Are you tired of watching potential homebuyers slip through the cracks of your leaky sales funnel? It’s time to plug those leaks and supercharge your sales process!

Our August Sales & Marketing Power Hour on Wednesday, August 7, took a deep dive into how to Fix Your Leaky Sales Funnel. Hosts Kimberly Mackey and Carol Morgan were joined by industry experts Kelly Fink from Milesbrand, Keith McKinney from New Home Star and Spencer Powell from Builder Funnel to share insider tips and proven strategies to help you turn your leaky funnel into a well-oiled machine. Here are our takeaways!

Identify the Leaks

Learn to pinpoint your leaky sales funnel, where you’re losing potential buyers and how to fix those pesky leaks.

• Test your contact form; what happens? In the 4^th annual Homebuyer Mystery Shop by Blue Gypsy, Melinda Brody & Company and Denim marketing, it was uncovered that sometimes nothing happens. Homebuilders need to have a plan for who will handle the lead. There must be a good process for how to handle those leads.
• Have a well-crafted autoresponder that looks like a person sent it. These should be scheduled to go immediately, an hour later and 3 hours later. Having these responses in place before a live person responds to the potential buyer works.
• Online sales: Once you have someone interested, the online sales counselor (OSC) passes the lead on to the sales team. You must have a strategy for this. Bridge the gap between online and onsite.
• Think about how customers are coming to homebuilders today. They go from idea to interest, and then they go online and take action. This action means they are ready, and unfortunately, this is where a lot of builders miss them. We need someone to connect the dots and get them to the sales center.
• This is where the CRM comes in. Someone fills out a Contact Us form, and why are we not all over this? If it goes into a CRM, you know if someone followed up or not. There are big opportunities for home builders to respond!

“Customers experience no response from two or three builders and then buy from resale, and we wonder why,” Keith McKinney.

Lead Capture Strategies

What are the best strategies for capturing high-quality leads in the home building industry?

• Responsiveness has never been more important than it is today. Everyone has become used to instant gratification…think Amazon, Instacart, etc.
• Take impressions and convert them to a contact. Register the Lookie Lous from home & garden shows, the parade of homes. Get their contact information.
• Signage and directionals with QR codes to landing pages. The Landing page needs to be relevant to what they are looking for, otherwise you will lose them.
• Increase the conversions by increasing the number of leads.

Engage Effectively

Master the art of engaging with your prospects at every stage of the funnel.

• Map out the process into a series of steps. Automation is your friend. There must be some form of engagement. Meet the homebuying prospect where they are in the funnel and respond appropriately. No one should give up on any lead.
• What are some creative and effective ways to engage with prospects at different stages of the sales funnel? Once you have their contact information, you can remarket to them – FB, Email, OTT, Google, etc.
• Consumers make decisions differently; most people get their news from social media.
• If you have their phone number, call or text them. You must deliver new information every single time you interact with the homebuyer. You must earn it. They want the information. They are excited about the information and the community.
• Nurture through an eblast campaign. Share all aspects of the community and the process – amenities underway, events, concerts, etc.
• How can I add value to the people who have expressed interest? Provide community updates, information about the buyer process, FAQs and information to help them make the buying decision.
• Leave a voice text, BomBom or email. Put it in the CRM; if you didn’t put it there, it didn’t happen!

 “Your normal knowledge is someone else’s expert knowledge,” Spencer Tunnell

Streamline Your Process

Use tools and automation to keep your sales funnel flowing smoothly. Understand how CRM systems and other technology tools can manage and improve the sales process.

Tools like HubSpot and Lasso offer solutions for home builders. Prospects come in and fill out a form, and from there, you can go from simple to super complex. Be personal. Prospects respond to personal-style emails that look like they are from a real person. Think about context and design email campaigns for specific community VIP lists. The more context, the better.

The psychological barrier to accountability stops sales agents from embracing the CRM and using it to its potential. Winners like to win, and when you start keeping score, you start to see where you aren’t winning. Train the sales team on how this is for them and to make them more successful.  Salespeople will continue to look at CRM as a bad thing unless you train them.

“Use a CRM and understand what it can do. Get it set up the way you want it, and train your team to use it. Dig into it to see who is clicking on the eblast and follow up with those people who have clicked.”  Kelly Fink

Continuing the Journey:

Sales & Marketing Power Hour continues on Wednesdays at noon in 2024! Mark your calendar to join industry experts and head coaches Kimberly Mackey, founder and sales and marketing management consultant of New Homes Solutions Consulting, and Carol Morgan, founder and president of Denim Marketing, for this free webinar series focused on your success.

Save these dates!

October 9, 2024

December 4, 2024

Join Us:

Join the Sales & Marketing Power Hour Facebook group for updates on guest speakers and hot topics – Click here. This group is dedicated to sharing real-world wisdom and expertise on hot topics for growing your business in today’s market.