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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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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…
Crazy Facebook Fan Pages: Why Do You "Like" Them?
There are all kinds of crazy fan pages, or “like” pages as they now seem to be, popping up on facebook. To me a lot of them seem like time wasters and I’m not really understanding the point of them. I see people liking crazy things like: We Will Be The Old Ladies Causing Trouble At The Nursing Home Don’t give up on God because he never gave up on you…:) I Would Love To…
Insomnia Plus Creativity Lights a Viral Spark
Sometimes insomnia can be a good thing. Many creative people are up in the wee hours of the morning working on projects and ideas. lately I’ve had so many ideas and projects floating around my head, I find it hard to sleep. Recently one of my mentors sent me a twitter DM saying, “You do not sleep because you are full of ideas that have feet attached to them.” So it was no surprise that…
Facebook Friend or Spammer?
I’ve never used the unfriend button until the other day. I didn’t get into a mortal fight with a friend, I didn’t take my toys and go home…no, I was getting too much spam! That’s right spam on facebook in the form of fan page suggestions and events. But they weren’t just any fanpage and events they were “How to make millions of dollars…blah blah blah.” These are the websites and the emails that I…
Gone Viral: I dont care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia!!!
Have you seen the huge influx of weird fan pages popping up? People come up with the most bizarre combination of political views, vague references, passive aggressive behavior, and goofy ideas to create a fan page and see if other people will fan them. One of the things that I love about facebook is what a lot of people hate. I like to see the fan pages and groups people join because to be honest,…
"What? You’re Not Following Me? I’m Going To Take My Toys and Go Home!"
I’ve been hovering around 940 followers on twitter for a month or so now. I follow about 920 tweeters. They are not all the same people. Yet every day there are several more twitter followers in my inbox. Still…the number keeps bouncing between 940-945. For some people the above scenario would be annoying. They’d follow everyone who follows them to get their numbers up. And now with so many automated tools out there that will…
Renew, Revise, Re-energize – We’re All Making Our Goals and Sharing Positive Energy for 2010
There’s just something about a new year that helps everyone reorganize themselves in business, in their personal lives…really in anything you can think of. Right now, in the world of social media, we get some insight into lots of goals being set by a myriad of people ranging the gambit of aspects of their lives. One of the greatest things about this instant contact we have with family members, old friends, new acquaintances and total…
Quicky Cute Christmas Story…I mean Social Media Story…
Okay so this time of year I become obsessed with these cute hard to find ornaments that are no longer in production. Yes these Opus n’ Bill ornaments are goofy and they make me smile. They remind me of the little kid inside that loves cartoons and comic books. My boyfriend actually got me hooked on them, he’s the biggest little kid with his Lego’s, love of opus, and if you’ve never seen a Wish…
To Friend or Not To Friend: All Part of Personal and Professional Brand and Reputation Management
Social Media is a great way to network, create your brand, interact with a community, and through genuine shared interests and interactions perhaps reach a client base. Or at the very least, create an environment where people want to talk about you in a positive light and refer you, your product, or your business to their friends. Isn’t that the gist of it? Well, sometimes I find myself wondering, am I branding myself, my company,…
Truth about Facebook and World Travel: Change is Difficult
Sometimes getting used to a new facebook layout is like changing countries while traveling. Right now, since facebook just did another switch-a-roo there’s been lots of moaning and groaning, and tips on how to “make it like it was.” I too am guilty of that, when it first changed I knew something wasn’t quite write, and I posted a status update grumbling. Face it, nobody likes change. Even traveling around the world, by its very…
Facebook Vacation Tip: Diving in the Turks and Caicos
New Media and incredible vacations… I never would have thought they’d have much in common until recently. When the Aggressor Fleet hit 1000 fans on facebook they offered a special $1000 trip on the Turks and Caicos Aggressor. For a diver, a trip on any of Aggressor’s 12 luxury liveaboard dive boats is probably on the short list of trips we’d love to take. So when they offered an amazing deal of more than 50%…