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Jen 

Kevin, I am so excited and I, you are in the Online People Talking Studio. I know it's weird, it's your first time, but I was so excited to have you on today. One, because I wanted to tell you about my puppy yoga experience with Golden Retrievers.

Kevin Oakley 

Hey, where am I right now?

Kevin Oakley 

this.

Kevin Oakley 

Oh, that sounds, was this in Japan? Seems like something that would be happening in Japan.

Jen 

No, but I mean, you're a golden retriever fan, right? Okay, I've heard you say like your algorithm is you get golden retriever. Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

No, yeah. huh.

Kevin Oakley 

That's right. When I need to calm down a little bit at the end of my day, and Karla creeps on all the stuff that I like, Karla Tuten, our creative director, and she's like, you legit watch Golden Retriever videos. I go, yeah, I do.

Jen 

Well, I know that, so I was excited to tell you, Mia came home from school, she's here for a couple of weeks and she goes, mom, I signed us up for puppy yoga. And I was like, awesome. Like sounds like puppy therapy, really. And then she said, guess what? They just released the type of puppies that it's gonna be and it's gonna be golden retrievers. And I was like, my gosh. So we go on Sunday.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, tell me all about it.

Jen 

and it was really not about the yoga. It was about the puppies. And we just played with puppies. It was magical. Highly recommend.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

It's a problem. They're so cute that it's a problem. mean, that's when we have people come over to our house, we have to put Gracie away, not because she's annoying. was just like, they just come over to see the dog then. It's like, you get the dog later. You have to talk to us first and then we'll let the dog out.

Jen 

and they were sleeping a lot of the time and I was like, we need to wake them up. this. We need to wake them up but it was highly recommend any sort of puppy therapy. I think we should have puppies at the summit. I'm pretty sure Mike will tell me no but.

Kevin Oakley 

Ha

Kevin Oakley 

Whaaaa whaaaa

I will tell you no, because the PCBC did that the last time I was there. It was cool and a little weird. You're just like, again, it's the problem of paying attention. Like, what are we paying attention to? You wanna learn from the people talking at a PCBC, but there's 20 puppies in a white picket fence enclosure out there that you could just be hanging with. Not unless you're cuter than a golden retriever puppy.

Jen 

Ha

Jen 

Well.

Jen 

Yeah, nobody's getting any work done.

Jen 

Well, on that note, let's do this. Welcome to episode 44. I am so excited because with me is the one and only Kevin Oakley. What's your official managing partner at Do You Convert? Marketing genius. I'm lucky enough to call him my friend.

Kevin Oakley 

Alright.

Kevin Oakley 

Hahaha

Kevin Oakley 

That's enough, that's The lights in this studio are brighter. Is it because you're here or you're a more professional setup? I don't know, but it just... It's a lot, it's a lot.

Jen 

haha

Jen 

man.

Yeah, I know. I've had like five cups of coffee today. But I'm so excited. This is your first time on online people talking, right?

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, I was telling, I talked to Julie and Rachel beforehand and they're like, yeah, this is gonna be a big episode. I go first and last, first and last. I promise this will be so controversial. There'll be screaming, she'll throw things. She might hang up and kick me out of the call today, folks. We'll see what happens.

Jen 

no. no. no. no. Well, Kevin, before we get into it, there's a few housekeeping items that I wanna talk about while you're here. Yep, grab your broom. So we have our online sales and marketing summit coming up, October 7th.

Kevin Oakley 

Okay, I'll grab my broom.

Kevin Oakley 

I'm either churning butter or sweeping a broom, depends on... Yeah. That sounds fun.

Jen 

or stirring the pot. October 2nd and 3rd coming up. What are you most looking forward to? Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

Oh, at the summit, it is 100 % the chance to have a bubble of truth constructed. Like, the thing that drives me has always driven me because I was a builder for over 12 years. We'll talk about that a little bit here in a minute, is nothing makes me more driven than when I feel like people are either being lied to or misinformed or manipulated incorrectly.

And so what I love is the truth bubble, where we're gonna talk about everything in the detail that it needs to be talked about, and we're not gonna leave out all of the important metrics. Like, yeah, that's impressive, that's impressive, that's impressive, and you spend a million dollars to make it happen. Ooh, that's not as impressive. like, so much of the content now is filtered through this lens of it's just gotta be...

Jen 

Ouch.

Kevin Oakley 

the most impressive sounding thing possible. And a lot of the content in day two, at least on the marketing side is gonna be like, this is what it really looks like. This is what innovation, like the messy, ugly, roll up your sleeves, get into it actually looks like. And yeah, most of the people are having some success, but they're also gonna be talking about, so that's the thing that always gets me excited is, like, we just focus on what actually is?

Jen 

It's just real. It's just the real. It's the real truth, like you said, it's the it's the everybody they're talking about, the real things that are going on. And not only just here's the challenges, but here's the solutions. So.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, and that's why every year, usually before we break for lunch, someone will be like, I'm just so glad I was here to hear this, because I thought I was the only one going crazy, or I thought I was the only one out of the loop on this. felt like, and so every year, that's what we hear.

Jen 

Mm-hmm.

Jen 

Yeah. Yeah. Also, we do have a contest going on still, right? That, yes, if you listen to a market proof marketing podcast, which Kevin hosts, right? You would anyway. And or an online people talking podcast and you give it a review, you take a screenshot of that review, you send it over to Rachel at Do You Convert dot com? We'll put this in the show notes.

Kevin Oakley 

Ooh, contests.

Kevin Oakley 

Which you would anyway. Which you would anyway.

Jen 

By August 29th, you get entered to win a free ticket to the summit. And that's a big deal.

Kevin Oakley 

Ooh, yeah, that's a real value for sure, especially since registration closes soon and we're very excited and this better happen or I'm going to find a golden retriever puppy and put it in a corner to have rounds where we can actually converse and talk. that I'll...

Jen 

One thing Kevin and I agree on, round tables.

Kevin Oakley 

Round tables, best for discussion and conversation. And so the trade off of the round tables is that we can't fit quite as many people into the room as we did last year. you're gonna, like there will be people who will be wanting to get the free ticket just because that's the only ticket that they can get is to win this contest potentially.

Jen 

Yes, so go enter, easy peasy. Our Tito shout out today, top industry talented OSC goes to, drum roll Kevin, do you have, yes, drum roll.

Kevin Oakley 

yeah, I got a drum roll.

No, I don't. It's gone.

Jen 

Okay, Colleen.

Colleen Sagan with McGwin-Holmes. Colleen, I got a report from Molly Adams that said you were just crushing it on your phone skills. So much to the fact, Kevin, that Colleen was on a call with a potential buyer who was trying to give her the brush, was like, I can't really talk right now, I gotta go. And she was able to turn that around by not only getting them to go to an appointment, but it turned into a sale.

man.

Kevin Oakley 

And that's the stuff that makes marketers excited. I mean, I know you think we just care about clicks and unqualified leads that we throw your way, online salespeople, but no, we're all, like, the reason that it works at the end of the day, it only works when everyone is focused on sales.

Jen 

Yes.

Jen 

That's right. That's right. That's everybody. okay. So before Kevin, before we get into what online people are talking about right now, um, I'd like our listeners to get to know you a little bit because you know, they know Mike, right? They, they've, they know him in online sales land, but they don't really know who Kevin Oakley is really. So tell everybody a little bit about just kind of, you know, when you got into home building, what your

Kevin Oakley 

everyone.

That's awesome.

Jen 

home building story or industry story is in a nutshell.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, well first, Colleen, congratulations on winning the Tito. And if you email me at kevinatdukevert.com, I will send you an extra special prize. I don't know what you normally do or don't do, but you're gonna like this, Colleen, so get that. I started in home building in 2003, graduated with a computer graphic arts degree.

Jen 

Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. I love it.

Kevin Oakley 

and a minor in photography and ancient Egyptian history. And started working for Miranda Homes in September of 03. So that was my first job and it was to do really only two things, direct mail campaigns and the Sunday newspaper ad. Of which our budget, if I can recall this roughly, was 1.0

Jen 

So that was your first job out of college.

Kevin Oakley 

$3 million for the year. When I started with them, I think we were doing like 450 homes a year. ended up growing to just over like 803 at our high point, I wanna say in 05 or 06. But the newspaper was like 70 % of our budget.

Jen 

Wow.

Jen 

Yeah, I remember those days.

Kevin Oakley 

And so that was it. They're like, you have to make sure this is everything we need it to be. And so I got really good at designing maps because back then, MapQuest and like people had foldable maps. one of the most important aspects of the printed newspaper ad that might have cost between 10 and $15,000 to show up in the newspaper for one day. About a third of the ad would be a map with dots.

Jen 

Yeah, yep auto

Kevin Oakley 

and then a listing of all the different locations. we had, I don't know, 27 communities. And so they were like, we need a map and we don't have one. And it's due, you know, the artwork's due on Thursday. That was my job. And that was it.

Jen 

Wow. Fast forward to today at Do You Convert?

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah. Yeah. And in between there, there are a couple other stops, but I think the things that were really awesome about my time at Miranda was they were a huge company. Even back then, they didn't report numbers, didn't share financial information, but the head of sales nationally, corporate sales would tell me at lunches that I can talk about now. You know, I think the mafia is not going to wipe me out if I say this stuff, but

They were selling like 5,000 homes a year in Florida. I was in their Columbus, Ohio division and they were selling like incredible margins, like over 35 % margins. so Columbus was a smaller division of this big giant company. They're headquartered in Pittsburgh. So I got to know some of the corporate people, but we weren't in corporate. so we got to try and do a lot of things. And because I was just so curious,

If I don't learn something new every day, I'm sad. I have to learn something new every day to feel like the day was worth it. That's one of my criteria. And so I ended up, after a couple months, I'm like, I'm done with the ad on Tuesday. The artwork's not due until Thursday afternoon. What else goes on around here? And I would just try to help people ask questions. And my boss, about four or five months in, his name was Jim Bauer, my boss's boss. He was a regional president.

He said, hey, Rich Connie's coming in, our main development partner, and we're gonna talk about a new community that's gonna be coming up in the next two years. And I want you to sit in the corner, and if you say anything, I'll fire you. Don't say a word, because you shouldn't be in this room. But I really like you, I like your energy, I like the way that you're conducting yourself, and I wanna expose this to you, but you better not screw up this multi-million dollar deal with me by saying a single word.

Just listen. And so there were some great managers there, great people, but it was every company has a culture and the culture at that time, it seems like from talking to some people who work there that it's changed a lot. But when I was there, like we couldn't buy pens or pencils. It might have just been the local division that mandated this, I don't know, but we had to wait for like the HVAC contractor to donate pens.

Jen 

boy.

Kevin Oakley 

for the office, so everything, no, they were not in the budget. Everything was about saving costs and being as efficient as possible, and I think there's still some of that that's deep inside of me today because of where I started. But I did get this.

Jen 

pens and pencils weren't in your budget.

Jen 

Where does, well, where does it come from? Have you always been that type of person that's like, I gotta learn something new every day? Or the day isn't, I didn't, it's not fulfilled. Like, where does that come from?

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, this is gonna, well, I haven't spent enough time thinking about that. I'll have to come back to you. But my sense is, from what I remember, I was fresh out of school. And in school, you're learning a lot of facts and data and like, this is how the world should work. And then you get thrust into real life work. And I just constantly like, this isn't at all.

Jen 

huh.

Kevin Oakley 

Like nothing is like what they said it would be like in school. What the hell is this? Like it's kind of awesome and kind of terrifying how all this actually gets done. Like how do we, as a group of people in this office, make this happen? And so there was just a lot of like, is, I remember something as simple as I used to have to come in on Monday mornings. I would start to get in at like 5.45, 6 a.m. because I had to get all of the faxes.

Jen 

and school.

Kevin Oakley 

from all the different sales offices and manually tally the traffic numbers. And the reason I started doing it that early is because I needed to know. I would start getting a pit in my stomach.

Jen 

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jen 

Gosh, you're taking me back. You're taking me back. my gosh.

Kevin Oakley 

I would get a pit in my stomach when we weren't hitting our sales goals on about Sunday at like 2.30. I was just like, man, if we're not hitting our goals and I walk in and there's no traffic, I just don't even like, so there's just this part of me that would say like repeated stupidity or repeated things being harder than they should just doesn't make sense. There has to be, I think also growing up as being part of like

Jen 

Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

the Google generation when Google first kind of started gaining traction. It's still to this day actually, Jen, even in a world of AI. Like I was always the person pre-AI. Like people are arguing about something. I'm like, let's Google this. We can find out the answer everyone. Like who is the greatest objectively, who is the greatest golfer, whoever lived. We can just ask Google and at least get closer to the answer. And so I think I was like, I got to get an earlier.

so that I get this information as early as possible. And that's when I started realizing like, okay, the data is one thing. And then how I talk about the data and how prepared I am or not to talk about the data and already have potential solutions or like I had two hours before anyone else would get in the office to be like, happy acres is in big trouble based upon this report. I don't wanna just know the numbers. I wanna already have a plan of how we can.

Jen 

You just want to be ultra prepared, just like ultra prepared.

Jen 

A solution.

Kevin Oakley 

proactively try to get, because if I just show up and I say the numbers are bad and I don't have anything else, then Mark Demers was one of my favorite people ever to work for, but if you just walked in and was like, yeah, things suck, I mean, it was not a good conversation.

Jen 

What time do you start your day now? Like what is your typical work day at Do You Convert look like?

Kevin Oakley 

Well, this is gonna be interesting and for sake of time, we can't talk much about Heartland or NVR, that's fine too, but I just wanna emphasize that from 2003 to 2000 and probably 15 or 16, I would routinely work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. or later, Monday through Friday.

weekends whenever I was with a builder, it was like I'm probably visiting a model or we have an event or logistically I'm helping something somewhere. Going to different permitting meetings with municipalities with my boss at seven o'clock at night and hearings for HOAs and all that stuff. So before I tell you my schedule now, I just need to get the context of like, I was there, I've been there and when you play at different levels,

like depending on the culture and the size of the building you're working at, that's just the way it is. And you can't complain about it or cry about it. My typical schedule now is I try to get up and out of bed at 6 a.m. Now I don't have a commute anymore. I have like 18 steps to my office above my garage. We're from six to 730, it's all kids, school prep, checking in with people, just doing family life.

Jen 

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Oakley 

And then from 730, when the kids are basically done and out the door to 930, I read, I research things, I think about things, I still use a pen and paper or a stylus in my iPad and jot down notes. And it hit me when I was looking at this question, I started reading an hour a day in my chosen profession when Myers-Barnes first shared that concept with me in probably early 2004.

And now as I was thinking about what my normal schedule looks like, it hit me that like one hour a day would not cut it. This is part of the challenge, and I'm not trying to be egotistical when I say this, but between the number of builders that collectively we directly work with, then you add on the number of people who I'm just friendly with and I talk to, or who message me and I text them back, or get on calls in the evening, or whatever.

And then the sheer amount of ads that our team works with, and then the history. By definition, I conceptually see myself as like one of the best three people at what I do in North America. But the difference between staying there and getting there is...

is spending now on an average day, I spend about four hours a day in taking content from all different sources, either about economics, what's going on in the industry, what's going on with advertising generally, more broadly, what's going on with AI. And that's not talking to the people about it, that's just in taking like, just like.

Jen 

Right. Just for your brain, your curiosity, you wanting that to learn something, you're saying you make that a priority every day.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, because, yeah, and I'll go through my whole schedule and then I'll come back to this point, I think, because it'll make more sense. But so from 7.30 to 9.30, I'm reading emails, cleaning out my inbox from anything that I need to do, but mostly I'm reading, researching, taking in information, following loose trails of, this might be something, and seeing where it goes. From 9.30 to 5.00, it's nonstop calls, emails with builder partners, with industry partners, just nonstop. And then,

From five to about nine o'clock is family time again. And then from nine to 11, it's two more hours of essentially the same thing, researching, reading, thinking, outlining ideas. So four hours a day and to maintain...

Jen 

I don't see any Bravo, Bravo TV.

Kevin Oakley 

No, I'm the least interesting person in the world if you don't want to talk about like three different subjects and they're all related to housing or marketing in some way. Because I just, I just like I create golden retriever filters. have probably two dozen different filters from different platforms and news sources and things that I've set up for myself where there's just constantly things coming in. And if you want to stay at the top of your game, like I think you can get to you to get to the top of your game.

in your industry through years of hard work and learning things the hard way and just kind of grinding it out. But if you wanna stay at the top, then you have to be willing to find ways to put in, I would say at minimum two to three hours a day. A four might be an excessive amount from what I'm doing, but I'm trying to do it, economics alone, if you really wanted to keep up with what's going on with.

the stock market and macroeconomics and local economic stuff, it's just gonna take time to do that. But the cool part about that, Jen, is it's a little bit like beautiful mind in that I start seeing connections in places that other people typically wouldn't see connections. And so I'll give you a really silly example. I will research something that I'm gonna purchase for hours, because that's what I do.

And then my wife only sees like the 30 seconds in the store. And she's like, how the heck did you just buy that thing for $400 and think for 30 seconds about it? And I'm like, no, no, no, you didn't see the hours on YouTube, all the other stuff, you know, all the other research that I did around it to be informed in that. And that's where when people sometimes they'll get down on themselves. I even had people tell me like, I think I should just quit my job. I went to go visit a builder one time and the marketer was like,

Jen 

All the...

Kevin Oakley 

I think I just quit my job because I can't do what you're doing when my owner asked me the questions. Like he's asking you stuff, you were answering it like it was no big deal, no problem. And I wouldn't know where to start. And I was like, you've been doing this for three years. Like it's, that's just, you're putting too much on yourself in that sense. You're doing a great job.

Jen 

Well, just, know, one thing you're talking about here is, you I think that constant learning, you know, I think we can get in that place where we're like, like, I've been doing this job for five years. I know it like the back of my hand, like whatever, but there's always something that we could learn from another person, from, you know, a new tool tech wise, like don't get stuck in that place of like,

I'm a master of my trade because there's always something that we can be learning and reading and investigating.

Kevin Oakley 

Yep, and I'll just wrap up by my professional background. I started at Mirada, I was there from 03 to 2007, went to Heartland Homes in Pittsburgh, semi-custom builder, privately owned from 07 to 2013, I think, and then we were acquired by NVR. eventually I ran two home building divisions, had two different division presidents that reported to me. And...

then I came over to Do You Convert? So I think the other thing that happened, and we see this a lot, having repeated success in multiple different sales and marketing organizations or multiple different builders, you learn really quick, like, that thing that I worked over here doesn't work over here. And so that's where you start realizing, like, even though I've been doing this for a long time, I have to be open.

Jen 

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Oakley 

to the fact that some of these things still, I can still learn and I can still improve and or it just needs to change because culturally the company is different.

Jen 

Yeah. Side note, where were you in 2012?

Kevin Oakley 

2012, I was at Heartland. Yep. What? okay.

Jen 

Heartland, okay. That's where I first remember meeting you was October of 2012. We were at the Mike Lyon, Myers-Barnes, New Home University thing that they put on in Orlando. No, Orlando. And the only reason I remember you was because you were sitting in the front row and...

Kevin Oakley 

Kevin Oakley 

think it was in Virginia. Orlando, okay. Okay.

Kevin Oakley 

Mm-hmm.

Jen 

like every other point was like Kevin, like Mike was using you as an example or Myers was using you as an example or Kevin, blah, blah, blah. And then my colleague that was with me, Terry Gerhart, rest in peace, Terry. He was he had such a just a wildly passionate like marketing brain and he was picking your brain or whatever. And that's when I first met you. And then, of course, like

Kevin Oakley 

Hmm.

Jen 

when I came to Deconvert, obviously, you I knew he were. anyway, side note, 2012, that's what, 13 years ago? Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah.

I love it, I love it. Hey, little known fact, I don't think I've talked about this publicly anywhere. Did you know that in 2000, probably 2010, Myers-Barnes paid me for, well, he offered to pay me, I told him to give money to a charity, but he quote unquote kind of like bought the rights to the sales training process that I used to make when he would come in and do his onsite training.

I developed this kind of daily email check-in system with all the team and I pre-trained the managers and he was like, send me a copy of all that stuff because I want to repurpose it. That was, he's like, most builders don't ever like listen to what I do and make it stick.

Jen 

What?

Jen 

Interesting.

I probably sat in on that training.

Okay, speaking of beautiful brains, okay, while I have you, while I have your marketing brain, I've got some questions for you, a few things. All right, so current market, what do online sales specialists need to understand about the market, what's happening, leads, consumer sentiment, just in general?

Kevin Oakley 

All right, let's do it.

Kevin Oakley 

The market is not as bad as people think it is yet, and hopefully it won't get to that point, but it's not as good as people's 2021 plans were for 2025. What that means is that there's a lot of internal stress at builders that doesn't match necessarily with sometimes when I talk to CEOs or owners, the amount of stress that those people feel. And I want to explain the dynamics because it's always important to understand the incentives and the pressures of the people around you.

because otherwise you can internalize their stress as your stress. What I mean by that is still most builders have reasonable profit margins on the homes they're selling. They're not selling as many as they'd like to, but they're not losing money. And so that means that sales goals remain high because land takedown requirements are also there. But the owner is also saying at the end of the day, like I'm making a pretty good amount of money. And so there's this disconnect between

Jen 

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Oakley 

what owners are okay with from a volume standpoint, and what sales managers and sales people are okay with. And then that leads right back to our favorite people in the world in online sales.

Jen 

Yes.

Jen 

Yes, I, because I agree with you. That's what I'm hearing. Like.

Kevin Oakley 

And so you have to understand that, you have to understand that, but you don't have to agree with it or internalize it because here's what can happen. We all know that increased stress produces, like tension and stress are good to a point and then they degrade performance. And so the market reality is that none of the nearly hundred builders that we work directly with between online sales and marketing.

are hitting their sales goals because they found a secret way to get 20 to 30 % more leads than they did last year. Let me repeat that. None, zero. The builders who are still hitting or scratching at their sales goals are only the builders who have found ways to be more efficient throughout the rest of that sales and marketing funnel. Which means that you can't.

internalize their stress of we need more traffic, we need more leads as yours. Because no one's winning by getting more leads. And this also leads to the relationship between sales, online sales and marketing. Because if the marketer is getting the pressure, we try to teach them to kind of hold the gates or hold the door, whatever that, hold the door for Game of Thrones reference there, which is something I have seen. Is like...

Focus on lead quality first and then quantity second. But when everyone else around you demands it, the number of marketers I've talked to are like, Kevin, I don't think this is a good thing to do either, but I just have to give them the number they're saying. And I always tell them, like, let's just think ahead, because I've seen this, I don't know, hundreds of times. It's gonna give you two to four weeks of peace in your life, and then they're gonna turn back around and go, all those leads were crap. Give us good ones.

Jen 

This is a constant. This is constant. We need more leads. We need more leads. We need more leads. So, you know, in online sales, we talk about this, like that's not really in their control. Like what's, you know, their job is to observe and report what that lead quality is, what the return is on those leads and things like that. But all those variables that are happening, what their owner is relaying, what their marketer is feeling, what their sales is feeling.

Kevin Oakley 

Exactly.

Kevin Oakley 

Mm-hmm.

Jen 

From your perspective, what do you think is the most important thing that online sales can focus on right now in this market?

Kevin Oakley 

insanely personal follow-up. Insanely personal. I don't mean like you inserted their first name and you remember that they have a dog. That's not what I mean. What I mean is, and this is where we can start to disagree probably, if we know that a customer is interested in a certain community,

Jen 

Yes. This is the second thing we agree on.

Jen 

Right.

Right.

Kevin Oakley 

or we know that they are interested in a certain floor plan, or they've asked about certain options. Now with tools like HiArc or Focus 360 has tools, and Ugo has tools, like there's so many visualization tools and optionality tools. Making a bomb-bomb screen recording or a loom video showing them how you can personalize, like I see a lot of talking faces.

Jen 

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Oakley 

I see a lot of emotion trying to be conveyed, but you have to remember that the person is also really interested in the product and the community and the builder. And finding ways to incorporate the digital assets at your fingertips that you know how to use better than anyone, because you're on the website nonstop. Use that in front of the customer. And I even think onsite sales should be doing this where...

especially if you're a semi-custom or an on-your-lot builder, like why you wouldn't say, hey, I know you priced out this home with me 60 days ago. I just wanted to go ahead and I made three new packages of options. One that continues to prioritize the kitchen space, but saves some costs by removing other options. And I just wanted to show you these three packages that I put together and see what your thoughts are. Like I'm talking about insanely personal follow-up.

Jen 

Mm-hmm.

Jen 

Yeah.

So let's map this out real quick for real life. So online sales engages with somebody. They do discovery and they determine that Andrew and Jen, empty nesters, Andrew needs room for his shoes, they got dogs, they need office, they both work from home, they need all these things, right? The highly personalized approach from an online sales specialist is to

Go and record, take all that information and go narrow it down to that floor plan that would work for them, right?

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, show the photo gallery, use the 3D walkthrough, but I think also psychologically, don't confuse, like I just always think new home sales is a, like new homes are always a luxury purchase compared to existing. They are typically more expensive, not necessarily right now with buy downs, we know that, but it is a luxury experience. And when you go to, which I...

Jen 

Right.

Jen 

Right.

Kevin Oakley 

This is where I start to fall apart, because I don't buy nice bags or go to find women's establishments do. But I have to imagine that if they only said, hey, you mentioned that you were here to look at handbags. Here's the handbag that I think best suits your needs based upon what you told me. This is how much stuff you like to carry. This is your favorite color. If they just showed you the one bag and said, is it, it'd be a real short conversation.

and there's not a lot of need for back and forth, because you're just telling them this is it. I would say even that if they become unresponsive, or they're not engaging with you, continue, go do it about a different floor plan. Yes, you're not, like to confuse them is to lose them, I'm hearing that phrase in my head, I get it. But if they're not responsive, you're showing your willingness to serve them by spending your time.

which is your most precious resource on someone else, which that is the definition of luxury. Your time, attention, focus on me instead of yourself is what luxury, like anything that you have that's a luxurious experience is by definition involving other people's time and attention focused on you instead of them. And.

Jen 

Mm-hmm.

Jen 

Yeah. It's something relatively easy that makes a really big impact to your point. and it shows that you took the time to do that and you're going to stand out against your competition if you're doing that level of personalization.

Kevin Oakley 

Now, the downside is the emotional feedback loop there is broken in today's age. So you make another three minute screen recording video about a similar but different floor plan, just wanting to make sure they've considered it. And at the end, you say something like, let me know what you're thinking. I think this would be a great home for you to consider. And they just reply back with, no thanks. Okay. And maybe they use an LLM to make it sound a little bit nicer. And so it's like six more words, but it basically says,

No, we don't like that one. It's so easy to take that feedback as that was a waste of time, they don't like me, they don't care, I probably confused them, but we take it beyond just simple rejection to like the worst possible thing has happened because now I'm like, they don't even trust me as an expert anymore. That's not human, that's just not reality, that's not anyone's lived experience to say,

Jen 

Hmm. Yeah. Rejection.

Kevin Oakley 

Someone, now if you do it disingenually, this is where everything has to come from. It is from a place of wanting to help, wanting to serve, wanting to do what's best for them. If you're making that video and you're like, this probably isn't a good floor plan for them, but I gotta make, my stupid manager says I need to make them a video, so here you go, and you send it off their way. Like, they can feel that, and you're right, it's not helpful. But if what comes across is that you're insanely interested in helping them,

I don't think anyone loses. Like you invested that time well.

Jen 

Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

And you also, by the way, skipped right on past, that this is like the vast minority of leads that we get anyway become responsive. So you're like, we know this about these people, we know this about these people, but like, okay.

Jen 

Well...

I have a theory.

I think that yes, we're having some unresponsive leads, but I think there's some reasons that could be explained. Like there's a reason why, and it's things that we're doing that are wrong that are causing them to be unresponsive. marketing is running like a full on.

Kevin Oakley 

Mmm.

Yes.

Jen 

campaign at the same time online sales is trying to follow up with personal follow-up.

Kevin Oakley 

Please stop doing that. That's stupid.

Jen 

Thank you. The third thing we agree on or we are still using the same outdated follow-up process that we had during COVID where we were asking, know, pre-qualifying questions ahead of time and we're not focused on engagement and human centered, you know, like, let's just talk first before I even suggest an appointment. Like we're, we're screwing that up too.

So like there's a lot of things when we look at, hey, we got a long list of leads and they're unresponsive. Let's make sure, are we doing everything we need to be doing correct first? So there's.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, and I think so much of it still, consciously or unconsciously, what I see is in first written communication back to leads in CRM systems, or when I still shop myself, is this bias towards like, just kind of prove you're real to me, please. There's this subtle little F-U in there of.

Jen 

Yes.

Jen 

Yes.

Kevin Oakley 

I don't know if I'm wasting my time with you, so if you could just tell me a little bit more about what you're looking for. That is a screw you message to the consumer. If you have anywhere in your first three follow-ups something that says, I'd love to know a little bit more about what you're looking for.

Jen 

Yes.

Kevin Oakley 

You are giving them the finger. Yeah, it's not helpful language.

Jen 

shot yourself in the foot. Yeah.

Right, so there's online sales. Look at your follow-up, look at what your messaging is. That's a big one for unresponsive leads. Okay, last question, Kevin. How do you feel about chat? Okay, so this is coming up a lot more in conversations. Should we turn on chat, on websites? What are your thoughts from your perspective?

Kevin Oakley 

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Oakley 

Okay, so chat is an easy thing to turn on on a website. It's not technically difficult. You don't have to have special degrees or certifications. And its simplicity is what I think makes it really dangerous. Because there's no barrier to entry. People think, there I did it, I turned it on. Like we just turned on HubSpot chat for somebody, took 10 seconds, and they have chat.

that they're not understanding the potential butterfly effect. Man, I can't believe I'm doing two movie reference or like pop culture references in an episode. But there's this unintended consequence of the stats are there that yes, if you do chat well, and we don't even have time right now, but we're gonna talk about this at the summit and there'll be more coming out. If you do it really well, you will increase the total number of leads you get from all sources.

Jen 

Yes.

Jen 

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

If you do it bad, here's just one of many stats. This is from a company called Solvee, which knew enough about what they were talking about that they were recently acquired by Zoom for $120 million. And they said 65 % of people surveyed said they're likely to leave a business due to a negative chat bot experience. And that was one of the lowest percentages of the different research that I found. So if you do chat wrong, here's what happens.

Jen 

I believe it.

Kevin Oakley 

If you do chat wrong, it one, will rob leads from other sources. Sources that on their own help you define something as a better lead. What do I mean by that? If you get a chat or a phone call that's live and responsive, which is better?

Jen 

A chat or a phone call? A phone call. Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, right. So if you turned on chat and suddenly your phone call volume declines, but you get those same people as a lead via chat instead of a phone call, is that a win? No, it's cannibalization of lead opportunity. That happens. And then the other thing that happens is that if you can't respond instantly with a human, it again sets this negative, and I don't care,

what kind of chat bot you're using, it's not the same. And it sets off this idea of, I know Amazon uses it. I know this other company uses it, but I'm not thinking about giving that company, I always think about, I forget the gentleman's name, but he used to do cross-cultural training. And he talked about people from Asia would come and shop at this community and the salesperson always get mad because they'd leave the door open.

Jen 

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jen 

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Oakley 

and they're just constantly having to shut, they were just getting super mad at these people. What's wrong with these people that they won't shut the door? Well, their perspective was, if I was in my home country and I was gonna consider spending this much money with you, you would welcome me and shut the door behind me. I don't have to touch the door. And yet we are instantly communicating how unimportant you are to us. Like, my gosh, Jen, you set me off. Chick-fil-A makes...

Jen 

I know.

Kevin Oakley 

This is not correct, but something like three to four times more profit, it might even be higher than that, per store than McDonald's. And yet on average, Chick-fil-A has great technology. They have a mobile app that works better than McDonald's. They have mobile through, they have all these things. But they also know that the best way is to combine that technology with two to three times more people per store than McDonald's.

Jen 

Yeah, of course.

Jen 

Right. So they've staffed up like, right.

Kevin Oakley 

More staff interacting with the people who want to give you money is a great idea. This whole idea of making online sales or sales to a degree super efficient makes zero sense. Like again, if you showed people the lead volumes that we get now, back in 2013, people would lose their minds. How many thousands of people are reaching out telling you they want information about your home digitally?

Jen 

Right.

Jen 

automated.

Jen 

Mm-mm. Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

That can't be true. You would say that's not true. That's not real. And we have that many people who are like, still have the same staff of one, staff of two, as we always have.

Jen 

Right.

Jen 

There's a danger, so I am 100 % on board with you, Kevin. There's a big danger right now that we see of over automating, over, you know, like let's make this as efficient as possible and over indexing on, you know, automation and AI and different things that we're seeing. we're investigating that. We're gonna have all that information at the summit too, like some case studies and things that we're testing, but.

I agree with you. mean, think that chat is a great tool if it is done correctly. And you know, the thing with live chat, you gotta be chatting. If somebody's trying to chat with you, you gotta be chatting.

Kevin Oakley 

And if you're not staffed appropriately, there's an inherent trade-off there because if you're managing five different chats and the phone rings, what's that person supposed to do? And I just, I can't for the life of me understand, like they're gonna comment on this episode when it goes on social channels. Someone from a chat bot company somewhere, I promise you, is gonna talk about.

Jen 

Exactly.

Jen 

That's right.

Kevin Oakley 

how staffing that appropriately is simply impossible and that's why you need to pay for their $500 a month chat bot. It's not impossible, folks. You don't have to have people who can answer any and every question. And so that means that you can, for instance, if you wanted to have live chat coverage from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. covered, you can find a way to outsource that appropriately.

with an employee or like when I say outsource, mean, find an employee or put someone on an hourly wage who can do that for you. But they're acting like we're going to Mars and back to like staff phone calls and chats until eight or nine o'clock at night. You can't.

Jen 

The reality is that it's very few that come in at that time anyway. Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

It's very few, but again, if you were gonna use the thing that we all kinda hate, which is like, you only need to get one sale, like for the entire year, you probably only need to get one sale to pay for that coverage. And then even beyond that, from a customer service perspective, you're just doing things that other builders aren't willing to do, that again, is gonna lead to more good things happening for you.

Jen 

Yeah. Kevin, I just love your brain. Thanks so much for spending time with us. Well, we have one more thing to do and it's a skills check because you got to check yourself before you yourself. in honor of you being on today, here's the skills check online sales specialist. Go beat with your marketer. Go have a meeting with your marketer.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah.

Okay.

Kevin Oakley 

OK.

Kevin Oakley 

Hmm.

Jen 

have a little mini agenda planned. Go over numbers, go over consumer sentiment, go over, look at follow-up processes, get some advice on a prospecting email. Now marketers don't marketize it too much, right? But look at unresponsive leads and see if you can diagnose what's going on with that.

Kevin Oakley 

now.

Jen 

But if you're not meeting with your marketers, go meet. think that, Kevin, I'll get your opinion on this, but I think that you need to be meeting at minimum once a month for a good, just like deep dive and understanding and more if you have coming soon's happening where you've got to collaborate on that. How often did you meet with like as a marketer?

Kevin Oakley 

Goodness sakes, yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, we met weekly. Now I also manage those folks, but again, the fact that you've got digital data from the ad side, you've got data in the CRM, and then you've got the generalized human assessment of what's really happening, you got to get all those things and hear it in as quick of a turn as possible. And here's the other thing that I'll...

At the end, we try to find something really fun to drop out. I would have this conversation with your marketer. What are the objections that you're willing to have sent your way? The reason I say that is because, we probably on this show would joke quite a bit about salespeople asking for set up and ready sales, right? Like, hey, my appointments aren't high enough quality. Please make sure they're ready to sign within 10 minutes. Yeah.

Jen 

Mm-hmm. Right. These appointments are bad. Yeah.

Kevin Oakley 

Same but different story of I would like my leads, please, to always know the community of interest that they have, that they would always have very clear understanding of what buy-down programs were running, exactly what our incentives are. You have to talk to your marketer about I'm totally fine getting these kind of objections and or talking about how you would answer those objections because marketing that spells out everything has a much harder time.

Like it just has to be the right fit for the customer. Whereas marketing that's missing something or marketing that has a claim that needs to be investigated and understood, people pay attention to. Something that stands out as different. And so when it stands out and is different, everyone wants to go back to marketing and say, please put in all the fine print. Please put in the medium print. Please just put in everything about this entire program. That way only the people interested in it will call.

What you want is people who see this claim and something doesn't quite make sense to them. And there's gonna be a question that slash objection, once you answer the question of like, that's not what I thought it was. And you need to be good about saying, well, it might not be what you thought it was, but it's still fantastic. And here's why. now you want those engagements, but that means that those engagements, just like an onsite sales, you want objections. They're good. They're a good thing.

Jen 

Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. Kevin, how did you, did you enjoy your first time on online people talking? Will you come back? Will you come back to us?

Kevin Oakley 

I will come back, but only if next time we can actually like argue about something. There's too much disagreement, too much alignment here, it's boring. I feel like people are probably like, they're just giving each other high fives. Is this a...

Jen 

okay. I don't know. I feel like we're aligned these days.

Okay, let's, all right, well, need, yeah, we need to come up with our debate, a topic that we need to debate, and then that'll be our next time together.

Kevin Oakley 

Yeah, it was fun. Thanks for having me.

Jen 

Good. Well, thanks for joining us. Thank you guys for listening and we'll see you next time.