04 Importance of Online Sales Counselors - Leah Fellows Apr 17 2020

 [00:00:00]Greg Bray: Hello everybody. Welcome to our next episode of the Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray from Blue Tangerine, 

Kevin Weitzel: and I'm Kevin Weitzel from Outhouse. 

Greg Bray: And we're excited today to have with us Leah Fellows. Leah is a national online sales trainer for the new home sales industry. Um, she's also a speaker, a writer. And a founder of Blue Gypsy Inc. She's got over a decade of experience working with new in the new home building industry. And she's an educator with a strong background in sales and marketing [00:01:00] and a degree in communication from Boston University. So Leah, thank you so much for being with us today. 

Leah Fellows: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk with you guys. 

Greg Bray: Yeah. So just kinda give us that quick overview of who you are and, and kind of what you do. 

Leah Fellows: I mean, I think you covered it well. I, I. My, I started in the industry about 14 years ago and it was sort of by accident. Um, I, after Boston University, which you mentioned, I didn't really want to climb the corporate ladder, so I went off, I had been bartending through college and I went off to Las Vegas to become a blackjack dealer and, uh, and people there told me stick with what you know.

So I continued bartending for a little over a year, then took off on travels around the world for about 13 years.  So

Greg Bray: Wow.

Leah Fellows:  I traveled around the world. I was a backpacker first, then a dive instructor, and then a sailboat captain, and I injured my shoulder, moved to shore, and started working in model homes.

[00:02:00] That's, that's how I got into the building industry in 2006 and then from there. I became an online sales counselor, which I'm sure we'll talk a lot about. Took off from there. And we'll, we can talk as we go through more about the evolution of this, but that's how I got into it. 

Kevin Weitzel: I have a little love affair with the name of your company. Um, and for a couple of reasons. One, I'm a little bit of a hippie. I'm a 10% hippie, what we call a dime bag hippie. And, uh, I happen to love the name Blue Gypsy. So what's the history behind that? 

Leah Fellows: Well, it really was the fact that a little bit, I just kind of touched on the fact that I traveled around the world for 13 years and my, um, email address was gypsy, Leah.

And so back before we had all this great technology that we use right now, I would, um, you know, email, we did have email back then, not that old, but I would email, group group newsletters [00:03:00] from Blue Gypsy or from gypsy. You know, gypsy, Leah. And then as I started taking on scuba diving and sailing, I actually became a dive instructor.

And then I got all my captain's licensing. So for six years of that 13 years, I was above and below the water, the blue. So I was into the blue. And so when it came time to actually create the name of my company in 2010 when I started out thinking I was going to go off on my own and start working independently, um.

I just, I wanted something catchy. I wanted something that would make people remember and I didn't want it to necessarily be my name. Um, so I took the blue from the sailing and diving and the gypsy from my travels. And there you have it. 

Kevin Weitzel: Well we actually love that on a couple fronts. Your Blue Gypsy. We're talking with Greg from Blue Tangerine. Oh, the Outhouse logo is blue.

It's serendipitous that we're speaking today. 

Leah Fellows: Yeah. Well, I love it. Yeah. And it's fun because it's a conversation starter. People often [00:04:00] say, what's Blue Gypsy? And then I can tell them. 

Kevin Weitzel: So my last silly question, Tom Collins or Manhattan?

Leah Fellows: I, I think Manhattan probably. I mean, I used to do long Island ice teas. I mean, really. 

Kevin Weitzel: All right. Smart gal. 

Greg Bray: All right, so solely around the world, what's, just give us the most interesting quick experience of traveling around the world. Cause that's just not something most of us have had a chance to do 

Leah Fellows: so hard to pick one. Um, but I guess my, one of my favorite places in the world, one of the best, most interesting places I ever spent time on was Zanzibar in Africa. So it's a small Island off of Tanzania. And I taught scuba diving there and I just fell in love with Zanzibar and I lived in a little round hut on the beach.

And, um, taught scuba diving had a great time there. And I, when I was, when I was getting ready to leave, I actually caught [00:05:00] malaria. So I did have to go through and whether malaria while I was in Zanzibar, but still, that didn't take away from the fact that it's one of my most favorite places in the world.

Greg Bray: Awesome. Awesome. So tell us a little bit more about what Blue Gypsy actually offers, what services you guys provide. 

Leah Fellows: Yeah, so, so originally when I started, I was a remote online sales counselor. and for those of you who aren't really familiar with what online sales counselors are, they are that person that's the face of a builder's website.

So back in 2007 when I moved over to a big builder, I actually became their online sales counselor by accident. Didn't know what it was, didn't know it was fairly new to the industry. Online sales has not been around for a long time, but it has been around since the early two thousands and so.

What I started out doing was being a remote online sales counselors that have been a builder's office and then eventually transitioned. Over the last six years, I've been doing online sales counselor training. [00:06:00] So I've been teaching builders how to set up that position and be successful and put it, put it in place the way I would do it. So that they can get the best results. 

Greg Bray: Awesome. And that's why we invited you today because this is a real timely topic right now. And, and I'm, I'm glad that you kind of introduced what the online sales counselor role is. I'll be honest, Year and a half ago. So not the last IBS, but the one before I was doing a presentation and we just casually mentioned online sales counselor, and there were people in the audience who raised their hand, said, what is that?

And I was, I was surprised that, that people really still weren't clear on what that is and the importance of that role for, for a builder. Um, so, so I want to dive into that a little bit more as to why. Why that's so important and where that fits. So you talked about them kind of being the one that are the face of the website kind of a thing.

So tell us a little bit more about what does an online sales councilor do just kind of day in, day out, where, where do they, what, [00:07:00] what keeps them busy? You know at work.

Leah Fellows:  There's a lot, there's a lot that keeps them busy. And it's really funny because like I said, when I started in 2007 what an online sales counselor did then versus now is so different.

Because if you think back, we didn't even have Facebook. We didn't have Twitter then. We didn't have a lot of digital marketing. A lot of builders were still placing ads on billboards and in newspapers and things like that. Radio ads, and so online sales counselors, they have to now with the onset of digital marketing and digital media and websites.

So to your point, Greg, as you probably remember, they were billboards on the internet. They were not these interactive reactive sites that they are now. So back when I started, so now online sales counselors are there because all of our marketing is driven toward our website, or it should be if it's not right.

So all our marketing is driven towards [00:08:00] our website, and you need that one person that's really going to handle those quick. And personalized responses. Okay. It's not just your, your autoresponder and something that's very cold and impersonal. It's creating that relationship right where it starts, which is on your, on your website.

They're dealing with all that lead generation and they're keeping busy with contacts, with all sorts of different types of touch points, and we can get more involved in that as well as we go on. Talk about all the different ways they touch people without, as a social distancing, without actually touching them. Right. They, they keep much further than six feet apart because they are online. 

Kevin Weitzel: I'm a little bit of a weirdo when it comes to how fast I like to respond to my emails. Like sometimes I surprise people because I'm typing as I'm reading their email and poof, it's gone. What is your, you know, gun to head answer to these, uh, online sales counselors that you're working with, the timelines that they should have that [00:09:00] are acceptable to buyer response times? Via email or chat or whatever. 

Leah Fellows: Well, you know, it's funny that you ask that because for me, again, when I started, it was like, Oh, if you get to them in four hours or less, you're fast. Right? But now you need to be a minute. Within a minute of getting that, we say five minutes or less, you're a hundred times more likely to turn that lead.

Into a prospect, someone who's going to communicate with you, but a minute or less, I think somewhere, I read a statistic, it's like 261 times more likely to convert that into somebody who's responding to you. People have no attention span. They have no patients. It's like, gold fish six-seven seconds is a long period of time for some people to wait.

So responding within that first minute is super important. 

Greg Bray: Yeah. It's, it's really amazing how impatient people are now.  when they, when they reach out and they just want answers and they want to know it. So, but, but why do I need an online sales counselor? Leah? I'm gonna [00:10:00] play devil's advocate here.

Why, why can't my salespeople take care of that? You know, what's, what's the, you know, they're, their, they're not doing anything in the model anyway. They're just sitting around waiting for somebody to walk in. Why? Why can't they respond to people on the website? 

Leah Fellows: Because they they, there's two reasons. One is, is that like we just talked about that quick response time, it, the longer a lead sits there without a response, the colder and colder it gets and it really gets cold quickly. It really can become a dead lead quickly because we are that instant gratification society. So even though you think your site agents are just sitting around waiting for someone to walk through the door.

It's kind of like smokers who light a cigarette and the bus comes, or the train comes, or whatever it is. As soon as someone walks to the door and you send them that lead, they're engaged with the person that's right in front of them. They're engaged with the realtors they're dealing with, with the walkthroughs, with them, maybe the design selections that they're dealing with, and.

[00:11:00] Maybe they'll get to that lead that came through to them, you know, in a couple hours, or maybe at the end of the day, or unfortunately, statistics show us more often than not. Never. They really don't see the value of those digital leads, so they don't follow up with them. And if they did follow up with them and they didn't hear a response the first time, they abandon those leads.

So those leads get abandoned. Um, and so that's why really it's two different mindsets. And you're, when you're hiring an online sales counselor, you're hiring for a very specific set of skills and mindset that is very different from your site agent. So I always kind of even hesitate when people want to move a site agent into that role and have me train them because they have different skillsets.

They have different ways of looking at things, 

Greg Bray: And I just want to go on the record and apologize to all the sales agents who I said are just sitting around doing nothing but waiting for somebody to walk in. Okay. So I don't really believe that's what they're doing, but I was [00:12:00] just, I was just trying to set up the question.

Okay. So please forgive me for that. So we love, we love our sales agents. They do good work 

Leah Fellows: so well. They really have their own set of responsibilities and responding immediately to new leads isn't one of them. And, and the mentality is different. It really is a Hunter versus someone who's cultivating and really kind of nurturing something to grow. So. 

Kevin Weitzel: Coming from the sales side myself. I know from personal experience that, and there's a saying on the sales floor, if you will, on a in a sales environment, that the most important customer is the one in front of you. So what you just said, to your point of, you know, somebody walks in that sales door, that's their hyper-focus, that's what they're on.

Whereas an online sales counselor is so much more hyper-focused to the task at hand, which is to manage those incoming leads as they're popping in. Wow. Interesting. 

Greg Bray: So Leah, you know, again, right now with what's going on in the world, you know, the people that are staying at home [00:13:00] and unable to kind of go out and visit, it feels like the online sales counselors roles just got magnified. Dramatically over the last few weeks. Um, would you agree with that? First of all?

Leah Fellows: Definitely, definitely

Greg Bray:  Okay, so, so what, what, if anything is changing for them in this kind of new environment where people are, are at home and, and more online? 

Leah Fellows: Well, I think, you know, we, we are seeing traffic go up, but we're not always seeing on every website leads increase.

So we are trying to get more creative on how we get those leads to acquire. So the online sales counselors really have to be communicating with marketing and with leadership and telling them, look, we need more calls to action. We need more avenues through which people. Can engage, interact, and inquire through our website.

So for instance, for me, when I started online sales counselor program, [00:14:00] I don't always implement live chat. I know everybody's like online sales, live chat, let's go together. Must have to have it. But the problem is, is that that is always kind of picking the easiest fruit. Is the people who are inquiring right there and you can start a conversation with, and OSCs don't always then learn the fine art of lead nurturing and longterm followup when they're only dealing with their, their chat.

But now in this situation, we want to put as many avenues on our websites. To engage prospects that are visiting. And so if you didn't have online chat before, it's a good thing to put in place, especially if you're not generating the same number of leads. Because we are seeing traffic go up. We look at Google Analytics, we're seeing traffic. High. On the websites, but sometimes inquiries are flat or in some people's cases even down. Um, so I think chat gives you that, uh, that possibility for one more way to engage with people. 

Greg Bray: Tell, tell [00:15:00] me, Leah did the online sales counselor. From what you're describing then is not just about responding to the person who's on the website right now.

You're, you're also talking about a nurturing process where they're following up maybe multiple times, what, what is their end goal and how do you measure kind of their performance. 

Leah Fellows: Oh, that those are great questions because really their whole, their whole objective is appointment setting, you know?

Whereas a sales agent wants to close the contract and online sales counselor wants to get that appointment, and because of the current situation. Um, you know, different areas of the country and different, um, builders are adopting different programs, whether it's all virtual, all appointment, only, those sorts of things.

So the online sales counselors are trying to set those appointments in different ways. Um, but. There is a metric. I know you asked a question about how can we gauge what they're doing. And there are metrics in [00:16:00] there that are important to look at. And some of it starts to look at our web traffic and we look at how many leads we're generating and the number of leads we're generating.

Um, usually about 25% of those leads. And it's weird cause you think if. If a hundred people are actually putting in an inquiry somehow to the online sales counselor, shouldn't a hundred people be responsive? But that's not how it is. It's usually about 25% of those people are responsive, 25, and, and it depends on the source.

Okay. If it's an organic lead through the website, those are, those are higher. You're going to get a lot more responsiveness versus different types of leads coming. But, um, 25% are going to inquire. And then of those 25%, we usually say about about 35% or. There's a certain percentage that acquire, but 25% will be set into appointments and of those appointments, once you go all the way out to look at the metrics for an OSC, [00:17:00] they should have about one in three to one in five of their appointments that show up, turn into sales.

Okay. And this sales cycle may be extended now because of the current climate, but it doesn't mean that this doesn't still apply because I started in the downturn. We had a long sales cycle back then. You know, we had to be really patient, and I saw leads convert that came in three, three years before they converted during the 2006 seven, eight that time period.

So we're looking at one in three and one and five, which is about. 25 35% of of, of your, your appointments are converting. And then that should be, we used to say 20 to 25% of overall sales came from your online sales counselor. But now I see my online sales counselors with all the digital, um, media and all the things that they have and all the tools that they have converting between 30 [00:18:00] 40, 50% of being.

30 40 50% of the overall sales for their builders. So that's, that's really something to take a look at and, and examine. And so you can gauge how they're doing by looking at those metrics. 

Greg Bray: Okay. So, so I'm a builder. I'm listening to this conversation. I'm going, Oh no. I don't have one. I don't have an OSC.

Leah Fellows: Okay. I don't know where I missed that boat, you know, but, but captain Fellows is here to, to, to get us on that boat. Um, you know, and you know, we're, where do I go? How do I even start?  You said I can't just promote one of my salespeople to be, to take on this role cause it's a different skillset. Oh, how do I even begin that process?

And I know that can be daunting. And as soon as people realize they're missing leads, they're freaking out and they're thinking about all the leads that they've missed. But you have to lay the foundation. You have to have a great website, you have to have a CRM in place, you have to have a [00:19:00] marketing plan.

So before you can even hire and promote and put someone in that position. You need to have that foundation built first. Um, and so you need to take a little time to look at that. A lot of times I get people wanting to sign contracts with me and we're like, okay, let's get somebody on board now. And I'm like, wait, we need to do a website audit.

We need to check and see how you're actually engaging with all of your prospects right now first. Okay, but we're losing leads, but we're losing leads. You know what? Even losing leads for years. So, so you've got to set the foundation. You wouldn't go, Oh my God, I got to build a house and not pour the concrete foundation.

So you've got to put the foundation in place for that online sales program, which is website CRM, and how are you going to do your digital marketing? Then we can go through, and I personally have a a. whole recruitment process I go through to help builders [00:20:00] hire online sales counselors. And a lot of times, um, the builders I work with have been in it for years.

Say, I never would have thought of that person. I never would have looked at their resume a second time. And those are some of the people that are just high producing. They're up there. They were not even in the industry, to begin with. So they are, um, the ones that really pick it up and run with it because we look for the right characteristics. We look for the right kind of motivation drive. And there's a lot of little things I look for that could take awhile to tell you. You know, 

Kevin Weitzel: So obviously I'm not a home builder, but let's say I was, can I hire blue gypsy to come in and basically tell me as if you were a drill instructor.

Here's everything I need to do. can I, can I hire you for that? And then do you do followup to where you'll do that? Yeah. Cause you obviously had already said that you will train or help hire there, go through the hiring process of hiring an OSC. But do you also do [00:21:00] follow up appointments and coaching and training after the fact?

Leah Fellows: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean it, when I when I was put in charge of online sales for a builder, it was like drinking water from a fire hose. I didn't know what I didn't know too, because they basically sat me down in front of the computer and said, here, there's a bunch of leads built up, do this. And so I, from the ground up back in 2007.

Started looking at all the leads and how they were coming in and started creating trackings and sort of creating ways to engage these. And I used to joke that my CRM was put together with bubblegum and duct tape because it was a, it was basically outlook and notes. Which you don't want to do. So I, when builders want to hire me, I have different, different parameters that I want them to look at, and I help them through the entire process from setting up their website for success.

I work with, you know them to look at that and see what they need to go back and talk [00:22:00] to their, their web designers about fixing. We do all these different reports. I look at their analytics. I look at their Google. I know enough to make me dangerous. I'm never going to be that person that sets up their marketing okay.

Or anything like that. But I know enough to tell them what they need to be doing and, and direct them to people that I trust. And then we go through the hiring process, we go through the training process, and I'm there to support them throughout and they can, um, do a six, a nine or a 12-month training program with me.

And there's different things that are offered in each of those packages. Um, and I often say. Because people often say, well, you mean you just stopped working with people after 12 months? And I feel like if I tell you how to do something and you're not getting it by 12 months in, I can't make you do what I teach you.

But I can tell you these are the best practices and this is what's going to get you where you need to go. So, yeah, I do a lot of one-on-one training with their online sales counselors. I work with that whole [00:23:00] bridging of the gap between online and onsite so they understand how to handle the lead because that's a great place where that can get fumbled and you fail.

So, so we go through all those sorts of things when a builder hires me to help them with their online sales. 

Greg Bray: So, so Leah, what are some of the common mistakes you see OSC is making? You know, if you had kind of those topics. Couple of things for them to watch out for. 

Leah Fellows: So, so when I shop builders and I shop their websites because they say they have an online sales counselor, I kind of expect it to be like what I think of as an online sales counselor.

And oftentimes I will see that I'm just getting, um, very impersonal messages. Very much a drip campaign of marketing emails. They're very rarely if ever calling. And if they call, they call once and I never see a phone call again, come through when I'm shopping them. Um, very rarely do I see video emailing, like bomb bomb [00:24:00] videos.

You really need, in order to be a successful online sales counselor and to have a successful program set up, you've got to have a variety of touch points of variety of ways you reach out and engage people, and you need to be continually changing your message and thinking of it in terms of a very personalized interaction and engagement with people. Especially right now, you know. 

Greg Bray: Awesome. So do you, when, when you talk with your online sales counselors, what are some of the things that frustrate them about, you know, either the website, the things they wish that their VP of marketing understood better that they need help with? 

Leah Fellows: Yeah, that's a great question.

I mean, they definitely, um, some of our, some of our LSTs have dealt with like. Really slow websites and if your website is really slow, people aren't going to stay around for it to load. Um, the, sometimes there are [00:25:00] like. I have to click five times to get to the floor plans. Nobody else is going to click to go five deep.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a toot tootsie pop, right? You want, you want all the information that people are looking for right there. So sometimes I feel like their frustration is that marketing doesn't look at their websites and their marketing the way a buyer would. And they want to make it really pretty or really Chrisp, which may mean there's not a lot on one page, so you have to keep going deeper and deeper.

So that's a problem. Um, and I just think like. Online sales counselors are the inner, they're the interaction, the intersection between marketing and sales. So they really need to have a foot in each world, and they need to have a say in it. So they should be communicating with their marketing department and telling them what's working, what's not, that sort of thing so that it can continually be refined.

Kevin Weitzel: Did you seriously just say it takes this a loaded question by the way, but it takes four to five clicks [00:26:00] to find somebody's floor plan. That's insane. As the way he builds and sells floor plans, it drives me absolutely nuts. When a home builder pays good money to have this technology put out, engaging, engaging product on their website, and yet they play a game of where's Waldo with their content. It drives me bonkers. 

Leah Fellows: I agree. And I mean, I know there's some schools of thought. I think people need to get into the communities first to then see the floor plans for that community, but it still can take you a while to get there. And so there's gotta be a way. To to be, because honestly, I want to see how I'm going to live in a home and the, and that's how most people are.

And I can say that not only am I an online sales counselor, but I've moved seven times in the last 14 years. So I've bought houses, my husband and I have bought houses, and one of the things I'm always doing is I'm trying to figure out, will my furniture fit in that house if I buy it? You know? And so I want to [00:27:00] see the layout.

I want to see the flow and how it figures. So I think, and I'm not the only one that thinks floor plans are important, but I think floorplans are very important, you know? And how, how, how to see that. So they should be near the float floated near the top and not take so long to get to. 

Greg Bray: Yeah. So, so Kevin, if I understand you correctly if we want to get a rise out of you, we gotta, we've got to have how many clicks to get a little floorplan 

Kevin Weitzel: two to three and three is the absolute max if it goes past that.

You need to figure out something that you are doing absolutely wrong. Well, you wouldn't put a door on the side of your house behind the fence that your neighbors can't get to to say hello. Why would you do that with your interactive floor plans?

Leah Fellows: Yeah. I think especially now, especially with people kind of being stuck in their homes, you know, they're going to want to spend time finding stuff. You want to make it easy for them to find stuff, people abandon it. If it takes me too long to figure out a website, I'm going to go find another website. That makes better sense. 

Kevin Weitzel: Well, just like people expect the technology [00:28:00] now, they expect it. You know, when you go buy a car, if BMW has this interactive platform, you can play with it, see what your car's going to look like with different paint shop and accessories and stuff versus somebody else. Let's say you go to Mercedes and not saying Mercedes is like this, but where the, uh, it's just a leaflet sheet.

They hand you that says, Hey, here's the list options you can have. That's horrible. So when it comes to online sales counselors. I personally believe that that instantaneous response is expected, especially by the 40 and under crowd. I truly do believe that, and I think that you know, what you do is fantastic. So sign me up. If I start building homes, I need, I need your services. 

Leah Fellows: Yeah. I mean, it really is important. And I think, you know, there's. It's funny, just like, I remember a year or two ago talking to a builder and they're like, I know this whole online sales counselor thing is fairly new. And I'm like, Oh, I've been doing it for a long time now.

So it's, you know, over a decade. It's not that new anymore. Um, but I think that [00:29:00] people still don't always know the right way to implement it. And they think they, they, they think they can me. Cause there's maybe a lot of. You can read a blog, you can Google it, you can read a blog, you can see YouTube videos and stuff like that.

But I feel there's really an important part of creating an ongoing support while you're getting something ramped up. Like if you've ever tried to create a good habit, they say what it takes like. 30 days or 21 to 30 days. But you really need six months of repetition, six months of repetition, teaching you to stay on track for something, for stuff to really stick, you know?

And even the 30-day quick start that I do when I first start out with online sales counselors, again, it's that whole like drinking water from a fire hose, cause they get so much information in that first 30 days. And then when we review it over the ongoing. Um, you know, coaching and consulting, I like, Oh, I didn't remember you saying that.

I'm like, all right there. You know? [00:30:00] 

 Greg Bray: so Leah, what, what are some of those resources though? If, if I'm looking for places, I'm an online sales counselor, I want to get better at my job. You know, what, where can I go to kind of learn more or to get tips. 

Leah Fellows: Well, you know, I think like there's, well, one of the things I'm actually going to be doing, I am hoping, knock on wood, that in October people are going to be moving around again.

And um, I am actually hosting a two-day online sales counselor retreat here in Denver in October. And that's an invitation to online sales counselors, whether they're new or they've been doing it for a while and want more information where they can come. And they can learn for two days on really how to do their job.

And the cool thing about it is it's not just two days. Like I said, I know you can't form a habit in two days, and you often come away from these seminars going, Oh my God, this is so exciting, you know, and I'm going to do it all. And then as soon as you get home, you never [00:31:00] open the book again. So there is going to be three months of support after that.

Of ongoing training that comes along with that two-day retreat, which I'm really excited. It's the first time I'm offering this and I'm really excited about doing that. Um, as far as other resources out there, I always think that. That builders are doing a disservice to their online sales counselors by not inviting them to things like IBS.

PCBC um, you know, all the big shows, the one down in Florida, I'm going to be speaking in Florida if everything comes together in July for SCBC, um, on online sales. And I just think, you know. Those are great resources. Myself and, uh, Carol Morgan and Kimberly Mackey and Kelly Zuccarelli have been putting together webinars right now.

Um, and we're really sharing a lot. That's helpful. Towards. Online sales counselors and for them to [00:32:00] learn more about online sales, marketing, and the whole, the whole structure. So those are just some of the resources I can think of off the top of my head. I mean, there's some great stuff out there. There's lots of marketing companies that put great stuff out.

Like. Yeah, I'm sure you probably have some stuff on your website about it. 

Greg Bray: Well, thank thanks so much. You know, we're, we're getting little short on time, by the way. I'm going to be at SCBC too, so we'll have to get lunch or something. So, so assuming again that the world is normal again by July, it better be.

So, um, so, so Leah, I just want to say one of my big takeaways from our conversation today that's just kind of in my head is that if I'm a builder. VP of marketing, and I am not including the online sales counselor in my kind of inner circle of feedback. It seems like there's a, there's a big miss there because we're so often we're trying to figure out, well, how do people travel the website?

Where are they getting stuck? What's going on? And this sounds like the OSC would be an amazing resource to give [00:33:00] us that kind of data and that kind of feedback. It just how to make it better. And I'm not sure that we're always asking them for that feedback. 

Leah Fellows: No, they work in a bubble. And what are the other things I'd like to do after this whole two-day retreat for, for OSCs themselves, I'd really like to do leadership retreats for leadership to train them how they can get the best out of their online sales counselors because I think so often once they set up the program, they just let them go.

And they work in a bubble, the online sales counselor, and no one engages with them that much within the company, even though they're part of the company and they're just not always, like you said, look to you for real strong advice. I know I felt that way when I was just enough. And I don't want to say just an OSC, but when I was in OSC, nobody wanted to listen to me. Now that I'm consultant, they listen to me cause they're paying me money for that advice. Right. So. 

Greg Bray: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. I know we're, we're short here. If someone goes to want to learn more [00:34:00] about you or connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch? 

Leah Fellows: They can go to my Blue Gypsy Inc. Website, which is Blue Gypsy Inc com and there's, I have, and I have to update it, but I have, you can get a free consultation from me easily.

I give way, way more free information than probably most people. I'm more than happy to talk to anybody for. For an hour for it says a half-hour, but it may turn into an hour. And, um, and just kinda to give some advice and look at how the way forward is. And you can see my Blue Gypsy in Facebook is I, I'm on there and on, on LinkedIn. So all of those are ways to find me. 

Kevin Weitzel: I've actually heard firsthand from not one but two different home builders that you are extremely generous with your time. One of the builders said quite possibly to a fault. that is a big compliment in my opinion. 

Leah Fellows: Yeah. I have one builder wait until our contract was up and when we were talking at the end, he said, just so you [00:35:00] know, we think you don't charge enough.

But I'm like, ah, well, you know, I don't, my goal isn't to make money off of everyone. I mean, I love money. Of course, we all love to make money, but my goal is more to be that help, to be that, to really help a builder. Improve their lead capture and compete, especially, I work mostly with local and regional builders.

And when I say small builders, I mean, um, builders that are like 50, a hundred, 200, 300, you know, they're not, uh, they're not nationally present. And so sometimes they need to compete against those national budgets. And so I really pride myself on helping people get ahead and it's not, it's definitely not about the money for me.

Kevin Weitzel: I personally think you are absolutely fantastic and it would be an honor if you would come back and join us for a session two sometime in the near future. We'd love to have you back. 

Leah Fellows: Oh, I would love to, I love talking with you guys. So anytime. 

Greg Bray: Yeah, this has this been greatly, Leah, you've, you've [00:36:00] offered a lot of value, a lot of things for people to think about and chew on and, and, you know, anything we can do to help people generate more leads, um, is an OSC, is a, is a critical piece of that. So thank you so much for your time today. 

Leah Fellows: Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot. Stay healthy. 

Kevin Weitzel: And it's Blue Gypsy.com right 

Leah Fellows: now, Blue Gypsy Inc, Inc. I would say it's I N C as an incorporated, not I N K as in tattoos because Blue Gypsy could be a great tattoo parlor too. So it's Blue Gypsy Inc,  dot com. So yeah, pretty, pretty easy to find.

Like I said, if you look me up on LinkedIn or Facebook, you can find it on Facebook, 

Greg Bray: All right. Well, thanks, Leah. 

Leah Fellows: No Problem

Greg Bray: All right, everybody, thank you so much for being with us. I'm Greg Bray from Blue Tangerine, 

Kevin Weitzel: and I'm Kevin Weitzel, from Outhouse 

Greg Bray: and we'll see you next time.