Jen
Amanda in the house. Amanda, you have some exciting news from the Martin household.
Amanda Martin
Hello,
Amanda Martin
absolutely do. We're over the moon excited. We're getting a new puppy. The countdown is on. So on Monday we go to pick him up and we are all just very, very thrilled. My kids, they can't stop talking about him. They ask to see pictures and videos of him all the time and they're writing him notes like it's the sweetest cutest thing ever. So we are so excited. Many because the large ones can
Jen
yay!
Jen
And it's a golden doodle, right?
Amanda Martin
get very large. And so yeah, mini is what we're going with. Mini golden doodle. Yeah.
Jen
that's so exciting. mean, puppy love just cures everything.
Amanda Martin
yeah, I completely agree. I couldn't be more thrilled. Yeah, so he'll be 10 weeks when we pick him up and his name I believe is gonna be Duke. That's what they named him and I think we're gonna stick with it because everyone seems to be fond of it. So yeah. Yeah.
Jen
I like the name Duke and I think, you know, going back to your Carolina roots, I get it. However, as a Tar Heel fan, I mean...
Amanda Martin
I know, right? It's like it kind of fits.
I understand. I'm a Tar Heel fan too, so I totally get that.
Jen
Well, you're a Tar Heelfan, how can you have a dog named Duke?
Amanda Martin
But I'm not as into sports as you are, Jen. I'm just like, go sports! So, it's okay.
Jen
Well, that's so exciting. think one of my, when you were telling us about it the other day, I think my favorite part about this is that, and this is actually a good lesson in urgency for home builders out there. When you told me that you kept going and you were like, I wanna, I hope he doesn't get reserved. Like you were watching and watching and watching and.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Yeah? Yeah?
Amanda Martin
Yes. Uh-huh.
Jen
It was hard for your husband to get on board with this. And so you were trying to get him, you know, and then what happened? You saw it.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Well, yes. my gosh. It was the most, I don't know, I went through every range of emotion in like 10 minutes. It was pretty intense. But what happened is I was looking online while we had gone to visit him that day and we all loved him and I was talking to my husband about it. Him and I are, you know, completely different and I'm like, okay, decision yes. And he's like, I need to think about it. And I'm like, well, I don't want him to get reserved.
I was looking online while he was putting the kids to bed at night and all of a sudden he went reserved and I completely was heartbroken. I freaked out. I was like, no, like we went to visit him. We love him. Like I don't want any other one. And so I started like looking around like, well, maybe I could find something else, but I was like, no, I don't even want that. And then I messaged her because I was like, maybe it's a mistake. Maybe she'll hold him for us.
Jen
Ha
Amanda Martin
So reached out and I was like, is there any way that this isn't real or we could just reserve it if we went to see him today and we're talking about it? And she was like, that wasn't you? And I was like, no, it wasn't me. And I was like, unless it was my husband, but I highly doubt it. And she's like, Ryan Martin? And I was like, yes, my goodness. And so it was the most exciting thing. So went from completely heartbroken to over the moon excited, like all in the span of a few minutes. So that was fun.
Jen
Yeah, but you, well, that sneaky Ryan Martin, I mean, come on, what a guy, what a guy. But that, when you were telling me that, I was thinking about like how, you know, you had been to visit the puppy. And then all you could think about was that puppy, because you had selected one, you had visited, you had played, you had seen how he was with the kids. And then,
Amanda Martin
I know, in the best of ways, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. I did.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Jen
It was like the fear that that had been taken away, right? When you saw that reserved. Yeah. Yeah. So, I just love, I love that story. and we're excited for you.
Amanda Martin
Oh yeah, high urgency. Yes! Oh yeah. Yes. Aw, thank you. I know you're a dog lover, so I get to be like you now. I know. Oh, you need one. It's been too long for you. Aw.
Jen
my gosh, nothing better than puppies. It's giving me puppy fever. I need to chill. I need to chill. All right, let's get into it.
Welcome to episode 49. With me is the one and only online sales coach, Amanda Martin in the house.
Amanda Martin
Yay!
Jen
We need the cool sound effects like Kevin has over on the marketing podcast. don't know. Amanda, so glad you're here with me today. Before we hop into our topic, let's get into some housekeeping really quickly. So a couple things we have coming up. Online Sales Nation, you don't want to miss. November 19th, we are hosting a webinar.
Amanda Martin
Right. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Yes.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Mm-hmm
Jen
public webinar, free webinar, about the Home Builders Survey Shop Results. yes, surprised. You guys were shops out there. Top builders across the country. And so you'll want to tune in and get those results. Why get those results? So you can know how to beat your competition. What do you need to do better? What are the bright spots? What are the opportunities?
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Amanda Martin
right?
Jen
So definitely we'll include the link in the show notes. Definitely want to sign up for that. That's coming up. And then we have, Amanda, we have our next Online Sales Academy.
Amanda Martin
I know, it's so exciting.
Jen
One of our favorite things we get to do here, Deconvert. That is coming up the end of January. Registration is open. We keep it small, so don't delay. And Amanda, who should attend the Online Sales Academy?
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Anyone who a hasn't had formal training like maybe you've been doing this but no one's really like taught you Processes or how to best get appointments if you haven't had any formal training absolutely for you Maybe as a just a refresher too if it's been a long time and you feel like you've gotten amnesia Or you're out of the loop on things but absolutely new online sales specialist That's definitely great for them because there are a lot of times just starting out in the industry
Jen
Mm-hmm.
Jen
Mm-hmm.
Jen
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
So, it just gives you all that foundational groundwork to be great at what you do.
Jen
Yeah, that's a good point because we actually had about the refresher part. We had somebody last Academy attend that had been in the role for quite some time. And when she came back and attended, she was like, my gosh. Like, and her conversions went, like they increased tremendously after going through the Academy. she was super, mm-hmm. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm.
Mmm, yes.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Right. Yeah. Because you get something different out of it after you've been in the seat. Like even if you've been exposed to it, like a lot of times you go back through it and it's like, wow, this makes sense now. Yeah.
Jen
Yeah. Online Sales Academy Leadership Edition. OK. Leaders out there or if you're an OSC and you think your leader needs to attend this, make sure you tell them this is an exclusive training for any leaders managing an online sales specialist or team or program, whatever you want to say. We are kicking this off in person. February 20th.
Amanda Martin
Woohoo!
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Jen
following the International Builder Show. So we're gonna be, yeah, we're gonna have, and listen, we have fun, okay? Now we keep this group really small and intimate, even smaller than the academy so that we can really get to know you as a leader, help support you, dig deep, dive in. So definitely check that out. Registration is gonna be opening probably by the time this podcast airs.
Amanda Martin
So fun.
Amanda Martin
Yes.
Jen
But right now it's go to the website. We'll put the link in there. Check it out. Okay, Amanda, we have a Tito shout out. Top industry, talented, OSC. Who is our Tito? Do the honors.
Amanda Martin
He
Amanda Martin
We absolutely do, yes!
Mr. Ruvam that works with Holt Holmes. Yes. He is just killing it over there guys. Like he has pretty much like two roles of leads that he's working, but nonetheless, he loves video emails. So he was one of those that had been in the seat for quite some time, about two years or so. And he hadn't really had that formal training like we were just talking about. And after he went through it, he's like, yes, video email.
Jen
What?
Jen
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
this and he has been killing it like so much video email he loves it he's like this is the way that I get a response like people love the personalization and they're reaching back out to me so every single lead he's sending them a personalized video email and it is showing in his numbers like they're growing and he's just making a great impact over there so I'm so proud of him way to go Rubam
Jen
That's awesome, shout out to Ruvam. I'll give you guys a little teaser. These are stats that we'll share, obviously, in the Home Builder Survey webinar. But out of the builders that we shopped, only one builder sent us a personalized video email, one.
Amanda Martin
Yay!
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Jen
So personalization is the key, human-centered communication. So that's a huge opportunity. So great job, Ruvam, that's awesome. Okay, Amanda, what are online people talking about? They're talking about Q3, yeah, Q3 benchmarks. have just, you have been the Wizard of Oz, pulling all the numbers together. And just as a reminder to everybody,
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yeah. Yes.
Amanda Martin
Benchmarks, of course. Yeah. Yes.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Jen
What do we count? We get this question a lot, like what makes up your benchmarks? It's not every single builder we work with, but as the builders, the online sales specialists that we can verify the data. We can verify that how they count leads, how they count appointments, how they count sales from their program. And Amanda is behind the scenes looking at all those numbers and compiling that data for you. So Amanda.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Jen
What are the highlights? What did we see this quarter?
Amanda Martin
Yeah, so not a ton of change at the top of the funnel. Lead to appointment came in at 40%. Appointment to sale came in at 18%. So that was steady, like from quarter two to quarter three. Absolutely the same, yeah. Contribution was a slight change. It went up by 2%, so that came in at 50 % for quarter three. But it was interesting, like August was...
Jen
That was the same, yeah.
Amanda Martin
Really high with the contribution. However, September took a little bit of a dip, but you know, we work in averages and all so 50 % is where we're at. But yeah, we were excited to see that that went up by 2 % really cool.
Jen
So you mentioned steady, okay, steady Eddie, Q2, Q2 to Q3, same for lead to appointment. But there was a difference in leads.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yep.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yes, there was. Yes. And that's kind of been the name of the game this year, unfortunately. so moving from quarter two to quarter three, five percent decrease, which is normal. You know, like it's just seasonality as you go through the year. So that's not a big deal. But then we also wanted to compare like we did last quarter to last year, like year over year comparison.
Jen
Yeah. Right.
Amanda Martin
And quarter three was down by 19 % So what we do is we just take like a subset of data not everything but more so like the builders that really are study haven't changed have been doing the program for a while no changes with communities or markets all that good stuff So we just looked at those like we did in quarter two as well, but looking back at last year 19 % decrease so But what's cool is that the people that are signing up they are absolutely very good leads there
They need to buy their interests. So we're just making the most out of that. And it shows with the steadiness and the numbers.
Jen
think and tell me if you disagree, agree, what do you think? But I think that steadiness and that even with the fluctuations in the market, the fluctuations with consumer sentiment, the reason that those online sales specialists that we have the data for, the reason that that consistency is there is largely due to their prospecting efforts.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more and it's been so important this year. Mm-hmm. So Yeah Yeah Yeah, yeah, so you want to track this We'll tell you more about that in a minute, but you definitely want to track this But you're basically looking at any of your leads that have been in the system for more than 45 days that you've gotten to go to an appointment because that's who you're prospecting to it's like that long-term outreach
Jen
So what did we see as far as contribution? And how do you look at that?
Amanda Martin
So when you track that you can track how many of those out of your all of your appointments how many came from those leads that were you know age leads in the system So this quarter it came in at 20 % so that was an increase from last quarter So that was cool to see and it's very important is in that second half of the year So we were glad to see that there's a lot of you know attention on that for online sales Mm-hmm
Jen
Yeah. So 20 % of all appointments came from aged leads. That's huge. I mean, back in the day, we used to say, try to get 10 % of your appointments from aged leads. Now we're seeing double that. So if you're listening to this, you wanna write down a couple things. One.
Amanda Martin
Aged leads, Huge.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Hmm.
Jen
Lead to appointment kept is at 40%, right Amanda? Appointment to sale is at 18%. Those have not changed pretty much all year. Online sales contribution, which means of your total company sales, how many are coming from your online appointments? 50%.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Yes, ma'am.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Right.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jen
You know, what's interesting too, Amanda, think like COVID was the first time we hit that 50 % mark. Right. And it made sense because everything was coming through online sales. Okay. But now we're in more of a normal situation where you have leads going, walking in, you know, leads going directly out to the community. have realtors bypassing.
Amanda Martin
Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Absolutely.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Events going on. Mm-hmm.
Jen
Um, online sales, have events, right? You're pushing people out there really pretty much, you know, marketers out there. It's like anything to get people try everything. But it's interesting that even though we've returned to some of that normalcy since COVID online sales is still contributing 50 % headline.
Amanda Martin
Absolutely.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. I know. It's a big deal.
Jen
I mean, come on. We're just like, we're giving it up for you right now. are, you can't see me. You just listening to me, but we're just, we are singing your praises. Way to go. Good job. And we'll talk about prospecting a little bit more in a minute. Also, Amanda, you pull out, okay, like let's look at top performers. These are builders we've been working with a long time, established programs, consistency.
Amanda Martin
Yay! All night tops!
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yes.
Jen
What did their numbers look like?
Amanda Martin
Yes, so their lead to appointment came in at 51%. Wow, like that's a huge deal. That's so awesome. Appointment to sale 21 % and then their online sales contribution was 56%. So way to go. So good. So good. Yeah.
Jen
Dang.
Jen
That's amazing. That's it. 51 % of leads are converting to appointment kept.
Amanda Martin
That's wild. And that's the part that's truly in your control, it's the appointments, right? So that's where their hard work is going, so it's really cool.
Jen
I'd like to take a minute and just while we're together, talk about something that I know it comes up for me periodically. When we're working with a new builder or just talking through this with online sales specialist, what constitutes a lead? Like having that consistency of what are we counting as a lead? What are we not counting as a lead?
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm, right. Yeah, so yeah, people that have been doing this for a long time, they still run into questions with us, so it's great to talk about this. So leads are, they're truly everything, except for those people that are like vendors or spam. But you gotta think about it, like if marketing is doing the work to get them to sign up and become one of your prospects, that's a lead, right? So you really wanna count everything in that bucket.
Jen
Let's talk about that for a second.
Amanda Martin
But you have to be a little careful with the coming soon leads. So you want to have some extra line items on your summary sheet to account for that. So when you have a coming soon community, you want to count how many of those people sign up every month and subtract it from that total lead count because you can't set appointments for it yet. However, when your community releases your coming soon community releases,
you wanna make sure that you're adding back in those leads, but only those that have responded. So basically your VIP responded ratings, VIP priority ratings, or even those that you've gotten an appointment for. But those that never responded, there's just a lot of looky-loos out there as you like to say. You're determining suspects from prospects, right? So those that haven't responded to you, you're not really gonna add those back in.
But it's important that they go back into your lead count when that community does release because you're now setting appointments for them. So that's how you want to do it.
Jen
Mm-hmm.
Jen
Amanda, you have probably opened a can of worms. have opened a can of worms, you know, questions about this. I think the bottom line is one, you want to count everything unless it is completely off. Yeah, like spam. Yeah, because we get that too. Should we include spam? No, like no spam.
Amanda Martin
sorry. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Natalie. Right.
Yeah.
No, absolutely not. And get it out of your CRM. Like, why even keep it, you know? Clean CRM.
Jen
Yeah, get it out of there. So we're not counting that. We're not counting, you know, are you building in Alaska and you're over in Virginia? Somehow that weird thing got to you. No, like that's completely not. Are you counting people who tell you I'm no longer interested? Yes.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Jen
You are counting them. You are counting every, and you are accounting for, you're making a note of these are all of the developer leads I got. These are all of the VIP leads I got. These are all of the U-Tour, Internaut, Self Tour leads I got. But as far as including those in your metrics, you might want to break those out a little differently because some of those are considered more like contacts, not necessarily.
Amanda Martin
Absolutely.
Amanda Martin
you
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Jen
leads. So yeah, I think Amanda, you should write a follow-up blog to this on how to break this out. Because, because I know we are going to get people scratching their head like what? Okay, so definitely do that. And then as far as appointments go, what constitutes an appointment that you are counting?
Amanda Martin
Okay. Okay, okay. Okay.
Okay.
Amanda Martin
Yes.
Jen
in your conversion metrics.
Amanda Martin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is a big one, because you you want to make sure they're legit appointments, right? So it's got to be someone that is going to an exact place at an exact time, meeting with an exact person. But also, it's not someone that just called in and say, hey, can I go to Happy Acres tomorrow too? Sure. Here's the address. Bye.
No, guys, like we gotta talk to them. We gotta qualify them. We've gotta select one. We've gotta ask for the appointment, overcome the objection. Like all that stuff's gotta happen. But it's gotta be in exact place and exact time within a person. Like you're making that connection with the on-site. So that's a true appointment.
Jen
Yeah, so, pulling out some of the things you said, I think that are really important. The handoff has to occur, right? It can't be like you find out after the fact that they went out there. No, like you have to have established that documentation that you had correspondence with them, they're in the CRM, there's notes, there's a specific day and time.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
All
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jen
you have handed it off to sales, there's been that communication. So that has to happen in order for it to count as an appointment in your conversion metrics. I can remember going to my manager before in the past, like, hey, they went out there and I've talked to them 42 times.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mmm, me too.
Amanda Martin
Right, look at all this history and LASA. We've been talking for two years. Please, gonna have it. Like, no. Work harder next time.
Jen
Yeah.
Jen
Exactly. That's like, sorry, why didn't you get the appointment? Why didn't you get the appointment on your 20th time engaging with them? Right, so that's a missed opportunity. Yeah, so go for it when you have them engaged and make sure you have that appointment criteria so that there's no question, no question whether it's a legit appointment for you. Whenever you have
Amanda Martin
Yeah. Yeah. Close it down. It is. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Jen
question around the validity of your appointment. It hurts the integrity of your program. It's like a ding. It's like a little chunk of your heart is taken away. So you don't want to hurt the integrity and the hard work and value that you bring. Okay, and then as far as contribution, or sale, let's talk about sale first.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Ugh.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Jen
you're counting sales that have come from the appointments that have shown up at your communities, you're counting those sales. So if you don't have a way to track that, know, get with leadership and figure out like how can you track those sales that are coming from your appointments? What did you used to do back in the day, Amanda? How did you keep track of your sales?
Amanda Martin
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
That was a tricky time. I had to put my Sherlock Holmes hat on and go through lots of things. So I would just look at everything. But whenever there was a contract written in our company, a company wide email went out. We called it a woohoo. And I would basically search that thing down everywhere. So names, email addresses. I was looking at my email and my CRM.
Jen
Haha
Amanda Martin
I was looking at the sale to see if there was a realtor tied to it, a co-buyer tied to it, and looking for all of that. So you really have to dig deep to find these because sometimes they're just interwoven and it's hard to find. And we also had like a closing sheet that we had all of our, you know, upcoming closings listed on and I would keep track closely of that. But it takes some work. It's tricky to track down sometimes. So definitely working with your manager to...
to make sure you're in the know whenever there's a sale. Because a lot of times, like, your onsite may have forgotten or it may have been some time since they, you know, came out for their appointment. So you can't just rely on, your onsite agent telling you. Absolutely not. Like, you have to look into that very deeply.
Jen
Right.
Jen
Yeah, you gotta be proactive on this. Now, in a perfect world, if I was a fairy godmother and could wave a magic wand for you, ideally, your CRM would keep track of that, right? So wouldn't that be nice, right? But the CRM is only gonna be as good as the info that is input into it. So we can't like 1,000 % always just rely on that. I would use it as a
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
Amanda Martin
Yes. Yes. Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Yeah, yeah.
Jen
You have to have something that is a checks and balances for that. So the email, the sales email that goes out, I love that. Or getting with, getting a report of here's all the sales that have occurred this week so that you can cross check your side of things every week to keep track of that. That's what I used to do. Like give me the sales report and I'd go through line by line. Yep, that was an appointment for me because
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yep. Yep. Yep. I'd start by looking at the appointment tracker and then just work backwards. And it's like email, CRM, all of it.
Jen
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, and then contribution. Obviously, you're looking at net sales for the company each month and how many of those online sales you contributed to that. So you've got to get that from leadership from somewhere. You got to get that company sales number and then do your math. How many of those have come from your program?
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jen
So keep track of that. Also, I think it's fun to keep track of the sales revenue, the sales volume.
Amanda Martin
I do too. I love that. It's so staggering.
Jen
Right? what, so tell everybody what we mean by that.
Amanda Martin
Yeah, so if you take all of your sales that you've had and you figure out the sale price for each one of them, total it up, how much revenue did you contribute to your company's bottom line? Like it is cool to see. Like look at my worth and my value that I bring to this program. Like this is awesome. Like that's a big deal. It does. Let me put a dollar sign.
Jen
Right. Yeah.
Jen
Right, it hits different, right? When you're standing up in front of your team at a sales meeting and you're like, you hey, let me give you an online sales update. It's different saying like online sales has contributed, you know, 10 sales versus we've contributed $5 million in sales revenue. that sounds a little different.
Amanda Martin
Right?
Jen
So let's go. I mean, come on. Okay, shifting gears a little bit from benchmarks. Amanda, you recently wrote such an inspiring post on LinkedIn. I loved it. What was the name of the article?
Amanda Martin
So cool. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Yeah, yeah.
Amanda Martin
Aww. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Amanda Martin
It's all about playing the long game. So that's what it's about, playing the long game and online sales. So you want to check that out. I just wrote it yesterday. It's all about why long-term follow-up wins in online sales and why, you know, you want to look into that long game. So I was inspired after the summit and I wanted to write that because I just see so many online sales specialists that are like, it's not working. Like I've called.
Like nobody answers, like this doesn't matter. And they give up and I'm like, but no, look at your numbers. Like don't give up because a lot of times you just don't see like when the fruits of your labor actually pay off. Like you have no idea that it was you that caused them to resurface, but it was. And your numbers will tell you, but the only way you'll find out is from tracking it and seeing your numbers growing because a lot of times you won't realize that they sign back up.
or they decided to call because it was you that had been reaching out all along. So I just want to inspire people, like don't give up, like keep going, keep calling them. It makes a difference to stay with them and your numbers will show it. So make sure you're tracking it because that's your inspiration. That's where you're gonna see all your hard work pay off.
Jen
Yeah, it's like the domino effect or like the wave. Amanda talks about the wave, the ripple effect, from one touch point and then that builds momentum on the second touch point. so then the third, right, that consistency is what will pay off. So skills check, right, because you gotta check yourself before you yourself.
Amanda Martin
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jen
Here's your homework. Go get inspired by Amanda's LinkedIn post. That's first and foremost. Some key takeaways that I wrote down that in her inspiration was don't expect instant results, consistency compounds, trust the wave effect, each touch builds momentum, use tracking to prove your outreach is working. You gotta track it, guys.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Jen
Just like we were sharing with you that, you we started tracking the prospecting efforts because we wanted to show that it was working. You got to track it, you know, on your end, how many calls you're making, what the results are, and then how many appointments you're actually getting from older leads. And stay motivated by watching those age leads turn into appointments and sales. Amanda, you said your future self and your paycheck will thank you.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Right, absolutely.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yeah. Right. Because you're kind of like building a pipeline, you know. So if you if you stop like a month or two down the road, like all your appointments are going to stop from your age leads to, know, so don't kick yourself in the foot.
Jen
Hahaha.
Jen
Yeah.
Yeah, that's awesome. I love it. I love it. And the last thing I want to add just on top of this related to benchmarks for your skills check is if you have questions after you've listened to us talk about, you know, data integrity, what constitutes a lead, how you're measuring your leads, appointments and sales, be proactive, go sit down with leadership and map that out.
Amanda Martin
Yeah.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Jen
you need to understand like is somebody just telling you here's what your numbers are. Now do you have somebody that's doing that for you? If that's the case, like take back ownership of that and really understand what's constituting your lead counts. How do you pull it yourself in your CRM? How do you understand it and make sure you take ownership because that's your work. That's how your
Amanda Martin
Your business.
Jen
That's how you measure your own success. And if you're not hitting those benchmarks that Amanda said to you today, that's okay. That might not be your benchmark, but let's work towards growing to that, right? And understanding what makes up your benchmarks is really important as well. So, Amanda, I can't wait to...
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Martin
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yes. you know, I'll have to show him. Yes.
Jen
see Duke on a call, like we're gonna have to do show and tell, we're gonna have to do show and tell, we all need to see a little Dookie. that doesn't sound very good, little Dookie. don't, gosh, Dookie, okay. Thank you so much, Amanda, for joining us on Online People Talking. Last, yeah, last question, are you down with OPT?
Amanda Martin
I know that's what we're going to be calling him probably, right? That's so weird. Yeah.
Yes. Thank you for having me.
Amanda Martin
Yeah, you know me.
Jen
Nice. All right, everybody have a great day. Thank you, Amanda.
Amanda Martin
Thank you, good to see ya.
