Do Your Models Support or Sabotage Your Commitment to Personalization?
Do your model homes strategically showcase the Included Features (hopefully you are not calling these “standards”) and Available Personal Choices (hopefully you are not calling these “upgrades”) and properly prompt and prepare your buyers for a fulfilling and enjoyable design studio/home personalization experience? Or do your models waste this valuable opportunity to set proper expectations for how “personalization” works in your company and to reinforce a major point of differentiation between you and your competition? Your model homes are tools for more than just selling homes. ...
Read MoreThe Magic of Making Money
Ever wonder why some design studios post claims of substantial increases in per-home revenue and others don’t? Why some design studio environments add to the builder’s bottom line and others subtract from it? Why some design studios result in raving fans and massive referral sales and why other studios are just new, perhaps “prettier” places where the same old problems persist? Or why some builders claim to close new home sales in their design center week after week and others keep failing to convert hot prospective buyers? Trust me on this: the devil is in the details. Really....
Read MoreHow Is An Organic Nectarine Like A Built To Order Home?
Is your competition slashing prices and trying to sell off inventory homes that have been sitting around forever? Are they touting more square footage for the price, ie selling a cheaper, bigger boring blah box? Is your sales team frustrated that they “can’t compete” with those lower prices? Are your New Home Consultants complaining that their prospective buyers are walking into their sales center asking them to “match” the competition’s “deals”? Is your competition the existing resale (“used) homes which offer out-of-date construction methods and finishes for a cheaper...
Read MoreWelcome To Your Own Reality Show: Extreme Makeover, Builder Website Edition
Everyday more and more potential buyers are visiting your website to consider your viability as a contestant in their own personal reality show: “Who Will Build My New House?”, also known as “Last Builder Standing” or “Amazing Race… to the Permit Line” or “Building with the Stars” or “My Best Builder Crew” or “The Real Builders of Name-of-your County” or “America’s Next Top Builder” or even “Deal or No Deal”…ok, I’ll stop there. But the reality (pun intended) is that MANY builder websites fail to engage their buyers, to offer a compelling point(s) of...
Read MoreCautious Optimism: The 2011 Challenge: Triumphing Over the Delicate Balance Between “Cautious” and “Optimism”
As the housing industry kicks off 2011 with, once again, cautious optimism for a better year, the Dominant Question (assuming this is the year it will actually BE a better year) becomes “What is the proper, profitable, intelligent balance between “cautious” and “optimism”? Let me clarify that. How can we be cautious enough to respect the lessons from the last few years, and keep an eye (well, maybe two strong feet) on overhead and costs so that we can be flexible, nimble, and able to respond quickly to shifts in the marketplace without getting burned? On the other hand, how...
Read MorePart 3 of 3: Builder-Centric vs. Buyer-Centric: Which Reflects YOUR Business Philosophy…and Would Your Buyers Agree?
You’ve probably worked hard to create a superb process for bringing your buyers through a framed or rocked home to show them the quality of construction and teach them about your building methods, answer their construction questions, and use the experience to build trust and relationships. Awesome. That is what you SHOULD be doing. Just wondering, though. Have you worked just as hard to create a superb process for bringing your buyers through the selections experience, teaching them about the high-performing choices you offer in your design studio (whether it is a 15×12 room or a...
Read MoreThink Like A Consumer/Act Like A Retailer
Think Like A Consumer/Act Like A Retailer® is a collection of Jane’s theories on how homebuilders can benefit from the application of consumer purchase psychology and retail-based strategies. These think-outside-the-box concepts should resonate throughout all of your sales and marketing efforts, far beyond the design studio itself. This blog originated when Jane was invited by Hanley Woods’ Builder Magazine to create a blog for their website.
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