Breaking Down the Online Sales Coaching Process for Home Builders

It's no secret that selling homes isn't easy, even in a market that is thriving as much as real estate and home building are right now. Bridging the gap between online website traffic and in-person sales takes a lot of experience, drive, and skills — online sales coaching helps reduce this challenge and set up on-site sales teams for success.

The Center for Sales Strategy reports that companies with dynamic sales coaching programs achieve 28% higher win rates and sales reps with 30 minutes or less of sales coaching per week receive win rates of 43% (those that receive at least two hours of coaching per week have a win rate of 56%). Even more, companies that provide quality coaching can reach 7% greater annual revenue growth.

Selling homes quickly and efficiently in the modern online sales environment doesn't have to be so difficult. Here's the online sales coaching process every home builder should know about.

Sales Coaching

An online sales coaching program for home builders can include weekly meetings, CRM training, follow-up tactics, sales evaluations, and more that improve a sales rep’s performance. This is so important because it can freshen up and renew strategies/tactics more experienced sales representatives are using while also teaching new sales representatives about the knowledge and tools they need to be successful at their job.

According to Business2Community, incorporating this kind of coaching into your new-hire training and continuous training can help you prosper through difficult times, as well as the following benefits:

1. An increase in your organization's overall business performance.
2. Improve the quality of your homes, properties, and neighborhoods.
3. Maintain and improve the morale of your sales team.
4. Strengthen your employee's resolve and commitment to your company and brand.
5. Develop solid leaders by instilling confidence.
6. Improve the capacity of your team to adapt to setbacks.

Team Alignment

The truth is, organizations can't be successful without proper alignment, and home builders are no different. Online sales coaching programs can help define roles, set expectations, and prioritize the right metrics per person, all with the hopes of converting website visitors into leads and home buyers. When everyone knows their part in the process, home buyers will experience more consistency and better results with your brand.

In fact, AlignOrg says the practical benefits of achieving team alignment include:

• Increased speed in decision-making.
• Better employee engagement.
• Less wasted resources (giving more focus to promotions and activities that bring more growth to your business and brand — i.e., setting priorities).
• Improved self-governance (everyone knows exactly what they're supposed to be doing and when in the home buying process
• Less customer confusion (i.e., consistency).
• Greater resource visibility (everyone knows where to find and how to use the latest tools at their disposal to find prospective home buyers, schedule onsite appointments, and turn leads into home buyers).

Reporting and CRM Management

Online sales coaching programs can help online sales consultants (OSC) and on-site sales teams understand the lead funnel, identify the right metrics, and compile the right reports — all of which can be simplified through CRM training and management. This business approach will allow OSCs to have insight into prospective home buyers that allows them to match buyers with their perfect home and provide seamless and effective follow-up strategies.

CRMs are both operational and analytical.

On the operational end of things, there are more resources and insight into what attracts and keeps your buyers interested and satisfied by your homes and communities — covering the entire cycle of interactions with your buyers throughout their lead funnel to ensure their loyalty to your brand right now and in the years to come. This is done through recording all communications between prospective home buyers and the OSC (phone calls, appointment dates, onsite visits/tours, live chat interaction, emails and eblasts, social media interaction, etc.). 

Analytically, these interactions are analyzed to bring to light some valuable insight into your buyers. This gives you the information you need to be successful and better understand a home buyer’s preferences. With that information, OSCs can better reach home buyers and guide them through the process with a more personalized and unique experience.

Lead Management and Hand-Off

Lastly, online sales counselors will learn how to manage their leads properly (lead nurturing) and eventually hand them off to on-site salespeople seamlessly. This is where alignment and visibility become crucial to already have in place — the more aligned teams are throughout the process, the easier this hand-off will be. Everyone knows their part, so everyone can take over at the right time without skipping a beat. 

According to Act-On, providing a clearly defined lead management process to OSCs is the first step to attracting and nurturing leads. Online sales coaching introduces and reinforces this concept to bring all touchpoints with your brand together to improve customer experiences. From there, successful lead strategies inform online sales counselors on:

• Everyone's responsibility in the process of your buyer's journey, ensuring every touchpoint is consistent and positive.
• Buyer personas and the different types of leads to appeal to (and when).
• Persona-specific content and experiences that will help guide buyer's through their process more seamlessly and smoother.
• More in-depth strategies focused on watching, listening, and adjusting your tactics to better meet home buyers' needs.

The Takeaway: Everyone Benefits

The job of an online sales consultant is to give your customers the best experience with your brand, help guide them through the home buying process by ensuring they are matched with the right home and community, nurturing leads, and setting up appointments for buyers to visit. Buyers trust OSCs with their significant investment and expect nothing but the most qualified and trained, which is why online sales coaching is so essential.

You benefit from the increased sales, sales reps benefit from the increased training and performance, and your customers benefit from the right guidance and experience. To learn more about online sales coaching, follow our blog or contact our team at Milesbrand for questions and insight.