor is hard work. They are the unsung heroes and vital team members in lead development and conversion. And the thing about these unicorns is that one of the things that makes them so successful is that they usually are not one to brag about themselves. While online sales counselors are often the face of the websites, much of what they do happens behind the scenes and they almost always like…
Frequently Asked Questions About Online Sales Programs
There are many questions I get when we are looking at starting or evaluating an existing program, especially when it comes to hiring an OSC and setting them up for success. Frequently asked questions: Can’t we just move an agent from sales to online sales or hire a seasoned realtor? The answer is sometimes. Not all sales agents, or realtors for that matter, will want to do the ongoing repetitive task handling that is part…
Is Long-Term Follow Up Still Important?
The last 18 months have seen crazy things happening in the new home construction world. It’s no secret that we have more buyers than homes. So, is it really necessary to have long-term follow up? The answer is YES! For the first quarter in a while, we are seeing the lead volume slow down. What does that mean? Well for most it means a more normal volume. But that change in frequency can leave many…
Quick Tip Tuesday: Hiring Your OSC Locally
This tip goes well with the upcoming Lasso Webinar – Hiring a Unicorn. I know there are some people in the industry that believe an OSC can work from anywhere. And while I do think that it’s true an OSC doesn’t need to be working in the office from 9-5 Monday – Friday, I do feel there’s an important part of the company culture an OSC misses when they work completely disconnected by geography from…
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…
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…
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…
Quick Tip Tuesday: Don’t Forget About Proper Lead Nurturing
If we don’t do our lead nurturing correctly now, we will be regretting it later. While in the ever changing landscape of online sales, so much more has been thrown on the plate of an OSC, it’s important that we don’t forget the basics. The reasons why this position exists in the first place. To nurture leads and make sure that they are getting the feeling of a personalized experience with the builder, well before…
Hiring the Right OSC Requires A Social Media Check
In today’s digital world, it’s important to be careful about what you put out in the world, especially publicly. Time and again we see people removed from their jobs because they’ve expressed a stance that their companies cannot abide by, nor do they want to be held accountable for in society. As online sales counselors in the new home building industry we are especially susceptible to this sort of scrutiny. the online sales counselor is…
Quick Tip Tuesday: One Size Doesn’t Fit All in Online Sales Counselors Programs and Training
It’s important to understand that a one-size-fits-all approach for online sales counselor programs is not beneficial to new home builders across the industry. First it’s important to see that training doesn’t happen in a bubble. There is an entire program set up required in order to create a successful online sales program. Sometimes we think if we just hire an OSC and train them, we’re good to go. To set yourself up for success you…