Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome everyone to another episode of the Home Builder, Marketing and Growth show. Today I'm super excited to have a dear friend with me, Leah Fellows from Blue Gypsy. Leah's like a rock star in the industry. Everybody knows who she is, so I'm really blessed and really excited to have her on. We've spent a lot of time getting to know each other over the years and had a lot of conversations and they're always interesting and I think we're going to have a really great conversation here today on the show. Leah, for those that don't know you, just give us a quick introduction to yourself and let us know. How did you get involved in the industry?
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Thanks so much, Jeff, for that. I think it's really nice and sweet that you think everybody knows who I am. I'm pretty sure everybody doesn't know who I am.
It's funny, I've been in the building industry for 18 years now and 17 of those is in the online sales counselor niche. Sort of pioneering that whole role from being an OSC to training it, to helping builders hire and create the program or improve it or even doing audits to really dig into how to fix OSC programs and that sort of thing. But it was kind of an accident of how I got into the building industry. I actually was a sailboat captain and a dive instructor for six years and traveling around the world for 13 years prior to getting into the building industry. And I actually injured my shoulder, moved ashore and ended up working in a model home my first year. So I was working as an assistant in a model home and then got a real estate license, went to interview for a job as an on site sales agent and the phones were ringing off the hook and I and the hiring manager said, we just lost our osc. And I said, what's an osc? And that's how, how I became one.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: And the rest is history.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: And the rest is history. So. So yeah, it was totally by mistake.
18 year long mistake. That's been a lot of fun, a lot of great experiences, a lot of wonderful things and a lot of, you know, hard work and really helping to build this role for the building industry and getting people on board with what an online sales counselor does.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: So yeah, and so, I mean, OSC role is pretty common nowadays. Most people know what it is, but not everybody. So can you just give us your description of what is an OSC and what are their roles included?
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. You know, you would think that everybody would have one by now, but I would say when I started doing it maybe 10% or less of builders had it because the role has actually been around for at least 20 years. I've met people that have been doing it longer than I have.
But you're right, not everybody does it. And what it is, is it is that crossroads between marketing and sales. Online sales counselors are the people who receive all the digital leads, all the phone calls, or at least they should, all the phone calls, all the digital leads that are coming into the new home builder. And they are that first fast personal responder. They're there to build rapport, build trust, find out people's wants, needs, desires, their why and their pain points, and really set strong appointments for the on site salespeople. And when it's done right, and when it's done in a team environment, in a very, very symbiotic relationship with marketing and sales, builders can really increase their ROI on that digital marketing spend that they're doing. Because OSC appointments convert at a much higher ratio than walk in traffic. And that is only true when you have someone who's really process driven and knows what they're doing in running this. Because if you're just a lead distribution center throwing your leads out to your sales agents as you get them, you're going to have a much lower ROI on that.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. You and I have had some conversations about this over the years and I think that where I kind of keep coming back to is that they really bridge the gap between the online and the offline world. And I think that, you know, if you go, if you remove the OSC role out of it, it's always kind of been like the, you know, marketing and sales are supposed to be integrated and working together and marketing lines them up, sales knocks them out. Right. But I think what we're finding, especially because of the industry, you know, like home building, it's such a high purchase price and such a long sales cycle that that OSC really does a great job with filling that gap between the two of them. Right.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Well, and I think too when you have, say you have five sales agents or say you have 25 sales agents, right? And marketing is generating these leads and they're being distributed in some way, shape or form out to 25 different people or five different people, that's five different personalities, five different ways people are starting their buyer's journey, five different possibilities for not getting to someone on time, you know, not providing the right information, creating a bad experience. When you train your online sales counselor and Maybe you have five OSCs, but they work in Concert. They're very process driven. So it's not five, there will be five different personalities, but there's still five people using a very same or similar process in order to engage that buyer. So you're going to have a much more cohesive buyer's journey at the beginning than you would if you're just throwing those leads out there in some sort of round robin up system to your agents.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's so true. I find that like the other thing with sales reps, I mean, you know, bless their heart, they're the ones that get the signatures on the contracts and sell the homes, but they're hungry and always looking for the low hanging fruit, right? And we all know that people don't wake up on a Saturday morning and go spin your house today, right? Like the, the sales cycle is long. It could be, you know, many months long to even years long depending on the type of buyer and where they are in, in, in life. And I think that with sales reps, because they are typically, you know, commission incentivized, they're out there looking for the low hanging fruit like they want the hot leads. And I think what happens is a lot of times when a lead is generated off the website, you know, I've heard this term many times. Oh, they're, they're a baseboard kicker, right? They're not, they're not ready. Like a tire kicker in the, in.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: The, I would say. Is that a Canadian term? Because here we say tire kickers, but I don't know. And then in Canada they kick their baseboards instead of their tires.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: But I think, you know, it's, it's just the nature of the beast, right? It's the nature of how they get paid. And so they are looking for, you know, okay, well, this person's not ready yet, so why should I hound them when this person's like, yeah, we want to move in in 30 days. Right. So yeah, I think it makes a ton of sense. Let me ask you this. What do you think is a unique challenge that the industry is headed towards when it comes to the world of OSCs? I know that, you know, a lot of people are sold on the idea of why they need one, but maybe don't know much more beyond that. So what are some of the unique challenges that you're seeing in the industry with adopting an OSC program?
[00:07:39] Speaker B: You know, that's a really interesting question. I think things really sped up during COVID years of people realizing they needed online sales counselors and the more programs that were created, the less training was given. Right. The less, the more people would see a few videos or webinars and say, okay, we need this now, let's go hire this person. And no, we don't. We're going to hire, even though we've never hired for this position before and we don't really know what we're looking for. And then we're going to hand them a computer and a phone and say, go for it, because they want to save money. So a challenge is, is that more and more people are adopting this role or realizing they need it, and there are not enough people out there that truly know how to do this well.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: So.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: So if you're looking for something with someone with experience, your pool is very limited. And if you're looking for someone with experience and you say, well, I can hire somebody who's a really experienced osc. The question is, what was their training? What was their background? How can you be sure that they're going to be a benefit to your company if you don't really know how to interview the people and you don't know what you're looking for? And I mean, it's different. We hire salespeople all the time because, look, there have been a lot of salespeople out there and a lot of managers who come from sales, they know what they're looking for, but very few people know what they're looking for for an osc. And I think that becomes something that becomes challenging. And I can tell you just strictly from right now running a hiring, looking for someone for a builder. I have reviewed over 400 resumes. I've done over 40 first phone interviews. I've read probably 50, 60 questionnaires. And I am not finding the right person for this builder. And while it's taking longer, It's. We're in 10 weeks of recruiting now. The builder is luckily on board with the fact that I want the right person in the seat, not just some. Someone to fill that seat, the right.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: People in the right seats.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: That's one of the biggest challenges, getting the right person in the right seat. I think that. Does that answer the question?
[00:10:00] Speaker A: I think you nailed it. For sure. For sure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's lots of information out there. Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that it's going to work with your particular scenario. Right. And I think like, we, we encounter that a lot just, you know, from the lead nurturing side, which is what our agency focuses on primarily. And like, one size does not fit all. You can't just Take a standard list of templates and drop it in for each new builder that comes along.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think it's the same. You can't, you know you can't. An OSC program is not an out of the box fix. Like every builder is different and there's foundational things about online sales that should remain the same no matter who you're working with. And I often have builders say, but we're different, but we're different, but we're different. And I'm like, but you're not that different. There are certain things we can readjust and certain ways we can try different ways to engage based on your market, your product, your team. But there are certain things that are tried and true that we know will work as a foundation. Like, you wouldn't build a house without a foundation. So you have to set up your OSC program with a foundation and then you decide, is it going to be Craftsman, mid century, modern, Victorian, whatever. Right. So that's how you then can make some changes to the program. And I've always open to experimentation because I don't believe it's a one size fits all. So that's what I love about working with the clients who hire me is they're not expecting some sort of canned training program pre recorded. Nothing I do is pre recorded. Really. You know, it's, it's all about attending to the needs of that particular builder so that we can build the best thing for them.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, I, for sure. I think that makes the most sense because every builder is uniquely different in that way. Right.
Yeah. And this I actually brings about another question that I like to ask is what do you see as some commonly held beliefs as it relates to OSC programs that you disagree with?
[00:12:11] Speaker B: That's an interesting one. Well, I know that for me, for years there was a belief that once the OSC set the appointment, they hand it off to the agent. It happens. The OSC washes their hands to it. Okay. Because they need to keep focusing on new stuff. But my belief is that when someone sets an appointment, they're going to buy somewhere. Our goal is to make them buy with us. So even though the possession has changed hands, ownership still remains shared. And I'm not saying the OSC should go out and keep following up with that lead, but they have every right to follow up with the sales agent and be like, let's powwow on these appointments I've set for you. Because when you can figure out where things are in process, you can create a much higher Conversion. And another commonly held belief is that there's one set of metrics for the building industry for OSCs that are the be all and end all. Right. There's, there's a range and we do use those as a way to see how things are going within a company. Right. But you always have to take into consideration what's actually happening in your company. Because if you're looking like a typical conversion ratio we look at is a lead to appointment ratio. Right. So we look at that lead to appointment ratio and you hear things for me, I always say to builders, somewhere between 25 and 35% should be that conversion ratio. Right. And you hear some people say 41, 51. I see some OSC hitting 65. Right. And it depends on the type of lead generation you're doing and it also depends on the type of availability you have. If you have five coming soon communities and you're generating interest lists, guess what? Those aren't going to convert into appointments. So you're going to have high lead generation and low appointment conversion. Right. So, so you have to, you can't hold everything to a litmus of, of a number that you're hearing in the industry without taking into consideration your own personal company and what's going on within it.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: So yeah, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I think when you start looking at metrics, regardless of what it's for, you have to be able to make sense of those metrics. Right. And look at that situation. I mean, oftentimes we use some similar metrics to what you talk about.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: With the website visitors to leads generated. Well, you know, 1% or 1.5% in the industry is pretty average. Yeah. But B and D, some that are a half a percent, well, it just shines a light on what you need to investigate a little bit further. Oh, they're got a agency that's running pay per click ads for them. Well, that agency is sending all the pay per click traffic to their homepage. Well, that's why the conversion rates are low because you've got a, you know, a wave of traffic coming in that's not optimized and not going to the right place. Right. So it's. Yeah, it's interesting how metrics help you to kind of peel back the layers and you know what to investigate that way.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Oh, for sure. I mean, it's funny because even though I'm an online sales counselor trainer and I try to say I'm not a marketing expert, I definitely think that we all have to look at those Numbers. You're, as an OSC or an OSC team leader or whoever you are, you have to understand what all of that is so that you can communicate properly with your marketing department. If you don't know what they're. They're trying to do what, where they're trying to drive leads, and you're just, you need to give feedback on which things are effective and which aren't like those. Because a 0.5% lead generation, you know, we always say 1 to 3%. And in my entire time in the building industry, I've never seen it above 3%, I don't think. And I've never seen it. I've often seen it below 1%, let's just say. And when, when it's that we have to look at, okay, are we generating enough leads for the OSC to convert enough appointments into sales, you know, for the sales to convert to sales? So, yeah, you're right. It's like all intertwined and you have to look at what's going on.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah. It paints a, it's like a spotlight in a larger picture in that sense, isn't it?
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: So obviously you're, you know, very focused on the OSC world and you're working with a lot of builders and doing a lot of audits and reviews. What is one thing that, when it comes to OSC programs that you think that people should stop doing? What's, what's a mistake that people are making all the time that kind of pops up regularly, that you're like, here it is again.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Ooh, stop. Stop doing. There's so many stuff. Well, stop doing. You need to stop thinking that your OSCs are somehow order takers or appointment setters. Right. Because they really are lead development experts. Right. They're relationship builders. You need to stop finding reasons to exclude sets of leads from the osc. I'm going to talk about like, like you're generating. Builders spend money generating, like even through Zillow appointment setting. Appointment setting, where agents set appointments for their, their clients through. Through various means, whether it's through the mls, Zillow, whatever. And they think, well, we don't need those leads to go to the OSC because they're already appointments that are set. No, no, it's not vetted. It's not vetted. And half the time, and this gets me really irritated is half the time when an outside agent sets an appointment through an MLS or a showing time kind of thing. Right.
The. Even the site agent for the builder sometimes isn't there because of Whatever reason, whether it's they're not paid the same, I don't know, sometimes it's that whether they don't think they need to be there to meet the agent and their client, I don't know. You cannot let agents self tour with their clients because you have a much less likelihood of converting that into a sale if those leads all funnel to the oscs. And look, if we all of a sudden have too many leads now for one person, then build your team because those leads funnel to the OSC and then the OSC has an opportunity to meet that sales agent where they are, understand their clients needs, make sure that that showing that they've set up is with the right home for their buyer's needs. And look, half the time those agents don't know as much about the buyer as an OSC would find out. So they help educate the agent on how to get more out of their client and spend less time running all over creation, showing them houses. So that's one thing that needs to change and people will push back and go no, no, no, we're just giving the oscs appointments. No you're not. You're giving your company an opportunity to make more sale, you know, and you're actually having that lead tended in a replicable process driven way that doesn't happen when those things get distributed to your sales agents. I think those are two really, those are two really big ones. I would say another one is in this reared mercurial industry we have right now with, with tightening interest rates and then they've recently come down but they might go back up and just having a harder time selling. The idea of cutting your OSC department first is like to me as dumb as cutting your marketing budget. Right? Yeah, like, like you shouldn't cut your marketing and you shouldn't cut your OSC department because they're the ones that are going to be generating and developing leads. That's where you need to not cut. Okay, so now the OSC are getting, let's say you have a team of five, right? And they used to get 200 leads each and now they're getting 150 leads each. So now all of a sudden you think you need to get rid of somebody? No, just use that extra person to dig deeper into aged leads. Use that person. If you don't have live chat going on your website, make sure you're using live chat and assigning one of those agents specifically to that maybe in a rotation like find creative ways to use your department member. Because that short sightedness And I seen it. We're going to cut someone out of the department now and when we get busy again, we're going to hire somebody and da, da, da, da, da. It's like, no, no, that's another mistake. I don't feel passionate about that at all.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, I've been In the industry 13 years myself and I've seen that in a number of cycles in a number of markets, right? And the going gets tough and the marketing gets going, or in that case the OSD gets going. Right? And it, to me it's, it's counterintuitive because if the pie is shrinking, you need a bigger slice in order to maintain where you're at now. And if the pie is shrinking and you still want to grow, then you need an even bigger slice of the pie. And the only way to make sales is to generate leads, right? So to cut off the two things that are generating and warming up and qualifying leads for the salespeople just doesn't, it's counterintuitive. It doesn't make any sense.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: Oh, one more don't do. I have one more really big don't do.
When leads start to get slower on site and sales agents start saying, send me the lead, send me the leads, send me the leads quicker. I've seen this mistake before where builders start saying, okay, oscs, you only have a certain amount of time to try to convert this and then we're going to send them to the sales agents. What? I mean, why would you do that? Because sales agents don't even want to handle the people that are fresh and new. Why would you give them the stale five day leftovers or two week leftovers? You know, your OSCs need to make sure they're on top of everything though. If your OSCs are complacent and they're not doing proper follow up and making enough phone calls. But that's where you have to really, you have to be able to look in the CRM system and see what everybody's doing and hold people accountable. Like when you hire me to train and coach and strategize and do stuff for you and consult. I mean, those are all the things. One thing I don't do is sit there and spend a ton of time in your CRM making sure things are getting done. Like that's not. You have managers for that. That's what you have. Who manages the position should be doing that.
That should not be what you hire a consultant to do for you. And if you're hiring somebody to do that for you, you have to ask yourself why you're not doing that internally. You know, because it's your skin in the game. It's your company. You need to know how all your tools work and how to check up. I'm not saying micromanage your staff, but you need to be able to know when they're doing their activities or not.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, so true.
So this rolls me into the next question and is, what are some of the things that you think that people need to start doing when it comes to their team?
[00:23:54] Speaker B: I definitely think they need to start auditing their system. I think that's a perfect lead in. They need to audit their systems. They need to see what's working. They need to.
Some builders do not track metrics, believe it or not. You need to make sure you're tracking the right metrics. You need to make sure you're not just tracking. You don't set, hey, I want my OSC to be making 50 calls a day. Like that's not productive. You need to. You need to make sure they're completing the actual task lists that they have. And those should be generated through strong processes. Right.
Things you need to start doing are.
I hate to come back around to educate, but you need to give tools, information and coaching to the people who are that first fast personal responder. They're the face of your website. So you need to start making sure they are very strong and formidable at what they do. I think those are probably good places to start, like, you know, really understanding. And if you don't understand, find the right people to help you understand what you should be looking for. And you can't just learn it by reading a blog or watching a video. Sometimes you actually need to put some skin in the game and hire a consultant or hire someone to help you.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's a lot of leverage for that too, because videos tend to be somewhat generic. You know, it's that one size fits all approach. Right. But when you have a consultant that's got a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge, they can kind of look into it and understand it. You know, how it applies to you. Right, exactly. Like a really great example of that is we do, you know, we're a HubSpot certified agency. We do a lot of HubSpot audits. And yeah, you can go online to find a blog post on how to do a HubSpot audit, but you, when you have somebody go in specifically that's done a bunch of them and has that expertise, you know, they can not only point out the things where stuff's going wrong, but it's like, here's a solution, here's how you fix this. This part. Here's how you fix that. If you did this, it's going to impact that. But you can't get that generic knowledge from a blog Post or a YouTube video. Right?
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Very direct. Or.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Sorry, you're getting generic knowledge from a blog post or YouTube video. Not that.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. When you can have someone help you look into your company and help you identify areas of opportunity for improvement, it's so much different. Sometimes you can't see the areas where you're lagging without some outside eyes. Right. Like when we go in and we survey a sales team and an OSC team and even leadership to see, like, everybody's perceptions of the role and what's going on. It's really interesting to see what we get back, you know, and how we can figure out what. Where the disconnect is, you know, and it helps you when you can do an audit, it then helps you understand where to train. Like, it's easy for me when there's nothing. There's never been an OSC program and I'm setting it up from scratch. So we're, we're kind of. I mean, I say easy, but every builder is different. But there's a certain path we take. But when it's an already existing program that maybe is failing or could have improvements, we have to look at it. And you can't just do it in a bubble. You've got to do marketing and sales as well, because you can't just train your OSCs to be their very best and have a broken. A broken lead generation engine or a broken sales conversion engine. Right? And it's weird because sometimes I see people then pointing fingers back at the oscs when stuff isn't working, saying it's their fault. And it's like you gotta look at the whole system.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: You know, they're all cogs in a machine. Right. And so it's understanding how, you know, if one thing's off a little bit, it's gonna throw another thing off. Right. I know you and I have talked about this before, but I look at marketing and sales as an engine. And each little component of how that marketing process and sales process play out are like components in that engine. And if, you know, like a car engine, if your air intake or your fuel system is off a little bit, it affects the output of the entire engine, right? And so it's very much the same.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Way I think when I worked on boats and I had to learn about that, I knew exactly what white smoke from an engine meant versus black smoke from an engine. You could tell one was like, maybe you had water in your engine in your. In your tank, right? That was white smoke. That's the thing is, like, if we could just have white smoke or black smoke or blue smoke or whatever, then we would know, is it marketing? Is it. Is it oscs or is it sales, you know, or red smoke? Company culture, right? Company culture can be the death of all things working.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Well, it reminds me of that parable of like, or that story of the boat engines not running. And so they call a. A technician in, and he comes in and puts on a stethoscope and puts it up to the engine and tries to turn it over. And he's listening to it, and then he reaches into his bag and he grabs a hammer and he goes clink on one part of the engine. And it fires up and starts running just fine. And everyone's like, oh, you got it running, thank goodness. And then he gives them an invoice for, you know, $10,000. And they're like, what? And it's, you know, yeah, I only swung the hammer once, but you're paying for the knowledge of all of my experience and expertise in knowing exactly where to hit it with the hammer to make that happen.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. You know, and it's funny because I have people sometimes be like, oh, my gosh, you know, I can't afford a consultant. And there is, you know, I mean, for me not to, like, talk about pricing, but my pricing hasn't really changed in 10 years. And the cost of one house, you know, sale will more than pay for anything that I would do for you. You know, and it's always crazy to me because if you bring me in, you're going to make more than one extra house sale. Right. So it's kind of. It's kind of funny. Yeah. That hammer. I know where to swing the hammer, so it's worth it.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Oh, this is awesome. Leah, tell me about a recent success that you've had that you're really proud of.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: So I wouldn't necessarily call it recent, but I have a client that normally my contracts run like 6, 9, or 12 months because I say anything. Everything I have to teach you, you should be able to learn in that time frame. But I will sometimes do maintenance where I work with someone once a month to strategize to be able to continue working with them. And it's usually with people I really like. Right. That I'll do that. It's not like I require. It's not like I make myself play like I have they. But they like working with me, and I like working with them. And this one client, on almost every single call we've ever done, I get the VP of sales, the director of marketing, and the osc, and the four of us sit there and brainstorm. And even though I don't really purport myself to be a marketer. Right. But I mean, I know enough to make me dangerous. And my degree is in communication and advertising.
We will brainstorm ideas. And the marketing director, who's one of the sharpest people I know, she's always so excited about idea generation that we do in those calls that help her move various aspects forward. So even though I don't market myself as someone who works with your marketing department, she would be the first to tell you she's gotten so many great ideas from these brainstorming sessions that we have once a month. So that, to me, is a huge success because I still get to bring value to a team where their OSC is high producing. She does 89% of overall sales come through her for the builder.
And yet they still keep me on. And we have a wonderful time every month chatting and doing these brainstorming sessions, and they get something out. So that's exciting.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: There's nothing more fun, I think, as a marketer or somebody that's in this field, to be able to just sit down and like, let's dig into this and let's, you know, let's. Let's peel back some layers and throw some. Some new ideas at the wall and see what we come up with. Right. Strategy, I think, is probably my favorite part out of all of it.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: I really like strategizing with people because I think that's what sets you apart from your competitors, that you're starting to think in the future, like, how can we make. How can we set ourselves apart? How can we do something different? And so. And I'm not really great at thinking of ideas on my own when I'm by myself, but it's idea generation that happens in collaboration with others that I love. I freaking love, you know?
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And you kind of build off one another. Right. Like somebody will say something, and it gets your wheels spinning just a little bit different direction, like, oh, but what about this? Or how about that? Yeah.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: And I think that's part of not being set in your ways, being open to ideas. Being open to different energy, you know, that that's a real big thing.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: So let me ask you about. Obviously, everybody's all abuzz about tech in the industry and we're seeing AI chat bots and stuff like that. From an OSC standpoint, what do you see as some of the emerging softwares or emerging tech that you think are really going to shape an OSC's role in home sales?
[00:33:50] Speaker B: That. That's a great question. And it's funny because I've yet to really see a chatbot that would. You know, I think that whenever we talk about AI, I think it scares people in a lot of ways because people think it's going to replace them. And what I do think is that it's going to enhance people's jobs, make it easier for them. And it's like I remember way back when talking to Atlas RTX, when they started their chatbots and I said, oh, well, chatbots could be to oscs, what oscs are to sales agents, you know, start that qualification process. And I think that, you know, now AI can, if the thing is, is that I think people still don't understand that it's only as good as the information that's available to it to learn. Right. And so you're still going to have to train the AI, just like you would almost train your osc. And what I think that an AI chat could be good for is a helping with overflow. Right? Because in my experience, majority of builders have less people on their OSC team than they actually should. Right. It's hard to get them to add another team member. So it will help with that overflow, it will help with those off hours. You know, Anya Krsanthin and I have a great debate on this. She says most people shop at 2am if you're not available at 2am, what good are you to me? Right? So if you have. You have AI chat that can at least start the conversation and give some insights, but also be very aware that the goal is to get them to a human to talk. Because I just still have a hard time believing that anybody is going to make the largest purchase of their life. Maybe a car, they would, or maybe something else, but the largest purchase of their life, where they're going to live, where they're going to create their memories, they're not going to do it. Completely touchless and human less. It's never going to happen. So we need to stop thinking that those sorts of tools are going to replace our OSCs or replace our sales agents and figure out how to use them for better automation, better coverage, better. So we are not 24 hour or seven days a week, but we use those tools. So I'd say something like that could be helpful. I would like to see the ones that are working well. I would like to get the opportunity to try to break them, because I think I probably can, because I think most people have complex queries and I've yet to see a chatbot that really handles complex queries.
So those. But of course, the main primary tool has got to be a strong, robust CRM. And I don't know why. We're in 2024 and you still have sales teams that are reluctant to use the CRM. You still see like a budding of heads and friction points within companies of everybody knowing how to use their CRM. Like, that's the seed of everything. That's where your data is driven, that's where your leads are driven. And you've got to have everything automatically entering into your CRM because manual entry is the death of all leads. So if you're just like looking for one freaking tool, it's not a new tool. It's been around and there are good ones.
Use it. I just don't. I don't know how I can yell more. Use it.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: You know? Yeah, it's. It's surprising the amount of people that still like, manage their leads and everything like that from a Excel spreadsheet. I'm just like, are you kidding me right now?
[00:37:38] Speaker B: The grieving thing is everybody's always asking, like, you did, what's the newest, latest, greatest technology? Have you mastered the oldest, most important foundational tool in your company? Until you master that, you shouldn't go out and start buying all the other tech. Cause if you can't do this, how are you going to make all that work for you? Right?
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, I think you nailed it. I mean, the CRM is foundational when it comes to a tech stack, right? Like, you have to have a CRM system. If you don't make that your first priority, you'd have to be able to track your interactions with contacts. And ideally your CRM is going to track their interactions on your website, you know, and that sort of thing. Yeah, I 100% agree with that.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: It's so funny how that one is just. It's kind of like, I remember Abby Murata doing a talk and she was talking about, people are trying to learn so much. And like, at every single session. It was at the Women in Residential Construction conference last year at every single Session people were recommending books. And she's like, before you go out and buy a bunch of books, that's more on top of everything you got here. She's like, you need to figure out how you're going to implement what you've gotten right now. You know, And I do think we do that. We. We just think if I could put all the books I've bought that I haven't read under my pillow and just absorb that knowledge, that would be amazing. That would be so amazing. Could somebody develop a tech tool for that?
[00:39:14] Speaker A: I. I can't remember who it was that I was listening to on a podcast. I think it was. Was it Tom Bilyeu?
Oh, geez. The name of his podcast just slipped my mind too.
Shoot. Tom Bilyeu. I know. I'm pretty sure that's who it was. But he was saying that oftentimes what he'll do is he bought these. It's like a sweat band, Bluetooth speaker system. And so he puts it on at night and he'll start an audiobook and fall asleep listening to the audiobook and that he'll like, absorb that into his subconscious while he's sleep.
[00:39:48] Speaker B: That's a word for me. Forget about that.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: I'm like, I don't know.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: I wish that was real. If I, if I could fall asleep listening to all the knowledge I could absorb, that that would be amazing. But I, I don't buy it.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's so true. I, I can think of numerous occasions too, where I picked up, you know, a new marketing course to learn a new tactic or a new strategy or whatever. And it's like, yeah, I can't do it right now, but it's, it's being offered right now, so I'll just buy it and then when I have the time, I'll go through it. I have so many courses that are like that. Right.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that's another reason why a lot of times people are like, why don't you just offer some sort of subscription or some sort of course that OSCs could subscribe to and go and do? And there's two things, right, that I have a feeling about. One is that for years and years and years, I've bucked the system of doing that because I could have easily put together a learning platform that people went through. But I feel like two things. One, just like you said, people will buy it, then they'll never have the time, they'll never use it, and it'll go to waste and they won't really Learn anything or two back to what we were talking about earlier. It's too generalized and it doesn't apply to their situation. So those are the two reasons I have refrained from creating. Like, I wanted to do something called an OSC university or something like that online. And I really thought I was going to do it and then I just never did. I have like all the plans for it that date back like five years and everything, but I've never put it together because of my reluctance to people just buying something or subscribing to something and then never really getting enough out of it for it to be valuable, you know, and to feel like that's somehow some sort of substitution for actually hiring a trainer. So that's one. The other is, and I know we do these, we go to conferences, we have great times, we go to ibs that are great places to get motivated and to learn and to grab a bunch of ideas. But if you don't, then start disciplining yourself after you leave and actually implementing the things that you've learned.
They are pointless. Right? Like, I'm not saying they're pointless, but I think that you need to really go in there with a. I want to have four strong takeaways that I'm going to take from this and then I'm going to start to run with it and implement it when I leave there. And before you ever get on the plane leaving there, you should start to say, okay, this is what I'm going to do. And really, like, hold yourself accountable for taking information. Because those conferences are so full of great ideas, so full of great information, wonderful speakers all brought together to provide such excellent information. It's not that they are not value in and of itself, it's how people leave there and forget about it.
I can't tell you how many notebooks I have full of tons of notes that I've never reopened. So you have to have a method to implement some of those things and go in it with an idea of what you're going to do.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: Yeah. At some point you have to kind of put your foot down, be like, okay, I've learned enough. I'm on information overload. It's time for implementation.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: So that's one of the other reasons why working one on one with OSCS is part of my favorite part of what I do is really one on one mentoring and coaching. Because that's where you can really figure out, you know, okay, what specifically isn't working for this person and how can we fix that? You Cannot get that in a pre canned, you know, platform of training. You know, and here's the thing is all of my training does start in a platform. There is stuff that they read and do, but they have access to me to talk through anything. And that's the difference is you have live coaching and training throughout. So, and it's not just set in that one hour of coaching, but whenever, so you come across something you don't understand, text me, call me, email me, we'll talk it through. Right. So yeah, it's not, it's very personalized, I'd say.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Well, and that makes total sense because that's often how, like when we're doing a HubSpot install for a, for a build builder, you know, we have our custom, our customized home builder setup that we do. Right. That's standard across all builders. But there's components of that that are completely customized for each individual builder. Like as an example, the sales pipeline and the different deal stages of the sales pipeline, they're pretty much different for every single builder. Unless that builder's like, we don't really know. Then I go, okay, well here's the standard that we put in place, but most often it's tweaked and customized for that builder. So in that sense it's like, here's the, you know, there's foundational knowledge that you can learn from that you build on top of. But then when you start building on top of that foundation, that's where all of the, you know, unique to you and your scenario and how your processes and your business operates. That's where those components come in. That's what I find.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: I agree. Yeah. I just think it's so important. I mean, like for me, I always say I am very, I'm a boutique training company. I'm very, I'm in my niche, you know, that's what I do. I'm not trying to do your websites or your marketing or your social media or, you know, all these different things, but I have great partners like you, you know, I have great partners in the industry that if I identify that something a customer needs, then I'm going to pull in the expert that does that. You know, you can't be expert at everything. I used to say in the early years of Blue Gypsy, I'm a, I'm a jack of all trades, master of some, because I used to do social media marketing, I used to do blogging, I used to do all this stuff, content creation, you know, and OSC stuff. So, you know, I'm a Jack of all trades. Master some. You want to get those masters in to help you. You know that that's how you forward your business is when you get someone who really knows their stuff well.
And it's just innate. It's not that they can brag, oh, I've done all this stuff. It's like you just know from talking to them, they know what they're talking about.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I honestly, I think that that's a sign of true expertise and being a veteran, like that's, this is just my opinion, but I think that like, I seem like if we look at digital agencies as an example, they're popping up all over the place. Someone takes a course online, they start an agency. Right? Like we're, we're everywhere. We're like rabbits now. Right. And I often see the people that's like, well, we do everything digital for these six industries.
And I look at that and go, well, how do you, like, where's your level of expertise? Or like, how do you specialize in any of that? Right. Like, even for us, we focus on HubSpot setups and lead gen, lead nurturing. That's what we focus on. Can we do all the other stuff? Yep. Do we do it amazing? Nope, we do it good enough. But like I, I'm at the point where now where we just say no, like if it's not in our wheelhouse, we just don't do it. And I'll like, you pull in a different partner. And it's kind of funny sometimes because we have like one thing that we don't do in our agency at all is web development. I don't have any developers on my team. And so when I'm talking to a home builder and they're like, you don't. And they almost look down your nose at you like, wait, how do you not have any web developers on your team? I'm like, I just, we don't do enough of that kind of business to justify hiring a full time developer. And why would I hire a full time developer and you know, do something adequate or average when I can just pull in like Greg Bray or whoever other web developer that's like, that's all they do. They're a specialist. Right. And so I often use the example. I'm like, well, you're a home builder. Like, do you employ all the framers and the H vac and the plumbers and the electricians and the roofers? No, I'm like, it's no different for me. They're just subcontractors. Right.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: So, yeah, no, I totally feel that because, you know, I think it's really important to stay in and I'll talk to people who reach out to me because I will have a conversation with anybody about anything, and they'll start talking to me, and I'll quickly realize, hey, look, you should not be starting here with online sales. You have several other things you have to look at in your company first. And like, when it's about, you know, really auditing a company and figuring out, like, what needs to change, what kind of systems and processes, that's where I go to somebody like Kimberly Mackey, you know, and I'm like, you need to. You need to meet with Kimberly Mackey because she has the expertise to look at all of this stuff. And again, I'll go back to, you know, my other favorite phrase is I know enough to be dangerous. Right? I know enough to be dangerous. And I don't. I don't want to be dangerous to any potential future client. I want to give them the right referral partner for that. And so I'll be like, I think you need to start here. And sometimes that all just comes right back around to me. And that's fine if it does, but I don't want to start with me and be like, trying to build something from the middle out, over the ground up. Right? It's like you need to fix something from the top down first before you start working on this.
[00:49:50] Speaker A: So, yeah, so, yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
[00:49:54] Speaker B: The management consulting and the. And the. And the. Somebody who can look at your whole company. You know, she does whole SWOT analysis is for companies and stuff like that that I could. I research how to do a SWOT analysis probably, but I'm not going to. She does it, right?
[00:50:11] Speaker A: Well, she's. If my memory serves me correctly, she is an EOS trainer, isn't she? Eos, the entrepreneurial operating system. Gina Wickman, I don't know, does that.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: I'm not sure if she does that part. I know she's. He's big in.
What is it? Traction. She uses traction.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's eos.
[00:50:35] Speaker B: Yes. Okay, so that's. That's. I don't know. I should read the book. I probably have it around here. She's probably told me to read the book. It's one more book that I bought that's sitting around here that I should read, you know, along. Along with.
What is the one about just tiny fixes to your habits that I haven't.
[00:50:54] Speaker A: Oh, atomic habits.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: Atomic habits.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: James. Whatever. I can't remember.
[00:50:58] Speaker B: I should finish all of these books I've started. I just. I have the mind of a rabbit. It's just. I get very distracted. I think Corey Charles could probably identify with me on that about different directions.
[00:51:12] Speaker A: But so many people are like, oh, just listen to audiobooks while you're working. And I can't do it. I just can't do it because I start tuning in and focusing on what's being said there, and then I lose focus on whatever it is that I'm working on. I just haven't been able to do it. So I have an Audible subscription, and I have it on a Spotify premium member because I love music and I play music all the time. But now they've got audio books on Spotify as well. And so, like, I'll take my phone into the shower with me and I'll listen to an audiobook when I have a shower or when I'm driving or, you know, when I'm wandering around making coffee in the morning and stuff like that. That's kind of when I tune what.
[00:51:52] Speaker B: I. I need to get better at, because, yeah, I'm like you, except the other way around. When I'm working and I try to listen to something while I'm working, I completely tune out whatever's going on over there and I'm working. And then I realize we're 20 minutes into this podcast and I haven't heard a word that they've said, and I need to rewind it and go, okay, let me take a break and listen, because I really wanted to hear the information.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Yeah, so I'm the same way. It's like a switch. I'm on one or I'm on the other, but I can't. I can't ride the middle and do both. Right?
[00:52:23] Speaker B: Neither. Not at all. Not at all.
That's why you and I get along so well. Similar brains.
[00:52:31] Speaker A: Oh, for sure, for sure.
Cool. Well, to wrap things up, Leah, I like to do this one lightning round of goofy personal questions because I like it when. I love digging into people and understanding what makes them tick and, you know, who they are and that sort of thing. So a lot of this is for my own enjoyment. I think the audience will like it as well, but just kind of asking you some questions that are. Have nothing to do with what we're talking about.
[00:53:02] Speaker B: All right, let's see how I do. I hope I'm not getting rated on this.
[00:53:07] Speaker A: No, not at all. Not at all. We'll just do them rapid fire, though. I'll ask you a question. You can answer it. We'll move on to the next one. It'll be fun.
All right, question number one, Leah. What's your favorite book and why?
[00:53:21] Speaker B: You know, I just told you, I can never complete a book. But actually, when I used to work on boats, I used to read a lot of books. One of my favorites is the Alchemist. And I just love that idea of transformation. There's so many beautiful passages in that book. It's all about a journey in your life's journey. And that's kind of. I mean, you can see wanderlust. That's. I like the journey.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: If you could have dinner with any three people, dead or alive, who would they be?
[00:53:50] Speaker B: Well, at least one of them. Can we pick one? One would be my dad, because my dad passed away last year, and I would love to have another dinner with him. My mom, too. She passed away a few years before that. And, I mean, I can't think of who that third person would be. Maybe my grandma. She'd round out that. That. That troop of people just to see how they're all doing, to sit down and have dinner with them. I don't have aspirations to have to sit down with famous people, but the people I love in my life, you know, that. That I can no longer see, I think those would be the people.
[00:54:22] Speaker A: Next question. What is your go to comfort food?
[00:54:27] Speaker B: I would say, gosh, I love. If I. If it's something to just grab. And I hope that it's not in the house, because I usually try to keep it out of the house. I love Cheetos, except I hate the orange stuff on my fingers, But I do love Cheetos.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: What is the best piece of advice you ever received?
[00:54:46] Speaker B: I have people, maybe somebody at one point in time said, don't take things personally. I mean, I try not to take things personally.
[00:54:54] Speaker A: If you weren't in your current profession, what do you think you'd be doing instead?
[00:55:00] Speaker B: My previous profession was dive instructor. I love scuba diving, and if I wasn't doing what I'm doing now, I mean, sometimes I joke and say, I wish I owned a dive shop and could go back and be a dive instructor. It doesn't pay much, though, and it's pretty hard. But I do miss the tropics and diving every day.
[00:55:21] Speaker A: So what is a skill that you've always wanted to learn but you haven't had a chance yet?
[00:55:26] Speaker B: Hmm. I wouldn't say I haven't had a chance. I would say I haven't had patience. I used to want to learn how to play the guitar and be a good guitar player. And I had tried, but I don't have the patience to learn, and I never got good at it.
Another skill, if I could think, would possibly be to be better with languages. I would love to learn Italian. I used to be able to speak Spanish fluently. I can't anymore. You don't use it, you lose it.
But, yeah, maybe foreign languages would be a skill.
[00:56:02] Speaker A: What's your guilty pleasure TV show or movie?
[00:56:06] Speaker B: I have so many guilty. Well, my guilty pleasure TV channel is the Hallmark Channel. I watch a lot of Hallmark movies. Anybody that knows me knows that. But I'd say one of my really good guilty pleasure TV shows is selling Sunset because it's like Real Housewives meets Luxury Crazy real estate. And my husband hates hearing it when he walks in because he's like, these women are all so horrible.
I like it.
[00:56:38] Speaker A: So this one you might have touched on already, but if you could live anywhere in the world for a year, where would it be?
[00:56:44] Speaker B: Ooh, that is a great question. Because, you know, when I used to travel, I used to travel for years at a time and live places. But I have always wanted to spend time in Italy and really live in Italy. I could, but I'd want to bounce around. I'd want some time in Rome, sometime in Venice, you know, sometime in Amalik, Amalfi Coast. But yeah, Italy. If I could live in Italy for a year, that'd be great.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: What's your favorite way to unwind after a long day?
[00:57:14] Speaker B: Hmm. Well, if it's warm outside, I like to go float in my swimming pool.
If it's cold outside, sometimes I like to go get in my hot tub. We've turned our backyard into a water park or just sit by. And last item in our water park in the backyard is we have a waterfall and stream. So sitting out there, it feels like I'm in nature.
And, yeah, I'd say that's how I like to try to unwind.
[00:57:44] Speaker A: If you could only listen to one genre of music for the rest of your life, what would it be?
[00:57:49] Speaker B: It'd be, well, I don't know. Is beach music a genre? Anything that's like, beachy, beachy sailing. I guess we're still on that same path, you know, I could make. I don't know if I don't really have a genre. My husband is great at putting together playlists. Like, he is the music person in the family. He's the one that drags me to concerts and things like that. So it's not really a genre, but I would probably listen to if I could only listen to one thing for the rest of my life. He put together this amazing soundtrack when we had our. Our. Not when we got married, but a year later, which we called the Thing. So any whatever's on that, that doesn't help anybody.
[00:58:40] Speaker A: What is your favorite vacation destination that you've ever been to?
[00:58:44] Speaker B: I'd say Bonaire. We could go back to Bonaire because we do go there a lot because it's great scuba diving and we can just drive to the dive sites. You don't have to have a boat. So that.
[00:58:55] Speaker A: What is the most memorable gift you've received and why was it special?
[00:59:00] Speaker B: I think it's the gift of time. Like people giving me their time like that. I think friendship. The gift of friendship and people spending time with you, that's the most valuable gift.
[00:59:12] Speaker A: If you could time travel, would you go to the future or would you go to the past?
[00:59:17] Speaker B: And why I always say I never want to look back at my life and say I wish I had done so. I don't feel like I necessarily need to go to the past.
But that's a really hard one because I don't really have a desire to go to the future and see what it looks like either. I like living in the now. I don't know. I can't answer that one.
I'm really difficult on these. Right. I can't give you one word answers to anything.
[00:59:46] Speaker A: That's all good, but you gotta pick one.
[00:59:51] Speaker B: Well, okay then if I have to pick one, I'd go back just to really kind of see, like, I really do like those TV shows that are like set in the late 1800s, kind of, you know, like Gilded Age. I'd love to go back and see what that looks like.
[01:00:09] Speaker A: What's your favorite beverage? Alcoholic or non alcoholic?
[01:00:14] Speaker B: I don't really drink a lot of alcohol.
I would say if I. My favorite alcoholic beverage is probably a Moscow mule.
[01:00:24] Speaker A: What's one item on your bucket list that you are determined to accomplish?
[01:00:29] Speaker B: Gosh, I mean, more travel, I guess, really getting more travel. And there's a lot of places I want to see and I know I'll get to some of them.
[01:00:40] Speaker A: Awesome. Leah. Well, I had such a great time talking to you today. We always have a great time when we talk. You're one of my favorite people to talk to. Just because we get going and have such great conversation and share a lot of the same beliefs around, you know, the industry and even just on a personal level. So thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate that.
So for people that want to get in touch with you, you know, if they're interested in your services from an OSC standpoint, that sort of thing, or they just want to follow you on social, tell us how people can reach out to you and contact you.
[01:01:15] Speaker B: Sure. You know. Well, the easiest way is through my website, which isbluegypsy inc.com not blue gypsy. So you have to have the Inc. Not Inc. Like a tattoo shop and there you can find me. You can actually pick a date on my calendar and we can have a virtual cup of coffee and get to know each other or a free consultation. If you just want to follow me on socials, you can follow me. Leah Fel. I think it might be Leah Kay's Fellows. My maiden name is kay's Fellows. On LinkedIn.
You can follow Blue Gypsy Inc. On LinkedIn. You can follow Blue Gypsy Inc. On Facebook. I mean you can follow it on Twitter X whatever it is. We do still kind of maintain that account, but I don't really do anything much with it. It's the same thing. So I Mostly, I think LinkedIn is one of the best places to find me.
[01:02:08] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, I'll make sure I put some links to that in the show notes and I just want to thank the audience for tuning in. If you like today's show, please subscribe to the show. We're tell tell a colleague about it. We're trying to grow the audience on it and really deliver a ton of value.
The next couple of episodes we're going to be doing a marketing minute mini episode. We're going to be doing more HubSpot hacks for home builders. So again we thanks so much for your time. It's always wonderful to talk to you. I love it so much and well, thanks so much.
[01:02:39] Speaker B: This was so much fun. Jeff, as always, thanks, Leah.
[01:02:42] Speaker A: Appreciate your time.
