The Past, Present, and Future of Online Sales

Mike Lyon and I talk about online sales’ past, present, and future.

We’re going to talk about internet sales, and we’re going to do it in four different periods. We’ll start by looking back. We’ll end by looking forward.

JEFF: Let’s talk about the world of Internet sales and what it was like in 2010. Let’s go back 12 years now to 2010. Tell us about Internet sales in 2010. 

MIKE: I’m trying to think of what cell phones were used back then. We were using iPhones for the most part.

When you think about it, online sales started to gain a lot of momentum in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Home homebuilders were not doing so great for those who needed a little reminder of what was happening back then. We were coming off the heels of a tremendous financial crisis, which was not borne out of all these leads we were managing.

It started when sales leadership and company owners said we were getting leads, no matter how many we had, whether 50 a month or 300 and they were not being managed the way we wanted. Every single lead counts, and we’ve got to convert these people. We’ve got to get them out on-site, and we’ve got to get them in front of our sales reps. We’ve got to get them in front of our product.

That’s where online sales was born. People started cutting their teeth and figuring this whole thing out. Back then, you know, in 2005, 2006, 2007, when the market was going gangbusters, similar to these last couple of years, only the big builders had this in place, and they weren’t even doing it that great.

Everybody else didn’t even have a website, and they didn’t have online sales in place.

JEFF: Advance ten years into the future, in 2020 and 2021. We have gone through a massive evolution in online sales. We also had the weirdest market of our lifetime at the same time. So what was happening during this time for online sales? 

MIKE: When 2020 hit, after the initial freak-out moment, builders who had a good program in place were thinking, oh my gosh, thank God that we had an online sales team in place. Through necessity, they redirected all walk-in traffic and turned it into online traffic. Online sales turned into people you see at the front of Apple stores, you know, checking you in upon arrival.

Online sales turned into air traffic control. They were removed from the deep dive they would do with customers upfront and the discovery side. They weren’t doing any of that. They were acting more like reg cards asking…

• Are you pre-approved?
• Do you know how much this costs now?
• Do you understand it’s going to take at least nine months to a year to get this home

Oh, you want an appointment this next week? Yeah, that’s not going to happen. It’s going to be a month from now. That’s all the conversation that was happening. This was a shift no one was expecting.

JEFF: Moving into 2022 because everything’s different. Today what’s happening right now as it relates to internet sales? 

MIKE: It’s a renaissance. We’re so excited!

First of all, online sales dominate in a down market. I’m not excited about a down market, but I’m excited to see people do well. Lead volumes are being cut, 25, 30% for many folks, but the quality is up. I’m talking about the people who have been in this role for more than four years. They had time in the seat before these past 24 months. They’re thinking, oh, this feels good. I feel like I’m doing what I was hired to do.

So there is this renaissance of, all right, customers want to hear from us. Customers have questions that we can answer. We are helping the process. We are saving deals. We are getting people out in front of salespeople as quickly as possible. Salespeople love our leads again. They love our appointments again.

JEFF: Let’s say it’s 2032, ten years into the future. What does the future hold for the world of online sales? 

MIKE: We used to think that artificial intelligence and how it could help us in the background would make us way more efficient.

But something has changed recently. Privacy has become a massive deal for people. Apple’s big on privacy, and they’re cutting off all this data that marketing used to be getting access to. So that artificial intelligence can’t tell us this person on the back end is doing things, you should now reach out to them.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have, every day, when we show up in our office, our screen says either these are the ten people most likely to respond to you and set an appointment?

I would hope that’s where we get to. I think it will happen unless people shut it down, which is the opposite of privacy. But I think technology is going to help support us. I don’t think we’re ever going to get away from having a human, even at the beginning, at the very top of the funnel, help with this purchase because, in 2032, that $500,000 house will be a $1.5 million house. So it will still be the most expensive thing someone purchases, and they want a human to be involved.

I think there’s to be more of that. I think it would be more of a hybrid approach, taking them almost to the end because we will have better visualization tools, a little more overlap with sales, and ways for people to experience things and feel like they’re there. It’s going to take a virtual salesperson. So, you will have lead management, virtual hybrid sales, and sales/closer. I don’t know how much of that will overlap, but I’m excited about it. It’s going to be fun!

JEFF: Love it, love it, brilliant stuff, Mike. An exciting journey in just over five minutes to figure out where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. Thanks, as always. Good catching up with you, Mike Lyon. 

There you have it from the authority himself, the past, present, and future of online sales. Until the next time, my friends, learn more to earn more!