Charlie Scott has more than 30 years of first-hand home building experience, much of it in senior management positions with an award-winning, nationally recognized Midwest builder. Currently, he's director of Woodland, O’Brien & Scott for Constellation Homebuilder Systems. Scott helps North American home builders grow their own customer-centric cultures, pursue operational excellence, and increase referral sales. Write him at Charlies@woodlandobrien.com.
The Wells Fargo/NAHB Builder Confidence survey, for February, reported a historic drop in Builder Confidence.
Most home builders and those that work in the homebuilding industry reside on the shore of the pursuers of happiness and have ingrained within them the work ethic to give this pursuit a grand effort.
Do you remember the last time you received a piece of personal U.S. mail (not counting bills)? According to a recent study, the average American receives a piece of personalized U.S. Mail every six to seven weeks – and this includes birthday, holiday and other family generated cards. Wow, what a metamorphosis in personal communications in the past 20 years!
I read thousands of customer surveys every year – THOUSANDS! This customer insight gives me a unique perspective on many home building topics, like today’s “Finding Your Special Agent 007s For Huge Sales Increases."
When I was part of a growing home building company we learned to be on guard for the newest “technology” coming down the pike that promised to revolutionize our home building business. We called the condition of falling for these fantastic technology claims the “allure for the sexy lady of technology.” Thirty years later, it is safe to say, some things never change. Before I expand on the latest siren of technology, let me give you the results of a couple recent studies.
It is not a secret to regular readers that increasing a home builder’s customer satisfaction increases referral sales. Many home builders blow away the 15% national average of referral sales and achieve 40-50%, by virtue of meeting the customers’ hierarchy of needs and having in place a respectful referral sales strategy.
The market bottom is clearly behind us, and this is validated by three very reliable indicators. First, annualized home starts have more than doubled from the Spring of 2009. Second, consumer confidence (and therefore builder confidence) continues an upward trend, and for regular readers, you know these are good predictors of sales activity for the next 6-9 months! Third, and my favorite market turn around indicator, is that the Salesperson Auto Indicator (SAI) has turned positive.
There is no question that Lance Armstrong has one of the most unique comeback and sporting histories of all time. He was a little known triathlete, cancer survivor, turned seven time Tour de France winner, and founder of an extremely successful non-profit foundation, before dramatically falling from public grace by virtue of the U.S Anti-Doping Association (USADA). As a fellow cyclist and racer, I held Lance’s accomplishments in very high regard, adorning my office with Lance posters and a picture from our meeting after his 7th tour victory.
The first lesson that I learn
We all know that teamwork is an important ingredient in building great homes and great relationships with our customers. This importance is substantiated by Woodland, O'Brien & Scott studies showing that a builder's teamwork rating is a good predictor of future referral sales. Given the importance of teamwork, particularly as we head into a busier year end construction and closing season, the following teamwork fable may be helpful.
In the days before civilization, out on the prairie, lived four oxen: Randy, Todd, Scott and Chuck.
Performance bonuses have been around the homebuilding industry for a long time. Salespeople earn commissions and bonuses based upon their sales productivity, and Superintendents earn bonuses for their Quality, Budget and Schedule performance. For the most part, customer satisfaction bonuses were left out of the equation…until that is…a particular marketing company decided to venture into the home building industry with their version of “Customer Satisfaction” awards. Regardless of the accuracy or merits of that award program, it proved to be a performance bonus game change
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Point Of View
Got a story you want to share with PB readers? Write ddersin@sgcmail.com or aalbert@sgcmail.com
July 28, 2017
Palm Springs, Calif., has been a redoubt for snowbirds and show business royalty at least since the 1930s.
Ask Mollie
Q. My sales person seems to be doing a good job with our social media, but how can I tell for sure?
—Builder, La.
Blogs
July 14, 2017
When we are completely focused on a task, we’re said to be “in the zone.” I call it being on a roll, and once it kicks in I can write for hours without a break, and invariably I do my best work.
Videos
Astonishing test of waterproofing materials takes ASTM D779 out of the lab and into Lake Tahoe.
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