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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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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…
Help!! My OSC is Making Too Much Money!
As a new home builder did you really just tell me that? Did you really just say that? The worst thing you can do in this current climate is to throttle your OSC income or change the way they are compensated because you feel like they are, “Making too much money.” Don’t kill your unicorn. There is a misconception sometimes when appointments increase – that “anyone can do this job.” Get that out of your…
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…
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…
Eat That Frog – Time Blocking for Online Sales Counselor Success
The other day I was in a mentoring session with one of my new trainees. She’s fantastic! She is a sponge and absorbs everything I teach her. She has been thrown into a very busy OSC program with lots of leads being generated. Already we are realizing that we are at 50 leads per week which really means we need a 2nd OSC. But I digress. One of the hardest things about an OSC’s job…
2020 Vision: It’s a Game Changer – Webinar September 11
Is your follow up your weakest link? I’m a guest this week on the 2020 Vision: It’s a Game Changer series – by Kimberly Mackey Founder and consultant at New Homes Solutions Consulting and Carol Morgan Founder of Denim Marketing. Myself, and Ben Marks – President of Melinda Brody & Company – in conjunction with Denim Marketing recently completed putting together the results from a 3o day mystery shop of 50 builders across the country!…
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…
What’s Happening: Events in September
September is always a busy time of the year! But lots of conferences, summits, webinars and podcasts have recently been released or are coming soon in the month of September, which is always great for learning and industry education. I’m lucky enough to participate in some of them! Now through the end of the year, SEBC – This year the Southeast Building Conference went virtual and has all their education available through the end of…
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…
Quick Tip Tuesday Video – The Value Of Video Emails in Online Sales Programs
Today’s Quick Tip for Online Sales Programs in the Building Industry is about Video Email. Video email is a MUST when it comes to the online sales counselor role. According to 2020 marketing statistics compiled by SNOVio Labs, an initial email with a video receives a click through rate increase of 96%. Using the word video increases the open rates 19%. When we use video email we cut down unsubscribes by 26%. This is not…
Online Sales Counselor Training isn’t a Sprint, It’s a Marathon
If you are not a runner how far could you run and how fast, before you just collapsed? We often hear about training for marathons. Do we ever even talk about training for sprints? Yet all new things need training right? I mean could you be a great, healthy runner if someone just handed you a baton and said go? Then why would we do that to an Online Sales Counselor in the new home…