Digital Conversations w/ Jeraud Norman

     In RTO who doesn't love the feel of a big sale with a new customer? Thing is now it probably started from an on line or text lead from a CRM program. Everyone is going digital and our customers are as well. Most showrooms are going quiet and the walk-ins are becoming more and more digital in nature. Now is the best time to work on making our sales associates better at the on line transaction. We talk about the speed of the response, but what about the response itself.  Digital role play and working with an on line sales marketing team like Jeraud Norman Marketing can drastically change the way we approach the digital sale and seal the deal. 

Premier Show Sponsor: APRO
Show Sponsor: Jeraud Norman Marketing
www.thertoshowpodcast.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello and welcome to the RTO show. I'm your host, PCL. Today, let's talk where to own with Gerard Norman, again, a sponsor for the show on the RTO show. We love having our sponsors on, but today we wanted to talk about something that I don't think we talk about enough, and it's how to foster a digital sales conversation. Because listen, I'm a little old school. You come into my store, I'm gonna throw it down. I know to talk to you, I know to look at you, I know how to take care of you. But I'm not tech savvy, I'm not email savvy. Gerard, how do you how do you take care of that? How do you handle business? And how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I'm doing great, man. Anytime I get to talk to you is always a good day. Um I know I said on the last podcast we met at RTO World and I sat in on your session, and it was phenomenal. And I'm just so glad that we connected and um grateful that you allowed me to be a sponsor and that you had me back. So I just appreciate you. I really do.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Absolutely. So what do you think the key is? If we're it because you have a marketing background and you you do this very well, I know that I try, right? I try to be as connecting as I can when somebody comes in and we're having a sales conversation, and and let me tell you, I I I love being around people, I love being around new people. If you come in, you tell me you're looking for something, I'm gonna find a way to make it happen, or I'm gonna find a way to create that relationship. What I don't do well, it sales on a digital platform. So if we're emailing, if we're texting, which is really happening now, there's there's a big shift, that paradigm shift to uh social media, or you know, hey, we contact millennials number one percent. They are the number one generation to start contacting and talking through text message. Well, guess what? That's now starting to be our biggest market, and we've got to get better at that. But I mean, we don't want cold interaction. So how do we do it? How do we make that happen?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Well, the easiest way to do it is to do exactly what you do in person, just text it. And to take that a step further, what I noticed just from seeing so many dealers that start doing the text messaging is they don't really sound like themselves to text. What you got to understand is your customer, you know, they're already in a situation a lot of times where they already need, you know, they they need things, and if they could get it another way, they more than likely would, especially if they've never come to you guys before and realized that it's more than than than the myths and the misconception. So they're getting you know, n nine times out of ten they have a job they don't like or they you know they tolerate and they're dealing with people all day that they don't want to deal with, and then when they want something, and then on the other end of the line, there's a there's a person there that just sounds like a robot, you know, just like it it it does it's not appealing. There's no engagement, there's no conversation to be started. But if you juxtapose that with how you deal with them in the store, you guys just naturally flow. So with finding a way to take what you actually do in person and put it in text message, text message you have to be a little more careful with because you don't want to send them a book, right? Um, if you start sending too many messages and the message is too long, that turns them off too. But you have to find a way to get your message across the same way, but just condense it and just sound more like a friend. I mean, if I had to boil it down to one thing, text them like your friends. Would you text your friends what you're texting your clients now or your potential customers now? And I'd say 90%, if not 100% of the time, it's no. You're texting them like a robot, you're texting them like corporate. And if you got to be corporate, cool, but you guys are pretty cool. I don't think you need to be corporate. Text them like it's a friend, and I think it changes the whole game. And then when you get into email, yeah, you can go a little bit longer in depth. Email is meant to be a little bit longer, and you don't have to necessarily go long, but there's definitely a difference in sending text messages versus email. And um, everybody sees your text message. I'd say 98, I mean, I don't want to make numbers up, but I would say 90 to 98% of the text messages that get sent are read, whether they're opened all the way or not. It's just do they think it's worth responding to? And if it looks like someone sent it from an automated message, they're gonna be like, huh, I don't need to respond to that. But if it's like, hey, that's Pete and Pete's hitting me up, then it it puts a different spin on it, especially if they saw a video of you, which is a whole nother topic. But let's say they saw a video of you and that's how you got their information, then it's like, well, hey, that's Pete. Let me, you know, I like Pete. Let me let me go ahead and get back to that. It's just a totally different way and uh totally different way of bring building no life and trust.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

So if somebody's let's say that there's a text conversation that started, I have an online portal, they've been funneled to me, I'm texting them back. You know, when I would always say it's because, you know, for years and years and years you answer the phone, you've got to answer with a smile. That was something that oh that was something that transcended from the top to the bottom for years and years and years. Because you can always tell when somebody's in that mode or in that mood, and when they answer the phone, if they if they look like they sound, it probably sounds terrible. You've got to put a smile on your face, you've got to be energetic and talk, right? That's the way that's the way it goes. But now, here's the thing. It's a quiet line on the other side of a text message. So besides introducing myself, right? Because I I would imagine that's probably within the first text or two, I'm introducing myself as who I am, what I do, and how I want to help you. What what probably is a good addition that I can add to a text that doesn't sound corporate-like, but doesn't put me in the I cannot, you know, when I'm texting, I can't use those slight words like, you know, uh an eight in the middle of something, or you know, BRB, uh, because sometimes that's just not professional enough. But what what is what is a message that I could send that sounds professional yet personable?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Well, the first question we have to answer for that is it depends on how they came to you. If you know it the channel they came from, if they're coming from social media, then that changes things. And even then, it's what's the call to action that got them there? It's always based on that. If they came off the website and they just had an inquiry, I mean that changes things, right? So if someone just came off the website, I would say the website ones, those are the hardest ones not to sound corporate, but again, it depends on your form. So on you guys' site, do you have what they're interested in when they fill out the web form, or is it just name, email, and phone number?

SPEAKER_00 6:19

That would drastically depend because they have the potential of looking it up. So the the conversation could start, hey, I've seen this sofa and love that's in your inventory and I'd like to purchase it. Or I saw that you carry this, is it available? So it really can, you know, it really can change depending on the situation, the person, yeah. Basically the time of day.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Instead of, you know, sugar coating everything, hey, we appreciate your business and yada yada yada. Like, yeah, we definitely have it in stock. When you want to come check it out, by the way, my name is Pete. Look forward to meeting you. When can you come down? And that's just off the top. I mean, eventually, if if I was actually writing this process out for a store, I mean, we would tinker with it a little bit more and get it to the point where you would feel comfortable with it. But that's totally different from, you know, thanks for your business, we'll check on this.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

No, no, that sounded that sounded pretty uh that that sounded, you know, I don't know if it sounds lively because I'm actually hearing your tone of voice, but it does sound good. You know? Um I mean, I guess in the process of becoming who I am, I've gone through many iterations of Pete, right? Pete point 1.0, 2.0, 2.5 because when I first started, I didn't know what I was doing. Yet I was trying to fulfill the need that they had. I P. I needed to be a salesperson, could I need to be a collective person? And so I was the script guy, right? I was I was if I was gonna give you 90% of a script. It might have been tailored a little bit to John versus Sally and say a couple of different things in in that form, but it basically sounded the same. P 2.0 was okay, I know this job a little bit better, and now I can open up a little bit more, right? And so how people came in sounded a little bit different than people on the phone because I I was still kind of a little professional over the phone. And not to say that I'm not professional now, but uh I didn't know how far I could take it. So it was very scripty. If you came in the store and I could read your body language, you could look at me and say, dude, you look crazy. I'm just getting that you know, uh and change it up, and you can almost find that until you almost get it before they even start talking to you. You almost know how to approach it. But in messaging, you don't see the body languages, you don't see the you don't see the you don't hear the tone of their voice. So you know your response actually sounded pretty good. I I like the way that sounded. But then how do I how do I make it inviting enough to make that still? Are there questions involved, personal questions that um you ask or you get to? Do you offer that or do you keep it generic?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah. Um it again, it all depends on how they're coming in. So, like based on the sofa situation, if you try to ask too many things in one text message, then you've essentially started writing a paragraph, which the majority of people who text, they don't text that much at once. Like, I don't even like texting if I'm being honest. I mean, texting a guy like you is different because we're just texting, hey, we're it's more of a check-in with us versus we're not having full-length conversations with text. That drives me nuts. But that's what the majority of people like to do. So, but even when they do that, you have to understand that they don't want to they don't want to have a book to read. If if the message looks too long, they start checking out and it's like it's it's stressful. It's like it's like a psychological thing. It's something, even like, and I teach people this with writing emails too, even though we're still talking about text, that when you write an email, or when you're writing ad copy, you have to break it up. Like if we had, let's say a paragraph is four to five sentences, you were all taught that's cool. So let's say your message is at least one paragraph, that one paragraph should be spaced out. Like one sentence could be its own line, then there should be a space, then there should be another line, there should be a space. And the reason why is because people equate, and I learned this years ago when I first started marketing, people equate white space to being able to read things faster. If the words are all jumbled together, it could take the same amount of time to read, but they automatically just assume it's gonna take too long, and a lot of times people are lazy, plus their phones going off, the notifications, you know, other text messages, emails, and god knows what other uh notifications they have going off. Um I'm you know, some people have their every Facebook comment going off, whatever it is. So it's like if they feel like it's gonna take too much time, they automatically check out and it's the thing that they wanted, but that's just how it goes. So I always say, hey, we got to we have to give the illusion that it's not gonna take them long to read. And the whole goal of ad copy, ad copy messaging, just in general, is not to get them the ultimate goal is to get them to read the entire thing, but the first goal, the first battle you have to win in order to win the war, is you have to get them to read one line and then get them to read the next line, the next line, and then eventually they're at the bottom and you get them to do the thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Now, do you think that going in for the kill within the first couple of texts, is that overkill or is that normal for somebody who texts? In other words, when I'm texting, like you said, you're kind of more to the point. Is it is it better then for me to go for the go for the kill shot right away and try to close that sale, or is it something that I should wait on just a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yes and no. So, like in that first message that we just did with the sofa, do you feel like I was going in for the kill or do you feel like I was leading us further down the sales track?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

No, I feel it was pretty direct. I feel like we were we were going straight to the front counter. Oh, well indeed.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Okay, well then I would say then that's fine by me because again, it's where they came in at. If they're asking about an item and you say you have it, I mean, instead of maybe trying to get them in, the other way that we can reroute it and it works a lot is hey, do you want me to send you some pictures of it? I mean, to an extent they said they already saw it, but it's like, yeah, we have it in stock. Do you want to send some pictures of it, or would you rather come in and sit on it? And then it's just like I always like to end every text message with a question because it prompts a response. If there's no question, then they subconsciously think they don't have to respond unless people respond and not. So it's a it's a whole bunch of subconscious stuff going on with these text messages. So to me, if that's direct, then yeah, I'm all about going straight into the kill. They that's what they said they wanted. Why would I play around? Because then if you play around, now they're like, Man, I I just wanted the thing, just give me the thing, you know? And then it's it it's a double-edged sword. But the reason why I like using personality and making it sound personal, even if it's automated, is because you want them to get an idea of what the experience is going to be like when they deal with you. And people do business with people they like. So if I send that text message that I said after the web lead came in versus, you know, the standard corporate message, you know, which one do you think will get a better response? Or what do you think that most people would want to deal with, especially after a long day of work at dealing with stuff and being in situations? Do they want to stick in the mud or do they want someone with personality?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

So now when you're when you're coaching, okay, because I know that some some businesses are big enough to have to have automated responses. One of the things that you do is go in and kind of dial in on those automated responses so it sounds more human, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah, yeah. So I wanted to so when like let's say that you were running a store and all these different situations we have covered, I want it to sound like as close to Pete as possible. And of course you have to check with your corporate guidelines, which I don't think anything I do would violate that, but everybody's different. I guess the bigger the company, the more you know, strenuous they are. But my thing is to make it sound like Pete sent that message and not like it was automated. And if anything, overnight, if an overnight message comes in, which we can put uh filters on your hours of operation, overnight I'll say, hey, this is an automated text um from Pete letting you know that hey, we're not in, but we did get your inquiry and we can't wait to help you. Um I can reach out to you first thing in the morning. Is a phone call or a text better? And if so, what time? And if they respond to that, then that person, that's a conversation, and that's someone that's a hot lead. Now, granted, you can reach out to them tomorrow and they may not answer, but the whole thing is to keep continually getting them down the track because, like you said, we're talking about digital sales. These people more than likely will never come in versus someone who comes in the store and you already know your game. So the whole goal is getting them to respond and have a conversation.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Well, talking about digital marketing, I know that at some point in time, and everybody knows, Mr. Norman is a sponsor of the show. So as we were talking, we're going through before, you know, one of the things that you came across was the fastdeliveries.com website where you're working with RTO dealers on how to do just what we're talking about, have those digital sales conversations that sound more humanly, that sound more friendly, that are more inviting, and uh get more bites. How is the fastdeliveries.com thing and are you already filled up, or is there some spots left for somebody to say, hey, you know what? I like what he's got going on, let me try that out.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Yeah, I mean, we definitely can take on some more stores. At a certain point, we might have to cap and and grow our team because uh customer service and support is number one to us. But it's been working out really well. Um essentially with the fast RTO deliveries, basically what we're we're coming into the market saying is that we can help to get deliveries, not like impressions, not clicks, not leads. We're talking about I can track agreement, you know, agreements and deliveries as long as you want to share that information, and I can damn near promise you five within the first week of us running a campaign. And part of it is is because we're using some of this digital conversation stuff we're talking about in a text message to send out an offer to your existing audience. And I, you know, to an extent I know that a lot of dealers already do that, but because of this whole conversation we're having, they're usually not doing it in a way that's gonna yield the best results. And then a lot of the stores I worked with already, they were like, Well, I already do that. And I'm like, Well, let me do it my way and let me see if it works. Because this is all I do. You guys use so much, and to try to figure out every facet is difficult sometimes, and then we'll get in. And you know, I think the worst case scenario, we had four sales, uh, four deliveries in one week, but then the lady got a fifteen hundred dollar cash sale, so that more than enough made up uh made up for it. And we've had guys that get more than 25 deliveries in a week, and um, it's all from using that system. And then after that, it's really about putting all this automation in place for the digital conversation to happen through text message, through email, whether people come in from Facebook, Google, Instagram, or from your website. And we just kind of we have some templates and at the same time we personalize it on what works for you. And if you have ideas, what my team does is we take your ideas and we build it into our system and we can do it pretty fast. And I think a big uh challenge in the industry now is that some of the CRMs that are being built, they take quite a bit of time and then they're not fully functional when you know we can, if you have an idea, I mean I probably need two to three weeks max, depending on our workload, and we can have it up and running and functioning, ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

What would you say is the difference, is the big difference, right? So you're coming in, you're saying you've got some digital sales conversations because you had some automated responses already queued up and ready to go, but I want to take a look at it, right? Just like you just said. So what do you what are the big differences that you find between what you initiate and what has already been initiated? Uh is it is it a type of verbiage? Is it what what do you see the differences are? And and are you making huge differences, or do you think that you you're basically fine-tuning it with small changes that make big big outcomes?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

I think it's more of the small changes, but I think it's they're big changes because if you don't know, you don't know. But for me, it's small changes. So even in you know what I've done previously with other industries, like guys would be making money, and then they they would hire me, and I'd be able to come in, like, especially if you're already making money, it's easy to kind of pour gasoline on it because there's just tricks that I've learned from the schooling and the investment in myself and my team that we've done that allow us to see certain things and to be able to just tweak them and get them going. So when it comes to the messaging, sometimes depending on the dealer, it's small tweaks. We have like a format on how we send that initial text message out for just a text message campaign. Like again, our main promise is we'll get you five, if not ten, deliveries in a week. So for that, we have a format, and I use AI as well. So what I did is I spent not just me and my team, we spent a lot of time programming our AI specifically for for rent to own. So if I wanted to run a campaign for your store right now, I would just literally say, Hey, um, I want to run a campaign for Pete, and this is his store, and this is his offer, and then it would spit it out in our format, and that format tends to work. And then sometimes we've worked with dealers that wanted to change it, and I was open to the change. I said, We'll send it for a day and if it's or two, and if it doesn't work, um, it's because they're doing it the way that they normally do it, but if they haven't been practicing these digital conversations, then it's not gonna tend to work. So now I pretty much say we gotta start with the process. And if someone wants to keep changing my process, I'll be honest, it's probably not a fit. Um, I'm open to working with someone and improving the process, but to just come in and change it, then why would you come to me if you just want to change what I'm doing? If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Understood. So you know what we we always say, uh, and I always it's something that I always say, but something that we always say in industry, I always call it honing the blade. In other words, you might sharpen it, but you've really got to put an edge on it, right? Because that's what it's all about. When you have a chef, they might have sharp knives, but chef's knives are extremely sharp in the sense that they really hone it, they they get it down to a fine, fine tip. Because at the point of doing what they do, they don't want to mess around. I don't want to cut myself, I don't want to sit here on this piece of meat forever. I want to be able to cut to the face, right? So when we talk about as I have sales meetings, I've noticed. Okay, it's easy to tell somebody, hey, this is how you sell. When a Ms. Jones comes in, you know, you're gonna sit down. You're gonna get a name, her number, email, you're gonna welcome her in. If she needs anything, and not just do you need a sofa, right? Do you need anything to have to water or anything like that? Hey, why don't you sit down? Try this one out. Or whatever the case it could be black, you know, you come in and they don't know what they want. That's okay. Let me tell you what we have going on today. That way it can help you make a decision. So whenever you're ready to place that order, uh you give me a delivery time, and that way when you tell me what you're ready, I'll already have you set up for that delivery time so you don't even have to worry about it. Um locking them in as soon as they come into the whatever case situations, right? But I can train that with somebody if they're in my class or in their in my meetings, right? And I'm sitting and I'm looking face to face. I can say those things and they go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Then comes part number two, the role play. And they go, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah. You you you want me to respond? Oh yeah, oh absolutely. Because now I have to go. We're honing the blade, right? You know what sharp is. Now we're gonna make it sharp by fine-tuning it. And then they go, wow, two minutes ago they knew everything that's in there, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they wrote down the notes, and now we're doing it. It's like, oh, wait a minute. Um so you said, uh wait, what happened again? And so we go through role playing all of a sudden, by the end of three role plays, wow, all of a sudden, they're they're good with coming up to you, right? How do you digitally roleplay? Would you recommend like literally sitting in one office and somebody else sitting in another and just texting back and forth as far as I'm a customer and you are you're an employee?

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Yes, yes. And I remember you had posted about that uh not too long ago. Role play is the best, and there is a way to do it digitally. So um, when I first started kind of so I you know, I've already been consultant um premiere for a while. And then when I started working with individual dealers, I used to uh sometimes when we had issues with that whole digital conversation thing, um, before we added more automation in, it was like, all right, so you know, hey, let's just have a sales meeting with the sales team, and I want to know what you're sending. And they would tell me what they're sending, and if I couldn't really comprehend it, I'd say, hey, actually text it. Let me see what it how it comes to me. And then what I would do is I would read the message, I would show the message on the screen, and then I would read. The message, and I'll be like, huh. And I would just break it down psychologically, what's happening? And then it would be like, oh, I just think it's a lot of not knowing. So once you it's it's the same thing as uh real sales uh role play. So once you actually show the messages, you get an idea of what they were thinking when they sent the message, and then you just ask them, it's more about asking questions, just like fail. Asking questions on how do how would that make them feel if they got that? Is that the intention you wanted? How would you text that if it was a friend? Because to an extent, you guys are local businesses, right? And you want to have that friendly community feel, no matter what what banner you're under, right? So once I start doing that, and then I'll give them different examples of things that'll come in, or if they have other text messages that they didn't get responses on, I'd say, All right, how would you answer it differently this time? And then I'll and then I might actually send them a text message saying, Hey, I need this, this, this, and that, and then see how they respond to see if it actually took hold, like you did. Because a lot of times, like you said, if people are there, they're listening, but until they apply it, you don't know if they're actually getting it or not. And then when you ask them to apply it, it's almost like they freeze up, but then when they get over that little fear, you know they got it.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Well, I'm gonna tell you guys right now, you heard it first on the RTO show, Gerard Norman Marketing. We are talking about digital role play. I don't even think I've ever heard that term, but I'm gonna I'm gonna say that here and I'm gonna say it till it till it comes back. Digital role play. I love the idea, but you know what? I I did that. When I first started Rent2Own, uh I can't remember his last name, but my my DM's name was John. I was working at Renter's Choice before it became Rent Center, and I did not know about the selling aspect. And I was more of a collector at that point in time, and he's like, we need to work on their sales, and I was like no, and he was like yes. And so he sat me down and he literally back then you could call from office to office like an actual call, not saying like a transfer call that he literally called me and it was a baseball. I picked it up and I was more embarrassed to talk to my boss in a closed area than I was for a customer to call me. I couldn't figure out why. And so it took a little while, but once he got the idea out of me that it was okay to make a mistake so that we could get better. It became a different speaker that was 1.5 at that point in time. And it was great to see how much it really opened me up, but I've never been able to get away from that because it took out the time to really different. And how are you gonna deal with it? I think it's great to be able to set somebody in the next office and go, hey, text me like you're a friend, right? And you're trying to tell me something and then turn around and you know in the next five minutes go, okay, that's me like a customer and make it. And then literally be able to show them the comparative difference and how they approach that conversation. Sometimes it can go too long, sometimes it can say too much, sometimes it's not direct, sometimes it's too direct. But when you're almost don't even worry about it because you're just saying what needs to be said. I think we need to work that we need to work that mindset. We need to do digital role play. I'm gonna tell you guys everybody right now. You're gonna say on the website digital role play. If you're not doing it, you need to do it now for your emails and your text messages, because that's how you're gonna make it happen. And the best place to do it if you can't do it with your DMs and you don't have any time, or you want to get a code. Call your argument marketing, they can take it up and help you out. If you need a website to go to it, fastarteliveries.com. www.fastrteliveries.com can help you out with that. I mean, you're saying really quick that you can come up with like four deliveries real quick. You know, a relative term could be a day, it could be a few days. So if we're talking about that, you said that you can probably create Facebook ads that can reliably get you 20 plus more opportunities every single month. When you when you go into that, how do you what is your approach to how do you say that? I believe it. When you tell me that, I believe that you can do that. And there are going to be people out there who are gonna wonder, of course, you know, they say they see the guarantee, but they want to they want to they want to shake the bag, right? They want to make sure everything's in the you know is is good, the biscuits are all right. So how how is it that you were able to say that, right? How are you able to say, hey, I know that I can do this, and this is why I can say I can do this?

SPEAKER_01 26:38

That's a good question. Um, and the reason why I'm confident is because I've been doing Facebook and Instagram ads for this is my seventh, eighth year. And one thing I tell people is when someone says they do marketing, if they say they do Facebook ads and everything else, they're not gonna be as good as me or the people that I've trained with. So once again, it's not just a me thing. Like I think that I I work really hard, I study, I'm a student of the game, and I'm all about getting results, but there's other people that I've learned from that have taught me the skill set, and this is all I do. If you come to me with SEO, that's not my thing. You come to me of building a website, it's not my thing. I've only done this for the last seven to eight years, and we have at one point even got hired by the United States Air Force to help teach them how to run ads and help them with the recruiting efforts all up and down the whole East Coast region. So, you know, we we did really good with that. In addition to, we've helped our clients generate above $50 million in revenue since I've been doing this. So I know for a fact what works and what doesn't work. And if something doesn't work, I have people that I can go to that I've spent a lot of money learning from that can help me to fix things. So that's where a lot of my confidence comes from. And when I first picked marketing, I picked this specific type of marketing because I know I can prove results. It's really hard to post on someone's social media page and track results that way, especially if you can't get them viral. Because that's that whole social media management I post through everyday thing. I asked on that because I didn't want to become a bill and the first thing was to get rid of me. So I picked this very intentionally. And then on top of that, like with the people that I've been working with that run ads, they're getting that many leads, if not more a month. Now, the next part of that is making sure you have a CRM that can automate the follow-up. And even with automated follow-up in your industry, you're at a point where you guys have to jump in. Like, that's the only big difference between like full retail and RTO. Like to if a lead comes in right now off of Facebook, which again we can get you at least 20 plus, if they say they want pictures, I mean I can send them a link to your website, but if I send them a link to the website and it kind of just dies off there and they say they want something and you don't jump in right away, then we're missing an opportunity, you know. So sometimes people you can you can be an hour or two later daily and some people respond, but a lot of times, especially y'all customers, if you're not responding to them right away, which is what they expect, they can't go to Amazon and get the thing, but they want that Amazon-like feel. If you can't respond to them fast enough, it doesn't matter how many leads I help you get. You know, and everybody says they're on it, and then I go look at the numbers, and I'm and I I keep it a hundred percent with people. I don't sugarcoat. It's like, hey, you're telling me that you're responding to these leads fast. The automation is doing its thing. You got people sitting here right now saying they want something, asking for pictures, asking for pricing, and that was an hour ago. Like, what are we doing? What are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 29:34

What are you doing? Are you are you looking to get the sales or so I got I got 20 sales? I got a 20 plus warranty on this, okay? I need you to get this done. So here's the thing in your mindset, in the way you do business and the way you look at it, is it advantageous for a company? Let's say let's say we'll start at 15 stores or maybe 10 stores, right? Is it advantageous in your opinion? You know where to own on how it works now. Is it better for them to create a position? Okay, let's say I've got 10 stores and I'm dividing a payroll over 10 stores, so they pay what they all pay one tenth, whatever that might be, to have somebody who would sit at an eight-hour position ready to respond, or is it is it better to have great automation and try to catch them on the back end?

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Both. Both, because automation, again, can only take you guys so far, especially in your industry. The automation is just what I like to call speed to lead. It's someone said they wanted something, they get something right away. It's weird how so many people submit on websites or on Facebook and then they don't even get a confirmation, even if it is corporate. So that the speed to lead is to keep them engaged and give you an opportunity to get there and hop in. I think it's a phenomenal idea to have one person that would be that. I mean, eventually if you have so many stores and you're getting a lot of leads, you're probably gonna need more than one person. But I like that idea. So I worked with a dentist a few years ago, you know, not to throw numbers around, but it was it was one of our bigger deals that we closed. It was like a dentist that had like five or six locations or something like that. He was paying us over twenty thousand dollars a month just to run his ad. That didn't include him paying paying the ad spend. Can't remember what he spent on it. So he was spending at least thirty to forty thousand dollars a month, and he hired someone similar to what you're talking about, and her job was to be that one person for all locations, and it worked out so beautifully. And that's something that I would eventually I I'm not gonna be able to do that this year, or maybe I will, but I'm looking at Q4, is I would like to be able to offer that service. I actually tested it with one store and started seeing how it goes. Um, but I where I can bring in someone on my team that can actually respond to leads 24-7. The biggest challenge that I'm running into that personally is every store is different. So like with a premier store, you know, they you know, and I'm pretty sure a lot of you guys have it like Ashley, they use Ashley. So if I get your Ashley login, I can teach my team to go in there and find stuff. It's a bit of a maze because there's so many products, but we could do it. But going back to what you said, if you have that one person that can that's their whole job is to learn digital conversations and to respond to leads and basically get it to the point where they're handing over filled-out applications to the GM in the store, that's essentially what we would like to do. And I think it would be very beneficial. And then you still need the automation. Automation isn't a question of whether you have it or not, it's you have it and you do everything else. That's just part of the game. And the people who are winning the game the best are the ones who have that. And there's people who are winning pretty well without automation, but if they added automation, how much better would they be doing? If they added speed to their follow-up outside of the automation, how much better would they be doing? Because you know, in some, you know, in some places, man, there's a store, a different store down there on every corner. So it's like they don't necessarily need to go to you, especially if they don't have any history with you. So how are you gonna stand out? Your personality and your speed. The business that responds first eighty percent of the time gets the business. It's some studies think it was hard. So you don't ever want to be second. And if you're second, it's because the first person didn't answer, they're just gonna call. The next person. Like, oh, I didn't hear from them and I want it now. Let me keep calling, let me keep calling. So if you had someone that could literally do that for a group of stores, I think that would be phenomenal. Phenomenal. And he had so many sales that wouldn't have happened if he didn't have that one person there. And that's and that was a lesson I learned, I think was it 2020 when I was working with him. And I was like, wow. And that's something I've been trying to do for what I'm doing for RTO, but there's a lot of moving parts because of how the everyone's business operates. So uh I I want to bring that solution to the marketplace. And I mean it it definitely costs more money too, right? Because if you were to hire someone, that would cost you at least two thousand a month just to hire that person, but you know, so we have to figure out logistically how we could do that. But in the meantime, yeah, have one person oversee the stores, follow up with the leads, they'll be a maestro, and if you do that, your your sales will definitely go up and the person will pay for themselves, I think.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

The CRM is the customer relations manager. Is there a specific one that you would recommend considering that rent to own is a little bit different? And it's let's say when you talk about a CRM, the customer relations manager, and being how rent to own is so different from other normal businesses in the industry and industry. Is there one that you recommend that you've come across that you would say, you know what, I think that's probably the better one out of these that would probably be more tailored to what you do?

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah, for sure. Um I'm a little biased because I've built my own and because I saw the struggle that was going on. Outside of that, I've heard of a few. Um I guess to show my non-bias, um, and I respect good work and and good service, I would say perk. And a lot of people wouldn't talk about I don't even know if they're they know their competition, but yeah, um they're my competition now. But um, I've worked with some stores that have been on perk, and I think that they have uh extensive follow-up sequence for anyone who comes off the website. There's other things that I do that they don't do, and I don't want to get into you know the comparison, but I would say uh, you know, if you don't want to use mine, mine is called Master Marketing Systems. There's different divisions of it, but I have a division built specifically just for rent to own. And one thing I like to do is if you guys have ideas, which some of the deals I've worked at have given me ideas, we'll implement those ideas and we'll see if they work better. And if they don't, we'll make changes. And for me, once I set it up in my little playground where my team does, we can push it once we know it's a good fit, we can push it out to all stores if they want the update. So some of the updates we've done in the past were on the automation. If people came through and they we we would ask them what they were interested in off the Facebook ads, and it would come through in the messaging, uh, it would come through to the store owner and a text message and an email saying, Hey, this person, first name, last name, email, phone number, want this product to interest. And then what we would do is we would automate and say, Hey, we got your text. Do you want us to send you pictures of? And then in parentheses, the product to interest would populate. And then they would be like, Yeah. And then there was a drop-off with people getting back fast enough. So I'm like, my whole thing is yes, I have to tell you you're not doing your job. It's a partnership. And at the same time, how do I make it so I don't have to worry about you doing your job knowing that this isn't just the RTO thing, it's everything. So if there's always a buck a hitch in the process, I'm looking to see how I can take that off you guys' place. And so the next step, uh one of my dealers had an idea, said, How about if they tell us what they're interested in, we just send them the link to the website so they can look at it. And I was like, that's a great idea. I had to figure out how to do it. Took us about a week or two. So now when someone says they want a sofa or f or bedroom furniture, the first text comes through with a link to the website where the bedroom furniture is. And if and then within two or three minutes, the first text that's automated back is, Hey, did you get the pictures? If they respond, it doesn't go out. But if they didn't, it goes out. And obviously they got the pictures, so now it's just a quick text message to try to get the conversation back started, right? And even in the past, when we didn't send pictures, I would send that message. And guys are like, Why would you send that? Because I know they didn't get the pictures. I'm just getting looking to get them to respond. Because if they don't respond, we don't have anything. But if they say no, I didn't get the pictures, we know they're still interested. So then now you get to pick up the conversation. So we just think through all kinds of things like that in our system, whether they come from web, Google My Business. If someone comes from Google My Business, we can have an automated sequence to come there and you'll get alerts, Facebook, Instagram. I know most of you guys have online rental forms, but if you need one, we can create one for you. There's just so much stuff that we can do, in addition to one thing we do as well is when a new lead comes in, we'll send them a voicemail. And their phone doesn't ring, but they get a voicemail with a message that you pre-record, which I'll coach you too how to do that. And it's just like you're just hitting them from so many ways. And then if you sound friendly in the voicemail, they get the text message, you seem like a person, it just increases your chances. And does everybody still come through? No, they don't. But if you're not doing those things, your percentage of getting in contact with people dwindles drastically. And the contact is where everything is at because without contact, there's no conversations, which means there's no sale. And if you ask most people, how many people did they get a hold of out of those 2200 leads, they never know because they're not tracking it. And once they start tracking it, they see that if I get better at that part, everything else just flows. So hope that answers the question.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Oh, absolutely. You guys want to track your results. You want to make sure that everything is right because there's nothing worse than putting a lot of work out there and not knowing what you're getting out of it. Make sure you track your results. Make sure you do that digital role play. Do not let that down because as long as you're doing the role play, whether it be in person, whether it be on the phone, or whether it be digitally, that's how you make your people better. If you guys have questions on how to get those deliveries up and you want to talk to Gerard, you can hit up the show at the RTO Showpodcast.com. That's my email. You're welcome to go to our website at therctoshowpodc.com and drop us online. Or you can go to Gerard Norman's website at www.fastarteliveries.com. He's got a video on there that kind of gives us some context of what's going on. And you can hit him up. If you guys have anything that you want to talk about, hit us up. If you want to talk to him directly about how to get fast artseliveries.com working for you and his business at Direct Normandy Marketing, give him a call, give him a hit, hit him online. You want to go to Spotify, if you want to go to BugBroth, hey, wherever you can get a podcast, that's where I want to be.