This week on The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast, Felicia Berry of Viera Builders joins Greg and Kevin to discuss how online sales counselors can bridge the gap between home builder sales and marketing teams to ensure no leads are left behind.
The Online Sales Counselor role can complement home builder sales and marketing teams. On the marketing side, an OSC helps understand where spending will be most valuable. Felicia says, “You want your marketing dollars to be going to something that's working. And if you don't know that, then you're just throwing away money. You don't even know you're throwing away the money. But now with the OSC position, where we can track all that data, we know we're not throwing away money because we've gotten rid of the things that aren't working.”
On the sales side, an OSC helps funnel significant leads to the sales team. Felicia explains, “I'm going to take all of the people that are, not really a lead, not really a qualified lead off your plate, and I'm going to do all the legwork for you and then hand you, on a silver platter, a qualified lead that you would have gotten anyway. You just didn't have to sift through the sand to find them. That frees up their time to really just concentrate on the leads, the good, qualified leads…”
The most significant aspect of having an OSC is that they can help ensure that no lead gets overlooked. Felicia says, “It allows you to shore up that sales process and follow-up and follow-up after their follow-up to make sure that no lead gets left behind. Where before you don't know what's happening. You toss it out there and you hope that somebody picks it up in the wind. There's so much that your marketing team and your sales team can do to work together to have a better customer journey, and the OSC is that person to make that happen.”
Listen to this week’s episode to learn more about how an OSC can improve home builder sales and marketing.
About the Guest:
Felicia raised her three kids on her own for the past 22 years. She just got married in October and has three grown kids and two grandkids. Her new husband has three grown kids. They are now the Brady Bunch. Fun fact, they both have a kid named Justin, haha.
She worked at Viera Builders for 5 years and became the Online Sales Counselor one year ago this week. she was the Lead Marketing Coordinator before that, and in Graphic Design for 15 years before that. She wanted to move into sales so she got her real estate license. Her boss asked her about the possibility of the OSC position and thought Felicia would be the perfect candidate for it coming from the marketing side and working closely with the sales team for years. Felicia attended a four-day OSC seminar in Clearwater, FL where she met Leah Fellows. Viera Builders hired Leah to help establish the new OSC position and to train Felicia. Viera also decided to ditch our CRM and move to Lasso at the same time.
Felicia trained with Leah for four months training on Lasso at the same time and in turn trained the sales team on Lasso and then started taking leads. She has been taking leads now for almost 8 months and has contributed over 23 million in sales thus far. Felicia LOVES her job and this new role. It was a much-needed role for Viera. Having a hand in marketing and a hand in sales is perfect for Her. After being the OSC for only two months, Felicia submitted for Rookie OSC of the Year and won a Silver Nationals Award! She created a series of videos for her role to use in her follow-up, one of them is on the website as an intro to the OSC, and she is looking forward to creating more in the future and really leaning into owning this role.
Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, and welcome to today's episode of The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.
Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse.
Greg Bray: And we're excited today to have joining us, Felicia Berry. Felicia is an OSC at Viera Builders. Welcome, Felicia. Thanks for being with us today.
Felicia Berry: Thank you. It's my pleasure.
Greg Bray: Well, Felicia, let's start out by just helping people learn a little bit more about you. Give us that quick introduction and some of your background.
Felicia Berry: My background is basically started out as a graphic designer and doing marketing and communication for [00:01:00] about 15 years, and then moved into just doing marketing for Viera Builders for the last five years. And then, decided to move into sales and got my real estate license. Then we started an OSC program for Viera Builders and then it became me. I've been doing it now for eight months and here we are.
Kevin Weitzel: Well, that is quite the pathway, which we're going to have to unpack that a little bit because you've had a rather unorthodox pathway to being an OSC. However, before we jump into that, Felicia, could you please give us one little tidbit that has nothing to do with work, it has nothing to do with the whole middle industry, personal about you that our listeners will learn about you today?
Felicia Berry: I recently got married on Friday the 13th in October and had a Halloween-themed wedding.
Kevin Weitzel: Cool.
Felicia Berry: Yeah. Everybody came in costumes. We got married by Beetlejuice. It was awesome.
Kevin Weitzel: By Beetlejuice?
Felicia Berry: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin Weitzel: You know, the only thing that could have made that better was to have that creepy little guy marry you.
Felicia Berry: The little short man. Yeah. We even [00:02:00] had Beetlejuice pull out the dead finger with the rings on it.
Kevin Weitzel: Oh, I love it.
Felicia Berry: Just like he did in the movie.
Kevin Weitzel: I love it.
Greg Bray: Friday the 13th has now got a new meaning, right? There you go.
Felicia Berry: Right. It does. I know we wanted to do something memorable and fun and it was both, so.
Greg Bray: Now, Kevin, I have to add one thing about Felicia that everybody may not know. She was a silver award winner for the Rookie OSC of the Year this year at the Nationals.
Kevin Weitzel: So, eight months and she's already winning awards. That's crazy.
Felicia Berry: I had won that award when I had only been doing it for 2 months, so I'm super proud of that. And so, I'm hoping next year for gold.
Greg Bray: You can't be a rookie again next year. I'm just saying, you're going to have to move up a category.
Felicia Berry: No, no, no, no, no next year, I would have to go in for OSC of the year and I lose the rookie status, but I'm confident I'm excited.
Greg Bray: Well, before we talk more about OSCs, just give us that quick overview of Viera Builders, kind of where you guys are located, the areas you build in, and the kind of buyers that you're working with.
Felicia Berry: Sure, so we [00:03:00] have a couple of very unique things about Viera Builders. First of all, we are a builder right now, primarily in the master-planned community of Viera, which is located in Melbourne, Florida. We are owned by the same family that owns the Viera Company owns Viera Builders. So, our land developer is the Viera Company, is also, you know, in the same building as us. So, we have a unique relationship with them.
Viera Builders is coming up on its 20th anniversary of being a company. It was started in the first crisis of real estate market dive back in the 2004, 2005 era. Our area is unique in that we're in the Space Coast industry heart. So, we've got Patrick Space Force Base. We've got Kennedy. We've got NASA. We've got Harris, Northrop Grumman, all of that is right here. So, 75 percent of our homeowners tend to be engineers.
When the rest of the real estate market in the rest of the nation is fluctuating greatly, our little bubble kind of stays [00:04:00] a little more stable, because we constantly have that influx of relocation people coming in and out due to the Space Coast industry. So, when the real estate market took a dive and all the other builders were kind of like, hey, we're not starting any new building because nobody's buying, we were like, hey, but we still have people that need homes. So, they started their own home building company and that was Viera Builders.
So, here we are. We are currently building in four neighborhoods and in two months, that'll be six neighborhoods. We're about to open two more. That's our unique little area here.
Kevin Weitzel: Weird question. But when you're selling homes to so many like aerospace and engineer, do you have the nerds that come out and they're like, could you do this to my house instead or?
Felicia Berry: They measure everything.
Kevin Weitzel: They do, don't they?
Felicia Berry: They come with measuring tapes and pens and paper for every living meeting and they measure everything.
Kevin Weitzel: I knew it. I asked that question jokingly, but I used to sell BMW motorcycles. They have a propensity of gravitating toward engineers and they will ask you the silliest questions. Like [00:05:00] what's the hardness of the bolts used on the chassis? I'm like, the hardness of the bolts? Pull the throttle, man. Listen to that sound. That's all you know.
Felicia Berry: It's pretty. Don't you like pretty? Who cares what it does? It's pretty.
Kevin Weitzel: That's funny.
Felicia Berry: Yeah, they do. It keeps you on your toes. It makes our sales team have to be on their toes and know all of those, you know, nuts and bolts about the hut. Because they will ask about them. They will want the proof. They'll want the spec sheets to back it up. They want to know a lot of details that you're normal homeowner is not really worried about or asking about.
Greg Bray: I just want to go on record. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying.
Felicia Berry: I, yeah, I shouldn't have said normal homeowner, right? Like, they are normal homeowners.
Kevin Weitzel: Greg took a little bit, a little bit of that personal right there.
Felicia Berry: A little personally, sorry about that. Yeah. Other homeowners. Other, yes. Yes.
Greg Bray: All right. So, so Felicia, you went from graphic design to the marketing department to going, sure, I want to sell stuff and be an OSC. Tell us when that moment was that you went, you know what? I want to be on the sales side and what kind of pulled you into that?
Felicia Berry: So, in my marketing position [00:06:00] here at Viera Builders, I was in charge of the brochures. So, I knew every floor plan, every flex option that came with every floor plan. I managed their contracts and every update, every addendum, every exhibit. I'm managing the CRM, the database that goes into it, all the ins and outs, all the signage, the model home openings, the neighborhood openings, and all of that.
I'm working very closely with the sales team all the time, you know, in marketing. It was pulling me in and I was just like, I want to talk to these people. I want to help them. I'm over here with a lot of knowledge. I have a lot of answers that I want to be able to help people. So, we started learning about the OSC position right when I was finishing up my real estate license, and my plan was to go right into sales.
Then my boss at the time said, Hey, what would you think about us starting an OSC position? And I was like, I don't even know what that means. And so, she sent me to Clearwater for a 4-day retreat where I met Leah Fellows and took all of her classes for the OSC retreat and learned what that role [00:07:00] is and how it functions and how it sits as the bridging gap between marketing and sales. I was hooked. I was sold.
So, I came back and said, here's what this position is, and here's what it does, here's how it functions, here's how it benefits the company on both the marketing side and the sales side. Here's how it benefits the customer journey, which is the ultimate goal. So, then we hired Leah Fellows to help us establish the OSC position for our company and to train me as an OSC.
At that same time, we decided we were going to switch CRMs. So, we took on Lasso as a new CRM. So, I was training to be the OSC at the same time I'm training to learn how to do Lasso and helping them integrate everything from the old system into the new and get that up and running. And then I had to, in turn, train the sales team on how to use Lasso and introduce them to me as the OSC and Hey, here's all the changes all at once that we're all going to make together and they were all on board.
Because I had [00:08:00] worked so intimately with them for the last 5 years in the marketing role, I feel like there was a great deal of trust that they had in me. And so, a lot of times when you, establish a new OSC role, the sales team's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're taking our leads and you're doing what with them. But we didn't have that battle because I already had that relationship with them and they knew that I knew what I was doing. And I explained to them very thoroughly how this is actually going to benefit them. And then training them on Lasso, it all just went very seamlessly.
Kevin Weitzel: I noticed that you used the term change CRM, not implement a CRM. So, obviously, you see the importance of being able to handle all that data, handle all the communications.
Felicia Berry: Absolutely.
Kevin Weitzel: You don't have to mention the old CRM, but what was the purpose of moving from one platform to another? Was it because you felt that there was going to be a better use-case scenario?
Felicia Berry: It was two reasons. One, a little back history. Viera Builders uses, like, five different databases to accomplish everything. There's a lot of double entry and a lot of who's doing what, who's on first. And so, [00:09:00] we decided we were going to go with a whole new database system, called Prism, that was going to incorporate all five of those into one system, so the whole company is using one system from purchasing, estimating, sales, construction, warranty, architect. Everybody's using the same system.
So, this is kind of a year-long undertaking that we're trying to implement this and they use Lasso. So, it was like, okay, well, we know that's the future that we're headed to, now that we're making the change of including an OSC, now would be the best time to change the CRM that we know we're going to need in the future anyway.
The second reason is the one that we were using was failing us miserably and nobody would use it. So, it just really wasn't working. We needed something that could work for us. It was a seamless way to kick off the OSC position because I was able to, at the same time, set up a whole new follow-up system for myself, for the sales system, for the sales team. And then, with the new system came new follow-up, and then everybody just started with a [00:10:00] new blank slate. It was awesome.
Greg Bray: So, Felicia, there was a lot there in that history. I'd love to step back to one key decision point, right? Because the position of OSC, no offense, it's not new in the industry. Okay. It's been around. It's been around for a while.
Felicia Berry: Sure. We're latecomers to the table. Yeah.
Greg Bray: But you're not the latest. There's still some out there behind you.
Felicia Berry: We're not last. That's what's important.
Greg Bray: You're not in last place because I'm still surprised at how many builders don't have this position or something similar to it. Or they say they have it, but they're not very effective at using it. So, did you have insight kind of at the executive mindset level where they finally went, gosh, we need an OSC program, and what kind of finally pushed them? We're not trying to embarrass them or anything else but just learn from that moment of gosh, we actually need this. Any thoughts on what drove that?
Felicia Berry: Yes. We knew that we had leads coming in from all different online sources. They would [00:11:00] come in through the marketing department, and we would simply forward the lead out to the sales team and hope something happened. We had no way of finding out if it did, and if they did, did it turn into anything? Did it drop dead? Did they become an appointment? Did they become a contract? We didn't know.
We didn't have any way of tracking it. We had no analytics to show, hey, here's what our marketing dollars are going towards to generate these leads. Are they working? Are they not working? Which one works better than the other? We didn't have any idea. We didn't have any metrics to be able to show on the marketing side or the sales to follow any of that line of what's happening with our leads. We really didn't know. It was at that point where we were like, the OSC is the answer.
Greg Bray: So, then somebody says, all right. OSC is the answer. What's like step one to kind of start that process and decide you want one and nobody exactly knows what that means. You mentioned some training, but where did you kind of decide, oh, what do we need to do first?
Felicia Berry: The training happened [00:12:00] first. It was about 4 to 6 months of training the position. It's way more than you think it is. You think, what are they going to tell me how to answer the phone and email? I could do that. But Holy cow. It's so much more than you think. And you're just days and days and days of going through this learning material. You're like, wow, I never thought of this. I never thought of that. So, it was really a very in-depth training that really prepares you for every situation. And you don't know what you don't know, right? Until you dig in.
And then, even at the end of it, I thought, okay, I am fully prepared. I am going to rock this. And then, you start taking your leads and you're like, What do I do? Leah was still there for me to text her and call her and what do I do with this? What do I do with that? Oh, okay. So, it took me probably a good two months to kind of settle into the groove to figure out, you know, really what I'm doing.
Because they're training you on how a broad spectrum of the job goes. Here's what you should be doing, but every builder is going to do things slightly differently because every builder has different processes, different demographics of how they build homes or who they're reaching, and everything. So, it took me about two months to figure out how to kind of tailor it to our needs and our processes. And [00:13:00] then, from there, Oh, it skyrocketed. It was like, okay, now we've got it. We figured it out. That first step was definitely the training.
And then, implementing that with your sales team, having that sit down meeting with them and saying, here's what we're going to do. We're going to interrupt the process of how it has been going. Here's why and here's how it's going to benefit you. That's the biggest part of selling that position to the sales team is it's going to benefit you.
I'm going to take all of the people that are, not really a lead, not really a qualified lead off your plate, and I'm going to do all the legwork for you and then hand you, on a silver platter, a qualified lead that you would have gotten anyway. You just didn't have to sift through the sand to find them. That frees up their time to really just concentrate on the leads, the good, qualified leads, so.
Kevin Weitzel: I love that analogy. Just that you don't have to sift through the sand. You can just take the nuggets of gold that are uncovered from the dirt.
Felicia Berry: Yes, I will sift for you all day long.
Kevin Weitzel: I love that because, you know, because we used to fight with [00:14:00] that, with the salespeople on the automobile side, because we were doing OSCs and BDCs back, 20 plus years ago. The salespeople were just so vehemently against it. They were just like, they're going to steal my thunder! Rawr! Wow, sift through the sand.
Felicia Berry: Yeah. And I am a long-term sifter. I will sift through that sand for a lot longer than, the average sales manager they're going to follow someone up for 30- days, and they're like, Nah, they're not going to sign and moving on. But I will hunt you down for months and months and months.
Kevin Weitzel: Can I ask you an insider question? If you can't answer this is fine. Do you have any of those nuggets where you have chased and chased and sifted and sifted and provided to the sales team, a lead that any sales manager would consider a dead or an obsolete lead that converted to a sale?
Felicia Berry: Oh, for sure. For sure. I get so excited. The longer it's been, you know, from my first initial contact to when I can actually set an appointment, I get so excited. I'm like, oh, I got a 4-monther. I just won the gold medal of leads here. I finally got them. Some don't take any work at all. Some are just calling you and they're [00:15:00] ready. Some really take a lot of work, a lot of follow-through, and a lot of questions.
Life happens, you know, people have stuff going on in their own lives, so it's not necessarily if they're ready to make a decision or not, but other things are going on in their lives and then they go, oh yeah, I was talking to them. And they'll reach out to you a month later and, okay, now I'm ready to talk about it some more, and some are just a slower burn. But when you can finally get them across that threshold, it's really exciting.
Greg Bray: Okay. I have to ask, what do you do for four months to stay in touch with somebody that does not become annoying? Tell us about the 4-monther and what was involved.
Felicia Berry: Yeah. I use BombBomb. It's my very best friend. I have built in a series of BombBomb videos that go with my follow-up campaign emails. About every two or three emails that go out have a different BombBomb video. It's just a short one-minute or less, but it's talking about different things you think they're thinking about along that road. If you're 38 days out, you're thinking about different things than people that are three days out, or six months out. So, you're trying to address those different things with those short little videos.
And then I [00:16:00] get so much satisfaction when I send that out, and then I get an email saying, Hey, someone just watched your BombBomb video. I'm like, yes. We do a series of phone calls and texts and the follow-up campaign emails, and then some of them have the BombBomb emails in there. We really try to keep it very conversational, so it doesn't look spammy, like, here's yet another email that looks the exact same way with the same photo and the same, whatever.
So, we try to incorporate some real-life conversational things in there, Like, six months later, I, the text subject line is, are you ghosting me? So, it's something to get somebody's attention and keep it real. We're not looking to look like we're spamming you with a bunch of pre-set emails that look like they're pre-set emails. that's our game plan.
Kevin Weitzel: I have the similar thing, but I don't use video, but I should use video. I have a picture of me dressed up as fat Elvis. So, my outreach to people, to home builders that have ghosted me when I'm outreaching them is an email with a picture of me as fat Elvis. And I say, what do I got to do to get you to answer my email, dress up like Elvis? Because apparently [00:17:00] I will do it.
Felicia Berry: I know, and we have a follow-up email that goes out after week one, where I have a chalkboard sign at my desk that I will write their first name on and I will hold it up in the picture with me, and it's got your name written on there. It says, Hi, Kevin. Hi, Greg. Then you film your video. You know, you say, hey, I'm here. I've reached out to you. I'm just reaching out again. You're going to hear from me again. But when someone gets an email and they see your face with a sign with your name on it, just out of curiosity, you got to click on it. Right? That gets a lot of views.
Greg Bray: So, tell us a little more about the video production process. You're talking about videos and videos sometimes scare people. We actually had an episode recently where we discussed some of the BombBomb tools specifically, but are you just doing these on the webcam at your desk? Or are you guys doing some of these shots like on-site? Are you doing some other types of things? What are you doing for kind of that video process and content?
Felicia Berry: We created a video that is on our website that's the introduction to me, just saying, hey, thanks for visiting our website, [00:18:00] fill out the form and I'll reach out to you. It's just like a 10-second video. Then we created a series of videos in our model homes with different outfits. So, it doesn't look like, hey, there she is again in the same day in the same outfit.
Kevin Weitzel: Felicia doesn't change her clothes.
Felicia Berry: Yeah, yeah. So, I went out with seven different outfits and then we went from model home to model home to a model home, so they don't have the same background, you know? And we filmed that series of videos out in the field because, you know, it's fun to look at a model home in the background. I go, Oh, well, what's that staircase behind her? That's pretty cool. And then, I also shot a series of videos, introducing our sales managers.
So, after I make an appointment, and I'm sending you out that confirmation email, it has a video clip of me saying, hi, this is your sales manager, Ian, that's going to meet with you. This is him. He's standing here and then he goes. Hi, I'm really looking forward to meeting you. Thanks for, you know, blah, blah, blah. So, now they have a face on a name that they know they're looking for before they even get there, which are realtors specifically love. They're like, thank you for that. Because sometimes they're walking into a place that has several sales managers in it and they're like, who is [00:19:00] my appointment with? I don't know. So, those videos were out on location.
We did all of the introductory to our sales managers at the design studio. And then, we did the follow-up campaigns in the different model homes in the website one. But then the ones where I'm sending it out a week later to a prospect that says, Hi, Kevin. Hi, Greg, I'm just doing here at my desk because it looks real. It looks like I'm a real person sitting here in an office and I've put your name up and said, Hey, I'm trying to reach you. So, a variety of different places.
Greg Bray: Okay, so some of these are in the moment and others are a library that you go tap into that are kind of reusable across your follow-up path.
Felicia Berry: Yes. Correct. Correct.
Greg Bray: I think it's great you're so comfortable with that. That's fantastic.
Kevin Weitzel: So, Felicia, let me ask you this, you're using video and a lot of OSCs, you know, they're assigned to just go in and do the job, to answer the phones, enter it into the CRM, push the leads off to the sales team, when applicable, et cetera, et cetera, but it sounds to me like you are actually driving the ship on a lot of your processes. Like, you aren't [00:20:00] being told by a sales and marketing manager, I need you to shoot some of these videos. It sounds like you're taking the reins and making sure that stuff happens.
Felicia Berry: Absolutely, yes. When, you know, I was doing the training with Leah, she was laying the foundation for everything that one could do, and I was just taking notes furiously. I wanted to do all of that and more. Like, I want to make the most out of this position that I can. I want to make this the most successful position that Viera Builders has ever had. I am just an Aries and I'm competitive, so I want to do a great job. I like to take the bull by the horns and say, Hey, let me do this and this is why, this is how I think it'll, you know, benefit us. And I have a great leadership team that's like, okay, cool, we'll help you.
Greg Bray: So, Felicia, I know that often OSCs sit in between marketing and sales. Sometimes they aren't quite sure where they fit. am I part of the sales team? Am I part of the marketing team? Because they're in this bridge mode. how have you guys kind of addressed that? Do you feel like you're off in your [00:21:00] own little island and not part of either team? Or are you the bridge? Or are you part of one more than the other? How does that work?
Felicia Berry: Again, a phenomenal team around me of leadership that lets me sit firmly in both teams so that I have input in both teams. For my title, I'm part of the sales team, you know, online sales counselor is technically part of the sales team, but it is so vastly part of marketing as well. And I've been part of the marketing department for so long that they let me sit firmly in both positions and to be that bridge between the two.
Now that we have Lasso and now that we have my position and we can track secondary sources and we can track all of the leads coming in and where are they going and which ones are converting and how everything's doing, how our website leads are converting. Man, we can track all these really cool analytics now that tell us both how the marketing team is doing and how the sales team is doing.
It's helped us to really be able to narrow in what are we doing, what's working, and what's not working. And if it's not working, let's not do it anymore. Let's not beat that dead horse anymore, because it's not [00:22:00] worth our dollars. So let's change course. Again, my leadership is completely on board with that. We just recently changed one of our secondary sources that just wasn't working for us.
Then when I was at the International Builder Show in Vegas, I had the opportunity to talk with some other secondary services that were there on the exhibitor floor and say, okay, what can you offer us? What can you offer us? What can you do? And then I came back and said, okay, this is the one that we want to go with. And they were like, Okay. Sign on the dotted line and let's change and move forward.
So, I'm really, really fortunate to have that. I know a lot of people don't. But it's again, it's a great team that's really supporting me in taking this by the horns. So far it's been a great experience. The proof is in the pudding, the numbers have been great.
Greg Bray: So, as you ponder how this process flows, typically the OSC kind of the goal is to create that appointment, get that handoff to the sales team. Are you finding though, that the buyers don't quite stay so linear? Do you get people coming back to you like through the website and things [00:23:00] after you thought you had already handed them off to somebody on the sales team? Are you comfortable dealing with that? Wait, wait a minute. I thought I was done with you kind of a thing, right?
Felicia Berry: Yeah. Yeah. Ask your sales manager. Don't ask me. No, I am always the fallback guy because I am that first relationship that they established with. I've built that comfort and that trust level with them. And then even though they have the handoff, and they may go to contact, they might contact me a month later after they've signed a contract and say, Hey, I can't get ahold of, you know, my sales manager, it's their day off. I just have a question and I know you.
And so, I'm like, yeah, sure. I'm happy to continue that because my goal is the customer journey. Obviously, my job is to sell the appointment and blah, blah, blah, you know, but the reason for having my position in this company is to help the customer journey be better, to help the funnel be better. I can't make the handoff and then be absent. I've got to stick it out throughout the whole journey and be there for the people that you've established that connection with. So, yeah, every now and then they'll come back and reach out and have questions and I'm happy to answer.
Kevin Weitzel: So funny little, uh, [00:24:00] side note, Greg. A car dealership that I worked at had a What You Talking About Willis Award. And it was a pin of shame that you had to wear, which was a little picture of the guy that played Arnold's brother on Different Strokes. If you missed a call from one of your clients and it went to the BDC, the you got called out for it and you had to wear the What You Talking About Willis Award.
Felicia Berry: Wow.
Kevin Weitzel: It was amazing.
Greg Bray: There's a whole segment of our audience. Kevin that's going to have to go look up Different Strokes that have no idea what you're talking about.
Kevin Weitzel: They're like, what's Different Strokes. What is this?
Felicia Berry: They're like, what is that? Is that an app?
Kevin Weitzel: How many different strokes could you have? Do they lead medical problems the rest of your life? What are they?
Greg Bray: Yeah. And it's, it's one of those great examples of how one little kid can brand a phrase forever. And I won't even try to imitate it. I was about to, I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. Felicia, as we kind of come in for a wrap-up here, if we've got a builder and there's somebody on the sales team or somebody in the marketing team that's going, you know what? We need an OSC program. We are so behind. I've heard about these things. They sound great, but [00:25:00] for whatever reason, I can't get upper management to really buy in. What kind of advice would you share with them to help them get that conversation moving in a positive way?
Felicia Berry: If they could share with their leadership the analytical data that you're going to be able to gather, which will help your marketing team and your sales team both be more successful, it will help your buyer's customer satisfaction ratings, it helps their journey. Everything. Everything you're doing is helping the whole process just be better.
You want your marketing dollars to be going to something that's working. And if you don't know that, then you're just throwing away money. You don't even know you're throwing away the money. But now with the OSC position, where we can track all that data, we know we're not throwing away money because we've gotten rid of the things that aren't working.
Same thing with the sales team. It allows you to shore up that sales process and follow-up and follow-up after their follow-up to make sure that no lead gets left behind. Where before you don't know what's happening. You toss it out there [00:26:00] and you hope that somebody picks it up in the wind. There's so much that your marketing team and your sales team can do to work together to have a better customer journey, and the OSC is that person to make that happen.
Greg Bray: No lead left behind. That's our new title for this one, I think. No lead left behind. Love it. One more question. As an OSC team, that's not very big. It's just you, right?
Felicia Berry: It's just me.
Greg Bray: How do you deal with the 24/7 coverage challenge?
Felicia Berry: The beauty of CallRail. So, I don't work on the weekends. CallRail takes my number and my leads and forwards it directly to the sales team on the weekends so that I don't work on the weekends. But CallRail is a tool just as important to us as BombBomb, that allows us to redirect when I'm not here so that we're not losing anything.
Kevin Weitzel: Felicia, you know, for what it's worth, I think you're amazing. if I was on the voting committee for the nationals, you would have got a gold, just so you know, it's my personal opinion. You would've got a gold.
Felicia Berry: Thanks. I appreciate it. I [00:27:00] appreciate it. I appreciate it.
That would be my parting statement to any OSCs out there that are not taking it by the horns, take control. It's your job, make the most of it that you can and show your company what you can do.
Greg Bray: If there's somebody who would love to connect with you, what's the best way for them to reach out and get in touch?
Felicia Berry: Probably our website because my smiling face is right there and you can just click on me and it'll take you right to me. Our website is vierabuilders.com.
Greg Bray: Well, thanks again for being with us, Felicia.
Felicia Berry: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
Greg Bray: And thank you everybody for listening today to The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.
Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse. Thank you. [00:28:00]