181.5 Bonus Episode: So, You Got a Lead, Now What? - Sales and Marketing Power Hour Sep 11 2023

[00:00:00] Welcome to another edition of the Sales and Marketing Power Hour with your host, Carol Morgan with Denim Marketing, and Kimberly Mackey with New Home Solutions Consulting.

Kimberly Mackey: I'm going to go ahead and kick us off and get us started. So, even though it's only two minutes after, look at us being on time and stuff and adulting.

Carol Morgan: Who are we?

Well, we won't go that far. We still have 58 minutes to go. So, who knows where this could go?

Leah Fellows: And you got me on.

Kimberly Mackey: In what has become our tradition now after the last couple of Sales and Marketing Power Hours, I asked ChatGPT to give me a quote on today's topic. So, Chat says, capturing the right lead is like choosing the right seeds, nurturing them is how we cultivate a thriving garden of sales. [00:01:00] So, if you're looking...

Carol Morgan: Well, thanks there, Chat.

Greg Bray: That's so flowery.

Kimberly Mackey: It's very flowery. It's quite colorful, isn't it?

Carol Morgan: It's actually pretty accurate.

Kimberly Mackey: It is. I can work with that. That's pretty good. I like it. So, today we are going to be talking about all things leads. How do you get them? How do you make sure you're getting the right kind of them? And then of course, what do you do with them once you got them? That is a very hot topic from a lot of the sales coaching and sales meetings that I've been having this week. Leads have changed. Here in the dog days of summer, we're seeing that once again, guess what? The market's doing something. I mean, cause it always is. It's always doing something crazy. Let's get our housekeeping out of the way. Ms. Morgan, you want to kick us off?

Carol Morgan: Absolutely, Miss Mackey. So, I'm Carol Morgan, founder and president of Denim Marketing based in metro Atlanta area, where it's very hot. We specialize in all things content. So, public relations, social media, blogging, email marketing, Facebook [00:02:00] ads. That's pretty much what we do. I'm sure I'm leaving. Oh, I'm leaving out public relations. We do a lot of that too. So, if you guys need help with any of that, give me a shout. Would love to help.

Kimberly Mackey: Awesome. And for those of you who don't know, I'm Kimberly Mackey. My company is New Home Solutions Consulting. I am based in Tampa, Florida. Not here a whole lot these days, but I'm based out of Tampa, Florida, working all over the country, of course, with builders and developers.

I like to say that my company is who you call when you want sales to be the engine that drives the train rather than running it off the tracks. Not only will I help you to get more sales, but more importantly, I'll help you to get sales at the right pace, the right price and profitability, so that you can have consistent growth. Because, this up, down, up, down, up, down thing, despite what market conditions have going on.

I'm in immersion consulting. So, I go in and roll up my sleeves and I actually help you to get it done. I don't just tell you how to do it. I actually help you to do it. So, if I can help you with that, absolutely give me a call. Happy to do so.[00:03:00] Without further ado, let's get to our first guest, Greg Bray, a frequent flyer to the program. No stranger here at all. Greg, you got lots of stuff coming up to tell us about too.

Greg Bray: Yeah. Pretty excited. I didn't know I'd reach frequent flyer status. Is there going to be any extra benefits or anything like an upgrade or something?

Carol Morgan: Yeah, you're gonna get your own magic eight ball.

Greg Bray: Okay

Kimberly Mackey: You get a magic eight ball. What else do you want?

Greg Bray: Well, for those who haven't met me, I'm president of Blue Tangerine and we believe at Blue Tangerine that every home builder deserves a sales-generating website. And so we work with you to help you make your website work harder to get the right traffic and convert that traffic for you. And like you mentioned, Kimberly, we are really excited to also be the co-host of the upcoming Home Builder Digital Marketing Summit that's going to be October 18th and 19th in Denver.

Hopefully, everybody has already heard about it because our outreach has been so amazing. But if you haven't yet, you can check that out at buildermarketingsummit.com. And just for those of you who are participating today, we have a special $50 off code [00:04:00] that's there, powerhour50. We can maybe mention that again at the end, but love to have you guys, all join us there. It's going to be some amazing education all around digital marketing lead generation.

Leah is going to be teaching an OSC track, which is new this year in addition to our marketing education. So, help those OSCs take those leads and do great things with them. Carol's also going to be presenting there as well. So, it's going to be a great time. Going to have some fun. A couple of days of just networking, marketing knowledge, everything. So, I'm going to get off my sales pitch horse now. Let you move on, so.

Kimberly Mackey: I have heard absolutely great things. You're getting some testimonials here going on in the chat. So, I hope everyone will check that out because that's some heavy hitters you got happening there. So, that's good. The aforementioned Leah Fellows. So, take it away, Leah.

Leah Fellows: Hi, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Leah Fellows and I am an online sales counselor trainer. I've actually been in the online sales counselor world for 17 years now. [00:05:00] I know most people don't realize it's been around that long, but I was an online sales counselor. And then I started Blue Gypsy Inc in 2010. I help builders hire, train, strategize, audit existing programs, start up new programs.

It's really quite a fun thing that I love because I find it so important. Like Greg said, marketing generates the leads. Who's going to take those leads and grow them? I often say the online sales counselor is the crossroads between marketing and sales. So, right in between Carol and Greg and Kimberly and so I'm excited to be here. And I know, I also get frequent flyer status, right?

Carol Morgan: Absolutely.

Kimberly Mackey: You are definitely a frequent flyer. You were one of the OGs, so.

Leah Fellows: Yeah, that's right. When COVID first started, we did our eight episodes of don't panic. Right.

Kimberly Mackey: Yeah. Cause everybody was, for sure. And that was the basis for Power Hour. So, yeah, definitely an OG. [00:06:00] Thank you very much. The next Power Hour, mark your calendars and if you didn't already sign up for it with this one, is October 18th. Stay tuned. We always strive to bring you the latest and greatest and most timely topics. So, we will announce that soon. And of course, we like to keep the conversation going in our Sales and Marketing Power, Hour Facebook group. So, if you have not yet joined that it's Sales Marketing Power Hour, once you get into Facebook or the URLs on the bottom here, so make sure that you join us.

Feel free to ask any question. Leah posted last week. She had a nice little motivational thing in there and we love motivation. We love to hear what's going on in your world. We love questions. We had a crazy discussion about the use of butler's pantry and what should we call it? And is that something that people are starting to balk over? I mean, it was a really good discussion that went on what do we actually call these things now?

So, if you're experiencing something in your market, pop the question in there. Let's talk about it. [00:07:00] You'll be amazed at the results you'll get with people from all over the place. So again, we'll see you back here, same bat channel, right on October 18th. And with that, I'm going to stop the share. Let's talk about messaging and branding, Carol and Greg. How important is that?

Carol Morgan: It's pretty important. I guess we're gonna dive in here at the top of the sales funnel and kind of talk about, you know, what it takes to track the right leads. And I guess starting with, you know, who are you, Greg? You know, how important is it to know who you're targeting?

Greg Bray: Well, obviously everybody in marketing knows that you have to know your audience. And you have to be able to be putting your messages in front of the right people that are the kinds of folks that are going to be a good fit for what you're offering. Whether you're offering, you know, that entry-level, the move up, maybe you're in 55 plus. Is it custom? Is it luxury? Is it starter? All these different types of implications of who is your customer. It's not just [00:08:00] everybody looking for a home. Right? And of course, you can't begin to even target things like advertising, outreach, keywords, all the different things, if you don't have that defined.

Kimberly Mackey: It's actually a pretty common thing. I talked to builders and I asked them, who is your buyer? And most of them truly can't tell. Well, it's people, right? I mean, I don't know who my buyer is. And if you don't know who your buyer is and where they're coming from, how can you possibly change your unique selling proposition. So, why is somebody even going to buy your home? So, how do we even address that?

Greg Bray: I think it really gets into stepping back and saying who likes what we've got? Really understanding that some of it's driven by things like price point. Of course. Right? I mean, for someone to be able to afford a certain price point, they have to fit into a certain type of demographic. Somebody wants to live in a certain area. There's certain things about that area that are [00:09:00] attracting them. And, of course, if it's a great school district, families with kids is going to be a different situation than a place where it's some other type of maybe industrial type of employment that's pulling people in. And so it's really gets into understanding all of the benefits of what you have to offer and who is it that connects with those benefits.

Kimberly Mackey: Of course, we have to be careful with fair housing too, when we talk about who is your buyer. So, we are talking about things like the appeal of the area and, price points and lifestyle. But builders need to be very accountable for fair housing too. So, that's always a mantra of mine. Sorry, Carol.

Carol Morgan: Well, yeah. The builder understanding who their market is and talking about who their market is are two different things, right? So, they need to understand who their market is to market to them, and they can do that without violating fair housing and going out there and saying, I'm marketing to, you know, only these people.

But, you know, the reality is Greg is right. Who is buying from you? You know, who have you attracted? And there's so many ways you can figure [00:10:00] that out. I mean, you can look at your Facebook, you can look at your Google Analytics. You can look so many places and get information about, you know, gender, age, all the different things that help tell you, you know, who's interested in you.

But what it doesn't address that I think is really cool. And Greg, I don't know if you plan to hit on this at all. But. Greg and Blue Tangerine did this really interesting study, this research last year, and identified four different types of buyers, which are really different than how we usually think about it. Instead of being Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y, it's more like, you know, somebody who's really interested in technology versus someone who's really not interested in technology. There's like four different buyer groups. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Greg?

Greg Bray: Yeah, I think what makes that a different view of this conversation is that these groups were segregated by their attitudes, not by any type of traditional demographic kind of attributes that you might normally think of. And it was really, in our particular study, focused [00:11:00] around their attitudes toward engaging online with a builder. And what we found was it really broke down into four groups that were roughly in the 22 to 26% each, right? It wasn't like one group is only 10%. They were all close to a quarter of the overall respondents.

And it got into differences between who trusted the builder more versus not, who worried more about large purchases compared to others, some that were more comfortable with online purchases in general, which ones did more research in the process. And of course, you want to sell to all of them, but it's about understanding then those differences in what they're looking for and how you speak to them as far as the type of content or the type of message that you put out there.

You don't want to ignore, for example, the worriers and not help reassure them. You don't want to ignore the folks who trust the builders, but you got to give them reasons to trust you in your content. We could do a whole conversation just about that, so I don't want to go in. But if [00:12:00] anybody's interested, we do have that executive summary freely available on our website. Happy to make that link available if people want to read more about it.

Kimberly Mackey: Yeah, I think we had a question in the chat here. So, how often do your clients typically analyze their buyer's profile versus their prospect target profile to see if they match or if target changes in order.

Carol Morgan: That's a really good question.

Kimberly Mackey: My guess is that probably a lot of builders, because they're so busy building homes and servicing their clients, it's probably not often that they're looking to see if that's changed.

Carol Morgan: I mean, I kind of think it's not unless there's a problem. Sometimes you build a community and you think you're going to attract, you know, XYZ and you get into it and that's not at all who's coming in the door. I mean, we've had communities that went out there that were not age-restricted, but age targeted where they realized all of a sudden, oh, we're getting all these fist time buyers, not these older buyers. So, had to kind of literally revamp all their messaging, [00:13:00] the whole website, everything.

So, sometimes you put something out there and you just miss the mark for whatever reason. So, I guess, in my experience, most of the time, when we see people really, you know, builders really digging in and reevaluating who it is, it's because potentially they, they missed the mark or they've started attracting somebody they didn't expect. And that gives them a whole new audience to target that they hadn't thought of before.

Greg Bray: We've had clients who have had that same experience that you were just describing, Carol, where they thought they were going, well, they were going after a particular market, they suddenly discovered buyers from an unexpected, you know, demographic being interested and had to kind of pivot a little bit and say, well, how do we connect even better?

The flip side of that is getting trapped in kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? Where because we're only targeting this and that's all we get, it's like, well, does that mean nobody else is interested? Or is it just that we haven't even tried with a different kind of message to reach out to this other audience, you know? Because if all your imagery shows a certain age range, for [00:14:00] example, or whatever, and then this other, oh, well, that's not for me when maybe it is, but you just haven't particularly targeted that type of connection with that audience.

Carol Morgan: Yeah, that's so interesting about the age-targeted 50 plus community that we were working on. Their whole website showed older people on it

Greg Bray: Fifty is not old. I just need to go on record.

Carol Morgan: I know. I agree. It's not old. Fifty is not old, but they were showing, you know, mature people as opposed to first-time buyers. So, it was just kind of interesting. And I would even say that the people that they had on their website and all these stock photo houses need to do a better job because the people they're showing that are 50 or more look to me like they're 70. So, they had really old-looking people. Sorry, seventy is probably not old either. So, I apologize for that. But older mature people on the site and they were attracting, you know, these kids, so.

Kimberly Mackey: I think when you go into a project and I've been fortunate to be on the land side and the performa things. I mean, one of the questions that I think we have to ask ourselves is who are we trying to attract, and [00:15:00] who will we likely attract? And really think about casting the widest net, particularly if it is not an age-restricted, because there is a difference in age, restricted and age-targeted. And there's a difference, of course, fair housing-wise.

I started out selling townhomes in a neo-traditional community, and the thought process was that it was mostly going to be because of the walkability and the chicness, it was going to be more DINKs, double income, no kids, right? Or perhaps a single parent or divorcee. And what we found is no, in fact. I mean, yes, we attracted those people, but we also attracted young families.

Because of that lifestyle component and the parks, they liked that togetherness. So, we didn't cast like you said, we just didn't cast a broad enough net. And had we asked that question and really done a bit more homework to look at, okay, who's buying in neo-traditional communities elsewhere, not just in our market, but elsewhere?

And they were brand new at the time [00:16:00] because I'm old and I've been at this a while. So, but there were others ahead of it. So, you know, I think the questions weren't asked properly to begin with, and sometimes we think, well, let's just do the research in our own backyard. And really, it can be broader and more global. And that is probably the point.

Leah Fellows: Well, and also, if I can just interject for a second, an online sales counselor is really good when they're communicating with marketing to allow marketing to understand better who they're actually getting. So, they're going to get calls and emails from different targeted demographics. It's important for marketing to listen to OSCs and hear what they have to say so that they can retarget and they can change things up and they can maybe create some A/B testing to get more of that, if that's what's going to be beneficial.

Kimberly Mackey: And if they won't listen, they should at least track it in their demographics with their CRM, so then the data is right in front of them.

Carol Morgan: We love data.

Kimberly Mackey: Yes, we love data. Data is good, right? The [00:17:00] messaging that we're sending out there, Greg and Carol, maybe just give us some examples of what kind of messaging we might say to highlight the benefits of, I mean, let's say it's the townhome community, or the age targeted that you were talking about Carol. Pick one, but how would we support that with our messaging through our social and websites and?

Carol Morgan: Well, I think part of it depends. Golly, once you get into low maintenance, whether it's age-targeted or age-restricted, you're starting to target, you know, a certain group. Because there's a group of people out there who want a lifestyle that's a lock-and-leave lifestyle. They don't want to have to worry about the yard care. They don't want to worry about painting the house, you know, they don't want to worry about any of that stuff.

So, I think that's also part of the reason we see, you know, build-to-rent on the rise because they can rent a new home and not worry about any of that plus nothing else that comes along with owning a new home. You know, in the future, owning a resale home and having things break. So, I think that that's kind of one of the most fun groups to [00:18:00] target because you can really talk about, you know, having your weekends free and not worrying about mowing, not worrying about snow removal if you're up north, not worrying about, you know, painting the house or any of it. So, to me, that whole low maintenance, lock and leave lifestyle is a great example of how you use, you know, the words to tell the story of that demographic and that lifestyle.

Greg Bray: I love the lifestyle messaging and so many builders have gone that direction because it works with the emotional connection, you know, in a different way. But I also feel like sometimes we go so far that direction that we also forget that in the buyer's mind, there's a couple of boxes they have to check first before they're even there.

And when we did our research, we asked what was one of the most important thing you're trying to learn from a builder's website, and it was location, right? Location was at the top of that list. And we're all like, well, duh, they need to know where the home is. It's really [00:19:00] obvious. But yet, when you start to look at a lot of the messaging and websites and things, it's not necessarily obvious where you're building.

You know, you're missing the maps. You're missing some of those keywords that describe the areas that you service and it doesn't matter how great the lifestyle is. If I need to be in Atlanta and you're in Dallas, I can't have it, right? And I need to know that. And I need to be able to connect and understand. And I'm not saying every ad needs to have the location in it. That's not what I'm saying. But as we talk about a larger messaging strategy, it needs to be clear where your located and what you're trying to do as part of all of that.

Carol Morgan: You make a great point.

Kimberly Mackey: I know, I think it does need to be in there. You truly need to put that in there because I get stuff from all over the country and I'm like, where is this? Like, I don't even know what state it's in much less, right? Yes. And we forget that. We're like, well, everybody knows off Buckhead and no, unless your from Atlanta, you don't know where Buckhead is.

Carol Morgan: I mean, how many builder websites do you go to that you're like, click, click, click, click, click, you keep clicking, you're like, where the heck are they? [00:20:00] What state are they in? What city are they in? It happens to me all the time. You know, I end up on a site and I can't even figure out. So yeah, it needs to be obvious because you're absolutely right, people are looking for location first because the reason they're moving is probably the kid's school or work or to be closer to, you know, the grandparents or whatever that reason is. So, location's huge.

Leah Fellows: Maps

Kimberly Mackey: Maps, I'm with Leah.

Carol Morgan: Maps, I like maps.

Leah Fellows: Give me a map with where all the communities are related, so they can see, okay, they want Atlanta. Here's all the communities around the metro area and then they can start their research and they can also pull up by price, by name all of that, and see it all in one place. Because buyers want pricing and they want area and they want availability. Those are the three things.

Greg Bray: And I think too, when you consider location, the other related mistake that I see a lot is using the local terms for where you're at, that the out [00:21:00] of state, out of area person doesn't know. Florida, for example, used to be in Florida and they have all these Palm Coast, Treasure Coast, Space Coast, all these little nicknames for various areas that nobody who doesn't live there knows what that means and where that is.

You know, you'll see things like, we're the capital area's best builder or whatever, you know, it's like, well, capital of what, right? You know, it's like, I don't know, or we're the tri-cities area. We have all these little phrases. I'm not saying you don't have them because your local people know what that means, but you still have to have those descriptors of location that means something to the people who are just looking at a map and don't necessarily know some of those phrases

Kimberly Mackey: Sandy's asking us, he's got an urban program. It looks like an infill in an urban area, but he's specifically asking about urban minority marketing program. So, I don't know if you want to define minority there, but I would say you're marketing needs to be to urban buyers and the benefits of urban [00:22:00] living. That word minority starts to make me a little jittery that we're getting suspiciously close to fair housing.

So, definitely go to hud.gov, and refresh yourself. Everybody on here should go to hud.gov, understand fair housing, and make sure that you also have the fair housing sign. It has to be prominently displayed where a reasonable person would see it in every one of your sales centers. You don't have to have it in all of your inventory homes, but you do need it in any sales center that you have, it should be there. So, but it's that urban lifestyle, that convenience of being close to things Sandy, is where I would go. Greg, Carol, you may have more to add to that.

Greg Bray: Yeah, it's all about understanding what that buyer wants, right? And then messaging toward what that buyer wants. If you think that's a buyer that's going to connect with the product that you have available, what is it about the features? Like you were saying, location, you know, proximity, other types of feature, price point, all those things that matter to them. [00:23:00] That's how you attract the right person is by making sure that that messaging includes all of that.

Kimberly Mackey: It's not just a feature. It's it's the what's the benefit of it?

Carol Morgan: Well, and it sounds like it's a pretty transitional area. So, you know, one of the benefits is getting in on the ground floor, you know, getting in while the prices are still low. You know, that's something we've seen a ton of in Atlanta as we've kind of got a rails to trails belt line going in. It's called the Atlanta Belt Line. Everywhere it's gone, it's just absolutely caused home prices to skyrocket. And a lot of these areas weren't particularly nice areas before and now we've got all this gentrification and people who've lived there and their families have been there for, you know, decades and decades and decades can't really afford to live there anymore and the prices have skyrocketed.

So, you know, there's precedent for that if it's a really transitional area, depending on why it's transitional, people may want to get in now before they can't afford it. So, that's kind of a message to But, you know, I kind of think it depends on, you know, again, what minority are you targeting [00:24:00] because that's going to vary. You know, you're going to attract an Asian market different than you're going to attract, you know, an African American market different than, I think we've got so many single women buying houses now. We've got, you know, women as a minority buyer. So, those are all very different markets.

Kimberly Mackey: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Understanding those benefits is key. I want to hit on some of the tools we can use. Social media, blogs, that sort of thing, Carol, that's your bailiwick. How can we support our efforts through using those tools?

Carol Morgan: Well, I mean, you know, there's so many different ways to use social media, but when it comes messaging, you know, one of the things that we've done a lot of the last couple of years is kind of social media branding campaigns. So, again, the low-maintenance words are a great way to describe it.

So, you're doing a series of different, you know, photo-heavy images, photos, real photography of the builders' home. So, photography showing the great amenities, showing the beautiful front yard that you don't have to ever, you know, showing all the different reasons that you're going to want that low [00:25:00] maintenance home. You know, the great design, all those things. So figuring out what those, you know, five ot ten words are that you really want to hone in on and share that messaging with your buyers.

And then build out kind of a, you know, a slide deck of really strong graphics that you can use and you can use them in your organic post, and then you can also build advertising campaigns off of them. That's worked really well. I know we've got Kimberly Garwood out of Atlanta here on the call, and they do a great job with, you know, messaging on Facebook as it relates to Facebook advertising and really driving traffic to a landing page. And I'm sure that's something Greg can talk more about as well.

But, you know, the name of the game is really these landing pages that once somebody clicks from your social, whether it's organic or whether it's paid, you know, or whether it's your Google, you know pay-per-click campaign, that you're landing them somewhere that makes sense that you can convert them more quickly and get that lead versus just getting a click on your website.

Greg Bray: Just to piggyback on that. I think your consistency between messaging is really the heart of it, right? If you've [00:26:00] got an ad or a post about a particular topic or incentive or whatever, and then you just send them to your homepage that has no information about that whatsoever, there's a disconnect. As I'm reading as a visitor, it's like, oh, I have to kind of start over mentally. That's harder for me. But if you continue the story, so to speak, as I'm moving on that click and it's the same thing with the next piece that pulls me through.

We need to tell them what we want them to do next. Right? We want you to fill out this form. We want you to request information. We want you to call. We want you to visit. What is it that we want them to do? What is the goal? And we need to have all of that very lined up in a nice connected way rather than just sending them to your homepage and they don't quite know what to do next.

Carol Morgan: Yeah. Of course, I would also argue that sending them to your homepage is better than sending them nowhere at all.

Greg Bray: Amen. Amen.

Carol Morgan: I cannot tell you how many social media posts that I say, look at our brand new blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, hashtag, hashtag, hashtag, [00:27:00] hashtag.

Kimberly Mackey: No link.

Carol Morgan: No call to action. No link. No nothing.

Kimberly Mackey: Forget the hashtags. Forget the hashtags.

Carol Morgan: It's just shocking to me that I could probably open, you know, then builders' social sites right now and half of them would have no call to action on any of their posts. So, I guess that's the biggest thing is, you know, once you create this campaign, Hey y'all call to action, tell them what to do. Just like, you know, Leah and Greg said. Call me, email me, Fire a, um, you know, a, I don't know, a fire...

Greg Bray: Flare gun, a flare gun.

Carol Morgan: A flare. Do something. Because a lot of times even I'll see something, Oh, I'm interested in that. Well, but where do I find it? Oh, wait, now I've got to go back to your profile and I've got to click and...

Leah Fellows: So many websites don't have enough calls to action to contact someone, to reach out, to call to ask a question, to chat to anything.

Kimberly Mackey: Or even to find a floor plan. Like, I got to go 18 clicks deep to find a floor plan.

Carol Morgan: You don't care about the floor plan. You care [00:28:00] about the location. We just talked about that.

Kimberly Mackey: After, after I've decided the location works, then I want to know, do they build what I want? You know, like, we have to start thinking like a buyer. So many times I think we, we don't do that. I'm such a fan of retargeting.

Carol Morgan: Oh yeah.

Kimberly Mackey: Greg, can you explain retargeting in layman's terms to people so they get it?

Greg Bray: The heart of retargeting is about creating, in essence, an advertising list based on people who have already visited your site. The heart of it is that we're tracking. Because everybody's tracking everything, so just embrace it, right? You're being tracked. And when someone comes to your site, now you get them, quote unquote, I like to call it on the list. Where now, as you do future campaigns, whether that is search campaigns, display ads, or other types of things that you are able to send that ad, knowing that the people on this list have already visited your site.

Therefore, it should not be the same ad that you're sending to people [00:29:00] that are just more generic and haven't yet. Right? Because you know they've been on your site, you can message them differently now. It can be that reminder. It can be that invitation back. It could be something that's done differently. Or maybe it's about just changing your budget as well, because these are people that have already talked to you, so you're going to spend more to get in front of them.

And so you, you adjust your campaign budgets accordingly. You know, if you're like, within a Google account or something like that, knowing that they've already seen. Sometimes it's like, oh, we just do retargeting, but we never strategize differently. How do we talk to these people differently? Because let's be honest, people take more than one visit to a website to buy a house. Okay?

Carol Morgan: Oh, absolutely.

Greg Bray: You know, and frankly, they'll take weeks of research and they may have looked at you a month ago. They've looked at three or four other builders since, and wow, how powerful it is to get your message, your reminder back in front of them and they go, oh yeah, we hadn't looked at XYZ builders in a while. What was theirs again? You know? And I need to go back and look at it. So, retargeting is a [00:30:00] critical tactic to, to have on your plan for sure. Was that good enough Kimberly or did I get too detailed?

Kimberly Mackey: Yeah. All of us have run a search or we've gone on a website or in some cases, and I don't know how this part works, but sometimes I just start thinking about something and I haven't verbalized it. And the next thing I know it's ads popping up left and right on my phone for that item. And I'm like, okay, that's really scary.

Greg Bray: It's because you said something to Alexa or Siri or somebody, right? You said something.

Kimberly Mackey: I said something without even realizing I said it, that I was interested and now all of a sudden that's what I'm bombarded with. So, I see lots of things about donkey because Carol has a donkey.

Carol Morgan: And she likes to talk about my donkey a lot.

Kimberly Mackey: Oh yeah. So, so Google thinks that I'm obsessed with donkeys and there may be some truth to that. To me, it's that simple. It's that spooky and that simple at the same time. Geofencing.

Carol Morgan: Is so cool.

Kimberly Mackey: It's so cool. But that's when we take it a step further. And [00:31:00] did we get people who are interested in our competitors or other locations? Greg, take it away. I will watch this if I go much further.

Greg Bray: Yeah, no, but there's a real connection in the idea that it's still a technique to create a list that you're targeting with your messaging, right? It's just a different way to create that list. And the way geofencing creates the list is based on where people have physically located or at least where their phone has been right, and usually their phone was with them when it went there. So, it's using location-based tracking to put them on a list so now you can advertise to them.

And of course, you want to use locations to try and determine if they are someone that you want to get in front of, right? Their intent. So, location isn't just everybody who went to Walmart we want to send an ad to. That's not a good use of this technology. Right.

Kimberly Mackey: Right.

Greg Bray: But everyone who has visited a new home sales center, especially your competitor's new home sales center.

Carol Morgan: That's just down the street from yours.

Greg Bray: Yeah, that is someone who is probably reasonably shopping for a [00:32:00] home. Now, maybe it was the mailman who was delivering the mail. Right. And they just happened to be there. Okay. But, but most of these folks going there are shopping for a home and why not get your ad in front of those folks?

You know, and you can expand from there if you are a first-time buyer, maybe you want to target some rental properties that have the type of folks that might be candidates for your home, where those rents match the payments they would be making to be in one of your homes. And then you run a why rent when you can buy type of a campaign, you know, to somebody like that.

So, it's not just about sales centers as targets. You can target real estate brokerages, people who are visiting with realtors. Again, they're shopping for homes, let's get your stuff in front of them. But at its heart, geofencing is using their location to get them on the list so you can show them your messaging and your advertising.

Carol Morgan: The coolest example I have is we had a client, they're like, well, we want to attract people who fly out of Hartsfield every week because we're so close to the airport, we want to attract them. Well, you know, Delta Sky [00:33:00] Magazine went away during the pandemic, and so it's like fewer and fewer things. And I'm like, well, but if you're going to Hartsfield, you have to get there, right? So, geofence the park and flies. Geofence the parking lot at the airport. Because their phone is going to drive into one of those places, right? Geofencing the whole airport doesn't work, but geofencing the parking lot does. Right? And you might get a few out-of-town people, but that's a great example.

Or if you're trying to reach doctors or medical professionals, or let's just say you're got a new entry-level community that's got a whole lot of factories or warehouses near it. Same thing, geofence the parking lot or the building, and you're going to get all those people. I laugh, one of our museums has geo-fenced, I don't even know where, it must be downtown Cartersville, and I'm already a member, so I think it's odd that they're remarketing to me, but every time I drive into their geo fence, it reminds me that I'm a member and my membership card flashes up on my phone. Kid you not.

Kimberly Mackey: They just want you to use your membership and to have value in your membership.

Carol Morgan: [00:34:00] Exactly. Yeah. It's just interesting.

Kimberly Mackey: Your HBAs can learn from that.

Carol Morgan: Well, there's...yeah.

Kimberly Mackey: There's one more thing and then we're going to move on to what you do when you have the lead. And I know we're, we're pushing time here, but I think we have to talk about this new technology with the cookies. And I'm calling them ghost leads because these people haven't identified themselves to you yet, but we know they're on your website because I don't know if you guys have noticed, but whenever you go to a website, it tells you that there are cookies and that that website uses cookies and trackers.

You can either click to accept, you can modify your options, and do your settings, or you can click X and to X out of it. Most of us probably just X out. Guess what? That means you're automatically opting in. But those leads are now being sold as lists, and it tells who you are, your home address, your phone numbers, your mobile phone numbers. It's also giving how much money you make on an annual basis. Like, there's a whole bunch of stuff that is [00:35:00] associated with this. It's very scary. I know we talked about this pre-show. So, what do we do with those leads if you're buying into that service that provides that, Greg? What's your opinion on this one?

Greg Bray: I have some real privacy concerns about how this is working, and how long it might last. It is crazy how much data that some of these providers are giving. I've seen it in a couple of different flavors. I've seen one flavor where the provider does not give you the actual name and address, but they'll let you send them like a postcard. So, you can mail a postcard as a follow-up. And hey, how did XYZ homes know, I was on their website a week ago, and now I get a postcard from XYZ homes, you know, with some invitation to something or whatever. That's kind of cool. Right? Because it's not an immediate, like, right there.

But to suddenly get an email from a salesperson when I didn't fill out the form and give them my email address, that feels a little aggressive to me. My personal opinion., and I'm not sure how long [00:36:00] some of these privacy rules are going to allow that to happen. What they're doing is they're taking this data from your Internet service provider, they're matching it up with like, databases they buy from utility companies and other types of sources to kind of mix and match to try to guess your address and your name based on some of this information.

So it's not your Internet provider necessarily just selling your data, but they are combining it with some other sources. But it's a little weird and tricky on how best to use that. So, if somebody is out there doing it, I'd love to hear if you got people like freaking out that you're sending them emails or whether they're actually appreciative of it. That's one man's opinion. I don't have a lot of data to back it up.

Kimberly Mackey: Your OSCs, are they encountering this or what's happening with it on your front?

Leah Fellows: Honestly, none of the builders that I work with are doing this, are gaining leads through that through that method. And if they were, I would definitely put a kibosh on it because I think it is, [00:37:00] it's too high up in the funnel. It's intrusive. And I think that it's a good way to turn people off versus pull them in. You've got to have better calls to action on your website for them to actually give you that information. You've got to have better engagement with them.

We all were there for Anya Chrisanthon's presentation at SEBC and talking about trust. AI, she talked a lot about how so much is going in the direction of AI and that it's going to cause a loss of trust where the buyer doesn't really trust the people that are using these technologies. And I think that is one that's going to kill trust. And when you're trying to build rapport and trust, I think you need to do it through a more methodical way of getting them to ask you for information, getting them to reach out, not going after them like that. It would bother me. I don't know.

Kimberly Mackey: I like the [00:38:00] idea of the postcard and the real high level, like, you know, maybe retargeting so that they're seeing ads. I'm really struggling with the whole, like, having your OSC or your salesperson pick up the phone and call and.

Greg Bray: Now, I will say there is potentially some value in mining that data for patterns. For example, it's like, gosh, look, all the people we're getting are in this particular income bracket and they are not converting. How do we fix our messaging so they will fill out the form? How do we try to connect better? Or we're not getting the audience that we think we should or whatever. So, there may be some usefulness in that data beyond just, oh, let's just email them all in a big blast, you know, once we get it.

Leah Fellows: No, yeah, I agree with you. I agree, using it for that. You know, I mean, we just see it happen too often where because someone fits a pattern of information, we see it a lot with sometimes third party leads, all of a sudden a buyer starts getting hit. I liken it to Quickin Loans. Has anybody ever [00:39:00] filled out Quicken Loans before?

My husband accidentally did that once and he started getting phone calls and emails and text messages from every loan officer across the country. And it's like, what did I do? And I feel like that's what buyers think when they start getting all this unsolicited information is, how did I just put myself on this list? How do I get off this list?

Kimberly Mackey: Yeah, for sure. All right. In the interest of time, let's talk about OSCs. So, once you've gotten the lead legitimately, and they've identified themselves to us. Now, what Leah?

Leah Fellows: So, that's where our process starts, right? We're hoping they reach out to us by phone because that's the easiest way to connect with people. I know a lot of people think phone calls are dead. They're not dead. When somebody fills out a form online, you really need to reach out by phone if they provided a phone number, because that emailing back and forth, if it actually happens can be tedious. So, once you [00:40:00] get a lead, you need to help create rapport, trust. You need to reach out quickly. I mean, that has never changed over the years. It has to be a fast personalized response.

But there's a lot more texting nowadays. Like, if you would ask me pre-pandemic, can you text a lead that has just filled out a form? I would have said, no, no, no, you haven't built enough trust. But everything changes. Everything changes. And now more people are responding to text messages than almost anything else. But you got to connect the dots. Right. You've got to leave the voicemail message saying, this is Leah with Happy Homes, and I am going to go ahead and send you a text message since you inquired online. Then you send a text message saying, Hey, this is Leah with Happy Homes. I just left you a voicemail message, and I'm going to send you an email if that's a better way to respond.

And then you connect it all together and you say, hey, I left you a voicemail [00:41:00] and a text message. If email is a better way to respond. This is who I am. This is who the builder is. This was your question. This is my answer. This is how I can help you. Right? Really personalize. And everybody cringes and they go really on that day zero in five minutes, I'm going to try and send out three forms of contact. I'm bugging people. Uh uh. Because they don't see two out of three of those. Whatever is their main method, they're going to see. And that's why you need to connect the dots. So, I mean, when you get a lead, that's how you start. That's just the beginning.

Kimberly Mackey: It's rare to get, you're over-communicating. So, you're just trying to, at that point, you're trying to find out what do you, how do you prefer to be communicated with? Remind them that yes, that, you know, you filled out a form online. So, because they probably already forgot that they did that 10 minutes ago.

Leah Fellows: Right, especially if they're shopping if they're shopping for multiple builders, you know.

Carol Morgan: Talk a little bit also, because I get this question a lot, you know, how long [00:42:00] should the OSC nurture that lead? You know, when should the handoff occur or when do they stop nurturing that lead? Kind of what is that process?

Leah Fellows: That's a great question. And I always say, you know, your general follow-up plan, which should be personal should sound personal, but it's methodical. Right? That general follow-up plan is to get them to engage, to get them to talk to you. It could take a month for somebody to talk to you. It could take three months. It could take a year or two.

So, somebody who's nonresponsive stays on a follow-up plan. They stay on a follow-up plan for as many. You know, I say at least a year. And there has to be phone calls in there. There has to be text. You can't just email and blast them for that year, or they won't respond to you. So, you have to reach out personally over that time.

Once you get a lead, the nurturing all depends on where they are in the funnel. Right? Some people may be two [00:43:00] years out, legitimately two years out from buying. Some people, you may as an OSC be able to discover that if they found the right house in the right place, they would move sooner, and that's where you do need to then hand it off to the agent. But as an OSC, you need to know how to ask the right questions. You need to know how to qualify that buyer. You need to understand their wants, needs, and desires and what their why is. And once you can dig into all that. Then you can position that lead and hand it off to a sales agent.

But you can't just rote, repeat, rote, repeat, do it. And some take longer than others to nurture. I've heard some builders that say, oh, if the OSC can't get a hold of them in X, Y, Z timeframe, send them to the site. Why would you do that? That's what an OSC is actually there to do is long-term or short-term nurturing. They're there to pull the golden nuggets out and [00:44:00] send them to the site. You don't want to send all of the dirt that's in that pan that you're sifting for gold. Why would you send that to the site agents? They don't want to deal with it.

Kimberly Mackey: They can't deal with it. I mean, I can tell you that right now. They're just too busy and it's going to, it will fall through the cracks. They cannot. Your onsite agents, that's not their job. We think it is, but truly it is the OSC's job. That's why we have one.

Leah Fellows: Right. And so the OSC does not create a handoff until it's a strong lead that we know about them. We know something about them that makes them worthwhile for the agents to spend their time with and to prioritize above walk-ins. You don't want someone that seems like a walk-in lead that you know nothing about coming as an OSC appointment.

Kimberly Mackey: And for those of you who are too small to have an OSC, that doesn't mean that you don't have an OSC, you just have someone who's doing double duty. So, somebody is your salesperson and your OSC. You still gotta do the OSC job. That OSC job is critical. [00:45:00] So, you just may not be big enough to justify having a second body in there. We have a question on the chat for Leah. It says, on the scenario you just described, what's a good percentage of leads who respond to your outreach?

Leah Fellows: That's a good question. So, on average, when you're doing outreach, we say, you know, basically the leads we generate about 25 to 35% of them will convert into an appointment. Now, as far as being responsive, more than that will respond. Some of them are not qualified. Someone will be disqualified. And it all depends on how you generate your leads too. Because the more organic the leads are, the higher that is.

I've seen some online sales counselors convert 60, 65% of the leads that they've gotten into appointments. So, there's channels that matter. You need to track the channels that your leads are coming in as well as overall. But overall, it usually averages out to [00:46:00] 25 to 35% or more. If you're averaging under 25%, you've got to look and see, is your marketing targeting the right people.

Because, we get OSCs all the time that get, you know, 50 leads on Facebook from Estonia in the middle of the night. Is that really, you know, how are you going to deal with that, or something like that? And those you've got to take those sources out and fix those and make adjustments, so you're not getting that, you know.

Kimberly Mackey: Absolutely. And I will say from a salesperson's perspective, the OSC sets the appointment for you. That should be gold man. That's a priority appointment. And for salespeople, appointments, appointments, appointments because you are 50% more likely to convert an appointment to a sale than someone you just drive to walk in.

So, with your messaging and your branding and all these things you're doing, your call to action is schedule your VIP appointment, call the OSC number, click here to chat with the OSC, [00:47:00] whatever, however way they're gonna get to the OSC or the salesperson to schedule an appointment because those appointments.

One of the benefits of the pandemic is that salespeople learn they could work by appointment. Who knew? Who knew? They could act like professionals and work by appointment, but they can. Those who do, when you have that appointment, you're 50% more likely to convert it. So, if you're working with your sales team, train them to set appointments. They need at least five first appointments every week and two be back appointments if their target goal is 50 sales a year. So, if you want to get there, that's the formula. That's my 10-5-2-1 formula that I talk about all the time.

The other thing is by scheduling an appointment, and we should either be closing that sale at that appointment, if we can't close it on that first or second appointment, close for the appointment, the next appointment. What's the next step in the process? And this is a whole targeting that message too to your buyers and setting those [00:48:00] expectations. It's all education process that we can do as part of our messaging. What is your sales process like? What are the steps of the process?

And if you're going step by step, you're making it easy for that buyer. They see, oh, there is a process here. So, they don't get too far ahead of you, or too far behind, or confused, or overwhelmed because we're always talking about, well, the next step in the process is. And the next step in the process, by setting that, that's the assumptive close, which is the most comfortable close there is.

We just assume that people are going to move forward, because we're always telling them the next thing we need to do is this. So, we're going to schedule an appointment to do that. I have Tuesday or Wednesday available, which is better for you. And then the next step is after that. So, if you've got somebody who's moving step by step slowly, the more you keep them engaged in the process, even if their time frame is drawn out, you'll still move them through the process faster.

If you've got somebody who's in a hurry, well, then by setting [00:49:00] those expectations, setting those steps, you won't miss anything. You just maybe do two steps at each appointment or, you know, the proverbial floor pop that we all love when somebody comes in, we still can't skip those steps and set those appointments, and set those expectations. And that will get you to that sale much faster than anything else that you can do to it. So, it'll create that urgency.

The last thing that, uh, that I want to say, and everybody who knows me knows that I'm always on my soapbox about this. Your CRM. First of all, have one, and have a real one. I am sorry, but some of our industry quote CRMs are not CRMs. They're databases. If all you're doing is collecting data in there and you don't have a pipeline, you can't see your buyers moving through visually because salespeople are visual. You can't see that.

Then you have to add [00:50:00] an app for this. So, we got to have this app to capture leads and talk to our buyers. We got to have this app over. If you've got 12 apps to do what one CRM should do, you probably need to rethink your process. Because a good CRM will do all of these things for you. It's very visual. It's very easy for salespeople and OSCs to do and communicate with each other. And to me, if it didn't happen in the CRM, it didn't happen. Leah and I preach this one don't we Leah?

Leah Fellows: Oh, I mean, that's the thing is online sales counselors gather so much information if they're trained properly, if they're doing it right. And if they don't put it in the CRM for the sales agents, the sales agents don't know how to prepare. And I liken it to that doctor's office, right? That doctor's appointment where you make the appointment, they ask you a ton of questions. You answer them over the phone. You get there 15 minutes early, six weeks later, you have to fill out a 15-minute packet. You answer them again. You walk into the doctor's office and the nurse practitioner starts asking you again. And then the doctor walks in [00:51:00] and you think, because they just typed it in, he knows what's going on. So, what seems to be the problem, right?

And that is the most frustrating thing a buyer can do. The OSC needs to translate that information for the agent so the agent can start at point B. They do not need to start their critical path at the beginning. Right, Kimberly? They can start in the middle and it shortens the time towards sale.

Kimberly Mackey: And it makes your buyers feel heard, and they have a much better customer experience.

Carol Morgan: It makes them feel not frustrated? I mean, you know, talk about creating friction. Let's answer the same question three times.

Leah Fellows: No, nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to do that.

Kimberly Mackey: So, to close us out today, we've covered, man, we went from big into the funnel to like, super fast. So, obviously, this is high level. If any of us can help you dive into and dial into any of that. It is a little more complicated than what we discussed, but we're here for you. Greg, you want to give that promo code again? I've got [00:52:00] a screen pulled up so we can talk about the Summit.

Greg Bray: love to have everybody join us at The Home Builder Marketing Summit at buildermarketinsummit.com. We went for the nice short name for the event, just to make sure that it was very clear what we were trying to do. And for everybody who's joined today, you can save $50. We think it's already really affordable, but you can save a little bit more with the powerhour50 special promo code, in honor of this conversation today. So, we'd love to have everybody there October 18th and 19th in Denver, Colorado.

Carol Morgan: I say we're all going to visit Leah.

Leah Fellows: And there's going to be an OSC track. So, there is going to be an OSC training track and it's going to cover multiple levels. So, if you're just wanting to start a new program or you want to know how to improve your program, we're going to cover all of that in the training track.

Kimberly Mackey: Denver, Colorado in October. It'll be fantastic.

Leah Fellows: Yep.

Carol Morgan: Yeah. Really nice.

Kimberly Mackey: It gives a whole new meaning to Rocky Mountain High. There you go. All right. Thanks, [00:53:00] everybody. Thank you, Greg and Leah. As always, you're amazing. Thank you to my co-host, Carol.

Carol Morgan: Thank you to&