Jen
So let's talk about dog rescue, because I recently the other day had somebody I was getting my nails done, Jessie, and somebody was like, "Hey, Jen, I thought about you this morning because a friend of mine and a friend of mine, you know, got this dog who had been abused and now they can't take care of it." So I thought about you and I'm like, I love that you're thinking about me.
Jessie
No, I don't want another dog.
Jen
But what were you thinking about me for? I was thinking that you would know what to do. Like, can you take the dog? Do you know somebody that could take the dog? And, you know, that makes me happy? Like, I want to fix it. I want to help all the animals. And so let me just fast forward and Jessie it was a success story.
Jen
Fingers crossed I got in touch with the Savior of Souls Rescue that I do some stuff with, and they're like, okay, yes. Like, let me let me reach out to some fosters. We'll try to get this dog. So one of the Fosters is going to meet the puppy today and try to get it out of the situation. It's done.
Jen
So fingers crossed. But you've you've recently have delved into the dog rescue world with your little puppy. Yeah, little. Not little puppy!
Jessie
Yeah. Huge. She I guess she's ten months old now and I've never had a puppy before, like all the dogs that I've had have been four and five years old. So not only am I dealing with the puppy, but I'm dealing with a puppy that has had zero training. And so it's been it's been a learning curve. She eats a lot more than all of my other dogs.
Jessie
I mean, it's a Great Dane. So, you know, she's as tall as the dinner table. So I'm we're learning to like, navigate that. She's still like having accidents. She's getting up at 3 a.m. It's like a child, I think. And, you know, it's a lot, but it's been fun.
Jen
And you weren't looking for this to happen either. You're just visiting your mom. People next door. Bad situation. Hey, let me take these dogs.
Jessie
For the evening.
Jen
Just get me the dogs from Florida.
Jessie
Yeah.
Jessie
It was not anything I expected, but, you know, what I have to say about all of this? Is that Mike Lyon, dogs do belong in the bed! That's all I have to say.
Jen
Yes, they do. They do. And they can be under the covers, too. I mean, I've got two that bury themselves under the neat the covers. I don't even know if they're breathing under there, but they they love to sleep under there. So. Yeah. Okay. Jesse Dog rescuer, Dog whisperer. SC whisperer. Let's get started.
Jen
Hey, everybody. Yes. Today is episode six. It is our first episode of the New Year that we were recording. And with me today is the amazing online sales coach extraordinaire, Jesse Suggs. Yeah, how do you do? Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Destiny. Your Happy New Year online sales specialist. It's a new Jesse. Do you get excited for the New Year or do you come into it like with anxiety?
Jessie
I get excited. I mean, I'm one of those that I map out my goals and I make the word of the year and I create an action plan and I feel super motivated at the beginning of the year. And then I continue to stay motivated if I follow through whether I do that or not, you know, Well, we'll see.
Jessie
But that's super motivated.
Jen
We talked about that on the last episode of, you know, setting Goals. You know, getting your your plan mapped out. That is super important. Before we get into what online people are talking about right now, there is a couple of quick like housekeeping things I just wanted to share with everybody or Jesse and I wanted to share. First of all, IBS is coming up at the end of February and a lot of times you wonder, should online sales specialist attend the International Builder show?
Jen
That is what IBS stands for, not irritable bowel syndrome. That's our segment. But the Builder Show, which is happening in Las Vegas this year. Yes, you should attend as an online sales specialist. Jesse, you attended when you were in the seat.
Jessie
Yeah. Yeah, I did. I learned a lot.
Jen
Yeah. There's you know, now there is much more education geared toward this role than there has been in the past. So definitely attend. Of course, we have the Nationals award ceremony where some of the brightest individuals in the industry are going to be showcased and highlighted for their their work this last year. So we're looking forward to attending that for sure.
Jen
And then Jesse and I have an online sales academy coming up in April. Talk a little bit about what that is, Jesse. And by the time this podcast airs, we will have tickets available. So what is the online sales academy?
Jessie
gosh, only my favorite thing in the whole year. So the online sales academy is for either newer online sales specialist or online sales specialist who have never had any formal training or maybe it's been quite some time. They need a refresher on the basic fundamentals and best practices. And so this is going to be virtual, but it's a small, intimate group of online sales professional learning, what it means to even start a program and then continue to grow that with processes and best practices.
Jessie
And so it is April. What is it? It's already been It's April 1334.
Jen
Yeah. And like Jesse said, it's virtual, so you don't have to travel, which is awesome. And we stay with you for after the first two days. We're with you for an additional I think it's eight weeks, right, Jesse that we're doing some on demand training with you. We're doing some virtual check ins. It's really a great, comprehensive program and we have a lot of interest on our interest list so far.
Jen
So definitely, we know we can put the link in the show notes if you want to check that out, don't wait because we count small.
Jessie
One of the biggest questions I've been hearing is kind of like, what is the time commitment for this? What, you know, if somebody is actively working, is this something that they can also do? And it is. So it's two days of live virtual training and then that eight week, you know, tail end of that are one hour either vacations or on demand meetings.
Jessie
And so it's one hour typically twice a week for that continued training after the first two days. So that answers your questions.
Jen
You can still do this while you are managing leads 100%. Absolutely. Very cool. Okay, Jesse, let's talk about what online people are talking about right now. Word on the street now. We're only a few days into the new year, so we've only had a few coaching calls to really kind of get a pulse check. But what we're hearing is that, hey, we're busy.
Jen
We've got increased traffic going into the new year. So I wanted to verify this with our amazing team over there in marketing land. Hey, Kevin Oakley, what's happening with the traffic? And since December 28 through January 1st, we had a 10% increase in traffic to builders websites across the country. And that's what our online sales specialists are saying.
Jen
Jesse, what are you hearing?
Jessie
Yeah, I have had a couple coaching calls and, you know, we're doing a rap on last year and kind of what's going on at the beginning of this year. And it's it's feeling really good. Like I'm feeling like not only and I just talked to a team yesterday, they said not only is the number of people inquiring increasing, but the quality, you know, less tire kickers, more people who are actually asking questions or engaging with the calls and things like that.
Jessie
And then something from our brilliant marketing team as well. Andrew, the ad doctor said that when he was looking at Google Analytics, looking at the performance, kind of pulling a metric from August the first through today. So when this airs, this is, you know, beginning of January that watching the clicks on the website, it kind of started to increase slowly but jumped the day after Christmas, which was really interesting.
Jessie
I guess everybody's off working and really starting to gear things up for their goals for next year. I don't know if that has any alignment, but it has just continued since December the 26 to increase across the board. So yeah. Next things that direction exciting.
Jen
Get those happy hips ready. Let's roll it. Listen speaking of the day after Christmas so you know we were d convert was was off basically that week and while I was off I was sitting there thinking about this brand new online sales specialist that I know was going to start taking leads. We had met before the break and I was like, okay, you know, you're going to start taking leads or whatever.
Jen
You feel good. She's like, Yeah, I'm pumped. I'm ready. I'm like, All right. So I was thinking about her like, okay, I wonder how that's going. I'm going to let it sit for a few days. So when I got back into the office, Jessie, I center an email and I was like, Hey, yeah, are you managing the leads?
Jen
Like, what's happening? And she's like, Am I managing the leads? Yeah, I set 32 appointments during the week of Christmas. 25 have shown up so far and I've already had a sale. I love it. And I'm like, my gosh.
Jessie
This is a new breed of online sales specialists coming through the door, I'm telling you. I mean, I had somebody just the other day who made their first ever phone call, so they made first ever outbound call, never taken an inbound call, set an appointment on the first one. And by the end of the day, she was like, yep, I've set for appointments already.
Jessie
And so these are just it's gearing up. I love it.
Jen
So I'm just going to I'm going to put this out there. Shout out to Alex at Crescent Homes. Fantastic job. So I hope you listen to this. And we're just we're just really proud and excited for you.
Jessie
In my Let me get my shout out.
Jen
we didn't hit it.
Jessie
You know what, Mitchell Holmes, She was the one I was referencing. So to you.
Jen
Come on, now, let's go. Let's rock and roll. I'm excited. Okay, So let's let's get into our topic today, which kind of leads us into we've, you know, at the beginning of the year, Jesse, like you said, you have a word of the year that you typically do. You have your goals and you had a recent post on LinkedIn that I absolutely love.
Jen
It was brilliant where you talk about what your word of the year is. And so talk about that. Tell everybody. And and if you I'm curious to know like do other people do this to other people have words of the year. I don't know. I know we do. I think it's a thing. But what is yours and talk a little bit about it.
Jessie
Yeah. I love I love doing a word of the year. I don't know. It just kind of sets my intentions for what I want the year to look like early, and I really spend some time thinking about it most of the time. Like I kind of start thinking about what my goals are in December at the beginning and this year it kind of like went out of my mind, full transparency.
Jessie
Like I didn't even think about what my word of the year would be. And so I started thinking about it and it just popped right into my head. And it wasn't typical. It wasn't something that I thought it would be. But the word was less. And the reason why it's less is because I wanted to focus on like less stuff, less acquiring, less rushing, less stress, less comparing, less competition, less enabling less less of a bunch of things so that I could make room for what matters.
Jessie
Because a general probably tell you in the year years prior, you know, we go over our goals together. We keep each other accountable and some of them were really unattainable and it was like more and more and more, I want to do more of this. I want to make sure I do more of that. And I never met it.
Jessie
And it just left me a little bit discouraged and so I did set a really side note from the word of the year. I did set a challenge for myself this year to run a half marathon, which I told myself for the last three years I was going to do, and I was so determined to do it. I did it like the last week of December.
Jen
And then you just went ahead and did it?
Jessie
Yeah. So I got to do another one now.
Jen
But let me get that out of the way.
Jessie
Yeah, yeah. But it was less, less distraction. Like I just kind of stopped making less excuses and I just, I just.
Jen
Jessie, I love this so much. You're. You're Marie Kondo ing things out of your life. That's right. To make room for the really important things that you want to focus on. It's just like we say, more leads, poorly managed, doesn't equal more results. Yeah, like less leads. Better manage. You're going to get better results. Same thing with your your goals in your life.
Jen
Like, let's simplify. Let's focus on the really important things. I love that. I love that.
Jessie
Yeah. What about.
Jen
You? So I initially I had gone out there on the record and put this out into the universe, like in December that my word of the year was going to be discipline. And I was thinking like, yeah, discipline. This is perfect because we've really got to focus on the behaviors and get disciplined on that in order to see the results that we're going to need for this next year.
Jen
So it was really focus on that until also during the break, while I was thinking about Alex, I was cleaning my office and this sign that is behind me is actually two sided. Normally it says give and teach on it. And so I was taking everything off my shelves. I was cleaning and on the other side I kind of forgot.
Jen
On the other side it says success. And it's actually a maya Angelou quote. It says Success is liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do it. And so I'm looking at that and I'm like, okay, now I'm changing. I'm changing my mind. Success. And this frame of mind is going to be my focus and my word of the year and my intentionality, because that discipline and those behaviors and all of those things that we do in online sales, it doesn't really matter or you're not going to be as good at it if you don't feel successful, if you don't like what you're doing, if you're not proud of the work that you're
Jen
doing and you know how you feel about it. Like when you get off that phone call, Did I really enjoy talking with that person? Did I was I proud of that phone call? Did I feel like I really went for it and got that appointment? And I saw result like that as being successful. So I think, you know, focusing on that, the other stuff will fall into place.
Jen
Yeah, I we were talking.
Jessie
Go ahead. Sorry, Jen. I was just going to say, I think success looks different for a lot of other people. So like figuring out what does success look like? Is part of the success itself? Yes. Like looking at what your goal is long term and saying, when I get here or when I feel this or when this happens.
Jessie
That's what successes and then you know you've met it. Yeah, I think that's really important.
Jen
And I was talking about this on the Market Proof Marketing podcast yesterday, and, you know, we were kind of talking about the same thing. And Kevin Oakley said, I want to add to that and say and like who you're doing it with. Yeah. So, you know, and that it's like, my gosh, yeah. Like working together, like collaborating.
Jen
Jesse You and I and Amanda and Mike, like, it's just magical, like being able to work with the people that you really enjoy and work with, the partners that you really enjoy and the work might be hard. All right. And what were you saying the other day? Like, it's hard, but yeah, wanting to work hard. Yeah, hard things are hard.
Jen
They we need to. Yeah, we need to learn to do like the Duke women's basketball coach says Right. Hair loss and we need to do hard better. Don't wait for it to get easier, but do hard better. Right? So we are here for it. That's why we have this podcast to to help you do the hard better and be able to have those discussions around the things that are hard and remember well, we'll talk about whatever, so we want to hear from you.
Jen
If there's things that you want us to discuss on here, please email us that, show it d convert or you can email any of us directly. Jesse a deacon virginity convert, You know, please let us know if there's topics that you want to talk about or questions that you have. Speaking of questions, we have a video in our mailbag.
Jen
Drum roll. Yes, I am going to play this. And then Jesse, we're going to we're going to answer her question. So Presley from Simmons Holmes has a question for us. Let me see if I can share this right now. Well, okay, Here we go.
Jessie
love her.
Jen
my gosh. Presley from Simmons Holmes. She is an online sales specialist there. Let's see what her question is. Jessie.
Jessie
Hi, Jin, It's Presley with Simmons Holmes My question for you is what tool or resource do you recommend most for an OCR to use?
Jen
Thanks to? I love this question and I love that she's thinking that way. And what a great time of year to be thinking that way. Like, okay, is there any is there something new that I need to be doing for 2024? So, Jessie, what are your thoughts?
Jessie
This might be it might not answer her question directly, but, you know, when I when I heard her question come in, I started thinking like, okay, what do what's obvious to people? You know, what do they need? Their CRM, their call tracking system, their reporting doc, you know, a set up professional environment, a quiet background, all of those things, those are simple.
Jessie
But the answer that came to mind first was really knowing how to master those tools is really the best tool that you can have. And so having a CRM is great, but if you don't know how to use the resources in it to, you know, streamline things or pool specific list or organize your data or do things in mass, it's not serving you well.
Jessie
And so taking the time to to pour into what your company is already providing you is going to be one of the best tools that you can have. And then outside of that, you know, as a new O.C, just having a car, a prospect card is kind of what we call it, or a card that has all of the areas that you're looking to get answered at the beginning is super important because you get so excited.
Jessie
You get on the phone, they ask for the appointment, you set it, and then you get off the phone and you're like, I forgot to ask these three things, and if it's right there in front of you, that's super, super helpful. And then for the OGs, I'm sure everybody already has a pair of good headphones, but my pro tip is get a pair of wired headphones and I know I have a brother in law who's 14, y'all.
Jessie
My my husband and my brother in law are almost 19 years apart. And yeah, I just gave away my age, I guess. But he saw me with these wired headphones and the other day and he was like, How old are you? I mean, he's like, Nobody uses those anymore. Jesse And I was like, Number one, I never have to charge him.
Jessie
And so I never had an excuse to not answer the phone. So even when I, you know, I would keep my phone in my back pocket and I'd keep my headphones in when I was in O.C., even when I got up to go get a cup of coffee or go do something else that was not right in front of my computer.
Jessie
So those are you.
Jen
Take your phone to the bathroom. I must.
Jessie
I mean.
Jen
Yeah, I did. I did. I'm going to tell you.
Jessie
I'm going to just I'm just going to call myself out. What I would do because I was a freak. I mean, I did not want to miss a call. I was really focused on all of those things, even years or years plus into the seat. It mattered to me. And so I would take it with me into the bathroom and if it happened to ring, I would answer.
Jessie
And then when they were talking, I would mute it. Yes, as I'm flushing, okay, I can't unmute it. And so then I would take myself off mute and I would go, my gosh, I'm so sorry. My phone got muted. I heard everything that you said, I'm here. And they would be like, my gosh, no problem.
Jen
Okay, same. I don't know if I'm proud or concerned. Right. Listen, I think that I think the point is, you know. Yes. Like have a bathroom break. Have a bathroom break, have a lunch break. Like, totally fine. But like the importance of the urgency that you need to have within yourself of every time you miss a call, that's a missed opportunity.
Jen
Like, that's that's how you have to think about it. So, okay, this is really kind of spooky, Jessie, but I didn't and you know, we have insider thing, you know, we have like our show notes that we kind of put together like, okay, these are some things we're going to talk about. And so Jessie knew that that was going to be the question, right.
Jen
That we that we had. But I had the exact same answer in my head. We did not talk about this. But before you get any new tool or any new, you know, new thing, make sure that you really are using the current tools that you have. Really? Well, you know, I can't tell you the number of times that I start working with a new online sales specialist or company.
Jen
And, you know, I log in to look at the CRM or log in to look at, you know, call rail or call tracking or whatever. And it's not really being utilized to the fullest extent. Like, Hey, did you know that you can create groups or list or add these extra things that you're doing, you know, the call track, I mean, the the form tracking and the CRM and using those notifications, default like dashboards.
Jen
You know, there's so many things that you need to make sure that you're using in the current tools that you have. CallRail, for instance, you know, the new lead center, way more robust. And a lot of people are still not using that or don't really understand it. So take some time to really learn. The current tools that you have.
Jen
Would be my advice. And it sounds like that's Jesse's advice as well.
Jessie
I think we have the same advice because we there's a correlation between the usage of tools and the success in the seat. I mean, we get to see lots of data. We get to see a ton of performance from online sales specialists, and those master their stuff typically are at or exceeding the industry benchmarks. So I'm not surprised we had the same answer.
Jen
Of course not. Great minds. Great minds. Okay. It is time for for the skills check, because guys, you better check yourself before you recklessly says Ice Cube. That is not I just want to sort of give give a primer to to ice cube does not a gen bark and coyote so Ice cube which I'm so excited to because he is coming in concert here.
Jen
So, you know, your girl is going to be there.
Jessie
Stay tuned. Tell me when I'm driving.
Jen
I, I think we should do a Olivia you're going to have to come to I think we should do a live online people talking podcast at the Ice Cube concert and have him come over and Olivia says, yes, have him come over and do our Skills Check segment.
Jessie
Can you even make it happen?
Jen
And I'm putting it out.
Jessie
Until your people.
Jen
Putting their. Olivia, Can you make that happen? Let's go. Okay. Jesse You know, as we were talking about, we're getting busier. Like, okay, spring market is happening now. Let's rock and roll. First thing I think about is we've got to get really organized in our day. Like, we've got to be structured, we've got to think about time blocking.
Jen
We've got to get into a routine, you know, what are what's our first priorities? You know, this is the time to assess, like, what are our first priorities, You know, answering our phone, lead management appointments, getting reporting, prospecting, all of that is first priority. So it's like nothing else happens until those things happen. And when you get busier, it's real easy to slip into a reactive mode like the hamster on the wheel, like, Come on, baby, let's go.
Jen
We are on that wheel. We are being reactive, we're being responsive. So in order to get into that proactive phase, we've got to do time blocking. Jesse, what are your thoughts on this? Because you're really good at this. So I want to hear what you what your thoughts are.
Jessie
Okay. Now everybody knows how much of a weirdo I am. Like, I'm answering the phone in the bathroom. I'm psycho about my calendar must be stopped. I know my biggest piece of advice and I actually just talked to a team just a couple of days ago about this as well, is when it comes to time blocking and being able to map out your priorities and make sure that you get those done and still leave time for secondary priorities, which are still priorities, is to really utilize.
Jessie
And it goes back to the tools. But you it seems simple, but you have a calendar with your email and if you look at mine, I have by the minute what I'm doing because it gives me a nice little reminder. Okay, in 10 minutes you've got another task. Go ahead and wrap up what you're doing. Tie it up with a bow.
Jessie
And you know, as an on prior online sales specialist, if I heard somebody say that, I mean, I. I would probably roll my eyes and say, okay, great, that works for you. But for me, I don't know when calls are coming in. I don't know when my boss is going to need me. I don't know how many new leads are going to come in.
Jessie
I don't know what distractions I'm going to have. And I hear you like I hear you loud and clear. We've been there. We've done that. We see it. We've done it the right way, the wrong way, the easy way, the hard way. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that if you put blocks on your calendar daily, you know for what you want to accomplish that day, you're going to accomplish more even if you don't get it all done.
Jessie
But also, you know, long term putting on your calendar task that you know, that you have to do recurring. And that's great because months go by really quickly. You know, when we go when we start talking about prospecting or we talk about cleaning up and doing an audit of your system, those things kind of go to the wayside.
Jessie
If you're distracted with new stuff, the new shiny, bright lead, that one's an appointment. And so, you know, I think blocking off your day, there's a study that talks about how you will fill your time with the task that you designate. So like if you have 8 hours a day and you say, I'm going to make 20 calls and manage all of my leads, you will use that 8 hours to do that.
Jessie
But instead, if you say, Hey, I'm going to delegate 2 hours to this, you're going to fit it into that timeframe, too. It's just workingmen's. And so blocking off your day and putting reminders has been super, super helpful for me.
Jen
Love it. One thing that I like to do is at the beginning of the week, you know, definitely one thing online sales specialists like before you, you go into your day, don't roll into your day hot. You know give yourself some margin in the morning to have some proactive thought of, you know, hey, before the phone start ringing and things start happening, let me think about, you know, two or three things that I really want to accomplish today outside of normal lead management.
Jen
And if you're super busy, maybe that is making sure I have inbox zero, making sure that I take care of all my follow up tasks today, that could be it, right? But you're thinking about it. You're creating a must get this done two day list. I like to have my on Monday. I have my must do list and then I have my would like to do list.
Jen
And by the end of the week, if if I have something still hanging out on my must do list, I'm not I'm not finishing like I am. I am not wrapping up work. And so my must do list is complete. So but it takes it takes some creating margin around your day. And I know that is hard.
Jen
I know that is hard. Like, I feel you because I wasn't great at it at first. It took me. This takes practice. So what we're saying, like, like Jesse said, roll in, like rolling eyes. Like, I probably said this to her and she's like, okay, yeah, great. And thanks. I had 100 calls today. Like, What are you even talking about?
Jen
Like, I get it. And it takes practice and takes time. And every day is not going to be amazing where you feel like, man, I accomplished everything I was going to today. But you make a good college, try at it and you put some you put a plan in place and you in, you try to execute. So it's awesome.
Jen
Awesome.
Jessie
Yeah. Someone really wise once told me whether it's personal or professional or whatever is going on, if there is a negative thought or distraction or something that's keeping you from moving forward, that this is deep. But her therapist told her, you know, you have to physically stop yourself in your mind and say, we're done with that. You have to like say we're done with that.
Jessie
And then you actually act on whatever it is that you want to do and you truly start to rewire your brain. So if there's a time you're like, you know, I'll, I'll call after lunch, you know, they probably don't want to hear from me at 10 a.m.. They're busy at work like me. We're done with that. We're going to call them now.
Jessie
We're going to get it out of the way and it starts to rewire the way that you think. And so that was something that I had started doing a long time ago and it's really helpful.
Jen
Just do it.
Jessie
Just do it.
Jen
Just do it. Just want to run a marathon. Just do it right now. Just go. Stop thinking about it. my gosh. Okay, everyone, thank you so much for listening. This has been fun. Jesse Yeah, it's my day.
Jessie
Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. I'm really glad that this turned into a podcast.
Jen
my gosh. Yeah. Thank you all for listening so much and happy New Year.
Jessie
2024!
Jessie
Let's do it.
