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2020 started out incredibly strong for many homebuilders. By February many of you were at an all-time high. And then COVID hit in March which is where things took a southern turn. But slowly—April, May, and even June saw many of you climbing out of the hole and got you back onto solid ground.

So, if you’re like most homebuilders right now you’re undoubtedly seeing an avalanche of traffic. And if you’re not, let’s have a conversation immediately. With that influx of traffic, you should also be generating record numbers of leads. But—and here’s where a lot of you may be struggling—where are all the sales conversions?! Below I’ll explain my 5 Secrets for Maximizing Sales Conversions ensuring that you’re able to hit (and surpass) your goals in the coming months!

Let’s dive right into the 5 Secrets for Maximizing Sales Conversions!

#1: Know Your Numbers. Let me ask you a question—and you can be honest because it’s only us! Do you know the numbers for the part of the business you’re currently managing? Whether you’re a new home consultant, the OSC Manager, the Marketing Manager, or something else—knowing your numbers is critical to converting. What do I mean by this?

Knowing your numbers is knowing more than just the top of your funnel. You should absolutely know how many leads are coming at you each and every day—no doubt. But the issue many of you are having has nothing to do what the number of leads you’re getting; it has to do with how many you’re converting. Yet so many homebuilders think the hard work is over once the lead is in their funnel—WRONG! That’s only the first part of your funnel—two more pieces follow.

Engagement, which is where your Online Sales Consultant lives, is part two. You’ve piqued their interest and now it’s time to engage them in a conversation. Ask them questions. Offer a virtual or in-person visit to see your model. And then at the bottom of your funnel is the purchase agreement—which is what engaging potential buyers can lead to. So take a good look at not only the leads coming in but how many of them are being engaged with and of those how many are purchasing. Because if you know all three of those numbers you can make adjustments as needed to increase engagement and from there, I suspect you’ll see an uptick in your sales.

#2 Manage for Activities, Not Conversions. Are your numbers important? Yes. To the point where if I stop you in the hallway and ask, “What’s your OSC appointment set caps to NHC Contract Percentage?” I want you to answer, “35%.”  But then I need you to let go of that data. Because at the end of the day you aren’t dealing with numbers—you’re dealing with people. And we don’t manage people by their conversion numbers. So stop managing your salespeople using conversions! What can you use to measure their performance?

• Follow up
• Outbound call attempts
• Communication sent (email, text)

By being involved in your CRM you are able to keep on top of all of these numbers, rewarding and managing based on weekly activities—not conversions. If you do this, your salespeople will be happier which in turn will make them work harder for you. And—best of all—conversions will likely rise.

#3 Bulletproof Your OSC Program. Your Online Sales Consultant is the linchpin within your sales funnel—and he or she has to be an absolute Rockstar. The best way to help them be that for your organization? Is to engage with them. Find out what their needs are. What tools are they missing? What equipment do they wish they had? What software would make their tasks easier? Is there training they would like to take?

You can also go deeper—ask his or her opinion on ideas for ramping up the program? If you have a great OSC did you take the time to document their process? What does their day look like from start to finish? If for some reason your OSC needs to leave it should be incredibly easy for a new one to step in and take over with very little training—make sure you’re organized!

You cannot overspend on your OSC program—I truly believe that. And the absolute difference between the homebuilders who are closing sales right now and those who are not? Are the ones that have their OSC Program Bulletproofed and those that are holding theirs together with a little bit of string and a few sticky notes.

#4 No Exceptions. What I mean by this is all traffic and all leads must be logged into the CRM—NO EXCEPTIONS! Because there are no exceptions to the usage of your CRM. I’ll tell you why. It does no good to have your top producer who has been with the organization for 30 years refuse to login. There will never be a time that this isn’t true. And it’s especially necessary in this environment. Your numbers will only ever be as good as your data. So, tracking your data is imperative to success.

Of course, it’s one thing to tell you that tracking your data is important—but it’s another to implement it. So what are some things you can do to ensure people are logging information like they’re supposed to? Several organizations I’ve worked with have come up with programs and they look something like this:

1. If a buyer is not properly entered into the CRM by the time a contract is submitted—you don’t get paid.
2. The person who enters the information into the CRM properly makes the commission. Say your sales person has shown someone 20 homes. But they’ve never bothered to put the prospect into the CRM. Your intern who is covering a home on a weekend meets the couple, shows them around, and sells the floor plan. They enter the information—boom, they make the commission. Or perhaps they make 50% of the commission.

Sure, this route seems extreme. And you’ll probably get a few grumblers. But I doubt many if any of your people will walk away—because they can still make every single penny they’re entitled to. However they have to follow the rules and enter information into the CRM—no exceptions!

#5 See the Human. Yes, you are a data driven organization. You are going to have 100% compliance and usage of CRM and you are going to tout a culture that is driven by good data so that you can make good choices in this environment as well as in any other. But we can’t manage people like they’re data. Because they aren’t—they’re humans.

We reward humans.

We coach humans.

We thank humans.

We appreciate humans.

So many times, I see homebuilders that have the data in hand, but when it comes to treating their people like people—well, let’s just say that piece is obviously missing. And then it turns into a breakdown in ownership and responsibility.

The human element is not only important to keeping your employees happy, but their happiness leaks over into the conversions. Which is what you’re really after, right?

There you have it. The 5 Secrets for Maximizing Sales Conversions! As a reminder, this discussion originally took place in the Builders Town Hall which happens once per month and is totally free to join. Be sure to check out the Facebook page and sign up for the upcoming event!

Categorised in: Crisis Marketing, FANtastic Marketing Tips, FANtastic Selling, Technology