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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…
Social Media, Scuba Diving, Fan Page, Fantastic Vacation!
Social media, scuba diving, facebook fan page, Aggressor, what do all these have in common? They are the elements that make up my next great vacation…and my dream job! During my diving days, I worked for a liveaboard dive boat called the Cayman Aggressor. Recently, while exploring job possibilities I did some preliminary chatting with a couple of liveaboard dive companies about doing their internet sales. I believe that my job as an online sales…
Step Away From The iPhone: You Might Find Yourself Up On A Reef…Or Worse
Step away from the iphone…or any other gadget that distracts you while driving a car. We’ve become such a tech savvy society that many feel the need to be connected at all times, it’s like we need facebook and twitter to be intravenously fed into our veins otherwise we feel disconnected from our peeps. Or at least that’s how it seems when you’re out driving on the road. You look left, someone is on their…
Can You Have A Debate in 140 Characters?
After my last post about debates on facebook, I decided to see if it was possible to have a debate in 140 Characters. The other day my cousin posted a ridiculous video in his facebook status update which sparked an intense debate between myself and one of his friends about the health care system. As usual my cousin posted something controversial but didn’t, himself debate the issue. Sadly I don’t believe it’s because he’s above…
Debates on Facebook: Like An American Jew Sitting Next to Two Arabs in an Old City Jerusalem Pizza Parlor
In social media, interacting though facebook, twitter and the like can be a dialogue. I see people updating most often with the literal, “what they are doing.” (I do this as well) But less often status updates express thoughts, ideas and beliefs. It’s as if for the most part no one wants to rock the boat and put something up that “friends” or “followers” might not find agreeable. And when we do post something controversial…