Elvis said TCB. Jen makes it OPT.
Jen Barkan and fellow DYC Online Sales Coach Melissa Fort take on the most misunderstood business relationship in new home sales: OSCs and Realtors. Packed with straight talk, roleplays, and real-life coaching moments, this episode helps online sales pros show up with clarity, confidence, and that signature lightning-bolt energy.
Jen redefines the King of Rock and Roll’s TCB (Taking Care of Business) as Teach, Connect, Business, offering a smarter way to serve realtors while keeping control of the conversation. From what to say, when to say it, and to how to collect buyer info without the awkward pause, this one’s full of sharp lines and sharper strategies.
🎧 Listen in and start treating realtors the way Elvis would: with purpose, presence, and a little swagger.
- Monica Fikany - Embracing AI in her role at New Home Inc.
Can you answer each of these for realtors?
- Why buy new vs. used
- Why the appointment matters
- Why OSCs need the buyer’s info
- Why buy my builder
- Why they go in the CRM, too
Jen
man, it is two days before July 4th when we're recording this. Do you have any fun plans for the 4th of July, Melissa?
Melissa Fort
I do, I am actually in Florida visiting family. And so we're near the Destin area. So we're gonna be doing the whole crab island, go out on the boat. At Crab Island, have you ever been down there to that area of Florida before? Okay, so you like take your boat out. It's all like waste deep water. It's not really an island. It's like an area of water. But anyways, they have boats that will like deliver boiled peanuts to you. They have like floating tiki bars.
Jen
that's fun.
No, I have not.
Melissa Fort
And I even saw a couple of weeks ago Chick-fil-A had a boat out there selling sandwiches while people are partying in the water. anyway, it should be fun. Yeah, I'm going out with a bunch of my cousins and family, so I'm excited.
Jen
What?
Jen
Stop.
Jen
that sounds like my kind of fun.
Jen
that's so fun. my gosh. You know, I've never been to that part of Florida. I've always like traveled to the to the east side on the Atlantic side. I've never been to the Gulf side, but that sounds like I'm going to need to go there. Now, while we are going to so our son Sam officially moved down to South Carolina, we have not been to visit him yet. So.
Melissa Fort
Yeah.
Melissa Fort
I know, I hope the weather cooperates. What about you, Jen? What are you up to?
Jen
We're gonna go this weekend, we're gonna visit with him, we're gonna go try to venture to the beach. I don't know, I feel like Myrtle Beach probably gonna be crazy for 4th of July if I had to guess. So I'm like, Sam, check with the locals, see where the place to go is outside of the craziness. So yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Now, will you try to seek out fireworks? Are you a fireworks girl or?
Melissa Fort
Yeah.
Melissa Fort
I do, I love it. And like maybe we'll both get to see fireworks over the water. That's the best to me. I love it.
Jen
Yes, yes, yes, same. All right, well let's do this thing, Melissa.
OK, welcome to episode 41. I am joined today with my cohort, Melissa Fort, online sales coach extraordinaire. What up?
Melissa Fort
I know, I'm so excited. We're gonna have some fun stuff planned today.
Jen
Yeah, we're going to have some fun. This is good. We had to actually move our recording from yesterday to today because I had a vet emergency situation. Imagine that, right? With four dogs, there's always something. Pupp is okay, pretty much. on antibiotic, but she's good. Of course this happens right before I'm going out of town. So you know how that goes.
Melissa Fort
Is the pup okay? All is well.
Melissa Fort
Of course.
Jen
First, before we get into what we're gonna talk about today, we've gotta do our Tito shout out, speaking of pups, but Tito in this regard stands for top industry talented OSC. And so today's Tito shout out goes to Monica Fickeney. Sorry Monica, if I totally screwed up your last name. She's an online sales specialist with New Home Inc. out in the North Carolina area.
And she's, we've taken note of her efforts lately, because she's really been embracing AI as an online sales specialist. And, you know, we've really been talking about that a lot lately and how we can leverage some tools to not replace us, but to help us do our jobs better. And so, Melissa, you can speak a little bit on this because you've been working with her.
Melissa Fort
Yeah, so we're gonna be doing a little AI focus group we're working on, figuring out how we can best support OSCs with AI, not to be afraid of it, to embrace it and use it. so both in CallRail and HubSpot, Monica has got some pretty cool stuff. She was showing me a little bit under the hood yesterday on our call. So I just love that both her and her leadership team are looking for ways to incorporate it into making a better
Jen
Nice.
Melissa Fort
customer experience and then also making their jobs easier. So I love that she's open-minded, willing to try it.
Jen
Nice, I love it.
Way to be proactive, Monica. We see you out there, good job. All right, what are online people talking about right now? They are talking about realtors. I feel like a lot of the coaching calls and training calls that I've been on lately, I'm hearing like, hey, we're having challenges with realtors, how to navigate those conversations. Melissa, what are you hearing on the front lines in your meetings?
Melissa Fort
Yeah, definitely. I feel like that's one of the number one topics, and incentives, but realtors just keep coming up. It's like part of the healthy ecosystem of online sales and new home sales. Gotta have realtors and realtors gotta have builders. So it's about trying to help teams figure out how to make that work.
Jen
Yeah, how to navigate that. I remember, and I'll ask you this too, Melissa, when you were in the seat as an OSC, I know that my background was real estate. I had a license and that was the world that I came from. But I can remember as an OSC, even though I was a realtor myself, it was intimidating to have some of those conversations. I remember feeling like they were...
dismissive of me and my role, trying to go around me. Definitely like, let's get to business, like not a lot of fluff. And I can remember those conversations being a little trickier or a little harder. What about you? What was your experience?
Melissa Fort
Yeah, definitely. then also too, just, I feel like the realtors are less knowledgeable about what their customers want. And so then they're frustrated that we can't just give them what they need to. So yeah, definitely a different conversation to navigate than having a direct customer on the line.
Jen
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jen
Yeah. Well, we got you online sales specialist. We're going to kind of talk through some of these things and give you some pro tips on how to navigate that. But first, let's talk about the facts and some things that you need to keep in mind. The reality is that most realtors, it's getting better, but most realtors still don't really understand what the role of the online sales specialist is. I remember, you know, polling some of my friends and they even knew what I
what I do for a living as far as coaching online sales specialists. And I'm like, do you know what that means? And they're like, I mean, the person at the builder's office that answers questions when I call in and I'm like, yeah, no, not really. So they don't really have an understanding exactly of what of what your role is. Also, you know, post NAR settlement, you know, there's some things that we have to keep in mind, you know,
since that settlement, buyers, know, realtors have to have that buyer agency agreement in place, right, before they can show homes. They were always supposed to have that, but now it's more of an enforceable rule, a law, right, that went into place. OSCs, you no longer have to protect the realtor in the same way, right, that we used to.
We used to talk about procuring cause and like, definitely we got you covered, we got you protected. Your commission is protected with us. We're going to pay you all these things. And we used to kind of really dance around those conversations. The reality is that we don't have to do that anymore because if they have that buyer agency agreement in place, then they are protected by their buyer.
right, which is how it really should go. And then the other thing is just that, you know, from a builder standpoint, the commission structure has changed. You know, it's really not just the one size fits all. That was the issue before, right? And that's been done away with. And so if we know those things, right, those are the reality, those are the facts we have to that should empower us to go, OK, how do we navigate these conversations a little better? And Melissa, I'm an Elvis fan.
Jen
I don't if you knew that about me. My sister and I took my 80 year old dad to Graceland for the first time a couple years ago. when you walk in, he has this one room in Graceland that is like TCB. That was his logo, like TCB, all of everything with a lightning bolt. And in Elvis world, that's taking care of business.
Melissa Fort
Fun fact.
Jen
But in online sales world, I like to say that we're gonna teach, connect, and treat our realtors like a business. Do you approve of that analogy, Melissa? Yeah, we gotta take care of our business. We gotta teach, connect, and treat our realtors like a business. So let's talk, Melissa, what are we teaching realtors? I think the first thing is talk a little bit about...
Melissa Fort
Yeah, no, I love that.
Jen
You know, why buy new? Like, why should a realtor show new construction over used homes? What's the benefit to them?
Melissa Fort
Yeah, and think this is something OSCs are good about talking through on the consumer side, but it's a little bit different on the realtor side. So it's not just the actual, you know, physical benefits of a new home. It's the process and how much easier it is for realtors. And so, I mean, as if I was a realtor, I would love to go and sell new homes. Like I don't have to go out and meet the inspectors 20 times. I don't have to worry about what's going to show up on those inspections, crashing the deal at the last minute.
Jen
Seriously.
Melissa Fort
You know, the salesperson on the builder side is doing all the heavy lifting. So as a realtor, I mean, I don't know, I feel like new homes sound like an easy button.
Jen
Right.
Jen
Exactly. I mean, I've done a few used home transactions in my life and the process is definitely a much longer process for that real estate agent. They have to write the contract, they have to do all the things, whereas new construction, I mean, we do everything for them, right? So they can actually sell four times as many new homes that they can used homes. So just understanding that and being able to talk through that is really cool.
Why, you know, I think it's important for online sales to be able to talk about like how your builder is different from other builders. Like what is your unique builder story? Melissa, you just said it a minute ago, incentives. I mean, we're hearing right. Both realtors and customers are shopping around. Four incentives, right? Like, yeah. Exactly.
Melissa Fort
Yep, that's the lead off question. What are your incentives? Before, what homes do you have? What do you got? Show me the money.
Jen
Right. This builder over here is doing this. What are you guys doing? And the reality is that, I mean, most builders have incentives like that is not a unique selling proposition, really, because everybody for the most part. Right. Not anymore. Everybody for the most part has one. And so what is unique about your builder? What's your builder story?
Melissa Fort
Not anymore.
Jen
You know, really thinking through that, coming up with a talk track that you can have at your fingertips to be able to share that I think is important. What about Melissa explaining to a realtor why they should work with an OSC? What are your thoughts?
Melissa Fort
Yeah, I think that's the important part is like slowing them down and building a little bit of brand loyalty with some realtors. And if they can see that you're gonna be an asset and a benefit to them and make them look good to their clients and make sure that they're not wasting their time or their clients times going to the wrong communities, helping them do some of that legwork ahead of time. It's just making them look better. So.
if you can really take the time to just not be just transactional, because a lot of times they call like, hey, I'm looking at 123 Main Street, can you get me a showing? And it's like slowing them down and helping walk through that process. It's such a huge benefit. And I think it'll speak for itself. I know when I was in online sales, I had a couple of realtors who when they had clients coming and stuff, that's the first thing they would do is call and be like, hey, what do you have? What's coming up? And so I think that
being that kind of trusted advisor to realtors is really how you form those relationships.
Jen
Yeah, a couple things you said I think are really crucial. It is more transactional with realtors because it is business to business, right? Like you have homes, they have a buyer, like let's connect, let's work out, let's work on this together, right? It can feel more transactional, but I like what you said as far as slowing down. If you have 10 to 15 realtors that...
are really great to work with. It's like, hey, put my number in your phone. If you have a buyer, let's work on this together. Give me a call. I've got all of the up-to-date information before it even hits MLS. You guys have to be able to say that. Why work with you? The other thing that you said, Melissa, that I just want to pull out is that the key words of time, we can save you time, we can save you money.
We can be that asset, that value to you. can help your buyer. We can do everything for you. I think making it just like super easy and efficient, right? Like, like you don't need to go anywhere else. You come to me and I will direct you to what we have available and what's gonna be the best fit for you and your, for your buyer. So being able to explain that is really important. So you mentioned showing time.
I think talking about why the appointment versus just a showing time situation. So what are your thoughts on that?
Melissa Fort
Yeah, and I think sometimes too, realtors are calling and they've seen a listing on an MLS or another third party site and they don't even understand that it's not a completed home just sitting there. And so again, it's that, let me save you time and make you look good that we know that the home that you're wanting to see is ready to see, able to see, and let's go through and get the information. Again, I think some of the insecurity or guardedness from realtors is,
wanting to protect that relationship with their client. And so if you can help set them up and then they look like a rock star when they walk up and they have the information on the home, they look good and then the salesperson can be there just to support them in that transaction. We listened to a call recently where a realtor got really heated because she drove out to a community and there was no one out there. I feel like that is the why appointment.
Jen
Yeah.
Jen
Yeah.
Melissa Fort
to save those situations from happening. She was so mad. She'd been doing it for 25 years,
Jen
She was mad. She was mad. Yeah. Hey. Yeah. She's, you know, seasoned 25 years in the industry. She's never, you know, heard of nobody being out at the model, you know, just waiting there for her to come out. And so, you know, I like what Melissa is saying here, you know, having a dialogue of, hey,
Melissa Fort
Ha ha.
Jen
You know that your buyer is gonna have 75 questions when they see this home. So instead of doing showing time, let's go ahead and set up a designated time where you can come out, all of your questions, all of your buyer's questions can be answered. You're gonna look like a superstar because you've arranged all of this and you have all that information ready for them. So let's go ahead and get that designated time set up.
versus you go out for showing time, they're gonna have questions and you're not gonna know the answers. And then we've just wasted, we've just wasted time. So online sales, you gotta be confident. Yeah, you gotta be confident in saying that, right? Don't fold like a deck of cards, be confident. Okay. Now here's a big one, cause this is, hear this a lot. Why should a realtor provide,
Melissa Fort
And again, time is money. Yeah? Yeah.
Jen
their buyer's first and last name and contact information. Sometimes that gets a knee-jerk reaction of, no, I don't need to give you that, or you can deal directly with me. We have some online sales specialists that don't even ask it because they're afraid to even go there. But definitely, if you are listening to this, please make note. It is absolutely...
crucial and important that as you're talking with a realtor that you ask for that. You have got to say, like, hey, I'm happy to set up that appointment for you guys. I've got you in the system. Let me go ahead and get your customer, your buyers first and last name and email address. You've got to be asking that. Now, you might get some pushback, right, Melissa? So let's, you know what, let's just.
Let's just role play this. Okay, let's just role play this. We'll have a good role play. Okay, you be the realtor. Okay, I'll be the OSD. Okay, so, okay, Melissa, awesome. You have come to the right place. We can get you and your client set up at Happy Acres this Saturday at 11 a.m. We've got you in our system already. Now I just need to get your client's first and last name.
Melissa Fort
yeah, I love a good role play. Let's go.
Jen
to add them to your profile.
Melissa Fort
You know what, I don't think you need that. You can just communicate directly with me. You have my info.
Jen
Hey, no worries. We are absolutely going to communicate directly with you. This is just to make sure that they are connected with you in our profile in the CRM.
Melissa Fort
I don't know, I'm just not really comfortable giving you that information. don't know how they'd feel about that.
Jen
Hey Melissa, I sense you're a little hesitant. You have a buyer agency agreement in place though, right?
Melissa Fort
yeah, of course.
Jen
Okay, of course you do, you're a professional. Well then you have absolutely nothing to worry about, right? No need to feel uncomfortable on our end because you are protected.
Melissa Fort
well, okay, so you won't be reaching out to them?
Jen
No, absolutely not. We're going to be dealing directly with you. This is just to, know how, you know, sometimes, you know, if a buyer comes out or calls us, you know, their self, you know, we've got them documented as your client in our CRM.
Melissa Fort
Okay, sounds good, let's do this.
Jen
Okay, awesome. Now, sometimes, good job, Melissa. Now, sometimes, you know, if the realtor does continue, if you go through that and the realtor does continue to give you some pushback, are we going to argue, are we going to fight about it? Absolutely not, right? We're keeping the good juju, we're keeping the good juju flowing, right? We're going to throw up the peace sign.
Melissa Fort
Hahaha
Melissa Fort
We're going to keep the peace.
Jen
And we're gonna be like, okay, if you're worried about contact, us contacting them, just give me their first and last name. So at least I've got them documented in your profile that you're working with them. At a minimum, right? First and last name. This is also important for documenting your lead counts and things like that. Because the realtor might already be in your system and you're not accounting for that
appointment traffic, right? That they're bringing out that buyer. And so you really need to add that name in there so that you can account for that lead traffic, right? Any additional thoughts on that, Melissa, on anything that you've seen out there?
Melissa Fort
Yeah, no, I think that it's that reassurance. Maybe they have had a bad experience in the past. Like I said, it's usually born from a little bit of insecurity. just providing that reassurance that I think a good figure to have is like, hey, our builder, 82 % of our homes are sold with realtors. We value this relationship and building that trust. And it goes back again, too. If you have that pocket of realtors that you've built trust with, then it's a lot easier of a conversation.
But ultimately, the assumptive language is we're gonna need the information to write the contract, so we wanna make sure we have everything and that my onsite is prepared and ready for your customer. And so, yeah, just providing those reassurances and hopefully to more and more, like I said, I think more and more realtors are seeing the benefit of working with new home builders and are getting a little bit more accustomed to the process and what to expect and what's expected of them. And like I said,
Jen
Yeah.
Melissa Fort
especially now with those buyer agency agreements in place. I mean, there's really no risk for the realtor. They should be having those conversations with their clients of like, hey, I'm gonna be calling today and scheduling up some tours for you. And part of that process is gonna be providing your information to get those tours and getting that buy-in from their buyer. That's what a good professional realtor would be doing.
Jen
That's right.
Jen
Yeah, absolutely, I love that. A couple of other pro tips I was thinking about as Melissa was talking is, in most cases, you should plan on double confirming. From the realtors' perspective, okay, they are at the mercy of their buyer's schedule. So a lot of times when you're setting an appointment with a realtor, they're like, yeah, I think we can do Saturday at 11.
but that could change and it could because they, again, they're setting these appointments on behalf of their buyer. So you as the OSC, you guys really need to set the expectation. Like, okay, like I know things change and I know you're reliant on their schedule. I'm gonna be confirming with you the day before. My salesperson is gonna be reaching out to confirm the day of. If anything needs to change, please just shoot us a text, let us know.
We understand, right, that schedules change, but just so you know, I am having that designated time. This is not just a stop by. I'm having that designated time where my builder representative is gonna be there and ready to meet you and answer questions and go through this with you. that's our responsibility, right, in online sales to make sure we're doing a good job of setting those expectations. The other pro tip is realtors are leads too. Ooh.
I hear a lot of times where online sales, right, we're taking calls, like we're answering the phone and we're talking to realtors, but we're providing information, we're doing a good job of giving out that information, and then we're just like, okay, well, just call me back when you're ready. And we don't put that realtor in the CRM and we don't follow up. What are your thoughts on that?
Melissa Fort
up. Yeah.
Yeah, no, think, mean, again, that's kind of how you build those trust relationships is say what you're gonna do, do what you're gonna say, and like be different than the other experiences that the realtors have had that have like caused them to have that bias. know, if they, can, they can see that, like you said, it's a business to business. Like we're in the business together, you've got a client, we've got a home, like let's figure out how we can work together for that common goal.
Jen
Mm-hmm.
Jen
Yeah. In the case of incentives, know, when you have, this goes for customers calling in about incentives and realtors calling in about incentives. And like the first thing right out of their mouth is like, what are your incentives? One of the things that we encourage you to say is like, Hey, Melissa, you've come to the right place. We have incentives. But let's first talk about what your buyer is looking for, because you know, if we don't
you know, if Happy Acres isn't gonna be the right fit for them, the incentive doesn't really matter. So tell me a little bit about what your buyer's looking for, you know, what are their must haves, and give me a little bit of information, and then I, well, that'll help me navigate the choices for you best. And then we can talk about incentives after that. But I think that's important to like try to pivot the conversation instead of just like,
let me give you all the incentive information because it might not even, you might even have something that really works for them.
The other, well I don't know, do you have any other thoughts on that Melissa?
Melissa Fort
No, I mean, I think we've heard some good examples of that lately. And then when you take control of the conversation and slow it down like that, then the realtor will be helpful and give the information. And then what you're able to hand off to onsite is just so much more valuable. Like I said, again, making the realtor look good, making the customer feel more confident in that process. What a great experience for a customer to know that all these people are working in their favor.
and this is a curated experience for them. And like what a different experience than walking up, fumbling with a lock box, trying to figure out what's going on with this house, flipping through your papers. Like all that information is being served on a silver platter and what a great experience for the customer.
Jen
Yeah.
Jen
Okay, let me get your thoughts on this one, last one, and then we'll move on to skills check. Realtor calls in, OSC starts the conversation. The Realtor says, well, I don't really know much about this buyer. This buyer, I picked him up or they were assigned to me or I got him off Zillow and I haven't even met with them yet. I'm just doing some preliminary research for them. I don't know their budget. I don't know their...
wish list, I don't really know anything. My thought is it's absolutely 100 % okay for you, the OSC, to push back on that a little bit and say, okay, well, I know your time is valuable and have you had a chance to go to our website? All the information is on our website of where we're building, what we have available. I encourage you to look at that with your
client first, you know, in fact, when are you gonna be meeting with them? we're gonna be meeting with them tomorrow. Okay, great. Then would it be okay after you meet with them, I'll follow up with you, right, and then we can go from there. That way you have a better understanding of what they're looking for and you can review the website with them. What do you think about that?
Melissa Fort
Yeah, I think that's a good solution. I think that, you know, again, it is a better experience for the customer and for, you know, you don't want to just be sending people out to addresses. Like what value does that bring, you know? So making sure that it's the good fit, that's where I provide value.
Jen
Yeah.
Jen
Right. That's how I look at it too. Like, yeah.
Right, it's like I could blindly set these appointments, right? Like that's the easy button, right? I could blindly set these appointments, take up my onsite salesperson's time. But what would be best is if you put a pin in that, push back a little bit. And then also you could do, know, get the realtors contact information of course, put them in the CRM, make notes about what you talked about, even do a...
Melissa Fort
Yeah, just collect the money.
Jen
know, screen recording of your website just to show them like, hey, I just want to follow up with you so you have my contact information. Here's a quick screen recording showing you of where you can go to look at our QMIs and our builder story and all those things. I really look forward to working with you in the future. I'll check back in with you tomorrow after you've had a chance to meet with them. And you know, you can just have that template.
already prepared, just navigating your website, right? And then you send that as part of your initial follow-up. I think that would be super helpful and powerful and it really didn't take much for you to do, right? It wasn't that much skin off your back, yeah.
Melissa Fort
Exactly. Yeah, then you're educating. So next time maybe it'll be a smoother transaction altogether.
Jen
Yeah, exactly. And now they have your contact information. The other interesting thing, just as a side note, I mentioned at the beginning that I polled my friends and my realtor friends when I asked them, do you know what online sales specials do? And they were like, not really. The other thing I asked them, Melissa, was, hey, how do you like to be communicated with? If you had a builder that was going to send you information and
keep you up to date and in the know, would you like that? And they were like, yes, absolutely. And I said, okay, you say that, but you guys don't respond to email because you're dealing with digital pollution and all these things. And they said, yeah, for sure. They said the best way is send me the email and then send me a quick text that says, hey, check your email. I just sent you some information about.
the latest update at Happy Acres or whatever. So the email text combo, from what they tell me, works best with them, right? Chips and salsa. Okay. All right, so everybody's feeling better. And then just remember, confidence is contagious. So you've gotta, if this is a fear or an insecurity that you have,
Melissa Fort
since HOSTA.
Melissa Fort
Yes.
Jen
put together some little dialogues and you gotta practice. You gotta practice and you've gotta have them on your desk in front of you and the more that you flood yourself with that activity, the less fearful and the more confident that you will be. That's your motivational speech for today. In fact, let's talk about skills check because you gotta check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Melissa Fort
for you black yourself.
Jen
Melissa, here's my thoughts on this. First and foremost, you got to talk with leadership and make sure that you understand what your builders policy is regarding realtors, like what the commission is. Like just make sure that you're having that conversation because every builder is different. Like some builders, you know, have completely different policies. And so just make sure you're having those conversations.
And then, you know, develop those those dialogues around why buy new what were some of the other ones we talked about, Melissa.
Melissa Fort
why buy My Builder?
Jen
Yeah, why buy my builder? Why work with you? Yeah, why work with you? Why the appointment is important? And then, you know, why they need to give you that buyer's first and last name at a minimum. And obviously try to get the contact information. And you can phrase it like you're just, adding their information to the buyer, the realtors profile in your CRM.
Melissa Fort
Use me. Yeah.
Melissa Fort
Yes.
Jen
And make sure you're putting your realtors in your CRM because they are leads too. OK, man, this was fun. I get excited. I get excited. This is a passion, I think, because this is the world that I came from.
Melissa Fort
This was fun.
Melissa Fort
I know, I hope OSU's and Realtors listen to this. We're here to work with you. We're here to help.
Jen
Yes, realtors, yes, we want to hear what you have to say about this. Okay, last question, Melissa. Are you down with OPT?
Melissa Fort
Yeah, you know me. I won't sing this time.
Jen
Woo! All right. Happy summer, everybody.
Melissa Fort
Yes.
