Be sure to stop over and check out the new podcast of an interview I did with Jerry Rouleau at BuilderRadio.com

Why Salespeople Hate Internet Leads!
Most salespeople would rather take a sharp stick in the eye than follow up on Internet and website leads. However, 30% of your sales can be from online shoppers. Learn how to sell them…

Click Here to listen Now

I am heading back to the state of my birth (I was actually born in Tucson, AZ)

I will be presenting at the Southwest Builders Show Arizona’s largest show for builders and building industry suppliers in the Southwest region. Sponsored by the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona (HBACA).

SESSION 1: CONVERTING INTERNET BROWSERS INTO BUYERS with MIKE LYON

When: October 30 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Where: Phoenix Convention Center |  Rooms 166 - 167

About The Show:

The HBACA is committed to making sure the Southwest Builders Show is not only Arizona’s best showcase of products and services relating to the homebuilding industry but also an educational experience for all those who attend. Each session is guaranteed to be packed with information that you can use now to improve your business. Our Educational Sessions offered at past shows have covered various topics such as safety, design trends, sales tips, green building, construction standards and much more.  This year our focus is how to help you sell more homes so you can get back in the game! We know you won’t want to miss these great seminars!

This annual show offers

• Cutting edge educational seminars
• The largest exhibit floor in Arizona displaying the products your buyers want to have in their homes
• Special events geared specifically for the building industry

Your competition is sure to be at the Southwest Builders Show. Make sure you are too! Registration opens August 4, 2008

The Show will be held October 30, 2008 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. And what a great show it is going to be… due to last year’s success, they have expanded the show floor to add more booths. That means more exciting products and services will be on display than ever before! 

We’ve had a busy few days. Our 2nd son, Nathan Keener Lyon, was born July 10th at 3:17 p.m. Even though mom was a week and a half late, they both performed beautifully with our second natural childbirth!

He looks just like his mom!

There is a new formula for builders. Let’s look at some of the latest numbers:

84% - The percentage of your homebuyers who use the internet to research new homes
12.1 Weeks - The average time it takes for Internet buyers to purchase a home - double the amount from 2006
94% - The percentage of Internet buyers who expect a response in 4 Hours or Less
64% - The percentage of New Home Sales Executives who DO NOT FOLLOW UP with qualified buyers
$4.00 - The average price for a gallon of gas

All these numbers add up to a Huge Opportunity!

The home buyer pool has become very shallow and competition has increased for their business. Now, more than any other time in history, buyers are using the web to research their choices. Savvy buyers are being very strategic - narrowing down their choices of homes and communities - disqualifying as they go - using the Internet as their power tool to gather information. They are shopping almost twice as long before their first appointment to a model home. Throw into the mix current fuel costs, at $4 per gallon, families aren’t jumping in the Suburban for a leisurely drive from one new home community to the next.

As builders work their way through “the dip“, it is critical to invest in online marketing and take the time to set up a process to manage the leads they receive.

Potential customers are craving better on-demand information. They expect top notch customer service while they are shopping. The builder who shows them this courtesy in the beginning will come out ahead in the end.

Home builder marketing dollars and mindsets will need to shift to this shopping phase to capture the buyer sooner - instead of waiting for the “walk in”. It makes sense to go where the buyers are, and right now they are online, trying to determine if you are the right fit.

It was another home run seminar in Orlando. Myers is always on point with relative information and tools you can use to immediately increase business.

On the first day, I presented along with Tom Nelson of NDG Communications. We covered how to set up a successful online marketing and sales program.

It was a fantastic audience and some of the smartest people in the industry. I was able to rub shoulders with the best. I’ll see everyone next year!

I am extremely excited to announce that Browsers to Buyers will now be carried by Builder Books, the publishing arm of the NAHB. I would like to thank Torrie and Jackie for the opportunity and all of their hard work!

I applaud Builder Online for their up-to-the-minute news and great articles. They have done an excellent job getting useful information to the masses quickly. Here are a couple of great stories to check out:

Oklahoma HBA Launches Marketing Campaign
Builders use video, blogs, and more to emphasize local market’s health and counter negative national housing headlines. (Yep - that’s my market!)

Need Better Follow-Up?
After report reveals Denver builders’ failure to capitalize on leads, pros stress basics such as phone calls and handwritten thank-yous.(read more info on this study here>>)

AdMission Partners with BHI to Provide Online Rich Media Display Ads for U.S. Home Builders

Some pretty cool stuff from Builder Homesite (NewHomeSource) and AdMission.

They have developed a way display multiple properties dynamically through banner ads. Basically, you create an ad template - then it pulls the latest details of the homes you have for sale. On top of all the technical footwork, they are getting better results! Check out the claims from users:

Early AdMission ad campaign participants experienced ad click-through performance that was more than double that of standard display advertising run concurrently on the site.

“Pulte Homes’ Orlando division began running the AdMission banner ads on NewHomeSource.com a couple of months ago, and we are also running four other promotional banner ads at the same time,” said Kristin Vuckovic, marketing manager for Pulte Homes’ Orlando division. “We get a very good click-through rate with our creative on NewHomeSource.com, but we were thrilled to find a click-through rate that is four times better as a result of using the AdMission style of ads.”

Want to see the “AdMission style” of ads in action? Click Here>> to view multiple banner ads displayed. Pretty sweet stuff! Be sure to view the KB Homes ad.

"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much" Luke 16:10a

Builders - if we can’t be trusted with the traffic we have now, how can we be expected to handle it when it comes back?

Take a look at this at this new whitepaper just released by Red Tree Resultants and Qgenisys. They conducted actual on-site evaluations acting as motivated prospects to learn if there would be adequate follow up on the visit to try to persuade the prospect to become a purchaser and what builders and developers can do to improve their market share. What they found out:

• Despite spending millions of dollars to attract them…In only 36% of the visits did an agent bother to follow up with the prospect who visited the community and expressed immediate purchase interest.
• In only 14% of the cases did agents follow up with personalized information about the community that reflected anything they discussed with the prospect.
• Builder agents from the higher-priced homes/communities actually followed the prospect more aggressively than did the lower-priced homes/communities.
• Of all homes visited during our research, unless a prospect followed up with the builder, nearly 60% of all prospective sales would have been lost due to lack of follow up by the builder or the builder’s representative
• We estimate that up to 75% of builders’ emails, both from sales reps and marketing teams were caught by our researchers’ spam filters.

Their findings clearly show that after spending all those marketing dollars to get potential buyers into their homes, motivated buyers were largely ignored and received almost no relevant follow up from the builder’s site agent. On-site builder agents allowed prospects to walk out the door, but also allowed them to slip through their fingers with little relevant follow up…or in many cases ANY follow up after the visit.

The Conclusion - Builders who implement the changes we have recommended here will be better positioned than those that do not to take advantage of the inevitable turn around that will eventually come in the housing market.

Thanks to Brendan and his team for the timely and powerful info.

Download the White Paper >>

Contact:
Red Tree Marketing Resultants
Brendan Miller
(303) 741-2369
www.redtreeresults.com

I’ve had plenty of sales associates (even a sales manager) tell me, “I do better selling face-to-face, it’s hard for me to connect with people over the phone or by email.” The problem is that customers aren’t shopping face-to-face, they’re shopping online, and the primary forms of communication during the “shopping phase” are email and phone. It is critical you become great at communicating by email and especially over the phone.

It is amazing what happens when you record and listen to your phone calls. Once you get over the initial shock of how weird your own voice sounds, you can start to dissect the conversation and pinpoint ways to improve your delivery.

The first step, of course, is to take the time to record yourself talking with a customer. Ask others whom you trust to analyze it with you to constantly improve your methods. Also, be sure to record every message you leave. You will hone your phone skills as you do this. Remember, most messages are relayed through non-verbal communication, such as facial expressions, posture, etc, when you speak on the phone, you are relying solely on your verbal communication. It is imperative that you are not focusing on what you should say next but how you will say it. The way you can overcome this is by memorizing proven scripts that will help you speak effectively on the phone.

In addition to memorizing and utilizing scripts, here are some excellent tips that lead to better phone communication:

• Maintain good posture.
• Smile when you talk – it comes through on the phone.
• Slow down your speech.
• Listen to the customer – do not interrupt.
• Ask multiple and engaging questions.
• Prepare in advance.

Sales managers - if you are worried about your staff not recording their calls - do it for them. Use a service like Callsource or Whoscalling to record, track answer rates and use the results for training.