Market Proof Marketing: New Home Builder Marketing Insights

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 314: RoadblocksDue to Thanksgiving, Kevin Oakley takes on this episode alone! He covers the three main roadblocks that marketers face as they grow in their leadership ability. You can read a summary of each roadblock below: Street Cred:  It's not just about having skills and insights; it's about demonstrating them in tangible ways. The challenge here is overcoming skepticism that might stem from predecessors' failures or a history of ineffective marketing roles within your company. It's about showing real, measurable impact - turning skepticism into belief through small but significant victories. Remember, it's not just about doing your job well; it's about being seen as doing it well. Once you have it, you also have to use it and take a risk on the next big initiative.Influence: The essence of leadership in marketing isn't just about external messaging and campaigns. It's critically about influencing those within your organization. You need to win over not just your team but other departments as well. This requires a balanced approach of communication, diplomacy, and assertiveness. The idea is to align everyone's efforts towards a common goal, ensuring that even your external successes are supported and sustained internally. (If it can't be sustained - what's the point?) This is where your ability to manage and direct not just projects but people and perceptions truly comes to the forefront.Talent: Talent goes beyond just mastering the tools of the trade. It's about understanding the psychology driving human behavior. This understanding is the bedrock upon which all your strategies should be built. Moreover, it's vital to have a comprehensive grasp of the entire customer journey. It's not enough to craft messages; you need to understand their impact throughout the customer's interaction with your brand. Lastly, staying ahead in marketing technology is crucial. This isn't about chasing every new trend but about wisely integrating technology that

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 313: Chatbot ControversyIn this episode, Kevin Oakley is joined by Julie Jarnagin and Andrew Peek. The team starts off by giving controversial opinions on chatbots and discuss the idea that it's better to be good at a lot of different things than the best at one thing. Together, they give their thoughts on Tiktok marketing and the way builders do it wrong.Story Time (03:14)Kevin says he doesn't think that homebuilding sites have ever had chatbots, and doesn't think people would want it.Julie listened to a marketing podcast where the host, Rory Suthrerland suggested it's more important to be really good at a couple of interconnected things rather than the BEST at one thing.”Andrew talks about Google ads and the relationship between budget and your average CPC.The News (25:33)No One Cares About Your Community Name (https://www.doyouconvert.com/blog/no-one-cares-about-your-community-name/)Texas commissions lawsuit targets teams, associations  https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/11/14/texas-commissions-lawsuit-targets-teams-associations)Housing market affordability is so bad that Zillow says it will take you 13.5 years to break even on a purchase from July onward ( https://finance.yahoo.com)To buy a house in today's market, more people turn to an alternative lender: their parents ( https://www.cnbc.com/to-buy-a-home-in-this-market-buyers-turn-to-the-bank-of-mom-and-dad)Things We Love Things We Hate (50:50)Julie is loving the Marketing Millennials instagram page.Kevin enjoyed watching his boys get excited about his old baseball cards that ended up being worth nothing.Andrew left without saying his. Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you! The post Ep 313: Chatbot Controversy appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 312: Helping Builders Get Happier Buyers with Derek Schairer and Luke GroesbeckIn this episode, Kevin Oakley is joined by, Derek Schairer and Luke Groesbeck where they present their new software tool called Foundation. Derek and Luke dared to ask “Why is it easier to track a pizza delivery than it is to track the most important purchase of your life?” which led them to find a way to simplify the homebuilding process for both the builder and buyer. The goal that Foundation seeks to achieve is to sell more homes, more efficiently, to happier customers. Kevin, Derek and Luke discuss:Keeping the builder and their brand first.The two products that Foundation offers which are Closing Concierge and Ownership Experience.The technology behind Foundation.The importance of understanding the full complexity of a project.Taking stress off the builder and creating a better environment for the buyer.You can get a full Inside Look into Foundation by joining All Access here!Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities in the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunes > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-itunesFollow on Spotify > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-spotifyListen On Stitcher > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-stitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!  The post Ep 312: Helping Builders Make Happier Buyers with Derek Schairer and Luke Groesbeck appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 311: The Root of the IssueFor this episode, it's the Beth and Julie show! Kevin is out sick so Beth Russell and Julie Jarnagin take charge and jump into discussion on builders who are overcomplicating their marketing and urge builders to ask themselves “What is the goal?” and build your strategy from there! They dive deeper into setting goals for the next year and Julie suggests before making goals for the upcoming year, reflect on last year's goals and what was actually accomplished. Beth requests you share your goals for next year in All Access!Story Time (02:53)Beth urges builders to not overcomplicate it. Get to the root issue and ask yourself “What's your goal?”Julie has noticed all of her builders preparing for their 2024 goals and suggests that they reflect on last year's goals before setting new ones.The News (12:42)2024 Looks to Be a Defining Year for the Ad Market (adweek.com/brand-marketing/2024-defining-year-for-ad-market/)Reshaping the American Dream: Millennials and Gen Z Struggle to Leave the Nest (probuilder.com/reshaping-american-dream-millennials-and-gen-z-struggle-leave-nest)The best evidence yet that banning Airbnbs will make rent go down (businessinsider.com/airbnb-ban-makes-rents-housing-prices-drop-irvine-california-study)Scientists make breakthrough in research that could change the way our homes are constructed: ‘A significant result' (finance.yahoo.com/news/scientists-breakthrough-research-could-change)Things We Love Things We Hate (33:38)Julie is loving Bachan's Japanese Barbecue Sauce. Beth loves the people of Kansas City!Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript:BethWell, welcome to the Beth and Julie show!JulieHere we are. It's a surprise. The Beth and Julie show! It's just us. Yeah. Now, apparently, Kevin's not feeling great, so last minute, just me and Beth. But, hey, we're gonna make it work. This is going to be fun.BethIt'll be good. And we hope he feels better soon. He just got back from Guatemala, so the whole fam went down a little bit, and we just want them feeling better.JulieYeah, 100%. And I changed! I rearranged my office. It looks so good. I feel like everything's a little different. I'm trying to figure it out. Throws me off a little bit, but.BethAre you one of those people, though, that, like, when you rearrange furniture, you're like, or that you have the need to rearrange furniture because it makes your whole house whole feel now?JulieHmm. I don't rearrange much because I'm just kind of like a I, I don't like things to change. Yeah, but every once in a while, I get the itch, which is what happened here.BethNo, I love that. And it's interesting. My office, I feel like I rearrange more than anything because that's where I spend my most time and obviously, but what I've kind of realized, which honestly, I didn't really realize until now, until we're talking live in this moment, is that we've moved houses a lot. Obviously. Right. And with each house it gets a little bit better because we're a little bit older.BethI mean, we can afford a little bit more or like depending on where we're living. But in the houses that like I didn't like very much or weren't necessarily my taste, I rearranged furniture a lot.JulieOh, okay. Yeah, it can be. But this one, you've had it in your head from when you when you were building it? Probably so. Yeah.BethThis one we built, like we didn't pick the floorplan. We only made like a couple of changes, but everything else I selected or we selected and so it feels more like us and I don't have that need to rearrange. I mean, we've only been here for two months.JulieSo yeah.BethAsk me again in a year.JulieAnd six months and it forces you to clean and dust. That was other good thing.BethOh yeah, that's true. That's the other nice thing about moving is you get rid of things. All right, well, let's get started. Welcome to episode 311. I am Beth Russell. And with me today is Julie Dart. Again.JulieExcited to be here. This should be fun. We had a we had a Jenny Beth Julie show not long ago, and it was super fun. So.BethSo much fun.JulieYeah. Yeah.BethSo again, this will be great. And we just I need to not go off on my random tangents.JulieOr maybe I need to!JulieExactly. This is the perfect time. This is your chance. Go off the rails.BethOkay, so I guess we'll get started with story time. We had an interesting call this week with the Builder, and it just reminded me to not overcomplicate and that we shouldn't be overcomplicating things as decision makers within our companies. In this particular example, they were talking about a promotion or an incentive, and their plan was to pause it for like five days and then have a go live again.BethAnd immediately I was like, Tell me more about that.JulieLike, what is the.BethThought process here? What is the goal? And originally the response was they just want to take a pause and then hopefully they can get more attention.JulieWhen.BethIt goes live again. And so we brought it back up on our leadership call and drove a little bit deeper. Got to the root of the issue and we're like, okay, what is the real intent here? And the logic behind this pause.JulieSo.BethThat we can understand and plan accordingly. And the response was, well, the thought is, is that if we take it off and then we put it back on and we refresh the graphics, we refresh some of the messaging that it'll look brand new and people will be like, Oh, what's that? And it'll get a little bit more attention.BethAnd well, from a psychological standpoint and a consumerism standpoint, that could very well be true. I was like, Let's take a moment and step back and let's look at our numbers first, because if you don't have a huge amount of return, visitors to your site, then everything looks new to them anyway.JulieYeah, they're not living in that world that they know what you're running at all times.BethYeah, exactly. They're not stalking your every move and like, remembering every single graphic that you have on your site. So we took a look and their return traffic was minimal. It wasn't the the dominant force on their website. So it ultimately didn't make sense. And then when you factor in their small lead volume, because a lot of people are running into the smaller lead volume right now, month over month, it just was like not worth it because their messaging was actually driving some leads, which ended up being like 15% of their total lead volume for the month.BethSo it's like, do you want to risk losing any leads that you could get in that small window? And the risk just wasn't worth the potential reward in that situation. So in that the story and the lesson there is get down to the root of the issue and really get to what goal it is that you guys are trying to achieve.BethUse some backwards math if you need to apply some data to create some logic around it and determine if it's even worse. The work, the work that we put in to find out if that was work worth it for them is more work is less work than it would be for them to remove it, come up with new messaging, put it back on and rebuild ads, and do all that.JulieBehind.BethThe scenes.JulieAnd I think the other good lesson here is like, go be the best at your organization, that if people are throwing things at you from different departments or leadership or whoever, just to take the time to stop and be like, tell me more about that. Like, why are you wanting to do it this way? What are we trying to achieve?JulieDon't be afraid to ask those questions because they might have a perfectly good You're like, Oh, perfect. That makes sense. And then everybody's on the same page. But I think sometimes, especially if it's coming from above us, but sometimes we're like, Yes, okay, we'll do that. And we don't take the time to stop and ask the as the questions of why.BethYeah, and how you frame it. It doesn't have to be a conflict. It doesn't have to be an engagement of like me versus them. It just is getting down to the root of issues so that everyone, like you said, everyone's on the same page and they understand the intent because I think where communication gets lost a lot of times in every single company, regardless if you're in housing or not, is that people aren't understanding the intent.JulieOr the.BethWhy behind what they're doing and they're just executing and things just get.JulieLost. Yeah.BethAnd expectations are meant when that happens.JulieYeah, absolutely. Well, mine's also kind of about goals, but it's from a different point. I'm glad you set a lot of goals. Are you a goal person? Like, do you like New Year's resolutions and like goals for the New Year? Are you into that?BethI'm not into New Year's resolutions because I feel like oftentimes are empty promises that we make to one another, you know, or like me to ourselves. I do love goal setting, though. I'm like that neurotic person that's like, okay. And one year I want to be here in two years, I'm going to be here. And something that I used to have my team do all the time was build like a five year plan in that five year plan.BethLeaders listening. Make note of this. I learned this for my husband. Should always include your personal life. It should always include your family. Because wherever you are with your family in that time of your life is going to impact where you want to be in your professional life. And so the two can't be completely separate from one another in regards to your growth and your progression and the person you want to become.JulieSo yeah, big.BethFive year plan type person.JulieSo true. I love that. And next month, especially December's when everybody's making like 2024 plans professionally and personally. We've already started talking about budgets and things, so I would say take some time in December before you're setting all those goals and plans for 2024 to reflect on 2023. What were your goals at the beginning of the year, professionally, after Builder and personally, what did you achieve?JulieWhat did you not achieve? And take some time to celebrate your wins? Like, Well, what did I do? What did I what am I really proud of this year? So I do some journaling kind of stuff just because I process things better writing. And that's one thing I've been trying to do more instead of always looking at the next thing.JulieThe next thing, the next thing. Stop and take a look at what's going well, what you're proud of, what you learned. So November would be a great time for that. Maybe around your Thanksgiving break and then you can start really focusing on 2024 plans in December. And I love that stuff. So and it's kind of weird right now.JulieI'm kind of in between because I wrote the book last year and that's all done. I had an injury, so some of my like jujitsu stuff is kind of on hold, so it's kind of fun to come up with something new. So that's where I am right now.BethI love that. And especially because the growth doesn't happen without the reflection. And so you can use that reflection over your previous year professionally. And then don't be afraid, like don't do that and keep it to yourself. Put it in some some form of digestible format that you can provide to your leadership and say, Look at what I have done.BethLook at what our department has done, look at what our team has done. And this is like quantify that impact on the organization because there's a lot of opportunity and that's how you can grow professionally within your career to say like, this is what we're doing, this is the impact we had. There's no denying marketing now.JulieOkay, people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like you said, such a good opportunity to celebrate your team right now. So take a look and use that just to celebrate what everybody's done done this year. Because, you know, it's been tough, it's been a tough market and people are still like fighting for those last sales end of the year trying to meet goals, but just set aside some time on your calendar.JulieIt's a good time for it.BethThat's good advice. I love it. I want to see like I want people to share like what they're doing and how they set their goals and how they how they maybe report on their year end impact or things like that. So if you're an all access share some of that. If you're listening right now, we would love to see it.JulieYeah, I love it. And do you remember what your word was from last year? I remember a lot of people had a word last year. Does anybody remember their word? Oh, what was your word? And did you live it out this year?BethMean did I love it? I mean.JulieI remember Tigers. I think Carly had won. Maybe Jen had won.BethMine was definitely centered around like change because I was going through a lot of change professionally. So at the beginning of the year, I mean, I started do it in March, so I don't know what it was, but I still look back now. I'm curious.JulieI don't remember either going out to get a look report back.BethOkay. So what would your word be for next year, though?JulieI don't know. See, I have to work on that. I'm What would my word be? I think some version of like confidence, because I think there's some things that are new to me that I'm working on some kind of step into like that, you know, not having imposter syndrome, being, you know, looking at where I'm at, that kind of thing.JulieSo I don't know, confidence is the word, but I think it's some version. Version of that is what I'm hoping. So I'm working on it.BethI love it. And I think that's so cool of you to admit on the podcast, too, because it's a realization that, like all of us have that imposter syndrome at time, right? Like even the people that we go to for advice and mentorship or guidance or coaching or whatever, like every single person has some sort of imposter syndrome in their life, even.BethKevin Probably. Are you listening?JulieI don't know.BethKevin Kevin will feel it for a second and then research it and then not have it anymore.JulieWe'll be on it. He'll stay up till 3 a.m. listening to a podcast about it. Yeah.BethI love that. Okay, so with goals and planning for 2024, a perfect transition onto the news is our first article that says 2024 looks to be a defining year in the ad market in this article from Adweek. And it basically is talking about how the global ad spend will turn a corner and rising to 8.2% from this year, what they call modest 4.4% in 2023, which I think is very poignant to Kevin's budgeting video that he put out.BethIf y'all haven't watched it, definitely recommend doing that because a lot of people over that or a lot of builders over the past, what was it, 3 to 4 years had really pulled back their ad spend or their marketing spend in comparison to their total revenue. And you know, a lot of conversations I've been having recently, I was like, Oh, my budget's going to be cut next year, my budget's going to be cut next year.BethBut this article forward it to you or your higher ups or your CFO or something, because it's also talking about how ad spend is going to continue to get more expensive.JulieYeah, exactly. When I read this article, it was almost like they were excited, like it was a good turning point. The ad spend is going to go up. It's also more competition, you know what I mean? Especially I always tell people as far as Facebook, you know, in Google search, we're just probably competing against the builder down the road or a realtor or something like that.JulieAnd Facebook from Christmas season, we're competing just for eyeballs. So that could be Macy's or, you know, whoever is advertising. So, yeah, we're turning this corner for ad spend, but it also means more competition. Things could get more expensive. So yeah, and it also says most people are looking to spend and display video search and social are dominating CMO's global media plans and I think that's also people come to us sometimes and they're like, what's the new, you know, okay, we've done Facebook and we've done search, what else can we do?JulieAnd it's like there are other things and we can talk through all the other options. But like globally, this is what people, this is what's working right now. So I think a lot of people are using those same tools that are really reaching people. And that's where we have to kind of start. And then we can grow out from there and experiment with different things.BethYeah, there was a mention in the article that like the most of this revenue, where is it right here is actually going to the huge media networks like Amazon and and media and things like that. So I mean, people are spending money in the same places and you have to think of what are the where is it relevant to your industry?BethLike when TikTok advertising became a huge thing, people are coming to us being like, should we advertise on TikTok or are we doing like not for housing, not for new home construction, It's not going to put a dent in what it is that you have. But I think what you should also take away from that is okay. So display requires content and good design, good brand messaging, a good logo, all those things.BethVideo is content. Invest in your content, search and social. I mean keeping things strong, optimizing those and understanding how things like you said, the how the market will get more expensive. So kind of relaying that messaging to your higher up saying people are going to be spending more money next year with the election and the Olympics happening. And so you have to understand how that's going to impact perhaps your Facebook budget, like you just said.JulieYeah. Yeah. And it's just going to be we're just in a harder market than we were two years ago. You know, it's just different interest rates, different environment. So we probably are going to have to spend a little more use a little more advertising and still be efficient with it. But we just need to make sure we have that money kind of socked away.JulieJust just in case. Yeah. Yeah.BethBecause Lord knows the big guys aren't going to hold back.JulieNo, no.BethOkay. Our next article is Reshaping the American Dream. Millennials and Gen Z struggle.JulieTo Leave the Nest. Yeah, this one.BethWas interesting because if you open up the actual study and the report from the study, they're like, you're just inundated with graphs and information. All these numbers are comparing the two generation, but the sum of it is basically saying that millennials and Gen Z are.JulieAre.BethLeaving the nest egg their parents homes at a.JulieSlower.BethRate than previous generations, which I don't really think comes as a surprise to anybody.JulieI don't think so. I don't think so for for numerous reasons. I mean, it's more expensive to move into your own place. Inflation, they're paying more for school or they're more in debt for school. There's just a lot of things that kind of play into that. I'm kind of I, I, I've talked about it before on the podcast.JulieI'm kind of from the opposite angle. We have my mom living with us and she's lived with us for years. So we're a multigenerational households, but the opposite direction. My mom was with us instead of us, you know, living with our parents. But then we also had my niece come live with us over the summer for a little bit, too.JulieSo I do think it will be interesting to see if that changes new homes at all, if more people I know there are some like multigenerational plans and things out there in the world, but as there's more like grown young adults living in houses or mother in law's living in houses, if that's going to change, kind of how anybody does those business.BethYeah, absolutely. I think we saw it a lot in Texas because multi-generation.JulieMultigenerational.BethHousing was a lot more popular down there than it is where I'm at right now. And they started building houses with dual primary suites for that reason. And sometimes they were like off to the side. Sometimes they're integrated within the plan. And it's interesting that the different ways that you can market that as a mother in law suite or grandparent suite, something like that.BethBut what I love about what you just said is so important tune, it speaks a lot to our generation is a lot of people are moving in their parents to help with child care because they have to work. They have to be a dual income house in order to afford housing where they want to be. And then childcare is so expensive.BethAnd a lot of these large markets that multi-generational housing is the only way that they can afford childcare.JulieYeah, yeah, it's a good point. It's a good point. And we do have I know at least one of the builders I've worked with are doing a they use to have the acronym right. I'm still are you dwelling units so building a little chitchat or you know sweet or yeah what's the right word for it but I think that's what they're calling them.JulieSo I think I think that's going to evolve more and more over coming years as we see more and more of, you know, of this being the trend, whether it's because people are choosing it or they're kind of forced into it either way.BethIt would be interesting to see a full development that could fit those eighties. As you said, on the lot, because, you know, like a basic production development with like a 60 by 120 onsite would not be able to fit that.JulieYeah. The one I'm familiar with there, a custom builder. So it makes sense. But that would be really interesting for I can think of one production builder that had something similar, but that leads into one of our other, one of our other articles because there was some question on whether you could build, I think theirs was like a garage apartment basically, and whether that could be used as a short term rental or not.JulieAnd that kind of depended on the community too. So we'll get to that too. Do you want to jump into that article now?BethYeah, because that I think it also ties into why you have more millennials and Gen Zers living with their parents now because they can't find somewhere to rent.JulieYeah, yeah. This is from business Insider and it's the best evidence yet that banning Airbnbs will make rent go down. And basically what it's talking about is that New York just passed a new I don't know if it's a new law or they're just enforcing it now, but basically it took it from 22,000 Airbnbs in New York down to 3000 is what's happening.JulieAnd and the idea of the article basically is just supply and demand. So because we're having such an affordability issue and especially somewhere in New York is having an affordability issue, the demand is the same. There's still the equal number of people looking for an apartment in New York City, but Airbnb is taking some of that supply and making them short term rentals so that somebody can't run it out for a long term.JulieTheir permanent home. So what they're saying that if you open those all up for long term rentals, not just Airbnb, that rents are going to go down and they've seen some some proof of that. I think there was another their other example I think was in California, wasn't it, where they began that several years ago and it did actually bring rents down.JulieSo it's a it's an interesting it's an interesting conversation to have. Of course, Airbnb says we're not the reason affordability is a problem, which yeah, it's a complex issue. Just banning Airbnb by itself is not going to fix all affordability issues. But really then they point it back to homebuilders because they said really the only thing that's going to fix affordability is us having more housing, and that would mean us that I mean builders, that's what we need is more housing.JulieBut that's hard in somewhere like New York City. But it's.BethYeah, and I think they're absolutely right. It's all comes down. It all comes down to zoning, which this is talking about as well, like restricting how many Airbnbs there are if they're zoning for new construction, if they're zoning for new residential housing units in the area, you have to be able to resupply the area. And I when I read this, it came to mind was Brian and Brian College Station area in Texas, because there's a ton of Airbnbs in that area because people fled to the area for Texas A&M; games and they spend every weekend there and then you have a college town.BethSo all of the like low rent housing is all taken up by college kids. So if you're a young professional trying to find a nice place to live with a decent rent that's affordable, where you're not surrounded by college kids up until 3:00 in the morning partying or being really rowdy every night of the week, your options are limited.BethAnd it's just because there's, you know, Airbnbs popping up left and right in that area.JulieSo I do wonder, I will be curious to hear if anybody says, like what the majority of those Airbnb landlords do. Will they sell Now that they can't do that, will they keep them and rent them as long term? Do they even want to be long term landlords or did they just like the money of the short term?JulieSo now that that many people can't use that business model like well well listings flood the flood the market in New York because they'll just want to sell them or they get around anyway. I thought that was an interesting thing too. Like all the sudden there's all these apartments used for one things that can't be used for that anymore.JulieSo what's going to happen with that?BethYeah, there are some cases where they the city allowed for an incentive. They didn't. I don't think that they explained what that incentive was if they converted to a long term rental. But again, it depends on what that incentive is. Is that inventive worth it enough for them to become long term landlords? And then what do you do with all of the stuff and furnishings that you put into that Airbnb as well?BethThat's what I find so interesting about what they do here locally. So we're we're located right outside of Augusta. Obviously, Augusta is known for Augusta National and home of the Masters. And so what the area did was make it so you could rent out your home as a short term rental during the Nationals. I'm sorry, during the Masters.BethI don't know why I said the Nationals. It's because I'm a homebuilder, that's why. So you can rent out your house for up to two weeks, 14 days during the Masters or actually I think it's like at any point during the year up to 14 days and you don't have to pay taxes on the income that you make during that time period.BethAnd they do that to incentivize, obviously, homeowners doing this, renting out their homes, but also to keep Airbnbs at bay and to keep hotel development at bay. And so the area isn't just run up with these huge resorts and hotels all around town. And it's amazing. Like we were just talking to our neighbors and they put professional golfers in this neighborhood.BethThey put the staff and the people that work here, our Airbnb that we stayed in for two months is owned by a lady who owns a catering company who only caters during the masters. So she had like a team of chefs that come into the area, stay at this Airbnb, which is why she bought it. And then the chefs go work at other Airbnb during the week of Masters as like the in-home chef.BethAnd then it's like a whole building industry around here. It's it's fascinating.JulieIt is. It is. I know I have some family up around Lexington, Kentucky, and they have something similar with the Kentucky Derby. Like if you have somewhere like with a little land where you can get horses, crazy money, crazy money for people who can come stay during horse racing season. So like all these little niche things, you don't hear about.BethThese like local markets. It's just crazy. Yeah, I love it. That's what's fun about moving so much as you get. I get to learn stuff that I never otherwise would have been interested in learning about previously.JulieWhat can you tell us about Kansas?BethBeth I like Kansas City. Kansas City is lovely. The people are so nice. I remember my first. I'll go see. I told you to attend. It was bound to happen. I truly.JulieStarted it.BethSo this will. You know what? We didn't have favorites. So this will be my favorite. And it is the people of Kansas City. Okay. And I probably people are going to be like, you're going to talk about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. No, I'm not. I'm going to talk about my own personal experience. My sister in law is from Northern Missouri.BethSo she did her residency in Kansas City. And my so they lived there for a period of time. And they got married. They got married in Kansas City. So my first time visiting Kansas City was for the wedding. And I remember for a little background story, I'm from the East Coast, I'm from the Baltimore, D.C. area. So the cities that I'm used to are D.C. and Baltimore.JulieWhere.BethPeople don't stop for, you.JulieKnow.BethLike if you're a pedestrian, like, good.JulieLuck.BethYou better practice your whole look both ways. If you're trying to cross the street and you better wait for that ticker. Okay, we're in we're walking towards downtown and there's this whole area called the Plaza, which is where like all the really nice shops and restaurants are. So we were walking downtown there and we're about to cross the highway, the major road cutting through the plaza and there's no crosswalk where we're at.BethSo we're just waiting for traffic to stop or, you know, to go by these people. And can they just stop for you?JulieThey just stop.BethIn the middle of a highway and just let you.JulieCross. They're like, What's happening?BethI was flabbergasted. I thought I was going to get handed like a casserole. At the same time on the other side of street, like they were just so nice. It was amazing. So shout out to that. Like Midwest.JulieYeah. Don't even need crosswalks in Kansas City. I love it.BethIt's lovely. It's very nice.JulieSo we're like, Oh, how are we going to tackle this next article?BethWe can talk about it because we actually did have some fun conversation around it.JulieLet's talk about it. So what happens is people throw in in our podcast on our Slack or our internal Slack idea, it's, you know, articles they see that we can talk about in the podcast. And this one, you know, we were probably going to let just Kevin run with it, but Kevin's not here, so it's us and we're not science people.JulieBut.BethBut my reaction was I am not a bio engineer.JulieQuick out of my.BethWheelhouse.JulieSo this is from a finance Yahoo! Is that what this is from? Scientist Make breakthrough in research that could change the way our homes are constructed. So basically and forgive our pronunciation on this because this is not stuff we have to talk about. Researchers at UCS, Newcastle University are using fungal networks to build structures. So basically, if you think about like a mushroom and the roots and the stuff that goes under the ground, you can make things from that.JulieThe fungal network, small strings that are part of the fungus intertwined underground with tree roots. It's part of a network of plants that pass water and nutrients to each other. We're getting a little over over sciency here. But anyway, so they've basically they figured out that this might be a replacement to use less concrete and make buildings more lightweight and better for the environment.JulieBut we laughed because you click through the picture they use for the article. It's like they're framing walls so you can think it's like a material for like a traditionally framed house. But if you click from the article to the research, wherever they got it, it's like these two people sitting on the ground in this little mushroom looking hut, looking over over their heads.JulieAnd it was like fungus. It looks.BethLike fungus.JulieYeah. I mean, it's it's from a mushroom and you can probably tell it. So it makes me laugh that like the headline acts like that we found this brand new material and now it's going to be in your houses. But unless you want to sit on the floor in your little fungus hut, I don't think we're quite there yet.JulieAnd we also had the conversation before we started recording that this is kind of like the 3D printing conversations that we were having all the time. Like, it is a really cool thing and we like to talk about it and new materials, but it's it's not going to get there until it looks recognizable or gets more people get more used to it.JulieIt's just like until it looks something that we recognize as what we want to live in as a home. But it's always good, you know, to see these things and follow the research.BethBut I'm going to age myself and my reference was the show Roswell, the original one, this remake that they put out there, but the original Roswell from like the early 2000, late nineties, it looks like the hut that the aliens came out of because like, no one wants to live in that. So I'm sure that, you know, if you dig into it, they can say that they can basically reconstruct foundations and walls through this material, similar to how they 3D printed foundation and walls.JulieYeah.BethBut even 3D printed houses don't look very nice right now. Like they have this weird.JulieBody and don't.BethI don't know how else to phrase.JulieThat. Yes, I agree. I had a friend whose dad his dream was always to build one of the Hey Bell, you know the hey bell. And then he put the mud over top of the hay bell.BethThat that's the comment. If you look at the comment on it, there's like.JulieOh, really? Yeah.BethHe's like, my next house is going to be made out of strong Clay.JulieYes, that is exactly that was I had a, I had a friend that that was her dad's dream.BethDid he ever do it?JulieI don't think so, no. I never.BethUnder like, interesting. Okay. I'd walk through it. I'd walk through this one. I'd walk through that. I'd walk through a 3D printed home. Not going to buy one, not going to invest in one.JulieEither. Words, in 20 years when we're both living in our mushroom hut, I.BethCan't wait for.JulieIt. I can't wait for it.BethAll right. Do you have any favorites or not? So favorite?JulieWell, my not very fun. It's and y'all may have heard this. I forgot the brand name, so I was looking for barbecue sauce, but apparently there's Japanese barbecue sauce. Have you had actually have it. It's so good in Serbia and I only bought it because it like I was making an order online and I accidentally came across it and it had like amazing reviews and all these people bought it and I bought it.JulieIt's delicious. I love it. Oh, good. So it's it's like more like a it's called a barbecue, but it's more like a soy sauce kind of teriyaki, soy sauce, whatever. But it's just good for cooking with. So that is kind of random, but that's my new favorite because I just discovered it.BethI'm like, full on that train with you. We do know how we found out about it.JulieASCO samples. Oh, okay.BethThe power of Costco samples.JulieWell, you'll have to tell me how to use it, because I've only used it in like a couple things so far. Like we have a bunch of my husband's a hunters, so we have a bunch of, like, round meat in the freezer all the time. So, I mean, kind of like a stir fry kind of thing with it.JulieI'm not so good. You have one? Not today.BethWell, Kansas City, the people can bring. You know, I already went on my hand at the favorite.JulieSo Kansas City.BethYou know, and I got to say that people in Georgia are lovely as well.JulieSo kudos.BethI approve. You have my stamp. That's me stamping.JulieMy. Oh.BethWell, this is fun. Thanks for listening to the Beth and Julie Show.JulieYeah, we made it. And hopefully Kevin gets to feeling better and is back next week.BethYeah. We love you, Kevin. Feel better?JulieYeah. Bye bye. The post Ep 311: The Root of the Issue appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 310: Investing In IntegrityIn this episode, Andrew Peek is joined by Beth Russell and Jen Barkan! Together, they discuss the motivation that comes with investing in your goal more heavily and how, through your investment, your passion is more noticeable to those around you, similarly to businesses investing in good marketing that earns loyalty from customers. Beth stresses the importance of having integrity in home building no matter how enticing it can be to cut corners and the three agree that magic happens when online sales and marketing are communicating and working together.Story Time (01:48)Andrew was impressed by the marketing of a local Greek cuisine restaurant.Beth brings up the importance of having integrity in the homebuilding process.Jen tells a story from a coaching session she had this week.The News (26:36)Must Read! GA4 Channels Function Differently than Universal Analytics (https://www.doyouconvert.com/blog/must-read-ga4-channels-function-differently-than-universal-analytics/)White House opens $45 billion in federal funds to developers to covert offices to homes (https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20231027198/white-house-opens-45-billion-in-federal-funds-to-developers-to-covert-offices-to-homes)Lender Will Split the Difference If You Give Up Your 3% Mortgage Rate (https://www.thetruthaboutmortgage.com/lender-will-split-the-difference-if-you-give-up-your-3-mortgage-rate/)Brokers prepare for changes after Sitzer/Burnett commission lawsuit verdict (https://www.housingwire.com/articles/brokers-prepare-for-changes-after-sitzer-burnett-commission-lawsuit-verdict/)Things We Love Things We Hate (50:13)Beth is loving the Reese's take 5 candy!Jen is enjoying the Starbucks holiday drinks that rolled out.Andrews favorite loves the very berry skittles bag mixed with starburst.Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript:AndrewSo I'm trying to up my content game. So in front of me I have I'm looking at my web camera immediately. Behind the web camera is my Sony A7 three, which like maybe 5% of people like, know what that is? And I got like the lens which should be perfect for this distance to have everything behind me out of focus.AndrewThen I have like this monitor. I forget the name of it, like this other screen attached to it so I could see myself scramble, like walk behind my desk. But okay, this shot's good. And then I got this, like, crazy tripod thing that has one, two, three, four, five, like seven articulation points. So it could be like. Like this, like a claw to do it, but, like, it just looks like chaos behind my desk now.AndrewSo I'm still getting used to it, but I'm so excited. I did some test clips and my goal for this is to make content easy to create, which I've never been in. Like a consistent flow because it's like set up the camera, take down the camera, set.Jen You're going to start doing more video.AndrewMore video content like me, kind of talked about that people should do, like practice what you preach a little bit.BethWell, then send that setup my way!AndrewI will maybe know anything.Andrew$3,000 or so, but like it's been over the years. It's been over the years. We'll see. Is it worth it? I don't know. It kind of leads into my story time as far as like, is it worth it? Is it not worth it? So maybe we just I'll I'll go into story time. But first, let's get started. Welcome to episode 310.AndrewI am the self-proclaimed ad doctor with no formal education to call myself an ad doctor. And with me today is Beth Russell and Jenn the one and only barking woo! Who were here. Here. So, yeah, let's see. Yeah, I'm excited. I'll just continue with my story time. So content and trust is what is what I'm going for. So is it worth what I spent on my camera and equipment for content?AndrewFirst of all, I use it for other purposes. So and I've had it for a couple of years and over time I've built it up. So it wasn't like I just spent all this money on fancy camera and everything. Last night we were not in a mood to do any cooking, which really means I do. I do other cooking, make sure notes, listening.AndrewI do other cooking at the house. I'm like, I'm not cooking anything. I took Addy, our youngest, to Tumblr, and so I got home at like 7:30 a.m.. Like, it's getting late. Kids go to bed at eight because they're elementary and middle school. There we go. I'll order some food. So we went out to Uber Eats because I did not feel like driving.AndrewLike, Oh, let's try this little Greek place out that's like right around the corner. That's like my, my limit. Like, I want something close so the food is fresher, right?JenYeah. So does it take too long?AndrewYeah. And it's called you little. It's called Little Greek. I've never been there, but the reviews are good. But, like, you never know, Like, that could just be, like, friends, family. They're like, you know, guilted people into leaving reviews. So we get it. And every single thing is branded with their logo. Like, we got a First of all, how do you pronounce Giugiaro Euro?AndrewEuro?JenYeah, euro or.AndrewLike the euro, they're not really.JenAre Gyro.AndrewGyro.Jen003 is not right.AndrewIt's definitely regional. Right. But who knows. That's, that's funny. So that's what I ordered. That's what Lindsey ordered. Then we got some other things but it was the euro was wrapped in a branded like little. What's it like parchment paper, styrofoam. It came in branded the little wrap that goes around the napkins and forks branded. I'm like, Oh.AndrewSo immediately I'm like, I kind of trust these people already. I've never been to this place. Think about the opposite. What if it came in like a generic, the absolute cheapest to go container the cheapest paper, the cheapest. I'd be like, Ooh, with food. And maybe I'm weird with food safety, but I would have had this impression. Like, they probably cut corners somewhere.JenMm hmm. Yeah, they have attention to detail.AndrewIt's NATO.JenSo it's France.AndrewSuper important. All right, So I'm hoping quality, the better camera setup should give the impression that we, I, all of us, care just a little bit more. Yeah, because it's perfect. It's, you know, the audio is going to be ten out of ten the video, ten out ten all all these things. Is it necessary? I have no idea.AndrewProbably not, because we're not used to seeing every single person make content with a fancy set up. Usually it's phone, but you're good to go.JenThere is something to be said for there's some.AndrewSo like in Kevin if you're listening I'm request I'm just kidding.JenWell that there is I agree with you in that there's something to be said for the quality of the output starts with quality tools. Yeah you know I think about like my kids who are in sports and like my son coming to me saying, like, he needed, you know, for pitching. He needed the very best glove or the very best training weighted balls and I'd be like, whatever.JenHe's like, Yeah, but. And there's something with the perception of, Yeah, I'm investing in myself. And then the output of what I'm producing is going to be that much.AndrewThat I actually agreed. Maybe there's like a minimum threshold, so you don't need to go like all out, but like it needs to be like it hits this threshold where like, okay, everyone is like, all right, I trust it enough. So maybe the company last night, they didn't need everything to be branded, but maybe just like the wrap around the food, it's enough because I was colored.AndrewIt was like white and blue, which makes sense. Greek like it would be white and blue, but maybe not everything would have given the same feeling, but nothing certainly gives the opposite negative feeling. We're like, Ooh, like, I don't know, like, never been here before. It's not like they didn't didn't take that extra step. Maybe they're actually being lazy.AndrewSo it was a shock moment. I'm like, Oh, I just got like marketed.JenAnd I feel like I work out there when I, when I have like, the brand shoes on.AndrewYeah, I agree.BethWhatever it takes. The lemon versus the Amazon.AndrewOfficer.JenIf I had if I had Lululemon outfit Lululemon not Lily.AndrewYou're wearing like $600 worth of stuff AirPods.JenLike the, like the best workout.AndrewThis the best work.BethOf my life. I have a question. When you guys go places and they have those like fully branded items or like you go to a restaurant, they have those thick nice paper towels in the bathroom. Do you immediately go to like the dollar signs of how much all of that stuff costs? Because, you know, you know, like more than my money.AndrewI definitely think about that.BethI think about it all the time because I think like, okay, they've made so much money just buying the foam containers in bulk. Yeah. But to get the emblem or to get the stamp of their logo, the amount of money and time that they invest into doing that, I'm like, okay, they care and they're investing in it and they have the money, so they have to have the profit.BethSo they're making enough money, they're selling enough food, People must like them, boom.JenYep, Yeah, 100%.AndrewAnd maybe there's something like we feel like we it's like why apparel works for some companies and doesn't work for others. You buy apparel because it makes you feel like you belong to whatever that brand is. I think that I'm Mark at the summit. I forgot his last name from a thousand. What he talked about that was not not it was a Davidson Mark Super cool, dude.AndrewI think. Mark Right That's one the producer is I'm terrible last names but he's like you belong to this brand. Like why do you buy Nike versus New Balance Other There we go. Mark Davison Olivia's helping us out or why do you buy X, Y, Z bat versus another bat? Like I don't know, like you're part of the club type of deal.JenMy it's my husband won't only buy Nike. Yeah, it's like even to the point of like following certain sporting like athletes. Oh, they're under armor. Oh like they must not be that good. It's like.BethMaybe.JenA Nike branded athlete.AndrewI'm from Maryland, so your character's really sensitive about this.JenThis is I'm.AndrewNot sure what else is from Maryland.JenThis is not me. I'm saying. I'm saying my husband.BethI'm just giving.AndrewHim another Andrew.JenAnother Andrew?BethYeah, says Andrew's man.AndrewYeah, we got old Bay. We have. It's in there. It wasn't a cake show. And Maryland Cake.BethBoss. He was in Maryland. Yeah, he was.AndrewBoss Old Bay under armor and the Wire, I think was is. Oh, Cosmo.BethThanks for asking.AndrewYou're welcome. You're welcome. Okay. All done with my distractions. Beth or Jen, who wants to go next?BethWell, I have another story about details, if you will. So I'm going to coordinate.AndrewThis without even knowing.BethAnd we always end up doing this. Or we're just really good at transitions and we don't give ourselves enough credit. Maybe. Oh, but basically, I was having a conversation with someone in the industry yesterday working construction, and she was telling me why she left her previous builder and what was like the reason, like the catalyst to her just being like, okay, I'm done.BethAnd she was on site with one of her superiors, like I guess like an area construction manager type person. And I think she was the superintendent at the time essentially. And they were going through like their queue, so they were evaluating the home. And she pointed out some things and the the superiors response was, well, if they don't mention it, if they don't see it, then it's not actually a problem.BethAnd she was like.JenNope.BethI'm done. Like, I'm not going to be a part of this. This is not like I don't want my name attached to this type of builder or to this type of mindset. And I think it's just really interesting because it points to integrity, right? And the detail.JenOf what I was thinking.BethYeah.JenAnd like the definition of integrity.BethMhm. Exactly. And it's like she, she wasn't willing to compromise her integrity to be a part of it. And the details, the little small things that he didn't think were a big deal, they could eventually come back and bite you in the, in the years later. It could, it could cost the company a lot of money, It could cost the company their reputation.BethIt could cost him his job, her, her job, all of these things like you have to have integrity in your building, in your marketing, in your data collection, and how you do sales. Like if we lose our integrity, then there's a domino effect that could happen later on that could really cost us a lot more in the end.BethSo it was a cool little story and I was just like, Then you go, girl.AndrewYou go, you get it, you go, you get the A Who cares about that? Yeah. Especially on the home side. I mean, that's the product like we're building. Yeah, we're not I mean, I'm not building homes. She's building homes. You know, props to her. Like, that's the there will be someone living there 24 seven. Like they will find those things eventually.BethAnd I wish there were more people like her in in all areas. Right. Not just in construction but in in in marketing and sales and whatever. Because her response to it was, I don't want to be a part of the problem. I want to be a part of the solution. And if I can't make it better, then I don't want to be there and I or I don't want to be in this industry anymore.BethShe was like, I'll go like work at Chick-Fil-A, but you know, whatever it is, like, I feel like I'm making people happy.AndrewFor sure and not be on home. Inspectors tick tock reviewing like yet another. Have you all seen those yet another homebuilders? I'm being kind of like tick tock. The content goes viral because it's interesting. There's a story, there's tension. Right. That's more interesting than a perfectly made home. Right. Which one do you want to watch? The home that looks like it's falling over the one that's like, oh, like it's perfect.JenYeah. The train wreck.AndrewYeah. You're not sitting right? Yeah, the same. You're. What's that rubbernecking they're turning. They're like, okay, cool. You're like the accident essentially. So it's just it's just drama. What do you what do you got, Jenn?JenWell, I've got a lot to think about, but one thing that really stuck out that's super relevant right now is that I was talking with on a coaching call this week with an online sales specialist and we were looking at numbers and you know, just one thing to keep in mind, I think as we move into this next few months, you know, things are a little harder.JenPeople are looking at numbers and really scrutinizing everything. And so we were doing that together and just talking about lead to appointment specifically, hers had dropped from September to October.AndrewOkay?JenAnd I was like, okay, like, why do you think that is? And I was expecting she was going to say something like, Well, it's really harder right now. Like customers are being a little bit it's harder to get them to an appointment. That's what I was anticipating she was going to say. But what she said was she goes, I think it was me and I think it was my mindset.JenShe goes, I had kind of gone down this rabbit hole of watching a lot of media talk about interest rates and how the market is tough. And she said, I think that was affecting me and like I was projecting concerns I was having about the market on to the customers I was talking to. And so I sat back and I was like, that's really insightful of, of yourself, that you're self reflecting and you're realizing.JenAnd I said, Okay, this is what we're going to do. I said, Right now let's let's write down what are the pros of buying? Let's switch our brain. What are the pros of buying a new home right now? And so she start she was like, okay, she's like, you know, we have inventory. She's like, there's not a lot of other inventory on the market.JenAnd like, exactly. She's like, we have a warranty, we have a home warranty. It's a new home like. And I said, Exactly. I said to think about cost versus, you know, the cost of buying a new home versus the cost of a resale home where you might have a lot of other expenses that go into that. And she's like, Exactly.JenAnd I said, okay, what our. Oh, and I said, What else? She goes, Incentives. We have incentives. I said, Exactly.AndrewYeah, that's a good one.JenYeah. I said, You have incentives, you have a warranty. It's a brand new phone. You have inventory as it builders have, you know, the ability right now to provide those incentives that used homes don't have, you know, on the market. And so I said what are the cons? Okay, we've made our pros list, what are the cons? And she was like, well, I guess really the interest rate is the main thing.JenAnd I said, okay. And I said, But people don't buy interest rates, do they buy homes? So let's talk about how we can talk about that. And so we spent some time just kind of thinking about that. And really what it boils down to was the main thing is the affordability. You know, the affordability because in this particular online salespersons, market affordability is huge because there they sell to more entry level, you know, first time home buyers and that affordability is crucial.JenAnd so we spent some time talking about like for online sales specialist, they're not trying to convince somebody, you know, especially like a new home, a new first time buyer. It's like, I'm not going to sit there and try to convince them that it's affordable like that they should purchase. Right now is a good time to buy at an 8% interest rate and the affordability is going to be fine for them.JenBut what they need to focus on is let's do this, come out, take a look at how we build that way. When you're ready and you feel comfortable, you'll be able to determine if our builder is a good fit for you or not. And so I think online sales just has to have that perspective shift of there. So hung up on like, I got to get I got to sell, I got to get this person thinking that now they should buy when really let's just get them thinking about coming in and taking a look at our homes because hopefully they'll come in, they'll fall in love, they'll meet with that salesperson that's on site thatJencan show them how cost changes, what incentives they could work with to kind of help them to be more affordable. And so it was a really good exercise to kind of go through that. But how powerful I mean, what you guys agree like that mindset of like if you're sitting there thinking like, yeah, like doom and gloom that's going to project on to the people you're talking to.BethAbsolutely.AndrewYeah. Yeah. I think I just wrote this down. My brain is like getting excited from from everything you're saying I wrote. Is affordability an objection or is that just a reduction of market size? So that's like semantics, like objection being like, well, you know, like you guys have nine foot ceilings, they have ten foot ceilings. To me, that's objection.AndrewI'm not even in sales training, so tell me I'm wrong like all day long versus affordability is like if you cannot afford the home like it, that doesn't there is no objection. I guess you're not in market.JenBecause you feel like it's really an objection. It's not like.AndrewYou know, like work your finances a bit like, you know, like we like for this person, we have no debt. Our income is as such, like, here's what we qualify for. It's not that's not an objection. Like, you can't even think about it. But the objection is like to me, there's choice for an objection. So they're on the phone and they already been maybe they haven't been pre-qualified.AndrewThey're just brand new. Yeah, get them excited. Like, Hey, come on out like that. So much fun. Like, come see our communities talking to people we know. Just, you know, Halloween was, what, two days ago? Our Halloween experience with our kiddos compared to our friends who live in where we're at. Like we have very few new home communities Pinellas County, Saint Pete, Clearwater, like west of west of Tampa, very few new home communities.AndrewOur kids Halloween experience, I can guarantee, is 100 times better than those who live in a, quote, traditional community. That's like where it's just like sixth Avenue, 17th Avenue, whatever it is. And like for like there's no one doing like trick or treating. I'm like, Oh, come 2 hours, we got 70 houses, everyone is out, end of their driveway.AndrewYou don't have to knock on the door. Candy, candy, candy, candy. And we're used to it. And so it's fun. Or they go to I'll go to One Tree Oaks, which is they older, established community, one entrance in one instance out. So they're all going to these places that are communities like, wouldn't you want to live in a place like this?AndrewLike there's 20 kids on the block, like all these things that are if they can't afford it, like it makes them move like, okay, so we're $400 more per month or whatever it is. Like that's a lifestyle upgrade. But for a good reason. If you have kids, if you could even have that discussion. But there's there's more than just the numbers.AndrewI think people forget like there's more than just the dollar amount, like there's the value of community and and being around people. If you have kiddos or if you don't like.JenRight.AndrewGoing somewhere where like it's active.JenSo exactly So to that point it you know online sales can't you have to be careful about getting hung up on their job is to engage and to get somebody excited about the possibility of buying or building not to sell the home over the phone. That's legal for the salesperson. Leave that for the people that are trained to do that out on site.JenJust get them excited, have them think about what it would be like to live there, to trick or treat there in that community and get them out for informational sessions. You know, we I've said this like 20,000 times. We'll get the word appointment out of your your words, your vocabulary and start talking about we'd love to host you for a discovery tour.JenWe'd love to host you for an informational session and I'll be sure to let everybody know that you are just in the beginning stages of looking. They come out sales, get them excited. We see how they could be living in the home. And that's that's the shift. That's the mental shift that has to happen.BethYeah. And I think in any rocky market situation or when, you know, these doom and gloom conversations are kind of or thoughts are looming either in your brain or the people that you're talking to whose brain remember one core thing and they're calling you for a reason exactly how they get on the website.JenAll the interest rates.BethYeah, they had to be. They called.JenYou.BethYeah, exactly. And if you just remember that, it can help you get in that mindset of like, okay, they're calling me for a reason. They're interested in this market. Let's let's have a party, let's talk, let's make it fun and try to drag it out.AndrewYeah, I think pick up, pick up Starbucks on the way, like something out a little bit. Like I don't know if like to meet us would be a thing. And if you do this because it is the person's schedule. But like, if I don't have have kiddos like hey, I come by at 430 today or like schedule an appointment or like the kids are out.AndrewLike if you happen to be that familiar with like the schedule like and then they pull up in the street and they see like kids running around hours. I feel like most of our street, like we raise our kids like free, free range chickens. Like it's like, let them roam around, it's gated, they're out and everyone's got ring cameras all over the place.AndrewThere's usually like two or three parents out doing something in their yard and 15, 20 kids out. Now, if they're an older person with no kids and they don't want that, that'd be a terrible idea.JenDon't send them out to get. It's the.AndrewMinistry. No. Oh, goodness. What fun. Yeah, you're just kidding. Just getting them excited. Yeah. Yeah. Know any other stories? When you talk about anything else happen at all? Not on my end.JenWell, listen to. I could tell. I could tell you, Andrew, that today that we presented to our online sales academy.AndrewI love it.JenAnd I had fun presenting to our online sales Academy was because we wanted to do a session like a marketing 1 to 1 session for online sales.AndrewOkay.JenYou know, just yeah, that's needed. We well, we talked to all and I said, well, it's time. Like your job is to quantify what's happening. And like that said, well we were talking about earlier somebody is like yeah, I didn't really understand what that meant. Like, I hear like how important this is, but what does that even mean?JenSo like, but what? Yeah, I think everybody what you.BethI think it was really powerful. The conversation that you're referencing, Jen, is that she was like, I heard when I took this position that I would have to own my data and I'd have to I'd have to know my numbers, but I didn't know what that meant or the impact of actually doing that. And so what we did was painting a picture alongside Jesy and Amanda of what that meant from an organizational standpoint, going back to integrity, how important those numbers are and this like vital position that the online sales people have within maintaining that flow of the funnel and the kind of feedback and data and information and collaboration that can happen between marketingBethand online sales. And I think that's kind of where do you convert was routed from is that relationship between marketing, marketing and online sales? Because I feel like oftentimes we're seeing that marketing feels like a silo. They feel undervalued, unappreciated and like it's not as invested in. And then online sales can oftentimes feel the same where like, you know, sales gets all the glory and they're the ones writing the contracts and people aren't really sure what it is that they do or what it really means.BethAnd they feel like they can have more of an impact. And so we kind of talked through that and how the two departments can lean on one another and work together and find solace in the two of them collaborating and and and celebrating one another. So it was really fun. It was really, really.AndrewSound so positive.JenWell, you know.AndrewWhat? I'm stealing someone. Jen, Jesse, Amanda. For the marketer of marketing Academy sales.JenYes, Yes. Boom.AndrewAnd Beth, is Beth also do something like that. Gives me like 2 hours. So I eat some food, take a little break to the academy because we're like 16 hours of talk.JenAnd I share something that is very relevant.AndrewThis my horoscope.JenConversation would say, Yeah, listen to this Gemini. Every week I pull one of these random cards out. Okay, you guys notice I.AndrewNeed to know what it says.JenAnd, well, I'm going to read it to you. So this week's card is collaboration. Oh, okay. Let me read to you what it says. I take pride in my role as a good collaborator and look for opportunities to help support my colleagues ideas rather than dismiss them outright. I fill my meetings with yeses and ends and I celebrate the constructive power they have over Butz and or else, unless I work for a company that makes cigarets and boats, in which case bucks and orders would be Oh, never mind.JenOkay.AndrewThat's hilarious. I know why this reminds me of Elaine of Money Garment. I don't know why. It just seems like something she'd say so positively.JenYeah, Collaboration. I like it. But, you know, when Beth was talking, did you notice? And she was like.BethShe's dancing. I do it when I like to. Yeah, when things make me happy. I just like.AndrewChick-Fil-A and I get Chick fil A's sauce.JenSweet tea, you know?BethNo, no, sweetie.JenA collaboration between online sales, onsite sales, marketing. You know, it's an ecosystem. They all need to be collaborating, working together, and even just within teams, you know, collaborating like us, you know, like we collaborate, you know, we could easily live in our own silos between sales and online, I mean, marketing and online sales and whatever. But magic happens when you collaborate.AndrewThe magic.JenI love magical collaboration. Good.AndrewYeah, that's it for today. I'm just kidding. That's not it for today.JenAnd we are out.AndrewAnd on to the news. Here's a fun one. I'll let Jen take this first one I wrote a blog.BethPost.AndrewReady for. I'm just kidding. Wow. This is collaboration, in effect. No, we don't have to do that.JenDid you see.BethThat? I shared these and shared it.AndrewYou commented on a link and it was awesome.JenI read it.AndrewIt's good.JenI read it.AndrewAnd that's perfect collaboration. You at it? Did you.BethSee? No, that's not Gatorade, right.JenThat's my joke for. Oh, it's not is it is.AndrewG for the Gatorade? Is that you for something?JenSounds like it should be Gatorade. That's why I'm good. It's not Gatorade.AndrewAs a perfect blend of I.JenWill Electrolytes explain it. I read it, though, and I said that I am happy that you are on this team and that you can share these very insightful things with the world, very insightful.AndrewIt's very exciting to explain it. It's actually the opposite of exciting. It's yet another thing that Google has done to make G4 just a little more challenging. So for everyone listening previously in Universal Analytics, you can change the default channel grouping settings. So we're bringing all this data. We want to put it in nice organized buckets. You could change those settings with the default group of those buckets, channels and J for you can't do that.AndrewYou have to duplicate the default channel groupings and then you have your own custom one, whatever you want to call it, device C channel groupings like make it, make it a cool name or or best channel groupings. You know, put your, put your stamp on it and then you could change things. So it's like this extra step you have to do.AndrewIt's really not that big a deal. But for most of us you do have to change it a bit, especially if you previously had like a syndication channel. Now that's going to what they're calling unassigned. And ideally unassigned is as little as possible. We've seen some builders, it just explodes because they either have a misspelling in there and they're UTMB or there's something technical going on that like the data is not being interpreted correctly from Google Analytics.AndrewSo we need to own our data, We need to know our data, We need to be familiar and best friends with it. So if you're seen on a sign, essentially the symptom is if you see unassigned as a very big traffic source, chances are you need to check this article out and make the changes. Super quick and easy.AndrewI'd say 5 to 20 minutes depending on experience to get it done. Not a big deal.JenNot typical. So that's sometimes you have to do those things though, which was.AndrewYou know, kind.JenOf make it like you've got it. Yeah, you've got to sit down and focus on some, put on sprinkling some rap music and yes.AndrewSally Who? Kendrick Lamar. Yeah. Who else should we put on sexy record.JenLike, okay, so I'm like, you know, Notorious Tupac.AndrewOh, Tupac. There we go.JenOh, yeah. Dr. Dre. Snoop Dogg.AndrewYeah. Eminem. He's not old school, actually. You think about it like, Oh, we're.BethOld.AndrewAndrew is getting a little aged, but all the young kids still like him. All these young'uns, you know, who knows who knows? Well, let's go on to the next one. Beth, you won't take this one. It's about big money from the White House.BethBig money. White House.AndrewStar.BethOpens $45 billion in federal funds to developers to convert offices to homes. So essentially what's going on is they are helping fund all of these offices that have at least 25% vacancy rate and providing some funds to developers and incentives to developers to convert said vacant offices into affordable, affordable renting homes for people. So that way, part of it is also like trying to keep the housing area local to where people are working.BethAnd so there's less fuel emissions and less commutes and, you know, things going on there. So there's some added benefits. But I'm curious of what you all think about this, because I fear, like what happens in like ten years.AndrewYeah.BethWhere how affordable are they is going to be? Are they going to maintain that affordability?AndrewYeah, I think that's terrible.JenI need to think about ten years from now.AndrewI don't know, ten years, ten years now we'll have a population issue. Like there's not enough.JenLike I mean, when I first read this article.AndrewB 44 so I'm good.JenAndrew. Andrew might be thinking about empty nesting and moving into one of these years.AndrewLet's see, our oldest will be 21. So there's that, our youngest will be 16.JenI don't know that when I, when I first read this, I thought it was positive, but I was I was thinking like one affordability. And I was also thinking about that. I have two young adults who are going to be wanting to move out on their own here soon. And I had recently visited DC when I was staying.JenI was in Georgetown and I was like, my son was born I thought was beautiful. Such a fun, cool place to live, but it's so expensive. Yep. And I was thinking, like, how cool it would be if I was a 20 something, you know, just out of college, young, professional. And I wanted to live in a Georgetown like area.JenAnd I saw this article and I was thinking, Oh, that would be really cool. MM So I was looking at it from that perspective.BethNo, I totally agree. And I think it's, it kind of circles back to what I did in Silver Spring, Maryland.JenWhere. Yes.BethYeah. Where they're taking their instead of doing X percentage for affordable housing or what is it called Section eight housing, they're expanding it a little bit further. And so they're making it like based off of the income that the person makes. And so there's more people that can afford to live there. So I think it depends on how it's defined and making sure that it's regulated in some sense.BethBut I do agree that it's a it's creative because having lived in the D.C. area, having lived in in other city, big cities, there are so many office buildings and office space that's just not being.JenVacant.BethSitting vacant. Yeah, not being used. And then also you have like the only things that are coming up are high end condos or high end townhomes that are harder to afford as a young couple. So I think there's a lot of value there. I'm curious to see how it goes. And I just hope that the the greedy developers at the top aren't taking advantage of it, but they do good things like, like why I.JenDid. Yeah.AndrewSo I'll be the counterargument just to be the counterargument. I think it's a terrible I think it's a terrible idea. And I'm more so because of, well, can we have housing in that building based off of regulation, city, county, whatever. Like, well, that's a nightmare. Like, are we going to spend more, let's say like to build a brand new low square footage, one one, two, one, two, two.AndrewWhatever set up that is affordable. Is that actually cheaper than retrofitting a I'm just thinking like, what's the last big office I was in like couple of weeks ago? Like there's one bathroom down the hallway. Yeah. And now we need to have plumbing for, Oh, you.JenHave a bathroom?AndrewLike, is that how is it.BethYeah.AndrewEach unit based off of like, All right, the toilets here, we need X amount inches for this. Is this, is this why we need windows? We need what about fire? What about all these other things that are not typical at all for commercial compared to residential? What do we need to change this? I'm like, Oh, to use like what actually actually cost.JenMore land to build those types of things in less in a big city unless you convert.AndrewThat is true, but it's I guess I'm thinking if it's not worth the developer's money to retrofit remix their current vacancies, like they're not willing to invest it themselves, is this even enough money to make it profitable?BethYeah, I think this is like a losing game.AndrewLike the government started money at it and they're spending 300 K for something that will cost 200 K or I'll bring it like it's a negative r y that way, that way that's the reason I was doing it. Maybe. I don't know. I'm sure it's circumstances building to building, it's location to location, but like, oh geez, like should have could have this been a we're actually sending 45 billion to build homes that have to be in this price range.AndrewSo they'll be outside they won't be downtown like I compared us to to the UK. I think I had like 25% vacancy versus 8% in Europe. I've never been to Europe. So hear me out on this neither. But transit and all those things are significantly better and you're closer. So maybe 8% is not because there's anything wrong with our commercial property, but like it's all these other factors that make their vacancy lower.AndrewThey would have been better too. I'm thinking about like some of the products that some of the builders are coming out with that are like six to like 1100 square feet, much smaller. Like how many more homes can they build for that that are truly affordable, That won't be rentals, that will build equity over time for people that are that would be long term renters, and then their lives are actually improved because they're building equity over five, ten years.BethYeah, Yeah. I think.AndrewMaybe they're doing.JenIt depends on them. I think it depends on the market, the town. Yeah, the.AndrewGreed.JenThe vetting like.BethBut yeah, there's a lot of questions that need to be answered to make this truly successful and impactful. So I think that's where it's like, it sounds great.JenSo yeah, like, yeah, I think a.AndrewBig be place a bet on this and be like, okay, what's the you probably walk by Jen when you're in DC, What is the government group that like essentially audits the government itself, you know, like I forget the name of it, but like tenure. So now when this is done, they'll be like, well, we spent 45 billion, 22 billion was fraud because you just apply for this like the, like the payroll tax and loans, like all these people abusing the program.AndrewLike, hmm, this kind of has the potential for that like years of money grab here's this and then the timelines on it. I'm just being so I took the negative approach on this one.JenLike I like it when.AndrewI was in it.JenNo, no, no.AndrewInteresting. Who knows? We'll find out. I don't even know if this is approved or if it's just an idea that they're pushed through. We'll find out. Well, interesting.JenYeah. Push on Friday to.AndrewHelp on a to me, a definite positive is the one from the truth about mortgage dot com. So that's that's a fun site there but there's this lender and which city where they end.JenEssentially they're going out.AndrewThere Yeah and Glenville New York based trust Co bank has come up with a novel concept to get homeowners moving again literally so they're essentially splitting the mortgage rate if you have a 3% rate and then you are approved for 7% for a meeting in the middle and that's your new mortgage rate. So they're trying to get do you have to have the mortgage already with them?AndrewYes, I think you do. So So this is a very limited.BethPool, a very limited group.AndrewYou're trading you're good rate because they don't make any money on it, sort of lower yield, lower return. And they are swapping it for a higher one. They kind of leave out, though, to shoot holes in their data. They didn't talk about the higher cost of the home. So you bought the home at 400 K at 3%. Your new home you want to move up to is now 655 and a half.AndrewSo like, I don't know, big difference. I think if you have to move in you're able to finance with them like this is a great thing.JenBut I like their their image on the the article blowout sale plans. I mean that's that's a fun 20 to 50% off.AndrewI mean yeah, kind of 50% off each in the middle.BethI think it's creative and I think they're kind of taking a page on a builder's, you know, out of our books, know what we're doing. But like you said, it's extremely limited. And I think what it would be more interesting to me if they were able to do that for people who are relocating. So like if a big national team could do this or like people who actually sell their mortgages and you never know who your mortgage is going to because that they talked about that like they actually hold on to their mortgage, they don't sell them all.BethSo like it would have been lovely if we could have maybe sold a house and then gotten a lower rate than what we did because we had to move. We didn't have an option. So I think it's interesting. There's some legs there. I'm curious to see if other people follow suit or if this is if this is just a one and done type scenario, especially.AndrewRegarding like we refiled with rocket mortgage because they were like amazing salespeople, like ten out of ten they cost me like Tinsley is 20, 20, 21. Like we closed in 2021. I was yeah, we bought our home in 28. So we went from like four down to we're one of the people on here that would like, why would we ever get rid of our mortgage right by Rocket has the they came out with a 1% payment plan product which is pretty cool.AndrewAnd then you get a grant. So I like Rocket's approach because then it's for almost anybody. But it'd be interesting if Rocket follow suit because they're the whole nation they have a lot of people like, Hey Andrew, I get an email from them considering moving well we'll meet in the middle. Rates are at seven but you could be at here and that affects a lot of people.AndrewSo I mean.JenI really do. It makes me excited that people are continue going to try to get creative on how to make it more affordable to buy a home like that. And positive.BethDefinitely. And I think from a consumer standpoint, it tells us that, like, things aren't always black and white and they seem like there is some great of things that can occur right behind the scenes that we just aren't used to or don't know about because we're not like well versed in this, which I think ties into the next article.BethThe next why I want my popcorn. It's been a very interesting week in the real estate world.AndrewOh yeah, it's been fun. What's interesting is it's not really mainstream as far as like I call my dad about it. He's an attorney. So I guess first let's talk about what we're talking about. So this is from housing Viacom, although you could go almost anywhere and just type in Missouri and air losses and it pulls up everything.AndrewBut brokers prepare for changes after the Spitzer slash burn it commission lawsuit verdict. Well, that's that's a lot. Who wants to explain this? Probably better than I can.BethThere's two parts of this lawsuit that I think are digestible to people. Right? There we go. There's the one side that is saying like, hey, 6% is isn't a standard. It's not a requirement. Right. But we have been told within the industry and consumers have been told that 6% is the standard and the required amount.JenIt's like the wait, what's that Mandela fact like, where are you just there's been something in existence that you just Yeah.BethLike the chef's.AndrewLike he's like 20% to buy a house. A lot of people think you need to.BethSent down exactly.JenLike this is you don't need to wait this is the standard when that was never really.BethThere's nothing. I mean, down in LA they would have to pay 6%.JenYeah.AndrewOr like even use a real estate agent or realtor the realtors, the registered name with NPR.JenNow, you know, I was a I was a realtor. I worked for a brokerage. Yeah, but that was what was always it's just like that always existed. Like that was the.BethSo everyone believed it to be true. So that's one side. And then the other side, which is the meat of this lawsuit in general, is the fact that sellers were paying buyer agent commissions. So they were essentially their argument was that like we are paying for someone to negotiate against us. And so one of the verdict or one of the plaintiffs I'm sorry, her situation that she laid out was like we said, we're paying 6%.BethRight. But when all was said and done in our actual net, whatever might be our net profit, there we go, our net profits that we made from the sale of our home, it was actually 20% that went to agents commissions, and half of which is, you know, I think that in that instance it might have been actually to specifically the buyer.BethBut it's it's crazy because they were just like that. We shouldn't have to pay like they are choosing to use this realtor. They picked their realtor. The realtor works for them, not for us, and we are paying them. So those two side things, which then, you know, is a domino effect of other lawsuits now are happening and they've already filed another one.BethThe plaintiff attorney has already filed another one. And then you have the things that's happening that we talked about before with like Redfin saying we're not going to pay by our don't commission all the stuff.AndrewOh, yeah. So they're are found guilty of collusion. And there's all these things, you know, collusion being let me have the definition secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy in order to cheat or deceive others. So that sounds so that's.JenSuch a.AndrewGuilty word, right?JenSo you're like, I'm blowing when you actually stop and think about this for a second, like, yeah, what you were just saying. But as like, if I'm listing my house and I'm paying a 6% fee, yeah, half of that is going to pay for the buyer's agent, which you're right is negotiate is the I'm paying somebody to negotiate against me or like represent somebody else in this transaction like at a lower price I think about.JenYeah, like, that's crazy. But like literally have never I will admit I have never thought about it in that way.BethQuestioned it because it's just been part of the process. Right.JenYeah, I.AndrewThink I think for you're watching like The Sopranos or, or one of those shows and like you put in the accents of these like Italian guys, it's like, Hey, you want to sell your house? Okay, cool, cool, cool. Here's what's going to work. And you put I'm not going to try to mimic the accents, but like the guys coming up to you and he's like, Please do it.AndrewDon't do it. Like, you know, if you like, know not to do it. What's funny is, like Carson, our oldest, his best friend, parents Dad is from Sicily, and as his crazy accent is hilarious, but you, they would be like, Hey, you pay me where it's like 6%, 3%, You know, half of that money. Go to this guy over here.AndrewYou're like, way, way like, I'm paying Like that guy hates me. He's trying to steal my washer and dryer and, like, the appliances and, like, all this other stuff, and they want to take it down $50,000 on the price I'm gonna pay that guy. Yeah. Yeah. That's just how it works. You know, if you don't do it, we're not going to sell your home.AndrewWe're not done talking about your home rather than a list. Your home. Actually, you can't even list your home because you have to put in something on the MLS. I think that's so there's all this evidence that's like, like, supports this collusion and you're like, wow. But the verdict was 1.35 million just for the Missouri case, which was which 100 something thousand homes.AndrewNow, I don't know where this money coming from or who goes to, but that was just Missouri. You should add $2 billion for all the other states. Is there like over $1,000,000,000,000 in like money that could be a verdict potentially? I have no idea. I don't.JenKnow. Pull your power.AndrewPlay popcorn out.BethBut I got my Taylor Swift popcorn yet.AndrewThe notorious robber now at the summit and he talked about this in depth if you want like I think he's the best with following all this in the details. That's great. Robert Hahn Yeah superintelligent he does have I don't say bias because that sounds accusatory, but he is building a product that has the that's like the solution. After all, this settles right.AndrewSo there is you know, there is that there but I still think everything is saying seems very even in it's it's factual and he's referencing links and it's it's really one of the.BethFirst people to really put it out there like.AndrewYeah, he blew it.BethAnd he's been in this supermarket a long time and has worked alongside MLS for a long time. So it's really fascinating.JenTotally.AndrewYeah, it's going to be really interesting. But most people I know about, I touch my I as I started to talk to my dad, he's an attorney.JenAnd.AndrewSo he and I'm like, Have you seen this case? He's like, No, tell me about it. He's like, Hmm.JenI'm going to call some of my interesting my old friends.AndrewLike, how do you feel about this? Of course, realtors, like, like, I just assume they're like, this is garbage. It's, you know, a bunch of what I hope.JenI'm going to find out. I'm going to all my peoples and report back.AndrewFor a change.BethTo need to talk to some of my friends that are realtors. Because, like, it's not that realtors are bad people or sketchy people. If you saw the market, it's a it's just been the it in.JenThe.BethWay exactly It's been like no way. This is the way agents sometimes are working harder than some of the seller agents Oh percent of cases. And so like there are handling a lot of are people.JenAround and see and homes.BethAnd the reality is and the other solution is that it comes out of pocket of the buyer which makes affordability even harder because now they have to pay agent commissions or agent rate that they never had to pay before, would they. And would they.AndrewAnd could they finance that? Yeah, not finance it. It's really like part of it's like the money's never really seen. And I think that's how it's worked for so long. I guess that's how the money comes out of here. And the buyer is like, okay, cool. But if you're like, Hey, for me to buy this home with with you, I negotiate.AndrewHere's here's a value I provide, It's going to be $6,000 and I want you paid initial fee now 2000. And then once we put a contract on home, another 2000, then once we close, that's another 2000. If you don't pay, there's a lean against your home and I could foreclose against you. Right. Wouldn't that be. I think that's how it works.AndrewWouldn't it be like that's my God. It's like if you have a roof, they put it in and you get your home until like the balance is paid or any major house house project. And you go, Well, well, and I have to pay cash. Like I, I have 6000 from a down payment or 16 or 60 like have to take some of that away to pay you.AndrewWhat if I don't use a buyer's agent. Well, like.BethMan.AndrewThat's. Yeah, get the popcorn out. That is definitely the popcorn.BethThis has been a great prop for today's call.AndrewWhat kind of popcorn? By the way, did you make it yourself?BethI'm so with my favorite popcorn, I'm boring. So I did, like. I know. I'm sorry. I'm really boring. I don't like overly butter or, like, overly salty, so like I do. I don't remember which brand it is, but it's like the natural one. Just like natural.JenYeah.BethOriginal or whatever. I don't know. It's a brown box.AndrewI like the purple bag. Which one is that one? Boom chicka pop.BethOh, my. Like if I.JenHad to pick a pop cause.BethIt's not pre pop I popped it.AndrewBoom chick. What is that. What is the popcorn. I need to know. People are like this time.BethYou're right.AndrewYeah. Boom chicka pop and salty kettle kettle corn. It's like four bucks. But once you open the bag and it like the whole thing right there.BethYeah. Especially kettle corn because it could lose its crisp like it's like.AndrewSo it's an air fryer just getting don't do that. Sounds like a terrible idea. Well that's it for the news this week current favorites and or your least favorite what you hate. Hate is a strong word but I really, really really don't like it. Whatever it may be.BethI'm going to be nice today. I'm not going to go negative. I'm going to stay positive.AndrewOkay.BethAnd stay along me eating one second.AndrewThat's a sweet cut, by the way, To the top right there.BethTaylor. Yeah, I got to go with my Taylor Swift Cup. I took my daughter to see it, but yeah, I'm eating all the candy. So we talked today on the on our marketing call, our internal marketing call about how good the Reese's Take five candies are. Like, I'm not a chocolate person. I usually go towards the fruity stuff like a starburst or some Skittles.BethOh yeah. Like those are jam.AndrewPut us together.BethOh lovely. It's like a party, But I am upset. They're like, crack the reasons take five they're so good and I can't stop eating them so well.JenOne of my favorite things was seeing your pictures of your family Halloween costumes. We were on point.AndrewYou were hook. Your family was hook themed.JenWith the pretty legit Think you're.AndrewNext year I need a I'll make them I'll do a theme so.JenAll guys need it yeah Andrew I want to get like.AndrewThat and like, I'll.JenJust address my dogs. I think next year.BethThey were adorable. My kids were like, all in. Like, if you saw the video I post on Instagram, Kellan was like, fighting my like, my name.00:51:34:18 - 00:51:35:23JenWas so cute.BethMike had, like, sweet eyebrow. I drew eyebrows on him. I mean, it was you guys got to check out. Maybe we'll put a picture in.AndrewSo take five, take five. Reese's. I swear I've had one of those. But then they had a while other, like we're putting pretzels in here in the Reese's.JenWe're putting those.AndrewChips in here that will that one's like it's own separate thing versus irises with like one extra ingredient, you know?BethI gotcha. No.JenYeah, Yeah. My favorite thing, I'm going to be that person today. Starbucks has their holiday drinks.BethOh, would you get.JenThe premium mocha? Okay, my favorite holiday. Interesting. So my son brought me one today, and I'm.BethYes, I love Sam.JenI know Sam. And I.AndrewAm.BethI am also super fan of Sam.JenYeah, that's right. Sam dressed up as in Olympia.AndrewThe pictures were awesome. Speak at his builder.BethI did see that picture. That was awesome.AndrewYeah. For the chocolate factory. Let's see my favorite. I'll go. Well, I got two things. One I've been addicted to, so I like energy drinks. There's people that like them and the people that don't like them. Like it's definitely there's no in between. Right. I wish they would make these caffeine free is my wish. I think they're missing out on a market or having like a low calf.00:52:56:20 - 00:53:12:11AndrewThis is only like 160 or 140 milligrams for this one flavor. So here's the thing. I was just thinking about how dumb someone is. That monster. Monster. You're dumb. What flavors as I've been drinking this on the podcast.00:53:12:13 - 00:53:15:06JenIt looks like some kind of great it's part.AndrewWhy is the logo not this way for when I drink it and you see it like what it is? Oh, right. Why are they. Why am I looking at the little bit you see like the nutrition facts and like the warning label do not exceed more than five of these a day or something like that. They Yeah, the purple, the ultraviolet, ten out of ten and anything great flavor has been been great but I'll go the candy theme as far as my true favorite the I think is very very the purple bag of Skittles.JenOmega.AndrewMixed with Starburst. Take a starburst Skittles in the middle, Another stronger together.JenOh, okay.AndrewThat's the party in your mouth right there.BethThat is really good. I know it's weird. Is that Starburst? Starburst came out with their, like, Starburst minis, which are basically like, cut down smaller. They're not good.AndrewThey're not good. It's wrong.BethI don't know. They taste like waxy. I don't know what it is.AndrewThere's less moisture in it, if that's even a word. They're less moist, like they're.JenActually dry. Oh, how I feel about that word.AndrewDon't say that word. That's a word. There's a whole bunch of words. What's it? There's more of these from the summer. So sign up for the fabulous for the summit. If you want to know more about Arctic Words now, there's much more reasons. We'll be in Chicago next year. It will be freezing water. Amazing.BethAnd it's my favorite one.AndrewRight by the being like we're like being out on the river. There's so much good food right there. Remember the popcorn? Like, I know this is like touristy stuff. People from Chicago, Jackie Lipinski is like, Oh my gosh, you people are so embarrassing. It's like, like, I and Key West. But the popcorn, you get them all mixed together, other flavors.AndrewOh, my gosh. It's so good on that.BethI'm starved, Pumped.AndrewI'm pumped. Let's go. And it's October. It's our latest summit, I think, ever. Maybe usually it's like September or October. Okay. We're going back to late.JenLike mid October.AndrewAnd I was in Dallas. In Texas.JenYeah, yeah, Dallas.AndrewSo Chicago. Yeah. It'll be. Yes, I know. Get on that list. Well, let's see that is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to become a member for free Converse all access Community app for homebuilders and developers. Watch behind the scenes video from the podcast. Frequent exclusive postings, super exclusive and analysis from the DBC team, access to private hangouts and more.BethSo bye.JenBye.AndrewBye. The post Ep 310: Investing In Integrity appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 309: Killer CaffeineIn this episode, Andrew Peek is joined by Julie Jarnagin and Beth Russell! The team discusses marketing blunders that, despite going through many hands, still lead to a miss… or fatality. They stress the importance of doing marketing research beforehand for the success of a new community and how the littlest detail can make the most impact. Together they agree you should NOT focus only on one metric but do your own research and find other metrics as well as look into the numbers yourself.Story Time (02:48)Andrew brings up the story of someone dying from drinking too much caffeine from the Panera Bread supercharged lemonade.Beth shares what toilet paper holders can teach us.Julie asks the group “How is a coming soon community in a new market different than a coming soon community in existing market?”The News (22:00)Nearly 70% of prospective buyers would buy a haunted house if it checked all their boxes (https://zillow.mediaroom.com/2023-10-24-Nearly-70-of-prospective-buyers-would-buy-a-haunted-house-if-it-checked-all-their-boxes)There's Never Been a Worse Time to Buy Instead of Rent (https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/theres-never-been-a-worse-time-to-buy-instead-of-rent) Things We Love Things We Hate (37:13)Beth is excited because her family is dressing up as characters from Hook (1991)!Julie watched the comedy special by Nate Bargatze on Amazon Prime and enjoyed it.Andrew's favorite is comedian Shane Gillis!Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript:AndrewHere we go. So we've just been talking about accents. I had to add, you know, I had to be at a funeral last weekend. That's not a good start to a podcast.BethLike there's no real breaking ground.AndrewBut so my family on my dad's side, South Carolina and Tennessee. So I told my wife, You're lucky that, like you met me down here in Florida where we're kind of somewhat accent neutral, I would say, compared to say if you're in Louisiana, there might be a little bit of Creole or French influence. Right. But South Carolina, like so Alabama right there, that's like the typical Southern accent.AndrewAnd it's real.BethNice. It's a slow.AndrewSlow. Right. But South Carolina, I cannot figure them out. And they're my relatives. I'm like, I don't know. And some of them, like it's real heavy. And I don't know what you just said, Uncle John. I have no idea. I'm thinking that to myself. I'm not saying this out loud. I'm like, I don't know what he just said.AndrewAnd then my Oh, let's see. My grandmother would be early nineties, one of her friends from when she was like eight years old showed up to the funeral. Crazy like so in this little tiny town, she's like, Well, I knew Betty Jean and I used to live right around the corner and like, corner, like, it's so much fun.AndrewYou know, we're we're great. We're like a melting pot of accents around here, aren't we? United States for a lot of What a fun thing. Well, should we get started? I'm just going. Anyone have any other input? Input on accents?BethLike you already made fun of the way I talk. So, I mean.AndrewLet's see, Beth says bagel.BethBut I think it's a bagel.AndrewThere's a little bit. There's like a lift in there.BethSome bagel.AndrewBagel. There's like a B bagel, like titans or something.BethHow do you what do you what do you call the item that a child colors with that's made out of wax crayon?JulieWhat are you.AndrewReal in crayon? What do you say?BethIt's crayon. Crayon, like Crayola crayons.JulieCrayon syllables.AndrewIs that.JulieCrayon?AndrewIt's crazy. I am from South Carolina. What's happening hereBethNASA crayon.AndrewApple crayon. Right. I need something out there. This is so funny. What up? What else do I say? That's not correct. And this world.BethWorse than my bagelAndrewCrayon green. Oh, my goodness. We need to get started. We're getting. We're getting distracted here. You know what? Let's get started. Welcome to episode 309. I am the ad Dr. Andrew Peeke. And with me today is Beth Russell and Julie Julie Jernigan.JulieHello.AndrewShe's so nice. I said her name twice. There we go. So how are you all? How's life?BethIt's great. How are you?AndrewI'm good. Good. We're hyped up. I have my favorite this episode brought to you by Monster as actually not. But these purple ones. This is my jam this month. As far as caffeinated beverages go. And that's my story. I'm going to talk about caffeine. So we went to the funeral. We had to drive. There's no quick way to get to Sumter if the two people listening that know where Sumter, South Carolina is, it's east of Columbia, kind of on the way towards Myrtle Beach.AndrewBut so you can fly into Charlotte or you fly in the Columbia. There's no coke to get there. It would have been longer time flying by as far as like actual travel time than just driving straight there. So he drove there was a late night for some reason. We went to Panera and I read for like car food and we didn't want McDonald's.AndrewI don't really like McDonald's to eat. I don't want Chick fil A on something I knew like would just be like safe in the car. We're good to go. Had a few more hours left and I didn't know this but I mean try to find the name of it. Panera Energy Drink They have an error has they call it charged lemonades and would I've seen those in person.AndrewThis is the first time I've seen them. I put it on my story and the caffeine intake, the amount of caffeine in it is insane. Oh, my goodness. And it's this little tiny sign and it made me think and someone actually died from this. So this is like, sorry, everybody. This is like a tragedy.BethYeah, like it was like a real issue.AndrewThis is a real issue. But the point of it is like signage messaging, communication. It's cool. It's a charged lemonade, has some caffeine in it, and it compares it to coffee, which no one is like, Oh, you're kind of like overdose on caffeine from coffee. That'd be ridiculous. Even if you go to Starbucks and you're like, I want eight shots and Eventi sure thing.AndrewLike they're not the question. Know that we really strange to do but I'm sure someone's done it or they get to drink same drink. I'm like back to back to back. But like the flavor of this, like you would just want to drink it actually taste pretty good. I have a little bit of sample, but the signage was like, This is just like coffee.AndrewYou look at it and you're like, There's 400 milligrams of caffeine, which is absurd for like a cup. And then you drink it. You're like, I want more how it more? So that's the issue. But it made me think like, well, how is this decision made? There's how many people that touch this product. They designed the product they had, you know, maybe they had feedback from potential consumers as far as they did, like those focus groups, like what should we call it?AndrewDo you like this name versus that name? Hundreds of thousand dollars into researching it and it still kind of got it wrong. Yeah. So I don't know. It's it's interesting like, well, what was the miss? I was sitting there driving like, what happened there? Like how many people touch this? And they still got it wrong and they're going to have a huge issue on their end.AndrewYeah, I'm sure we can relate to that as far as like, how do we decide on this? Like why, what is happening here? You have to go back to like, the drawing board. But more than likely I think there was multiple misses along the way. And then it just led to this not so great decision making by everybody.AndrewSo probably it's not one person, but communication so important, thinking through.BethThinking through it like they have to think through all possibilities. And it's not that you have to overanalyze, right? Like don't send yourself down a rabbit hole, but like, think through something before you actually make it into your new strategy or new this case, a new product.AndrewNew product or how to pronounce a crayon Crayola have to learn how to do that now. So it's a new skill.BethI'm going to keep saying bagel bagels.AndrewDid you hear it? Oh, my goodness. Julie, what do you got? What you got this week?JulieOh, well, this one's more of a question for you guys because somebody brought it up in a meeting and it made me laugh. So we were talking about a new community, but it's in a brand new market, so not their normal market. They build in one market, different areas in one market, moving to another market. And we were talking through the first community and she was like we were talking through search ads and digital ads.JulieAnd when they were putting a sign up and when it was going on the website and she was like, I don't know, she said, I feel like I'm just missing something or overthinking. She was like, It's really just like any other coming soon. Community that we've ever done. And that made me stop and be like, Well, is it?JulieI mean, when you're I just think it's where the conversation, like when you're opening a new community in a brand new market, what's the extra things you have to think about? And for me, it's like I think there's more research that has to be done because you've kind of already have that internal research already done. If you've already opened communities in your area before, like whether you you've like sat down and written that out or not, you, you know, kind of what to expect.JulieI also feel like there's some things we need to start earlier because it's a new market kind of on that research part. Like we don't know how long it's going to take to build a list. And then I think also it's a little bit more of that branding messaging. I know like we don't love the branding thing, but there's also there's also you have to think about that two ways because we also got some branding stuff they want to started that didn't even have like the first location price point, like front and center, like it kind of has to start with that.JulieBut you also have to think about the messaging. So that just got me to thinking there is some different things about opening in a new market you have to think of, but in the end it is just a new community plus some exciting you.BethCan say, Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We had when I was at my previous builder, we went into a new market and we treated it as though it was any other new community that we were releasing. What we were not prepared for was how that market, that area did not want us there, and that made it. It's something that we wish we would have known ahead of time and would have done the research for ahead of time, because then we would have been able to have some time to like do some PR and like really do some grass grassroots efforts and get to know the community more, show them that we're not the bad guys, that weBethreally want to build them a beautiful home. And we're not trying to do all of these things right. We would have had the opportunity to do that if the work was done ahead of time. And what we ended up finding out was that they just flat out did not want us there. And we had the hardest time selling that community.BethIt was it was not a big community. It was a smaller community. It shouldn't have taken the amount of time that it did, but it took a longer time just because of the reception of us being there. And so I think you make a great point that it is something different and you should take. Going back to the conversations we've had about market research and and really taking the time and effort to do some research, just like Panera probably did for their drink, even though they had.AndrewLike the same question, which is so funny, like it's almost the same type of thing. Clarifying questions for you. Beth, Did they not want you there or are they not in my backyard? We don't want new development.BethThey did not want new maybe flavor.AndrewBoth. Okay. And then but then they took like, okay, well, brand name is the face of new development taking what I know change is so evil and bad. Who says it changes the only certainty? You know, I think Kevin says it from someone else, but he changes whatever changes that happened, change CENTCOM. What's that song by SEAL. Good song.AndrewYeah. So to me, yeah, And I agree with both of you. Like it's more on the product research or research of the area, just like Panera. They're getting into the energy drink category, which like, well, let's compare and contrast that. That's fun. The FDA, I don't know this. I did the research because I need to know these things.AndrewThey limit 300 milligrams of caffeine per serving of this. What is a serving? We could just have like the nozzle, whatever. You just fill up your cup and it's the serving is created by the consumer. You have a cup that holds 4 to 8 ounces, be put ice in. It would have a bit less ice. So there is no serving.AndrewSo they're starting. That was like the issue. They didn't really do this. How they got away with it, I have no idea which is interesting. But yeah, to me it's like product research really in on the product. What is in the area which you would assume land acquisition does. But I would think also the truth on the other end is like, Hey, we got a great deal on this piece of land.AndrewIt hits our numbers really well, but then there's maybe some nuances that they're just like, Oh shoot, Like we only got a proof of this. Like, Oh, we really need to transition to a townhome now because the numbers aren't matching up and now you're building townhomes and this is just an example, townhomes in a more rural area where the expectations of acreage or lease space from neighbors to me is significantly higher than when you're like closer to like city center and we're downtown where they're like, Oh, you're fine.AndrewGo away. They're like, what, 250,000 for that? And you get like a ten by ten foot backyard. Joking me. And then I see you taking down the trees or a farm, whatever. Maybe I'll send You're the evil people, But you still sold out of that community, I'd imagine.BethBeth It just took a lot and it took a lot longer. It took a lot more money. Marketing efforts to overcome the objections from the top. So, yeah, it was an interesting endeavor, but a good learning experience. And I think like, I never really thought of it, honestly. Julie Until now in terms of the lessons that it could teach you regarding market research and, and public perception of your community coming in and how getting ahead of that can be extremely impactful when it comes to the success of a new community.JulieAnd I've had multiple builders just here recently who are kind of working to get a spot at the table when it comes to land development. They know that they're not going to be like the final decision maker on that. But if you just get to be in there as part of the communication, you can prepare for the challenges that you may be the one responsible for dealing with down the road, and it gives you more time for that market research to be talked about and all these other things.JulieSo if you can kind of earn enough trust to get you a spot in those conversations, I think that can help a lot too.BethYeah, I was doing seems like really learned how to do your competitive analysis and and understanding your market because that's how you start earning that trust within your organization that people are realizing that you know the data of what's happening within each market and why certain things are going the way they are or why a product isn't selling our price point might be too high or even why something might be successful.BethEven on the positive side, like your CMA is how you can get your foot in the door.AndrewYeah, I've always liked the idea of putting some like put your feelers out there. Like I don't want give the full details on it because they'll give way too much info with that sense of cryptic. Like people are like waiting. Like, what is.JulieIt you're trying to.AndrewSay? This is like $1,000,000 idea, but there are ways. And if you hear this and you want to know, ask and do I see all access? I mean, this is like a tease setup. You can get feedback from the community even before your building, even before a dollar spent on land, you can get tremendous feedback. How do you feel about this, how you feel about that relatively low cost?AndrewAnd I think that's a really good way for the marketers to be like, Hey, here's something I could do. Here's the expense behind it. Let's get 300 people to give us their feedback. What's the price range you're looking for? What features are you looking for? What do you not want? How do you feel about a developer developing in this area?AndrewBe like really generic and then like, Look, you're so unfiltered or something and then you slowly get in the door and hopefully have more input on an acquisition, which is great, and then it's more successful because they're like, Hey, here, 300 people that live there, here's the zip codes, here's maybe a first name or something. You know what they're looking for?AndrewKind of like the middle of the pre-sale process, like, what are you willing to invest where you're looking to invest? Just do that before anything happens.BethYeah.AndrewI think everyone knows what I'm saying. So. Yeah. So what do you got, Beth? Wait. Toilet paper holders. What can they teach us? I'm looking for notes over here that's happening. I need to know about toilet paper holders.BethYeah, so it actually ties really well into the Panera story. I'm not going to lie. It's a planned.AndrewThing. I went to Panera.BethI know. All right, So her good thing parents clear that up. I one of the things I love about this house is that I was extremely insistent that every single one of our toilet paper holders in this house must be a lover and not one of the spring ones. Those drive me bonkers.AndrewYes.BethAnd it's.AndrewLike ten bucks more for one that.JulieI support.AndrewThan a metal arm.BethYes, They're amazing. And they're like every single time after she told me, I'm not mad anymore, I'm just like, Look, look, look. It's just so easy. And I think my husband is less upset about the fact that I'm I'm not leaving like, little bits of toilet paper on the roll because I don't mind actually changing it.AndrewSo you're the guilty one? I'm the only one. Yeah. Shoot.BethSo but the story or the lesson here is that sometimes it's the littlest detail that means the world to someone, Right? And the littlest detail that can make them happy or feel great about a situation. So and sometimes it's a little detail in our marketing that can have a huge difference both positive and negative, like in player's case.BethYeah. So one of the things that we've been talking about with our builders a lot recently, especially going into November and December, is that there's not going to be a huge pool of people new coming in looking to purchase a home. Right. And a lot of what we need to be focusing on is our details in our in our messaging and our marketing and our budgeting.BethAnd then the details of how we are communicating with people already in our CRM who have already expressed interest and the ones that are focused on those details, particularly those personalized ones, are the ones that are going to be the most successful within November and December leading into the next year. So just remember you can learn something from toilet paper holders.AndrewYeah, the details make the difference. This is a side by side tangent. Like aren't there things like I think about like when we're living in our home or like let's say those toilet paper holders were like the standard ones included. Like I think all these little things that really don't cost that much money on the product side for a builder can really add up to like people being satisfied with the home that are just like the tiny little things.AndrewLike to me, my pet peeve with our house is the distance from the fridge to the island. Like it's rather close. So we have like a little what's counter depth I think is the the name for the refrigerator that's already smaller. I'm like, if we had like a non counter depth refrigerator, it would hit the island. So then we're forced to get the counter depth there.AndrewKind of pain to shop for compared to the regular ones. But I'm like.BethAnd they're more expensive and more.AndrewExpensive. Why didn't they just in my brain, I'm like, why didn't they just like, make I would've been fine with a shorter island, like take off a foot. And now there's like, so much more room to get by because you're like, you opening the fridge up and then it's maybe like half a foot from the island. So you're standing there like, Get everything out for dinner.AndrewI put it on the counter, the island behind me making food. This is such a pain so they know it can get by in that spot, which is the main kind of okay way into the kitchen. But I'm like, This could have been such an easy change and actually would have saved money because the island would have been shorter, the builder would have made more money.AndrewI would have been happier with the home. That's interesting. Or another one. I'm just ranting for real quick. When you built with our builder. Yeah, the option of having a paver driveway down here in Florida, that's the thing to do. We don't freeze. So there's no issues with that or a concrete porch driveway. And the great thing with them, I don't if all builders do this, but if you want to upgrade to the pay for driveway, they include the cost of the concrete driveway poured to offset the cost of more pavers.AndrewIt was like $400 more 400 to go pavers on the front, the walkway to to the front door and the back patio. If you do that, like after the fact, it would have, I don't know, ten grand to like have a redone. It looks so much nicer. I'm like, why didn't they just force everyone by? That's not an option.AndrewLike, I know it's a.BethFour minute.AndrewProfit. You have 75 homes, it's 700 more. But then the community would look so much better and the price for one of the homes, it honestly makes more sense to force that option. Like all these little things like we're talking about, I guess we're really talking about product, which in effect really influences marketing.BethSo that is why I was insistent that I be a part of we had what we called I don't want to give the world a name for it. It was like a funky name, but it was basically like, How are we going to value build our product, especially as materials became more expensive, right? So we had a collective of people from different departments coming together marketing, sales, construction, pre-construction, all of them coming together to decide on how we what things we can change and all these things.BethBut it's really interesting because a lot of times in, in builders, especially at the production side, the only people making those decisions are the ones who are building the houses or pricing them out. And I think it's really powerful to have the marketing and the sales perspective present in those rooms because they can be the first one to say no.BethLike that is a feature that people love. The reason why they buy this house. You don't the doggy door over the whatever, whatever the dog house in the room under the stairs. No, no, no. That's pretty mine under the stairs. But they call it the dog house or whatever. But it's actually I can't think of the name right now, but it's in the roofline.BethEveryone's going to be laughing at me listening to this podcast, but my brain just stopped working. Okay, well, basically, like they were going to, like, take them out. And we were like, no, that is people love those. Love those.AndrewAnd so dormer a.BethDormer, dormer dormer, dollhouse dormer. Yes.AndrewThank you. So you mean. Yeah, it looks like a little dog house.BethI mean. Yeah. And so, like, it's it can be it adds it's it adds money, obviously to the exterior of the home and the cost of the home. And it's like, okay, do we really need to need it? We can shave $800 off the price of the home, the cost of billable blah. But like that one feature made it stand out.BethThat particular floor plan made it stand out amongst a bunch of others and people loved it. And so you take that away, you're going to start selling less of them. You're not actually making that profit back.JulieWell, in Andrew's example, if you made that island a little smaller, you can promote that as a new and improved floorplan. So as a marketer, when you make those changes, people love new things and they love to get, you know, an email about brand new this is improved, so use that to your advantage When you do make more plan adjustments.AndrewOur floor plans elevate your living. I don't know. I just made it up, but something where you could have this whole like elegant name go to Chad and ask it to, you know, make a name for you and then change your name slightly.BethAnd say that if you use the buyer's feedback, like and this Andrew Pete guy kept complaining, we listened and now.AndrewThese words, but he was like, you.JulieKnow.AndrewIt's from South Carolina, so God bless his basil lessons. Oh, man. I think I think that might be for storytime. So let's move on to the news. This one's fine. This is from Zillow. I'm like, What's happening here? So nearly 70%, 77 0% of prospective buyers would buy a haunted house if it checked all their boxes. Is this how desperate people are?AndrewLike Jesus, That's that was my feeling on it. Like, if you find something that might be haunted, it might have a basement roommate that you don't know about that comes out at two or three in the morning. But, you know, we can afford the home, so we call like we're good with it.JulieNo. Would you all, would you all. I'm definitely in the 30%. No way.AndrewWay. You're in Louisiana. There's like people that do like voodoo and stuff like that, right? I feel like that's.BethLike, the same.JulieWith that stuff. I do not mess with it. I'm like, Oh, there's people I'd do that, like, threaten my kids if there's a Ouija board at a sleepover. Do not like I'm very weird about that stuff, but I'm in the 30% that I would pass on the haunted house. No matter how good it was.BethI think when you were younger and the craft was like that movie came out, Do you remember in the nineties when the craft came out? Did you ever do like I remember I, me, my friends were like, obsessed with the craft, which is horrible.AndrewWhat's that? I think of the movie Paranormal Activity like, and that's what people are buying like it's Paranormal Activity, that movie, which was a dumb, dumb movie. I don't, I don't know. I think I would I would pass on a home where there was like, tragedy, like it was known or like, but haunted is kind of like, what's that mean?AndrewBut if like, hey, like, just so you know. Disclaimer Four years ago, a family of six was murdered here. Okay, we're good. Like, we're gonna pass. No, like, we're we're definitely good, But maybe that's haunted. Maybe that's what they're classifying as something bad happening.BethAnd I'm not real desperate times.JulieI think they should market new homes. Like, definitely not haunted because no one else has lived in this home. And that would be like, sold. You know, that's thrift a lot. Like, I love going to thrift stores and buying stuff. And like, you read these stories about like, you know, people bringing items and then bad like I'm very weird about that stuff.AndrewYeah. You still thrift that's I think that might be why you like a little bit it's kind of dangerous like I'm a go thrift but you know this item who knows it.BethMight get me my.AndrewYou need like sage it and all that stuff. It's clean, it's cleansed. We're going to throw some holy water on it.JulieLike some kind of creepy dolls. No creepy mirrors and, you know, creepy dolls.AndrewIt's got none of that or no, like, weird basement things going on. Fortunately, I'm in Florida. There's no basements or you're under the water. Yeah, I don't know. This is interesting. I'm put under the interesting category.BethI like their attempt at seasonal content, you know, with the data. Yeah.AndrewIt's good. It's like, do they want this to go viral? Like, I think there's things companies do like remember a while back, Amazon, they're really pushing this drone delivery and it was before drones were really accessible. Mine's like right behind my chair like you could Amazon to get one and 4 hours like it's right there. This was like, Oh, you have a drone.AndrewOh my goodness. Was crazy. And so they're saying, Hey, we're not going to deliver packages with Amazon Prime via drone. And to me I'm like, this is just a CEO play like they're getting earned media PR and then they're getting 100,000 links pointed to their sites from great websites and that's going to help them rank a bit more.AndrewSo I'm like Zillow, is that what you're doing? If you're listening, let us know. But you're right, it is timely with October.JulieSo I want I want a builder to write a blog post about how we can guarantee that your house is not haunted. Okay. Yeah, because it's brand new. There's no one else. I have your.BethYeah, but I like that messaging better than no toenails. And our carpet.AndrewIs that quick. When leaders. I think you're the toenail guy with the use carpet going like do you really want that. Do you think about that. Yeah that's new is you could sell new so much easier. Let's see let's go to the next one. This one didn't work for me, but we'll pull it up here. So this one is from Wall Street Journal.AndrewThere's never been a worse time to buy instead of rent. I mean, I know what holes I want to poke in this article, so I'll go last. But what did you guys like about it or not? Like about it?BethWell, I couldn't read the whole thing, so because it was restricted. So.AndrewBut I did include the Twitter. Yeah, the tweet.BethYeah, that's what I was. I was kind of going through that. And just like the rising cost to buy versus the rising cost to rent. And I think the biggest hold a poke on this, of course, is that people still need to move. Right? Right. And the rent, the cost of rent is still continuing to rise. And so what is the long term cost to you over your lifetime and the lifetime of owning versus not owning?BethYou know, the reason why we have purchased three homes at three different duty stations is because now when my husband retires out of the army, we have net worth, we have something. We have accumulated wealth through the home, the homes that we have owned and then rent it out. And so when we sell them, we'll hopefully knock on wood being a good place.BethBut we have friends of ours that have moved from state to state, state to state and have never purchase a home before, and they will not have the same wealth when they leave the army and they won't like what are they going to do? They're going to buy for the first time in their forties or fifties, depending on whatever they decide to retire.BethAnd I mean no judgment like everyone is different. But like the VA loan is such an amazing tool and the cost to rent is actually people are like, Well, when you own you have all these maintenance, you have to do all these things about renting, like you still have to do maintenance, you still have to do repairs. When you move in a move out and security deposit, you have to, you know, sometimes have to pay for places to get painted.BethI mean, we're not discussing, so we don't have to do that. But like, there's there's additional costs that still occur when you're renting and you're paying someone else as well at that.AndrewRight. 100% interest. Yeah.JulieAnd you have no control over when your rents get right. I mean it can be a year later. But what I'm saying is, you know what, your mortgage is going to be your paid what you paid for the house at one time before, you know, real estate normally goes up, rent is going to go up. Probably most years.JulieSo I just think it needs to be back to the research. You need to know what if if you sell a lot of first time buyer homes, you need to know what rents are in your area and you need to be able to have that conversation like Beth was having of the advantages of why.BethYeah, and there's a bigger picture to this in both directions, right? Like some people just don't have the ability to purchase a home because they can't qualify, because right now the average income needed to qualify for a home average home is like 114 her $15,000 a year. And there's just families that don't have that even at adult income level.BethSo like, that is still true and there's still people that can't afford to purchase. And so they are having to rent. But I mean, both are on the rise. That's the reality.AndrewYeah. Both. So the chart we're looking at is from bar chart. It is a Twitter account which really just I understand they just take popular subjects and they throw it into a chart and then it is a great place to, to view them. So to me, the first hold up, okay, this is like this is just the average mortgage and then the average rent.AndrewIt's not I'm in some of the Florida or ZIP codes that we would find acceptable to live in to make it simpler. 33777337763357. To write rent for those areas for a four bedroom, two bath, 2 to 2500 feet like a family ish home. Right. Maybe it could be a little smaller but like 3500 to 4000 is what you will pay for a detached home for that.AndrewThat home would sell for around 500, 4 to 500, depending on like what street and like all that sort of thing. So like, this is correct, but I'm like, okay, we still go down to like the individual. I think it is not the most accurate set of data because it's 2700 for what? Like what size home, what mortgage amount is the 18 it's comparing 20 $700 Is the average mortgage now versus 1845 Is the average rent, was that for a two to is that including a bunch of one one studios or one one studios in like outside of downtown or not even close to downtown, which those might be 1200 or 1800.AndrewAnd just comparing all mortgages and X amount of time, which maybe there's everything's gone up, there's less first time homes or like entry level homes. So like that's going to skew up everything already. So I don't think it's I don't think the data is really actually fair or comparable. But everything you guys said is 100% true. Like your mortgage is locked and insurance could change property taxes on change.AndrewThose things will continue to rise up. But your actual mortgage is locked in for what it is. And I always thought, you know, rent is 100% interest, like you're losing all that, but then you gain flexibility to move with after your leases up. Or if you could get out of it. Yeah, but how do you but we start to counteract, like if people are seeing articles like this, we still have to sell them otherwise because we still need to sell, but people will.BethMove. There's an interesting lesson here based on everything that you just said.AndrewLet's see.BethThe circle. Let's see what this looks like. But this is someone taking data and delivering it in a digestible way and creating a story around the data. Right. And every day as marketers, we need to be able to do that. We're sitting here and we're poking holes in all the data and asking relevant questions and telling the different stories that this data could also be potentially showing us.BethSo I think like there's a lot of skill that just unfolded in this conversation, that skill that marketers need to be practicing right now.AndrewGenius. That's why you're here.BethIt just saying just don't deliver charts.AndrewAnd it's one metric, right? But we kind of like kind of get a little whatever. We kind of get some attitude. We're like, this is one metric. It's kind of one metric. There needs to be like square footage, bedroom count, something to like make it a bit more precise versus just average mortgage versus average rent. Yeah, but I.JulieHeard not that many. 3000 square foot rentals are not as many as there are 900 square foot rentals.AndrewOn a percent. Yeah I agree. They need to put like Yeah I don't know Bobby, I don't. There's any mass way to that be applicable to like the whole United States. What third metric to throw in there. I don't know if you want to think about but I'm gonna start following bar chart a lot of finance stuff. Like it's not.AndrewYeah, it's definitely nerdy, but it looks like a lot of fun to go in there.BethAnd get some inspiration from the charts that you see in the data that's being showcased. How many times you guys get asked, like what data points should I, what metric should I be focusing on? Like.AndrewThat's such a hard question, isn't it?BethBecause it's it's not just like I think our fear and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, especially you, Andrew, being the ad doctor. Like if you focus on one metric only having a pasty, a self certified Ph.D., but it's.AndrewAll dollars.BethEven if you only focus on one or two metric points and tell the story around that consistently, then you're missing parts of the story and you're not painting that whole picture.JulieYeah, and everything you need to know doesn't necessarily need to be reported to other people in the company. And leadership like you need to take all that data and then give them something more digestible. If you tried to just dump all the information out, we're telling you to keep track of on other people who don't have any context.JulieYou're just in for lots of questions and probably conclusions that you didn't want them to reach since they don't have the full story.AndrewYeah, I agree. So I'll lean on my funny Instagram handle and kind of nickname the ad doctor. So I think we've all had bloodwork done. Raw old people here on the podcast aren't me. And so you have like, thank yourself. You're welcome. Everyone's welcome. I feel old sometimes, like I had echocardiogram like two weeks ago, like that's some old people stuff.AndrewWho's had one of those antibody a bit Beth has, Yeah, there we go. That's got all the stuff. So if you do your blood work right, you have like p you have like I here's your red blood cell count, here's your inadequate, here's all these things that are related to blood, here's all these related to cholesterol, here's all the very liver, kidney, like two different systems of your body.AndrewSo we're not doctors on here, but we are marketers. So there's let's say you get your panel on. There's 40 different metrics there, monitoring. They're all connected together and you're like, Oh, Weiser, Hematocrit high. That's like the density of your blood kind of way. You're dehydrated because look down here at this metric, that means you're dehydrated. It's gonna make this one higher.AndrewSo we need to understand all these things and then explain it to our internal clients, which would anyone you're working with Or like your patients, you can't be like, Hey, look, your matter gets high. You need to. That's not good. You need to go give blood or something. It's like, No, you're saying drink of water. What's wrong with you?AndrewSo we need to explain it in a way that everyone understands what we're talking about, but we don't need to go into the science all behind it. But we definitely need to understand it. And if we understand it that we can control it, we can manipulate it or have influence on it, and then we can have better outcomes for our patients, whether they're not doctors.AndrewSo better outcomes for our builder. But if we don't understand it and how are you going to influence those, we might push the wrong levers or do things that will then send it in the wrong direction.BethAnd the whole point is that you can't understand it by only focusing on two data points. You have to understand how they all work together.AndrewKind of all of them. And over time you'll get a better picture of the whole systems. You're like, Oh, it's all connected. It's all connected. And then you'll have this like, I think epiphany moment. Like, Oh, this is actually not that challenging anymore. Yeah, I guess that's, that's a point. And two or three or four or five years in your career, like what used to be difficult is now like kindergarten level 1 to 1.AndrewIt's going up and up and up. If you if you love it, if you're passionate about it, then those things will be like, super easy to do. Oh, man. Well, there we go. That's it for the news.BethThat when an unexpected root. But I like.AndrewIt. Yeah, it worked out. It worked out well. Current favorites. Beth, what's your favorite?BethHalloween is big in our house. We actually shared this on I don't know if was a marketing thing call or what of like different family themed Halloween. We are that family that go hard for Halloween. And so like over the years our favorite has been hocus pocus as far where Berkeley and I were. Each of us were a Sanderson sister and my husband was Billy.BethSo stay tuned for our family. Call tomorrow, y'all. You might get a peek at that Billy mask. Do it and do it. Just freak everyone out. So, yeah, we've done a ton of stained costumes over the years. We absolutely love it. I'm going to be really heartbroken when my kids are too embarrassed to do it with us anymore.BethBut I know that day will come. Having come yet.AndrewLike them, they might take a payment.BethYeah. Bribe them with something. It's fine. Hashtag good parenting. Yeah. So this year, we're. I don't know how we came about this. I forget who came up with the idea, but we're doing hook.AndrewLike Peter Pan.BethYeah.AndrewLike Robin Williams way back in the day.BethYeah, My husband is Hook, so that'll be fun. I'm Wendy Berkley is Tink think about.AndrewAs in.BethSay, fitting. I think she probably came up with this honestly.AndrewProbably the.BethSound or what.AndrewSounds right.BethIt sounds accurate. And then Cullen is Peter Pan and he has a sword, so he is high up.AndrewThere we go. He's got. He's got the sword. Oh, man, I don't we've never done that. I don't think we've done, like, random things, but like, that's I don't really like the effort of finding a costume, thinking about a costume. There's something I'm like, I don't.BethThis is too much.AndrewI'm a holiday person, but I'm a holiday person because of the food. So and there's really like, what food is there with Halloween? I like candy.BethBut I.AndrewDon't I would.BethEat, but.AndrewIt's more my.BethBrownies. And you would like it more like bran.AndrewYeah, but. But I mean, it's like Thanksgiving, though, so Thanksgiving is great because you got all the desserts, all the food. Yeah. Julie, you have any current favorites? I'm trying to think of one right now. I know I got one.JulieI watched the comedy special by Nate Lagasse. Is that his name? Oh, it was really good. It's clean. And so you can listen to it, like in the car or something. It's on Amazon. The only downside is I had Nate's hilarious. I had heard like half the jokes already on scrolling Instagram, so that kind of ruined part of it.JulieBut that's worth listening to. And I'm not like a comedy special kind of person. Like, it's just not normally my thing, but it was cute.AndrewYeah.JulieI'll think about watching Parks and Rec right now, which I know is old school, but that first.AndrewTime or like, is this like a repeat show? You do it all the time.JulieI've never watched it all the way through. I mean, we've seen like, that's like a few, but we've never watched it all. And so that's usually what we do. My husband and I, we pick like a sitcom or something and just watch it all the way through like one night. And so that's what we're on right now. So that's fun.AndrewNow, why don't I take a long time? We enjoy Parks and Rec. We go to the office, Seinfeld, Parks and Rec, sometimes New girl, we get thrown in there and then like a pop up like we are. This is not a favorite. Definitely not a favorite, but we're watching it. £1,000 Sisters on TLC. Oh, are.BethYou and Kevin with your reality TV?AndrewI usually don't like reality TV, but this is just so I mean, there's a lot of this is I'll talk about it then I'll tell you my favorite, like the extremes are interesting to me, even though this is like to me, it's really sad. I know there's like, they're kind of funny little things, but I'm like, ooh, like this is truly addiction.AndrewShine I'm not trying to be so serious on this podcast. I got a smile on my face, but like, this is addiction. There's like mental health things to deal with of why do you choose to eat all this stuff? So that's interesting to watch. But say, Shane Gillis, I really enjoyed him recently. As far as comedians go, how did you find Nate Bogosian?AndrewJulie Oh, I think for me, I mean, Instagram. Okay, So I found Shane Same thing, Instagram. So that's really interesting as far as like new people to their funnels is Instagram, TikTok.BethSpinning.AndrewReels. So Shane Gillis I think comedy should be on the edge of maybe offending a lot of people, maybe not. And he kind of likes that one.JulieHe's super clean.AndrewHe's yeah, he's fun. I like him. But he's gay, right? He's clean. Like the Yvonne. He's from Louisiana. I'm not sure if you know the Avon.BethHe. No, I know. Feels like there's probably real world or road.JulieRules that's how. Yeah.AndrewSo somehow he's like, around for a long time. That's crazy to me like he should've thought. And I think he's hilarious. He's definitely out there like he's he has problems to deal with, but he's, he's funny, he's unique. He's. He's interesting. But so Shangri-Las he's my he's my go to right now as far as comedians go. Let's see.AndrewWell that that's it for this week We have anything else to add like we're in charge here bosses way we're we're here to play.BethWhat's it?AndrewHi, There we go. Well, that is it for this week. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to become a member for free. Do you converse all access community app for home builders and developers? Watch behind the scenes video from the podcast. Frequent exclusive postings and analysis from the USC team. Access to private hangouts and more. Until next time.BethHave a good one. Happy Halloween. The post Ep 309: Killer Caffeine appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 308: The Lag EffectIn this episode, Kevin Oakley is joined by Andrew Peek and special guest Amanda Martin, an Online Sales Coach here at DYC! Amanda gives some insight into personalization and how far an OSC should go to find an emotional connection for a lead. The team discusses “the lag effect” and the importance of marketers helping their team to understand it and their thoughts on a new Ai rollout of celebrity lookalike chat bots. Story Time (04:29)Amanda quoted Kevin during the Summit “There's never going to be enough emotional drive or urgency if they don't pink something that there's any fear of loss in.” and was inspired by it!Andrew talked with a builder whose content featured the possible objections of their townhomes instead of featuring its positives. Kevin talks about "Lag times"The News (36:15)What are Meta's AI Personas, and how do you chat with them? (https://mashable.com/article/meta-ai-personas-explained)Alexis Rivas on X: BIG news for ADUs today. (https://twitter.com/alexisxrivas/)Google's AI-powered search experience can now generate images, write drafts (https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/12/googles-ai-powered-search-experience-can-now-generate-images-write-drafts)The Q3 2023 Online Sales Benchmarks (https://www.doyouconvert.com/blog/the-q3-2023-online-sales-benchmarks/)Homebuyers Must Earn $115,000 to Afford the Typical U.S. Home. That's About $40,000 More Than the Typical American Household Earns. (https://www.redfin.com/news/homebuyer-income-afford-home-record-high/)Things We Love Things We Hate (01:01:46)Amanda is loving her role of coachingAndrew is loving his task management tool “TikTik.com”Kevin's favorite is the Pro Builder Professional Forty under 40 list! Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript:KevinI think it's Kylie Jenner on here.AndrewOkay.KevinAs an option. Let's see.AndrewMaybe a good option Is this Mr. Beast?KevinOkay. Tom Brady.AndrewOkay.KevinI feel like Taylor Swift was supposed to be one of the options.AndrewLet me see.KevinBut there are. There's 15 and total. I think, including Alvin the alien.AndrewI like the alien. Now that I. I'll trust the alien seems trustable.KevinBob. Bob, the robot here kind of gives me vibes of short circuit, Like one of the best movies from the eighties of all time.AndrewDon't you feel bad for that robot? But you develop.KevinJohn. I mean, Johnny five is alive and you can't find him.AndrewI need to revisit this movie. I haven't seen the movie, but it's been years. It's been years, okay?KevinI mean, I would I wouldn't be surprised because you're young and. But.AndrewYoung'un, I'm an I'm in that cut off. Where? Let's see, when, like, animated movies really took off with late nineties and has before them but like Pixar was 99 I think with Toy Story I think that kind of shifts. Like what shows did you grow up as a kid? They went to Blockbuster for and it was an animated, nothing animated, at least for me.AndrewIt it's like, okay, then kid got stuck watching those for like what I playing for the kids now like, oh, I don't know. Like, did they need to watch all the James Bond movies for like the Silhouette music intro? I be like, Oh no. But I was I think we grew up with that. That was that was usual for them.KevinAmanda What was your childhood media content like?AmandaOh gosh, just some of the classics like Tom and Jerry the Road Runner, you know, like, Okay.AndrewYeah, like a weekend.AmandaLike that is classic and stuff like that. I mean, that's like gone way back.AndrewBut The Simpsons, I guess The Simpsons were on there. I mean, I grew up I remember memories of like Seinfeld was on all the time, like all the time. Seinfeld is like Seinfeld. Frasier is like the same order and just knew what it was be on.KevinApparently, there's a new Frasier show.AndrewOh, you can't because there's no family anyway. Oh, man, It's probably not the same.KevinWe should. We should go and start the show.AndrewYou should. Let's do that.KevinWelcome to episode 308. I'm Kevin Oakley. And with me today is Andrew Peek and Amanda martin.AmandaNo, no.KevinAnd Amanda claims she's never been on the podcast before. I don't know how it's possible.AmandaI don't either. But here we are.AndrewI cannot believe that. But Amanda, you would know, like, if we're out here before. So, yeah, that's right. Got to believe.KevinYou. It's your truth. How long have you been on the team now?AmandaOh, man. About four and a half years. Right at it? Yeah. Yes. That's crazy.AndrewI. I don't believe that The.KevinReason that my memory and this might have just been like a teen call that we were on, but I just remember giving you a semi hard time. But it must have just been like sea questions when you first joined anyway. Yeah, sorry. We should. We should have had you on the table. Everyone watch. What do you do here?KevinYeah. TV For those who may not know.AmandaI'm an online field coach with Jen and Jesse and I help you know, everything with online sales, coaching, new offseason and lifting with these and ramping them up for success, helping with onboarding all the good things. I love it. It's so great.KevinHelping out with Online Sales Academy. Oh yeah. Leading sessions at the at the Do you convert online sales and marketing summit doing all the things so that's why I just.AmandaKind of things Love it.KevinWell, now, sorry, Jen, you're just going to have to come on once every quarter or six months because Jesse and Amanda are.AndrewTaking over.KevinTaking this.AndrewBy. I feel like you're like an O.G., because when I started way back in the day with with the convert you were with, I believe, at Royal Oaks Home.AmandaYes. Yes.AndrewWay back in the day, y'all had amazing videos because I feel like the accents and everything are just so, so different. But also, like, you worked amazingly together. Yeah, that's. That's going way back. So, you know, it.AmandaIs way back. And you sort of.AndrewYears.AmandaYou would like, made us for us like late, late at night and they would just magically be ready the next day or.AndrewDefinitely.AmandaKevin America. Okay.AndrewThat was but yeah yeah. Those fun times. So we go way back. This is, this is good.KevinOkay, so, Amanda, story time, no pressure. First story time in four years. Yeah, I'm one of the best on the team. What do you got for us?AmandaWell, I do have a story for you and question for you. Kevin, Did you know that I quoted you in my session at the summit? Oh, no, no.KevinYou didn't go to the cloud, first of all. But only if my my head is not on the image. Like, there's just something.AmandaOkay, Images.KevinJust like, what.AmandaWas it.KevinAbout pancakes or was it actually about someone else's?AmandaI shouldn't have done pancakes. I would have been good. No, no, it wasn't, though. It just really stood out for me. And one of your Pulse episodes. I even read blog about it, so I don't know if you know you're famous. Yeah.KevinThat's a good hint.AmandaYeah, You said, Kevin, that there's never going to be enough emotional drive or urgency. If they don't pick something that there's any fear of loss, then. So that really just inspired me to talk about the like thing. One part about this, though, at the summit, my session was all about the power of personalization and part of it you talked about selecting one and I used your quote and I related that to when I got our second cat there.AmandaAnyway, that was fun. So that was my that was my story I quoted, you know?KevinOkay, now I have questions for you. Yeah.AmandaOkay. So let's here.KevinI think the perception, maybe misconception about online sales is that getting to one doesn't really matter because you're just kind of giving them general information and you want to get them as quickly as possible to the on site team. So talk to me about when when is it necessary to apply personalization. Can you get go too far in that attempt?KevinIs it is it even possible to to go too deep in personalization, do you think so?AmandaI think I think you do have to it. Well, I'm first of all, because, you know, you have to you have to learn enough about them to be able to recommend something for them. So if you don't if you don't take the time to fully qualify them and learn their story, you can't select one. But if you've done your job, then you should be able to select one, right?AmandaSo I think you have to do that.KevinDo you mean I am assuming, but I want to clarify. You're talking about community. You don't necessarily have to get them down to a particular hall. No, but you got to find something to.AmandaTo find something. Yes. Yes. They are emotionally invested in something that's going to be a good fit for them based on what they're looking for. But yeah, community is great. Sometimes you'll get down to a floor plan and if that's, you know, a big must have for them.KevinOr you're on your lot builder and there's nothing else to.AmandaOf course Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't you can take it a little bit too far I guess if you, you know, qualify them out of thing if they don't want to get too far. But definitely a good idea to learn their story and select on and to become emotionally invested in it. So yeah. Yeah. I love your.AndrewLast makes sense.KevinThe last qualifying or and I'm just an insanely curious person so.AmandaI love it.KevinWhen you were just talking about that, it made it feel like it's okay for the online sales person to have an opinion on what's best for the customer based on what you learn about them, which I'm maybe if listening is like, Well, duh. But again, I know, I know sales managers and onsite salespeople who are like, Oh, online salesperson is just supposed to absorb and direct the customer on whatever it is they already came in on.KevinAnd I think to me that connects to this is an older number. I don't I actually don't know where we are currently, but I remember doing analysis of Heartland of about one third of the people who came in as a lead for one community ended up becoming an appointment for a different community after verification and personalization was made.AmandaSo of that. Yeah. So the leads, they don't know everything that you have to offer and that's why the OSD is there to really be able to give that easy button. And that's also why it's great to have signage numbers go to that. With me though, like a story, you know, I had someone going out that was driving out path.AmandaThe community they call, they were interested in that, but it completely did not fit what they were looking for at all. And I was able to reroute them to a different community that was a great fit. So, you know, just because they have to show up somewhere that you think they're interested in something doesn't mean that that's the best fit for them.AmandaAnd you're able to provide them with that knowledge because you know all the products, you know. So it's all about uncovering what they're looking for and giving them that easy button and directing them to the right place. So.KevinMM Yeah. The place that people are headed with over the automated systems, we're saying, well if Amanda asks for information about Happy Acres, this is easy. I just load up information about Happy Acres and I send it to her in little bursts over multiple different channels. And and I think that's dangerous because, again, just the reason that someone reaches out is not a clear connection to what it is they ultimately will purchase or even what they're most interested in.KevinYeah. So I think I think that's interesting thought, too, is that at the end of the day, no matter what else is checked off in the CRM, no matter what pages said they came from there. A prospect for a home above and beyond any particular community or floorplan. It's not that it can't inform or shouldn't inform.AmandaMhm.KevinBut you can't just say oh well they asked for Happy Acres, I will schedule you an appointment via text in 30 seconds at Happy Acres because I can, I can make that happen.AmandaYeah. That's exactly right. That's why I exists.AndrewRight. I just, I can't imagine any automated solution I could build like the emotional momentum to then that increases the appointment kept ratio. That increases like it just gets you along the funnel quicker. Like imagine you hear Amanda close your eyes and Amanda's like, you call. It's like, you know, I think that communities like selected, that might be good for you but we have this other one and then you and your great voice, you're talking, talking and you're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go, let's go.AndrewI want that versus reading something on the screen. And it's a robot and that has no emotional like it doesn't create any emotion within Yeah.KevinI mean any attempt at fake emotion oftentimes comes off worse than no emotion. Honestly.AndrewHappy, awkward, like this. Yeah.KevinYou I don't know what story you would both use as my example. For me, it's typically like Home Depot or Lowe's.AndrewI like Home Depot. Don't like Lowe's.KevinThe same Lowe's I only looking for their they have seem to have a better power tool selection generally than Home Depot does or a larger one. But other than that, I agree with Abraham. Yeah, but you know, when someone offers you assistance, you have kind of this built in thing of I mean, I really do want as is internal talk now.KevinKevin Internal talk, Yeah. I definitely want assistance finding this one size particular special fastener that I need to replace on something in my home. And all I have is the broken one and I have to go line up the right side. And this is obviously a real world example that have a salad go. But someone's like, Hey, can I help you?KevinAnd everything inside of you is like, Yes, I want help, but I really doubt you're going to be able to offer the help that I need or just be an expert that I need versus just taking up my time. Like we've all had those experiences where someone's like, Oh yeah, I'll try to help you, and then they lead you to like the plumbing section.KevinYou're like, No, but like even I know that fasteners are aisle five, so that's where we should go. And so I think there's always this thing that online salespeople and salespeople and even marketers with some of our messaging has to get through is like the relief that you have as a consumer. When you finally talk to an expert, it truly is just the feeling of exhaling.KevinIt's like, Oh, okay, Amanda knows her stuff. And that's what I'm saying. It's this fine line between overconfidence, oversimplification. You want this, therefore you go there as soon as you can become an actual expert and the consumer trust that everything changes, no matter what the emotional state of either party is beforehand. It's like, okay, okay, I could totally be convinced that I don't even need the fastener.KevinI thought I came in with that as a replacement. Maybe there's something better, but that person's first can have to prove to me that they're not just making stuff up.AmandaAnd they also have to understand your story. What you're going to use it for on the right. How can they make that recommendation?KevinYeah.AmandaMm hmm.KevinYeah. So it's this weird. It's the same thing talking about interest rates right now. You know, interest rates at 8%. I don't know if that's I think we've talked about that enough on other places. We're not going to talk about that in this news. But interest rates, mortgage rates going to 8%. There's a whole bunch people saying don't talk about interest rates.KevinIt's not a big deal, just end. And it's kind of like, well, if everyone knows it, I, I don't think you can completely avoid it.AndrewYeah. Yeah. You're crazy not talking about it.AmandaMm hmm.KevinLike not talking about it or having at least some planned responses for the, like, common objection or statement. Because, again, as a consumer, I would feel it's my job to to be a good customer and to protect myself in this engagement, I would have to be like, you know, we're just a little bit concerned with how high interest rates are right now.KevinYeah, if a customer didn't say that, that would be weird, unless they just know they're paying cash. It's the same the same thing as again, you go to a retail store, do you need any help? The default reaction to protect yourself is no, I'm just looking. It's just what our job is as consumers. That's great.AndrewAndrew Yeah, I had one. I think I'm to shift that over to favorite things. I had him because like literally right before we started, I'm like, I just use this in the example of why I like this piece of software, so I'll save it for favorite things as it's more appropriate. Okay. Townhomes. I love townhomes. They're my favorite.KevinThey're that's I don't is that is that true?AndrewThat's not true. That's not true. I'm not true at all. Because I think that's like my first if I had to be like, what did I first learn coming to to do? I see. And like, I was like, Kevin, why are townhomes always like the issue? Like it was almost like a bat in my head. Like, all right, about this is about a townhome for something struggling and like 2017, 2018 it was townhomes, but two weeks ago, two weeks to three weeks ago, I had to call the builder and is about a townhome product and I was looking through their photos.AndrewIt's a coming soon. The price is really nice. You're like, really that price like, but it's a little farther out. So there's all these challenges with it. And at the end of the call it really didn't go the direction I thought it would, but we really uncover that a lot of their content highlighted the objectives as and they like made the objectives valid against townhomes.AndrewLike unintentional.KevinYou mean objective objections? Objectives.AndrewOkay, This my back. The objections? Yeah. The objections were they were like featuring the objections. Like what do you hate about townhomes? They didn't because their photography is so standardized that the way they photograph townhomes is the way they photographed single family homes. There is no intentionality as far as like, okay, cool, this is a I only how the product here, maybe it's 25 feet wide.AndrewMaybe. I mean, our home is sprint. It's 30 feet. We're on a foot, 40 foot lot. So we're at a 30 foot home.KevinIt's pretty decent for them.AndrewSo it's 20, 25, eight. But all the photography, the angles were not featuring like depth. And so in town, home is more like, what do you hate about it? Or why would you not choose this townhome? They're small and cramped. Okay, so the photography should feature mostly images that feature like the length of the home, right? That's going to be it.KevinYou don't have to document the entire crime scene.AndrewCorrect. Like, let's make sure it is showing like it feels big and spacious. What he also not like phantom asylum's privacy. These include a fence in the backyard that are like it cuts off the backyard where I think it's like a 12 foot fence. You could barely see it. And the photos, as far as like separating you, your back patio from the neighbors, you could barely see it.AndrewSo I'm like, hey, if they feature at every it's like they only needed these big shots of the whole building. This I think there were six units per person, per little per building. And so I saw all six. So like me and Alex, really small, it didn't focus in on like, hey, here's like the living area of your outdoor living area and it says example after example after example, in the order of the images, I'm like, if you showed number three versus number one, you might be able to hook them and create like we talked about with Amanda, like enough emotional excitement, like, oh, you know, that actually does look more spacious.AndrewAnd I'd expect and then you tie in to the fact that like more for all rural area where this townhome project is being built, I think there's as you go farther away from like downtown, there's an expectation of land and space. So a townhome close to downtown to like that's perfect for me. You put that 25 miles outside a city center.AndrewPeople were like, I could get a double wide on 45 acres for 250. Okay, And you're trying to give me 3000 square feet of yard space if that even. Yeah. And why would I do that? Like so your everything they did was the opposite content wise and like, Oh that's really interesting. I've never looked at photos of townhomes.KevinSo instead of I guess I want to clarify that like his clarify and what instead of instead of knowing that those are the objections, is your point and then creating content that speaks to them as No, that's not really a valid objection. You just have a misperception about townhomes are are different. You're saying all of the content just affirmed the likely objections?KevinYes, It didn't because didn't always talk about Smucker's is one of my favorite Smucker's. But the name like Smucker's, it has to be good. It's they know the objection would have been when that first became a brand. This is a weird sounding company. It sounds like just smacking saying I mean, it's just bizarre.AndrewIt is.KevinSo there's there's definitely a technique or approach of saying, I know what the objection is going to be. I'm going to hit it head on with answers or solutions or or different viewpoints. You're just saying that was the big miss.AndrewIs big mistake. Yet it made it made you go like, well, this is why I don't like townhomes. It's what I gathered from it. And it's like this builder. They're very process driven. Everything standardize. You've got to recognize their photos with even at least I can without their name on it. So but they're all great. Like they're they're doing an amazing job.AndrewBut the townhomes are photographed the same way as a single families. The buildings are the same way. And I think that's like the not the issue, but it's like, oh, they could probably like I'm like in one here. There's it's a three, three floors and there's four units in the building. And you go like, well, we're I park like it never feels like where's my home within this.AndrewAnd I think they should like just focus on the unit versus the entire building. As far as the big exterior, they only the kitchens and it's like, well, this kitchen's actually pretty spacious, but the way they took the photo, you can't see all of the kitchen and the shape. And so it looks like there's one countertop to cut something on.AndrewAnd then once something like cooking, you're like, This looks miserable to cook in, it's tiny. And so they should have just had different angles on it. And you keep going to go and you're like, Oh, everything I do, it makes us feel like it's a small, cramped townhome they really don't want to live in. But you'll have to settle for versus like, Oh, it actually looks like a nice place to live.AndrewLike there's ten foot ceilings, you have your private outdoor space on there. And so it could be, I guess if you're struggling with townhomes, which is probably everybody, if you have townhomes, maybe like I look at it in that context, like am I reinforcing why people don't actually prefer townhomes first? For the most part if they're not actually like downtown or a walkable location?AndrewYeah, so we'll see if there's new content. Yeah, that.KevinAnd this is true for every community. Page One of my pet peeves is certainly community pages, where 95% of the images and the photo gallery for the community page are the model home. Yeah, I'm like, Oh, that's not the community, but it's even more so true in multifamily scenarios, settings where if you just had photos of the model versus the community, the walkability, the amenities and again, the area around it is the amenities.KevinThat's, that's why even in.AndrewI agree.KevinMarkets like you know, the broader metro area around Washington D.C. I think we still can be on a on a metro line and that is an important amenity of the community, even if it's not in the community and it's ten blocks down the street, it's still. So that just is even more critical. That's your pick because, I mean, that's just by default.KevinThat's why people are choosing multifamily, mostly because of affordability. And builders choose multifamily primarily because, I mean, this is what I heard my entire career, pretty much as I especially pre and VR, when when you're a smaller or even a large private builder and you're just trying to find opportunities on the landside piece of land as identified, I think it's going to go one way and then, you know, eight hour in two, it's like, you know, this isn't going to work as single family.KevinWe're going to have to turn it into multifamily. Yeah, very rarely for for a builder that's focused on the suburbs, do you do you target let's go find more multifamily product. There are those who do it and you know that. And that's why the people who do multifamily exclusively, just like builders do on your lot exclusively, are typically way better on your lot.KevinIf if 90% of a builder's portfolio single family and they just kind of sort of do multifamily again that's the other reason why that can be a challenge.AndrewDo you think multifamily is going to increase? I want to say substantially, but what does that word even mean? Is that five, ten, 20, 30, 40%, Do you think it's going to have a larger increase? And do you think builders will have more multifamily products the next five years from now compared to, say, ten years ago due to affordability and maintaining the margins they want to maintain?AndrewI mean, I would thinks and this my like dumb assumption is like, well, that kind of makes sense if if they.KevinI think the reason that my answer is yes is because land prices again are the main drivers. Yeah. And those don't seem to be improving like land prices and also becoming more affordable anytime soon, even in in even in an economic downturn. So yeah, but I guess my the reason it's making me hesitate is single family for rent and even just really dense single family is all know I was just in a home yesterday and it's a single family community that was built 15 years ago and the homes are traditional, single family homes.KevinIt's not a zero lot line community, if you're familiar with that terminology. There are a lot lines, but the houses can't be more than eight feet apart. And in where I'm from, that's kind of strange, especially for homes that are probably selling in the $500,000 range.AndrewYeah, And it.KevinIs like this is close.AndrewI mean, that's us. We're we're ten feet apart, you know, five feet and inside. So we're we're cozy with our neighbors. And you could probably. Yeah, that might have been the minimum we could do with our air. But the older homes, like older homes right there across the street, like out the back yard there on Thursday, 50 to 70 foot lots.AndrewAnd so they have quite a bit of room between between them. But we're twice the size square footage. So they made it work. I mean, they sold or they sold in a heartbeat, the smaller, much smaller lot sizes.KevinWell, yeah, my story is about lag times, which that's one of those terms that I just didn't hear a lot about or really fully understand until about 10 to 12 years ago. So, I mean, like eight years into my career in homebuilding and then I was like, okay, I'm understanding. But one of the reasons why homebuilding is so hard of an industry is the amount of time that passes between something changing and the result of that change.KevinA real clear example of this is back to land. Builders have to be looking 3 to 5 years out and saying, Where do I want my communities to be in 3 to 5 years? The physical location to figure out, is this the right price I should pay for this land? Will people want to live here in five years?KevinWhat price with what products and that they're tossing the dirt five years into the future in California longer. And so this lag effect is also what we're experiencing right now with interest rates and its impact on the economy. So everyone freaked out, Oh, my gosh, interest rates changed and it's going to be a disaster. Turns out the disaster hasn't happened yet.KevinPeople are still employed. You know, wages going up for the most part, people still buying homes. And it's because interest rates short term interest rates, which is what the Federal Reserve changes, that typically takes 24, I think 36 months before the impact of wherever the rate was changed. You has a fact because that's how long companies are borrowing from the bank at a particular loan and it doesn't have to be renewed for five years.KevinAnd so they're halfway through that at the rates change. And it doesn't really matter which one of the reasons the big tech companies right now are still firing on all cylinders is they've got $1,000,000,000 or I think in Apple's case, like 20 some billion dollars in cash. And so they're like cool interest rates are higher. We don't need your stupid interest rate bank.KevinYou just keep it. We've got cash. So lag as a term is just you know the delay from making a change to seeing its impact and it's real. They're all over the place in the world, but especially in our industry. And one of the things that I had a conversation with this week with one of our builder partners was a particular struggling neighborhood that we with with them and their team have been, I'd say, squirreling away like a squirrel, attacking a bird feeder, trying everything we can to try to make things work.KevinAnd not really a shock. This is one of the things we talked about. It seems like actually I'm going to give full context here. The the head of of sales and marketing made the comment said, you know, my my father made the comment that every time you all seem to focus on a community, things get better. And the joke is like you kind of like insinuate like, can't you just do that all the time for all of them, which, you know, as a, as the marketer perspective is like, can you just make sure the product and pricing is better so that things just work more often and they don't need to, you know, But that'sKevinthat's the healthy tension in the business. So things get better. But what's interesting is one of the takeaways was that the the getting better was related to the most recent thing. So this weekend, this past week, the number of appointments like tripled or quadrupled to the community. And the connection was what must have been the thing we changed on Friday or Thursday.KevinI was like, well, we can't. We can't say that. We really can't because for the prior 30 days we had taken the average amount of traffic to that community from like 1000 visitors a month to 14,000.AndrewIt's a few.KevinAnd and the concern was, hey, the the lead in appointment volume isn't correlating to that immediately. So we're not sure if these folks are the highest quality folks. So let's actually change some of the messaging adjust spend which the spend was already very, very healthy obviously to get to that level. And then it was like that must be the change that made the difference.KevinAnd I was like, What is your average time between website visit to lead, which most people would have a hard time calculating anyway? In this case, the builder actually has. I don't want to go into that right now because it's somewhat proprietary both to us and them, but they have another way of telling some of that cycle time.KevinBut as an example, one of the other builders you work with just told us yesterday they did their latest analysis from lead to contract, which everyone in this, listen should be able to calculate. Their average cycle time right now is 150 days, 150 days from getting the lead to getting a signed contract. There are reasons why and the type of builder they are that that would be longer.KevinBut the point is that is elongating, the lag is getting wider. And so just imagine if you're that builder and you get 300 leads in a month where you typically would get 100 and everyone gets excited and then you don't get sales for I don't even know what that is for five months.AndrewYeah.KevinSo 100 days.AndrewFive months.KevinYeah. So there's, there's, there's potentially four months where everyone's like those leads were all crap. They weren't worth it. What's going on? It's just really hard. If you don't understand the lags that are in the business to make the dots. So one of the things we talked about to try to bring some practical application here besides just understanding the concept and trying to figure out what your lags are in your business is privacy changes make all this really tough.KevinNow their CRM system does a better job than most at identifying source and medium, but it's still not obviously going to be perfect. We know that in time. It's a particular campaign can be even harder. One of the best good old fashioned ways to do this is just have actual start and stop definitions. So there's two ways to kind of do this good enough, I would say.KevinOne is it'll be really scary because this community just took off. But if you turned off all the extra advertising like cold turkey it on a day and then watch the lag from when you cold turkey to it to when does that appointment volume taper off. If it correlates like if if there's correlation there, then you can at least take some of that.KevinAnd now you could do that for individual channels. Like if you're concerned that the meta traffic or the Google traffic isn't good, you could just cold turkey one. But again, you're going to have to watch the lag. It's not going to be what happens tomorrow or next week. But this this idea of stopping, I'm actually trying to resurface as a really important concept.KevinYou know, we talk about sprints like do a two or three week sprint of of spend or change in strategy, then stop and see what happens. And I feel like right now the impetus for most people is just keep piling on, Just keep doing more.AndrewMm hmm.KevinAnd there's a couple of problems with that. One, you're not even really analyzing. You're just like more and more and more and more and more. And you don't have that. You can't you can't really tell. Like if you've if you've done ten experiments on one neighborhood and then things get better, you don't know.AndrewYou're stuck doing those ten forever. Yeah, maybe only two, right? I mean if you, if you get for ten. Yeah. You don't, you don't have answers.KevinYeah. I just that, that is actually for people who aren't trained marketers, you're going to have to help them understand the lag effect and the I didn't even know really that I was doing this. But but one of the in terms of the lag concept, but I used to tell my salespeople all the time at Hartland, if you tell me the last week of the month that you're freaking out and you're not, you're falling behind or you're not going to hit your sales plan, I can't help you.KevinI didn't frame it in the sense of the lag, but I just said it's too late because it's going to take me 2 to 3 weeks to create the traffic, to then have that interest develop for them to then reach out to get scheduled in for an appointment. It's not going to happen in a week. The only the only prayer we have of turning people that quickly is basically email and the phone texting or calling, and that's for someone already in the database.AndrewI feel like this really makes the case to be much more proactive and like the marketer, we should all be like, That's kind of obvious. Everyone should be more proactive.KevinNo, you're absolutely.AndrewBut they have thresholds of traffic that you monitor per community. So you're ahead of the salesperson who's on the last weekend of the month. They're stressed about their quota on the 23rd. They're like, Oh shoot, I need two more sales this weekend on the 27th, 28th of October. But if you already knew traffic was low on the ninth because you're like projecting it based on what you're seeing in analytics, like I need to bump that, traffic it up somehow and that could prevent things from from escalating to that situation.AndrewBut you need the threshold. So you need to figure out like, well, what's my number? What are the numbers for? It's gray and I don't really have to do anything before someone talks to me about it.KevinAnd before you set those thresholds, you better be doing your coffee and analytics time to be able to understand the patterns, because if you just create random defined thresholds.AndrewYeah.KevinThat's also just going to cause tail chasing. It's like because we already see this happening where people mishear our statement of a thousand units of traffic per community to get 1 to 2 sales from that neighborhood. And they think every neighborhood has to have 1000. But you can absolutely sell four homes off of 300 website visitors. That's allowed and does happen.KevinSo you have to be spending that time to really know where those things are, are going to be set. But that's where a lot of people get caught off guard. Last year at this time was they felt so comfortable with the backlog or the sales volume of of spring and summer that even though the numbers were all going down and we were we were saying on this podcast, other places like, hey, things are 1,000% slowing and slowing pretty quickly because people weren't looking at those leading indicators of traffic because everyone was so overwhelmed with the amount of activity that had been going on for the last two years.KevinMost builders really didn't even realize it was happening until like late summer, early fall. And then they started to freak out.AndrewTo like proactive thresholds. All right.KevinOn to the news. First up from Mashable.com, Metta has some new AI personalities and they are super cool people. That's intentionally bad grammar, but we've got people who look like Jenner's and Paris Hilton. Oh, is this a Snoop dog? I did not realize I was Snoop Dogg.AndrewSnoop. I don't know who the bottom four are on the right side. I don't know whether or not they seem like great people.KevinYeah, they're not all celebrities, but I think somebody for everybody and I think about half of them are the celebrity chat bots are live and they're weird is the subheadline from the article and this is my last intro. And then I'll let you guys share. Which do you think? But they're weird that from the article yet another chat bot with a celeb twist.KevinThat's right. And more chat bots baby. We were promised flying cars and hoverboards and instead we get to talk to bots that can just barely hold a conversation akin to your single worst interaction at a cocktail party. But it looks like a famous person. What do we think here?AndrewThis is Amanda you go.AmandaFrom for the Oh.AndrewYeah. Okay.AmandaGot creeped out by the fact.AndrewIt's it's depressing. It reminds me of the movie. And if you have time this weekend, you should watch it and you'll understand the reference. The movie is called Her H.E.R. Just heard her from 2013. He falls in love with the guy. This guy?AmandaOh, no.AndrewIt's super bizarre. It's very uncomfortable. All you're like, Is this really insane what's happening here? But it's won some awards. But it's it's it's definitely in the, like, eccentric, weird movie category. But it's this. But this. He falls in love with Scarlett Johansson, who is the voice actor, who is the A.I.. So, again, that's that's reasonable. So maybe meta onto something.AndrewLet's try to use celebrities as who you're interacting with, but still read it. You're like, this is okay.KevinSo the short answer from the online sales world who, you know, we love anything that would potentially allow us to connect with more people. This doesn't hit the market. We an agreement. Yeah, this is the agreement where you know okay so I think the interesting question is, is what led them down this path also wrong? Here's what I mean by that.KevinI watch my wife in particular and she follows influencers and I just you know, everyone knows how I feel about the word and the thing and whether we are. Do you convert to influencers or not. All the all that stuff. But let's say there is a workout influencer or last night I'm watching her use flip through her stories and she's like, Oh, I love this person.KevinAnd it's just very clearly an ad for some hair serum. And she's like, Oh, I love this. She's so great. I'm like, It says by now. And she's talking strangely high energy and how much she loves this product. And I go, Of course, she says she loves the product because she's selling you the product, she's making money and she's like, Well, but she designed it.KevinShe made it like that makes even more weird because she's talking about how much she loves this product that clearly the IKEA effect, right? I made this. It must be the best thing ever because it has my name like I did it and yet it doesn't matter. She's just enamored with it. So And every once in a while I see her actually comment or talk to these people who have hundreds of thousands of followers.KevinAnd it it gives her this weird high, I think of like I just interacted with an influencer, I guess somewhat akin to, you know, if Rich Barton or somebody on on Twitter X likes a tweet. But that's like in that scenario for me. I don't expect it and I don't it's their reaction to it, not me just talking or adding them.KevinThat is the exciting part. It's just like, oh, they, they, they read it, responded. There's this weird thing, I think that younger generations are like, I just like my kids just would love the idea of interacting with Mr. Beast in the smallest way possible. So I think there's something there that is directionally right. But they they've missed the mark badly.AndrewBut I think they missed because there's no brand assigned to these people for her to be like, okay, the Kardashians have a brand and that's why people want to associate with them. That's why they buy their products. Mark at the summit, I forgot his last name. Mark from a thousand. What? You buy that apparel because it makes you feel part of the club or makes you feel a certain way.AndrewSo like who we follow also I think makes us feel a certain way or we get whatever emotion out of following that person, interacting with them, or just interacting even just engaging with our social media. And as for Metta, it's like I feel like they're trying to piggyback that experience of like, Oh, I'm interacting with this feels like Tom Brady.AndrewIt talks like Tom Brady or like, This isn't Tom Brady. Tom's on a yacht in Miami doing whatever the heck he wants. He's not this isn't a bot. So like, it's like, of course this is fake. It feels like you're like tricking me, like I'm like a child or something like. And, like, that's that's not the real Elsa at Disney World.AndrewLike, I know that's not her.AmandaRight?AndrewBut they do like. The four year old, the three year old, the five year old. Like they're like, That's Elsa. Oh, my gosh, This is amazing. So, like, they're trying to trick us, like we're like children or something. Something like that. That's why I think the cringes. Yeah, it's, it's, it's obviously fake like. And it feels Grinchy. It's a long way to get that point, I think.KevinYeah. The first message is not not having the real name. So it shows Mr. B's likeness, but his name is Zach. It's almost like right from the get go, you're looking at a fake coach purse that you know is fake and everyone else will know is fake because it doesn't even say coach. But everything about it looks like a coach.KevinPurses like once. Scott you're missing the whole better feel of the essence of the brand, right? If it was a if it's a knock off and no one knows is a knockoff, then you know that that's one thing. But this is a clear knockoff.AndrewAnd yeah.KevinIt, yeah, it just doesn't look that good. But I do think there's something to wanting to interact with these, these people that we know or feeling like there's interaction, but it's just not even close to the, to the mark it's fun.AndrewSomeone's probably going to come up with a something very similar and they'll use like deepfake technology. And so you could like video chat with Tom Brady and it's just people, thousands of people in a call center that then they could use their face and then they'll just like use Deepfake to be like, Oh, I'm actually talking to Tom Brady.AndrewCool. Like, what are you doing it with? So they take his voice and that seems more like a fun experience. It's a waste of time and it's not chat bot, but it's like, look, I talk to Tom Brady but it's not Tom Brady.KevinI mean, there are Elvis impersonators and not all of them look like Elvis. Maybe we're completely wrong.AndrewThat's true. We'll find out. That might be gone in a year. All right.KevinNext up, there is an actual article, but we're linking to a Twitter, a tweet on X. Well, I've finally crossed the chasm. I call Matamata pretty consistently, but I am having a hard time with X. I agree. A gentleman named Alexis who said big news for ADD used today, accessible dwelling, accessory dwelling units. These are essentially small homes connected or not connected, but in the yard or somehow on property.KevinThat's for another primary residence have now been able. The FHA policy now allows 82 rental income to qualify for mortgages, further cementing their role in the housing market. And in places like California, you know, if you can rent out your ADU for 3500 bucks a month and that counts, as you know, rental income, that's a big deal.AmandaYeah, that's really neat.AndrewYeah, that's neat.AmandaI actually talked about this on my coaching call today. Like, because, you know, like people are running into this of a high interest rates affordability like it's not it's a condition now that you know just an objection it's the conditions that like how could you overcome that and I thought this was like possibly thinking out of the box like a great opportunity for builders.AmandaYou know, like they build the customers house, Maybe they can build a little tiny home to like L.A. money.KevinOr I mean, it's.AmandaActually.KevinThe construction of an 80. You can be folded in to New construction financing. So now it's like, I'm going to build both these things.AmandaYeah.KevinYeah, yeah.AndrewYeah.AmandaThat's true.KevinI think lenders really may begin offering borrowed mortgages on properties that they to use on the new policies effective immediately. Mm.AndrewYeah. So Alexis builds what appears to be areas that look really nice like they're, they like they would fit in a backyard better than a tiny home looking looking thing like they're really.KevinNice $350,000, probably tiny others.AndrewThey're pricey. My first thought I think it's neat, but I'm like, okay should someone who's buying through an FHA be a landlord? And will this like what is their rate if they have to use 82 income to qualify? Like I'm like, does that hold significantly higher risk? Because if it's ever vacant or if it's vacant for x percent two months out of the year, can I make their mortgage if they don't have that income for two months or three months or four months or something?AndrewSo you qualify for it, or maybe they've been paying rent. That's actually more than what their new mortgage would be. And they're like, Please, just let me do something. I'm not even I rent that thing out there, but my rent now is 5500 a month. I'm a finance and I'll be 4400 per month and I'm saying they'll be rental income.AndrewYeah, I like that.KevinThere's certainly be unintended consequences from this. Like one of the comments on here is I have a house with a garage that I want to convert into an 80. You, you know, well this helped me and so it might Yeah. And then and it might improve your value. It might lower the value of the primary residence if you don't no longer have a garage.KevinSo but I mean people California are super excited about this. And the one I know if it's this particular change or something else that because I think call it the state of California also passed a different law related to its use. But every individual municipality has to basically opt in or say, yes, that's allowed. And so in the markets, even where this is the would be the biggest deal because a lot of aid use already exists in California is can't qualify each individual market.KevinSo L.A., San Diego, you go service each town has to say, yes, that's allowed and that's going to take time. And it won't necessarily be applied everywhere, but super interesting. Next up from TechCrunch, Google's AI powered search experience can now generate images and write drafts. So this is kind of the only lead in here from this article. Is that the trend?KevinFor sure? You've got folks like Jackie Beatty or Openai who are trying to create brand new platforms using alarms and AI powered tools. And then the other trend is just integrate those kind of tools within the already standard platforms. An example of this is Adobe. Adobe is like, I see, I see you daily and I see you, I have to say discord, use it via discord.KevinBut what's the other Netherlands?AndrewI lose, I lose track anyway.KevinThat's what I use all the time. So it's crazy. I can't think of it, but they're like cool and nice. Try trying to like, you know, integrate artificial intelligence in images. We're just going to drop it into Photoshop Illustrator and all the tools that real creatives already use. So they don't need your other little silly thing because it's going to just be built into the platform that those experts already use.KevinSo this to me is kind of big picture. What Google is doing here is let's just integrate all this right into the core product. But what else are your thoughts on this one wager.AndrewI'm a fan. I think it's super cool. The because I think all the tools you've mentioned, they are not user friendly. Like for normal people to use.KevinHaving to learn the average just how to use discord to to use what is the premiere generative visual tool, which I can't think of the name of, is they got.AndrewTo go to Discord first. So it's like, it's annoying. Yeah, it's not accessible. And that's I think that's the way to for the fastest progress is to make it accessible to everybody where there's no login, there's no credits or whatever you have to buy to get it and make it work. I know it's expensive to run these things by Google pushing it.AndrewI'm all for that because I will. I think that will push progress on this a lot faster for the robots to take over the world. Just getting the last one or not, I'm all for it. Let's let's do it. This will help with them be easier to make PowerPoints and decks and presentations. This is what I need. Yeah.KevinAnd it's it's not everything. And they're they're doing it kind of interesting where the one example in the article and I saw a video on this as well if you do a Halloween table setting search and click images in Google where you see you'll see all the normal images and then you'll just see a box that says create something new with our generative A.I. tool.KevinAnd then you click that it will create four additional images for you out of thin air. And so it's it's not like, again, that's trying to incorporate to the to the image search you're already going to. And then it's like if you're not finding exactly what you're looking for, just make it. I think it's I think a smart also, by the way, when you try some terms, that box does not appear.KevinAnd my other thought is, is there some initial scrub there that goes? Is there enough images that we believe would it be highly correlated to this? Then we don't even need to show this generative AI option because there's already.AndrewLike.Kevin10,000 really good options. It might only be appearing in less, less popular searches.AndrewYeah, let's play with that. That's fun.KevinAll right. Next up, we've got the numbers. We've got the third quarter.AmandaWe balanced.KevinIt was benchmark data.AmandaIs this.KevinIs this like a world premiere.AmandaAnd release? Yeah. Okay. Hot out the press. I yeah. So I prepare these calculations with the benchmarks every quarter they call me the nerd over here so many ways. But but good numbers So yeah I compare it to quarter two. So benchmarks for quarter three are lead to appointment. We have 40% though, that went down just by 1%.AmandaSo kind of steady appointment to sell 19%, which is down 2% from quarter to that contribution that went up, which is really neat to see. The online sales contribution went up to 48%, whereas quarter two with 46% and quarter one with 45%. So not only increasing, which is very exciting. Yeah. One thing to point out though, is that leads they did go down by around 15% last count from quarter to quarter three.AmandaSo I'm going to pick your brain off of that. So why do you think lead counts are dropping and doesn't even matter? Or tell us what you think.KevinWhat your rivals and I both saw the same tweet from Lance, formerly of Forbes. He just started his own newsletter on housing data. Now, be a good follow or a sign up if you're if you if you like, that kind of nerdy content. But he just said, hey, basically I crunched the numbers and October is the least affordable month for housing in the last get ready 100 years.AmandaOh least affordable month and.AndrewWe have no problems with affordable.KevinWe got no issues here. Oh work. In fact I think this is this is just data that I saw about an hour ago and I don't have it still pulled up, but I believe of the National Association of Realtors just came out with updated data that showed for the I think for the first time in at least like the last flying blind here 20, 30 years, there are under 4 million transactions that are that are currently like they call it annualized transactions.KevinSo they take a data point and they say if it stayed here and was and happened over 12 months, this would be the number and it was the lowest that it had been in whatever time frame they were talking about, and it was below 4,000,003.96, I think. And so there and the other end and little piece of the puzzle, Amanda, is a lot of our builders who do highly partner with local real estate professionals like were.KevinAnd these are major markets, not like top 15 markets in the country. They're calling the top two or three agents in the market that they've had great relations with. And they're like, Hey, we've got this great thing or we've got this opportunity, We've got these homes. And the response from these these are the best of the best agents and those markets are that sounds awesome.KevinI have no. One to work with. I don't have customers.AndrewWow.KevinTo work with. You know, so 15% those aren't too bad. And the other thing is the overall slope. But what we can see as well from home builder data and other data providers is that the slope of the decline this year is nowhere near as steep as last year. So last year in this and the third and fourth quarter, it just dropped almost actually almost as severely.KevinThis is all transactions used and new, almost as severely as during the Great Recession. It wasn't starting at a higher high like that chart. You look at it, it's just like, oh my goodness, down 80%. Some ridiculous number. But the steepness of the curve is severe but pretty short. This year we didn't ever get as high as last year's highs, but the decline and the slope of the decline is more steady and slow.KevinSo take your poison. Would you rather be down 15% or I bet if you went and looked at the same data last year, third quarter, second quarter. Mm. Just My quick guess would be it'd be 35. So you know that's the thing with percentages is Yeah. The higher high probably felt great. Yeah. But the ride down probably felt worse.AmandaRight. That makes sense. Mm hmm. Yeah.KevinAnd I'm most interested in the apartment to sell ratio. I got 90%. That's what you said was.AmandaFor 19%. Now.KevinThat's still freaking awesome.AmandaI agree.AndrewDown from 21%, I think. Right?AmandaYeah.AndrewSo that's shifted.AmandaAll in 2%. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I love these benchmarks because, you know, it's just such a good overall image because, you know, it's all market that's large builders, small builders established online program, new programs. So it's just a really great mix to have an overall view.KevinYeah.AmandaYeah.AndrewIt's real, real data.KevinOh, hey, something just happened. I think. I think somewhere in the last hour we just crossed over officially 25000 minutes of the podcast, which does means I said yesterday so you could listen to market proof marketing Monday through Friday for 8 hours a day and still be able to listen to a fresh new episode for you for over 60 days now.KevinFor over two months now, the tools.AndrewYou will see.AmandaThem catch.AndrewYour life change. It'll be like a sitcom, like an had two kids here now. Yes. Three, seven has a new house like all these things that have happened.KevinI mean, again, the IKEA effect is real. So it might just be because we made it. But if I ran a marketing department and hired someone who was brand, I would be tempted to just mandate like, Yeah, over the next three months I'll give you three months, but you need to listen to like just have it in the background.KevinYou don't need smooth jazz, you don't need rock and roll or country. Just listen. I know it happened years ago. Just listen to it. Anyway.AndrewMy like reprogram their brain. And so if they had something wrong with the brain, maybe it fixes that. There's nothing wrong with it. Maybe there might be something wrong with it, then maybe that'll be fine. Yeah.KevinOkay. So you're going to have to make sure we do favorites because we're going to end on a depressing note on the news stories here, unfortunately. But according to Redfin.com, homebuyers must earn $115,000. That's obviously household income to afford the typical U.S. home. That's $40,000 more than the typical American household actually earns. So, okay, some of you listening are like, I mean, that's that's a lot of money, but that's not terrible.KevinBut when you put it in the context of the average household brings in $75,000, that's a problem.AndrewIt's a lot of buyers that put that were previously in the market are not in the market like they are. They cannot participate. That's a better way. They are they cannot participate in home buying those people because of that.KevinYep. And the typical years homebuyers monthly mortgage payment is 20 $866 an all time high, up 20% from a year earlier.AndrewThat's a bit of a mortgage so crazy.KevinBut you know rates are just a state of mind. Just take the rate.AndrewYou know, just stay in it like it's not permanent. I mean, you still might need 28, 66 for the average average.KevinBut yes, and I do you know, some of the folks that I see posting the stuff I like, I get it when you're speaking to people within the industry, you're you're trying to motivate, put things in context. But then there's other people who are within the industry who are clearly talking to just the average person. And you're like, I don't think you come across the way.KevinYou think you come across here.AndrewYeah, I mean.KevinIt's not if you live in the Bay Area, California, by the way, you have to earn at least $400,000. Oh.AndrewNo big deal.KevinNo big deal.AndrewNo big deal.KevinRust Belt buyers, nearly CENTCOM, Detroit home buyers only have to earn $52,000. Wow. But it's still a 19% increase from last year.AndrewYeah, that's in Detroit. You could buy some houses for like nothing because.KevinYes, if yes, like $10 if you.AndrewThere are.KevinRoom and even give it away, because that sounds interesting. There's Japanese, there's homes in Japan, they're the same way. And Spain and and other parts of Asia. You buy this home for ten bucks. But before you jump out and say, I'm going to become a real estate mogul, you have to promise. In Detroit's case, I think you have three years to bring the house up to a certain level of livability or you lose it again.AndrewSo I still don't.KevinWant people buying up a bunch of land and doing nothing with it.AndrewAmanda has it's close to Detroit, so we move to Detroit.AmandaI know, but no, but actually like 3 hours. But I have your place there. But I am close. Yes.AndrewYou don't. You have no reason to go there.AmandaYou think I'm an area of Detroit.KevinI'm a bigger fan of the west side of Michigan, generally speaking. Okay. But you didn't. You don't care about that. That's not why you're listening to the show. How does affordability get fixed? I think everyone keeps saying the way to fix affordability is just to build more. But I just want to remind everyone that there are still this problem of the price of land, and that's not helping things, and it's build more of a certain type of home which zoning and or voters will not allow.KevinSo you either have the problem, not my backyard or zoning or building a bunch of stuff in a place where no one is, which is its own challenge. So not likely to to be fine is.AndrewNot in my back.KevinEven if manufactured housing takes off like a rocket.AndrewYeah.KevinMm hmm. All right, so let's end with current favorites. Yeah. Got to be a favorite this time. Amanda What do you got?AmandaYeah, well, I. I have really been loving. A favorite is the role of coaching that I have been able to kind of step into the role full time. And it's just been really neat to see the best of clients and kind of be with them through the journey of like really establishing their program. Like Candace, that whole homes, for example, we do the builder shop and she was one of the ones that made it all the way through one of the three.AmandaAnd I was like proud coach moment and thought that just really neat to see their numbers kind of come to life when when they don't have that before and then also see them grow like as they as you spend time with them. So I've been loving that and I've also been loving the fall weather, the shift in perspective, you know, like I was like, no, I don't want summer to end, but that's the best we are.AmandaAnd the the leaves are beautiful and I'm enjoying it.AndrewSo your life change color?AmandaYeah. Without changing color. So they're so prett

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 307: The Warehouse Of Empty PromisesIn this episode, Kevin Oakley is joined by Beth Russell and Julie Jarnagin! The team dives into marketers who are struggling to integrate sales teams that want to be involved. Their advice: They can be involved, but within your boundaries. Kevin shares his new favorite thing to ask during meetings. They discuss how the marketing message in home building can get over complicated and that it's worth taking a step back, looking at the data and remembering exactly what the original offering was.Story Time (01:14)Julie has started crocheting something call a Wooble.Beth advised marketers that when sales teams want to be involved, you must remember you're the protector of the brand.Kevin's new favorite thing to say “Huh, that's interesting. What data point did you reference to get to that conclusion?”The News (23:30)Google accused of downplaying ad price manipulation (https://searchengineland.com/google-accused-downplaying-ad-price-manipulation)Homes.com Hits 100M Visitors: Zillow's Rivalry Heats Up (https://nowbam.com/homes-com-hits-100m-monthly-visitors-zillows-rivalry-heats-up/)Housing industry urges Powell and the Fed to stop raising interest rates (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/10/housing-industry-urges-powell-and-fed-to-stop-raising-interest-rates)RE/MAX becomes 3rd major firm to distance itself from NAR (https://www.inman.com/2023/10/06/re-max-becomes-3rd-major-firm-to-distance-itself-from-nar)59% of Recent Homebuyers Say Purchasing a House Is More Stressful Than Dating: Survey (https://www.redfin.com/news/homebuying-more-stressful-than-dating-survey/)Things We Love Things We Hate (54:21)Julie is loving her Wooble.Beth loves her portable cleaner “bissell little green” Kevin urges everyone to get the Rhode Wireless MicsQuestions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript:KevinSo I wasn't on last week because I was sick. Yeah. And I had there was something else going on anyway, so Julie, Beth and Jen decided to have a podcast party, and I still haven't heard it yet because it doesn't come out until later today or right today. Did it come out today?BethIt came out today.KevinI've been busy. So all I know I'm and I'm kind of scared to listen to it as it just said, like boys drool and girls rule.BethI may have sent a message to the whole group saying, Girl rule, Boys drool.KevinYeah.JulieWas so much fun. Yeah every podcast should be like that.KevinThat was definitely a micro-aggression.KevinSaying that I was sad.BethI wanted you to really feel left out and that's fine.KevinThis is going to be fun. Kevin. We're going to have all new sound effects, new fun times. Let's get started. Welcome to episode 307. I'm Kevin Oakley. And with me today is Julie Jernigan and Beth Russell. Hello. Hello. Who wants to start off story time today?JulieI can start.KevinNow, what is a rule allowable?JulieSo a wooble is a little crocheted stuffed animal, basically. So what happened was that we made new phone rules for the kids because grades were slipping a little bit. Everybody was on their phones. But when you make rules about how much you can be on screens for your kids, that means that you also cannot sit there in the evenings and scroll your phone.JulieAnd I was like, Well, I need something when I don't want to read or whatever. Another option to do. So I got influenced on Instagram. I don't know if you've ever seen their little crocheted. It's a little packet and it's supposed to teach you to crochet, which I learned to crochet like ten years ago. But it had been forever and I'd never done anything like that.JulieBut they are marketing geniuses. They are so smart because, number one, the little the little thing kits they send you are expensive. Like they cost more than if you went bought your own stuff. But you don't have to figure it out. They just send it as is. Then you scan a little code and they the videos are like super beginner.JulieLike you do this step first, then you do the step, then you do the step. It's great. And then if you have a question and it can't answer it, it gives you an email address and a phone number of who to contact to ask your question to. So it's very, very much like walks you through it. And then now I've learned that they always have something new because they have all these limited editions like they'll market to you like the Frankenstein.JulieThat's only a limited time. And then I'm sure they'll come out. So they're just very smart marketers. And after I bought my first one, I was like, Well, next time I make something, I'll just buy it all myself. But then you love it so much because it's so easy and they do everything for you. And it starts with the little ring and everything.JulieBut I'm like, They're smart, they're smart. I'm just going to send you my money because you made it so easy and so fun.KevinBecause you're not on your phone as the TV on are as their music are with you on.JulieSocial.KevinMedia like gas lamps.JulieYou know, the kids are around. So, I mean, it's like family time. They're doing whatever they're doing. So it's very you know, it's whatever we're all sitting in the living room. But it was one of those things like, if you can't be on your phone and you're tired at night and you just want to sit on the couch, it's like you don't want to just sit on the couch and all, like, stare at each other.JulieSo it's nice to have something to do. So that's been my thing as a people. So it's been a lot of fun, that.BethLevel of follow up and like detail that they provided and like, and then a resource for help because I was that person to try to teach myself to crochet. Me and my daughter were both like on a mission and we're going to learn how to do this. And I could get like the first row and the second row, but like I tried to build a square and I was just like, I keep doing the wrong thing.BethI'm losing count and I'm watching this video, but it's not helping. And then I just gave up.JulieYeah. And then you find on video that helps and then you can never find it again, you know, because I went through that, too, and I taught myself. So they're smart, smart marketers.BethAnd now I want to try them. You're influencing.JulieI know I'm influencing people. People have messaged me.BethI did you, I saw it and I messaged to do.KevinI'm always the genius of artificial scarcity, which is again, part of what we sell without fail is built around around information in that case and actually maximizing the true uniqueness of each and every home site. But like how many are they really limited by how many Frankenstein wins they can create.JulieFor, you know.KevinCrochet together? No. Yeah, but it's just like the McRib or anything else. It's like back for a limited time. The Shamrock Shake, the I'm sure the grimace will be back at some point. Yeah. More people should do it. Why not have a limited edition or plan?JulieYeah.KevinOr. Or standard a limited edition Standard option or optional option? Mm hmm. That's cool.BethI like that better than limited incentives, since incentives are never limited.KevinYeah. And again, just because you're saying limited doesn't mean it has to be truly limited. That's just how you talk about it. I love it. Yeah, that's what you got.BethI had a really great conversation with a marketer this morning who is struggling to find that marriage between making salespeople feel involved and as though they have influence over not marketing.KevinBut yeah, moving times.BethThey they have a contribution. They want to feel as though they are contributing and setting boundaries of what their contributions should look like. So I had this epiphany moment during conversation of it's like when you have a buyer come in and they want to make a change to the house or they want to put their own personal twist on the house, you do that within boundaries.BethYou do that within a set number of restrictions that you have as a company, because not only is it something that you can actually do that you know, fits within the constraints of the plan and the limitations you have as an organization. And so we are constantly telling our customers that they have to live within these boundaries that we set for them.BethBut we're not doing that internally as a team, especially when it comes to marketing and that conversation between sales and marketing. So in this example, we were talking about Facebook, we were talking about, you know, on site team members having their own Facebook and putting their content out there. And they should do that within the boundaries set by the marketing team because they are representing the brand and the marketing team should be the protectors of that brand.BethIf that salesperson leaves and all of a sudden the messaging change or you can't get that Facebook page back and it has your name attached to it in ten different ways, or if they're sharing content that you can't get because they're not sending it and sharing it to you, you're just hurting your brand and hurting your company. So allow them to participate.BethAllow them to feel the level of contribution that they they can, but do it within the boundaries that you set for them.KevinYeah, it's team members are not children. What I mean by that is I have four kids. If all four kids when they were two years old, let's say they were all two year olds at the same time, and they all draw pictures. It doesn't matter what the picture looks like. I put it on the fridge. Everyone gets a picture on the fridge.KevinI do not have to put everyone's picture on the fridge. And but there is this tension of we should be curating and crowd sourcing from any available team members. And how you do that is tricky because you don't want to mock up like where marketers go to work in your CMS system, in your well-organized folders and files of images and videos, etc. You don't want to mock that up with a hundred different people sending you mostly mediocre stuff.KevinMm hmm. So you do have to find ways to allow people to contribute without promising that you'll hit publish. Yep. But the the people who are good at it, their stuff gets published. That becomes a reinforcing mechanism to encourage them to do it more. Mm hmm. And the people who keep trying, but aren't quite getting there when. When you are the team has time.KevinYou can train and try to, you know, show them how to do it better because they want to do it better at it. Yeah, it's it's interesting that employees, generally speaking, they don't feel like it's co-opting to take the company's name or their community name and say, this is the page of this thing. It's like, well, it's mine.KevinI'm just doing it. It's just me. Like, well, then you would just do it on your personal page if it was just you. So there does have to be some recognition that, like you are actually using that as your own.BethThat's exactly what we're talking about. Like they can brand themselves in terms of an expert in the real estate world or in a contract or whatever. That's fine. If they as a salesperson, they want to brand themselves, I'm fine with that. Where I get frustrated is where they are branding themselves without acknowledging the fact that they are a subset of another brand and what they are selling is not theirs.BethIt is of this homebuilder. Their product is not theirs. And so you can't take your name and put it on something that is not yours.KevinThat's fair. My my story time is my new favorite saying or a thing to try to help marketers train themselves to say more frequently in meetings or discussions with others, which is, huh, That's interesting. What data point did you reference to come to that conclusion? Hmm. Hmm. That's interesting. What data point did you reference to come to that conclusion?KevinBecause any time the market gets tough, all the feelings come out everywhere. All of the I'm the expert, I'm closer to the customer. That's the stuff we tend to hear from the set, like I'm talking to customers. I know, I know, I know. Or what we heard from one individual was I just can't believe that there's only X number of people who are interested in a new home of a certain price point to be built over the next year.KevinIn this one specific location. And like almost no matter what people tell you, I think that's a great response. People pay for that calls with you. If you're listening.BethI feel like I would pay to just be in a room where you ask somebody that question so I could just watch.KevinYeah, because either they're mean, It's it's always going to be good and not like we're not trying to trick people, but maybe they have a data point, but they're looking at it incorrectly, meaning like cancellation rate historically is one of those where people can look at that incorrectly and they're like, We're so proud. Our cancellation rate is 0% this year.KevinMaybe not something to be proud of if you're trying to, you know, get them the number of sales you want to hit. So they might just be that they have the right metric, but they're looking at it incorrectly or they're comparing it. And so that's a teachable moment that I'm like, Oh, I totally understand how you came to that conclusion.KevinIt's just there's this other nuance that let me help you understand or, you know, on the side, I'll send you other information about to clarify, or they're going to say, Well, I don't know. I just how I feel. And then that just leads me back down the path of, okay, so we don't have a data point, but what you're saying is that you need help with this problem.KevinAnd it goes back to taking things out of the tactical and back to the strategic level again. I think that's that to me is the healthy boundary. We want to talk strategically with partners in any or any silo of the organization. We want to talk strategically all the time, but just like I don't ask them, which closing technique did you use?KevinAre you sure that was the right one, saying, Hey, I think we should use this specific platform with this kind of a budget, with this kind of a message in order to solve this, this challenge, that's where things go sideways. So when they don't have any data point, it's like, awesome. So really what it is, is you're just saying that this this is a problem that you don't know how to overcome except to solve it this way.KevinAnd most of the time they're like, Yeah, that's. Can you help me with that? Yes, I can help you. I'm going to end up helping you by again separately outside of a group scenario, walking you down a different, better way to get there. Then maybe your rational initially were thinking of. But I don't I can't think of a bad outcome of that question being answered.KevinThat's why I love it so much now.JulieAnd actually you all are putting together two things that I love with your story time. So and Kevin, you know this that Steve Shoemaker used to when a sales person would come to him and say, we need more signs or we need an event, he had a little form that he would give them to fill out that said, okay, like, what would it be?JulieWhat would the goal of that be? What is this data? Which did a few different things. They either it wasn't important enough for them to even fill out. So then we didn't have to worry about it or it actually highlighted what is the thing they're trying to solve and is that the best way to solve it? Or we can can we help in another way, which is combine jobs to storytimes to me that it's like making them forcing people to to look at that, you know, the data and the problem and that and then come up with the best solution for that.KevinYeah, I think it's it's interesting to juxtapose this in all of the branding conversation that happened around the summit this year and post and how important that can be and how it can lift revenue and it can lift profitability and it can increase absorption and all those things are true. And yet the first for something that's already been launched to the world and you don't have that laboratory, it's time you go back to your blog post, Beth, about the drug industry and all the research and prep that goes into it.KevinIf something's already out in the wild, the actual best thing to do is to clarify in as extreme away as possible exactly what the offering is, to let it to make it more easily discoverable by the audience that wants it. Yeah, that's always the first place to go is are we trying to be too cute? Are we trying to overcomplicate this?KevinAre we maybe semi embarrassed of something that we don't want to talk about instead of just saying, But you would never say it this way. We are the least expensive, sheepishly built home that will allow you to have a roof over your head in the school district you want. That's not a tagline anyone's going to use, but if that's what you offer, like, the clarity of that speaks to a certain audience.KevinAnd if and if there's enough of those people, then you win. If it's easy enough. And but oftentimes what comes back is there isn't. And that's when people think we're just going to, you know, Jedi mind trick them into purchasing something that they don't want or can't afford.BethAre you guys seeing the same in your builders data that I'm seeing? Because it was came up twice today with mine, the broad messaging incentive versus the like you just talked about the very specific messaging incentive right now. You know, I have a builder, one that has a dollar amount listed on their incentive. It is still converting higher than their website, but at nearly 2%, whereas another builder with a more pointed messaging about their incentive.BethAnd what I mean by that is a actual mortgage rate listed in there, their prime messaging that's converting at a steady like 10% plus in comparison. And I think it's like one of the theories that I have behind that, especially right now, is that because one of the marketers just recently asked me, well, that confuses me when I see this whole page broken down of all these mortgage rates and the PR, And that's a lot for me and that confuses me.BethAnd for me, I think a dollar amount is just easier to understand. Well, I know what $10,000 means. I know what $15,000 means. But then I reminded them that what is this buyer seeing in their everyday life? What? It was all over the news right now? What is everyone telling them? The realtor telling them their their mortgage broker telling them it's the mortgage rates they are that is what they are inundated with in everyday life, especially if they're searching for homes.BethAnd so when they see this very specific messaging of a lower rate, they're like, oh, wait, that's interesting. And psychologically they're more likely to click on it because they know what that means versus what does $10,000 my way mean to me? How is that going to help me right now?KevinI think the real problem is that people don't understand when things need to be handed off to the next part of the process. And what I'm even.BethWaiting to use that.KevinI have, I don't use the neg, I have like them grouped by positive and negative sounds and I just don't use the negative sounds very much because people sometimes accuse me of being glass half empty, which I think is insane. That's not how I live at all. But they want they want the landing page to sell the house and overcome objections.KevinAll of that. We talk about this in the world of online sales all the time. The whole point is to have a conversation that moves people forward and makes that connection to on site sales. Mm hmm. That's that's the goal. That's also the goal of everything you're doing from a marketing advertising standpoint. And yet again, and this is the thing that I think is going to continue until sales become easier is right now the challenges that sales management or sales VP's are getting more involved in messaging as well.KevinAnd they're like, No, no, no, you have to overcome this objection on the landing page. And get a lead. Yeah, we don't want we don't want we just don't want more conversations with people. We want conversations the people are ready to buy. Yeah, because that's what I keep hearing. And the data and the qualitative conversations is the vast majority of builders, I would say 80%.KevinI know we saw plenty of activity. We have plenty of activity on site. In particular, we have enough appointments. We just can't get that final conversion to take place. And so that's where you just have to help everyone understand that the point of the promotion or the incentive is to begin a conversation, not to not to you know, get them to the point where they're just ready to sign the dotted line.KevinSo I don't I would say, but that you don't have to have an either or. But like anything else, we should constantly be saying, do you want to dig into more of this on your own or are you just ready to go do the fun stuff and make the connection and take the next step and go on site or have an appointment?KevinYou can always go deeper, but most people don't want to dig deeper into the financing. Certainly not at the top end of the funnel. And that's that's the other thing I would say is a generally still what I'm seeing anyway is that there is no incentive that's bringing vast number of new people to the market. It's still speaking primarily to that middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel rate again, which is important because again, the number of people in your CRM system from last two and a half years is enormous.KevinAnd so finding that right message that gets those people to respond and reengage is arguably more important than trying to find the new people. Yeah.BethI've also talked to a lot of builders recently about serving the people that haven't moved forward to find out like what is the talent, the most challenging part of this market right now And holding them back, or why didn't they go with them to find out? Like we talked a lot about some about the 1 to 1, right, the personalization and things like that.BethAnd I think those survey results will tell them going back to market research will tell them that it's not the top level stuff that's interrupting them, it's the middle stuff that's interrupting them. It's the okay, well, I have the timeline. Does it match up? I have to go here. I just there's more going on than I think we think.BethAnd we can't solve it all at the top.KevinRight? Yeah, but there's there's so many ways I want to go. But we got a lot of news articles to do. I want to do. I want to pull backwards on that. Yeah. So just a little bit more. So the reason that New community launches tend to fail is that people don't know how to activate the list. Building list is typically never the problem.KevinIf it is, just call us or email, show it to you canva.com. I'll be getting people on the list generally is never the hardest part. Hard part is activating them properly and it's because they're like people who just give it their best shot. They're like, Well, we send everyone an email and no one showed up or We only got three appointments, send another one, okay, sent another email and we got five more.KevinBut that's it. It's really, really sad. Did we call everybody? No. Okay, now we're going to call it. You know, it's just layering that stuff on and there's no it's no different with incentives, especially to the database you already have. Why would you resend the same exact message with a bigger font size at the top? This time and be like, No, now really pay attention to this.KevinSo I guess the other part I'm trying to say about is you do have to pick something. You have to hit, but it doesn't have to stay that way for the whole month. Or if you're going to be emailing people twice or three times during the month, one that's text only one that's curated for marketing. Maybe something towards brochures, look at different aspects of the same message.KevinSo your first time maybe you are talking about the interest rate and then the second time around you didn't open up or interact with the first one. You weren't talking about monthly payment or you are talking about a different testimonial about how this incentive made buying possible from someone who bought last month. I think both with new community launches and with communication and promotions, people are stuck in neutral or first gear and they just keep you got to be that squirrel trying to break into the into the birdfeeder, like, how are we going to make this happen?KevinKeep trying and our message, different message.BethThat being said, like the different message is important, but also like avoid the whole $10,000 this month. Okay, now it's $15,000, now it's $20,000. Like it's clearly something's not working. If if that messaging isn't working, like, let's try a different like you're saying, try a different route. Don't just keep going with the same route and upping the dollars because that is not resonating with them.KevinYeah, I saw someone is offering real estate agents a 5% or 6% commission. I'm just like, Oh, that's like classic in those markets that are struggling. By the way. Mm hmm. You all know who you are. All all of the builders that we work with have said I reached out to to the general real estate community, and they're all like, we got no buyers for you.KevinLike, there's no one here. We don't have anyone to work with ourselves. Yeah. So giving them extra money isn't making people show up for them either. It's. It's bizarre. Yeah. That the joke in art school was if you can't if you're not a good artist, do it big. If you're really bad, do it read. And if you suck at art, make it big and read and just like just scream out louder, bigger, stronger.KevinYeah. Oh, that's great. All right. First up, from search engine Lancome. And if we can cue in Eminem's song like Guess Who's Back or controversy, we need a little controversy here. Some controversy. Google is accused of downplaying ad price manipulation. So they're being sued. They've got a couple of problems right now. Google does around antitrust and also this inflation of ad prices.KevinSome advertisers believe that Google is quietly inflating ad prices by 100%, a stark contrast to the 5% suggested by the search engine. The search engine has admitted at the federal antitrust trial that it frequently inflates ad prices by as much as 5% without telling advertisers, sometimes ten, and everyone saying, Yeah, baloney. We think it's up to 100. Now I want to get your two takes, but I just want for the audience, Google's take on this is basically, hey, you're telling us what your maximum cost per click is, what you're okay with it being.KevinAnd so, you know, we might just add a little bit, but it's still going to be under what you told us you were happy to pay per click. So all is fair, right? And it's just five or 10% and it's like a rounding error.JulieWell, number one, it's just the fact that there's no transparency that you're saying it's one thing we're calling it an auction, but it's kind of an auction and it's kind of we're setting whatever we want. The second is just that that's tied in to that. They're inflating the things to meet their own revenue goals, which I mean, obviously that's a conflict right there that doesn't help advertisers.JulieAnd then also, I just wonder, I don't know if I'm explaining this right, but really they're setting pricing on impressions. We're looking at it as just clicks. If it was a pure auction, it would feel like it was just clicks. But how they're raising and lowering prices without telling us is more on clicks and ad. And so I think they're trying to say, well, we're just trying to raise the quality, but it's leaving us out of that equation.JulieYou know, the advertisers out of the equation. They're benefiting themselves with that.KevinYeah. I wonder I think I think I follow where you're going. There you went as nerdy as you can get.JulieBut for me.KevinYou know, it just does, period. Because I'm like, again, I'm like the cat hanging on the branch, like, I think I know it. She's gone. I think maybe this is such as Google doing a terrible job of explaining because to your point, it's not just who bids the most money. Yeah, the two bids. It's the most money. And as the most relevant ad that typically gets clicked the most.KevinSo there are certainly other things beyond financial measures, but that's really not what Google said, even if that's what they meant. Like, hey, there's two other factors here. What they woops, what you said was, no, we just inflate prices by 5 to 10%. If we're if we believe that we can make the money on it. Now, Google, by the way, you know, of all of the major tech organizations, Google generally scores pretty well in trust with consumers.KevinAnd I can't explain why they rolled out. There's a phone I think it was the Google pixel five or something like that. I was reading or watching a Marquese Brownlee YouTube video on this where they said, Hey, you buy the phone, and for one monthly fee you can get YouTube premium, YouTube TV, all these different like six different features.KevinAnd every two years you get a free upgrade of your phone to the latest Google pixel. It was called like Google one or something. Guess what program they canceled and terminated just a month or two before the two year mark. Like these are some shady folks and they get they get away with it based upon the hey, we try lots of things and then we shut things down when it's not working.KevinBut they're like a and like their logo should. The tagline should be Google the warehouse of empty promises. So really good at search and video. Like they do some things really well, but they're not to be trusted. And we're you even started today on our call with Andrew. He's like who's seeing this other warning, warning message now that they're adding on to accounts?KevinThat's basically saying.BethYou're spending some money on your bids.KevinYeah, the person managing your account might not be doing you a favor by doing it this way, even though and this is we just kind of pass this article around was like, Exactly. That's why we manage bids the way we do, because you cannot give people control. That's just like clear as day that they don't. Alter Did you see, by the way, the Amazon like admitted that they raise prices by like up to 30 or 40% on products that they believe they could during the pandemic, just like let's just make more money.KevinWe can. Well, that's what they call free inflation.BethWhich, speaking of Amazon, their second prime day just wrapped up. And my favorite thing about Prime Day is that you look at the price and then it says like a total price, like the price it normally is. But if you go to a camel, camel, camel and look at the price history that the average price is actually like closer to the prime Day deal and they just knocked it down like a dollar or two.BethLike it's all it's all manipulation, which is how marketers get such a bad name.KevinYeah, Yeah. Can we not call it that? Marketing is to be another word.BethI'm just getting bad Google.KevinI mean, it still is. Still. And that's again, you just need control. You need you need really limit the keywords. You need manual bidding on terms performance. Max campaigns are from the devil, say aloud. They're proud. Okay. Next up from Redfin.com 59% of recent home buyers say that purchasing a house is more stressful than dating. It's been a while.KevinSo I'm going to I mean, I don't know what dating's like, but baby boomers are most likely to say the opposite because again, they haven't dated in a while. Maybe either with nearly half saying that dating is more stressful than home, buying divorce and finding a new job, or the only two listed life events that a majority of respondents said are more stressful than purchasing a home.JulieThis is weird, weird survey like potty training a child with all of those things.BethGetting into college, like very specific getting into college. But yeah, no, I when this first came out, that was exactly what I said. Julie I was like potty training.JulieYeah. No, no, I think this is a little click baity. Like, what can we do that maybe people will.KevinAgree with you, But look at some of these some of these are fascinating because we typically talk about how broken the the like processes of buying a car. Yeah. And yet 66% of people said buying a home is more stressful than buying a car and let me let's so I agree click baby maybe things position in a way for extreme effect but why do we think like just the top line truth of buying a home is really stressful and might be like stupidly obvious, but let's just name out some things.KevinWhy we think it's really stressful.JulieSpending a lot of money is very stressful.KevinYeah.JulieLike often getting a mortgage and answering all those questions and figuring out maybe you don't know all the answers to all the things you should know is stressful.KevinYep.JulieMoving a stressful birth knows death. Yes.KevinAnd I've talked about before, like it's not just the physicality of moving, it's the mental reorganization that has to occur of everything needs a new habit, you know, like just how you walk out of bed and into your bathroom. Your brain has to relearn the it's taxing. Yep. There's no opportunity for trade in, like, no take backs, right?KevinLike, I'm just going to try it for a week. So you're stuck with your decision for a period of time? Yeah.BethYou can't have a first date with a house that you're buying.KevinWhat about the shopping process? Like, that's all the stuff after you buy or as you're buying, but that's where you're like lack of options.BethBeth Yeah, a lack of options right now. I mean, a to the approval of many builders is that new construction is the way a lot of people are going just because of the lack of resale inventory available or affordable resale inventory that's available and affordable, factoring in mortgage rates, of course. And and just like, okay, well, if I have to move what is out there and I'm staying on my street right now, the trouble of selling their house, if they have to sell their house in order to move to this new house, that is very, very stressful.KevinIt's I think just the the interaction with humans generally is not good. That's like I'm just again, getting phone calls to be returned, getting questions answered, feeling like you're not a bother when you do. Do have a question or need an answer.BethThat's a whole can of.KevinWorms. So I guess to me the bigger thing that I think is interesting to think about in relationship to this article is, is the how much of this is stuff that we could be doing better versus two that a lot of the things we went to early on of it's a lot of money. It's a big decision. You can't redo it quickly.KevinThose those things we can't necessarily change but like if you if a builder did all the things, just all the things to make the experience as good as possible. Do you think home buying would still be top top of the list other than dating? Hmm.BethI don't know. I don't know how to answer that.JulieYeah. And because.BethWithout biases.JulieExactly. And because it's not just home builders to, you know, it's the existing world, too. So we can fix our little or we can try to fix our little corner of the world of home buying. But can we be fixed? You know, dealing with realtors and losing out on a house You thought you have to be process.KevinSome people would say, I'm being stubborn on like sitting on this, really. But let me just shifted to something else that you both know way more about than me giving birth to a child. Is that stressful?BethYeah. Yeah.KevinLike, I don't know the situation where it isn't because and again, from from my stupid vantage point, it's like we've had great hospital experiences, we've had good nurse experiences, we've had good food experiences, we've had good comfortable beds, like all the things you can take, but it's still there. Still because of the amount of change involved. Mm hmm.KevinI actually don't I'm not trying to go negative, but I don't think it's pop. I think the stress will always be there. It's how you manage and respond to the stress versus trying to take it away. Maybe. That's right. I think a lot of the focus is like, we're going to do these things and remove all the stress as well.JulieAnd a lot of the stress comes the stress is the uncertainty of not knowing how it's going to go. So it's so it's going to be stress, even if it goes great, even if your house has no problems, you don't know that beforehand. So you're going to stress about all the problems that can happen. Yeah, for you happens.BethAnd that's why moving has been consistently, consistently one of the biggest structures in someone's life. And it's because it's just the simple act of moving is stressful enough. But then right now you're layering in a lot of other issues that the stress is never going to go away, like you just said. But there's ways that we can respond better to it or help people respond better to it, better a little bit more creative that maybe we haven't explored yet.BethLike the most stressful part about having a child and purchasing a new home is the stuff that happened after having a child. It's the healing, it's the bringing the baby home, adjusting to a new life. It's the no sleep, it's the feeding issues. It's all of that all happening at once. And then for moving and closing on a home, then have to move.BethYou have to hemorrhage more money. You have to get used to a new house. You have to unpack your stuff. Okay. So you still have time out.KevinFirst I got because I love it, because again, I'm I'm I'm just a guy who doesn't know much. So imagine in the scenario of you having a kid. And then as soon as you come home, your partner says, hey, I'll be back for a 30, 60, 90, 120 day inspection. But you figure this out. How that how that go down?KevinTerrible, right? So I think we just solved a bunch of things for a bunch of people here is we know that the stressful part often comes after moving in that trigger moment. We like, oh my gosh, my kid just punched hole in the door or like, this new thing is being destroyed for my eyes or I found something that they missed and they're going to say, My kid did it.KevinAnd they they didn't do it. Yeah. Mm. So that's, but it's clear as day that that's where the vacuum occurs in terms of the builder's interaction with the customer. Mm. Yeah.BethAbsolutely. I think it's all clear. Is that a way of announcing we're going to have like a parental leave policy now to no one.KevinWe have actually spousal policy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah. So I think the post event is a big part of it. And the other thing that I was considering talking about as my story time was I took my oldest to visit college, a college for the first time on Monday and she's, you know, constantly she's a junior, so she's got time to figure this.KevinObviously, she's constantly like, I just can't wait to get out of high school, get to the next phase, like I'm ready to be an adult, give it to me, let me out. And she wasn't super excited about this first school we're going to because there's only like 3000 kids on the campus and it's in Indiana, kind of in the middle of nowhere.KevinBut she had done some research and she thought she was ready and like this was all going to be beneath her. And then she texts me at 6 a.m. the next morning after spending the night in the dorm and was like, How'd it go? She's like, Oh, the dorm is awesome. All the people here are super nice. I love it, but I'm just so freaking happy that I have two more years because I am not ready for college.KevinLike I'm not ready to be all on my own, do my own things, be in this place where I don't know anyone else. Like I need I need time to go back and like, she's also like, I just appreciate the community that I have and the people I know at school, and I'm going to maximize those next two years of relationships with those people because I know now, like I can see the change.KevinSo part of this is also the we talk and have talked and we'll continue to talk a lot about inoculation being an important aspect of what you do is setting expectations. And yet and yet, like did you set expectations well enough or not? I don't think can be defined by simply what the customer's reaction always is.BethYeah, absolutely.KevinBecause you can tell them and tell them and tell them and tell them, but they're still going to have a reaction in a lot of cases. And you just got to be ready for it and be available.BethWell, I think I mean, what you said there too, like you can tell them and tell them and tell them oftentimes early, telling them once and expecting them to remember that doesn't work either.KevinAnd once through one format. Yep. Just like everyone knows email and never run scared to keep sending emails. And you do have to make sure it stands out above the clutter. But the number of emails that I get just from my kids school on a weekly basis and then, you know, you're, you know, you get one email from the builder about an important milestone that gets sent to spam or junk.KevinAnd and then you're just internally your team is incredulous, like, why don't customers just understand they need to come prepared for this thing? Maybe if it's important enough, you should tell them more than once from more than one method.BethWhere's your sound effect from now?KevinBam dot com. And this is an interesting it's a like Inman like publication but they like to go edgy and they have a YouTube channel and I watch some of them and the guy, one of the guys is kind of a weird jerky. So anyway, just keep that in mind as we talk about the article. But homes dot com has claims this is not the headline but I'm adding this home scam claims it has hit 100,000 monthly visitors.KevinZillow's rivalry heats up so homes com is owned by costar and their goal they say Andy Florence is the CEO says hey we're going to be the number one syndication platform for residential real homes And they claim that they hit 100 million unique visitors. Last month, Realtor.com and Redfin reported 74 million uniques that would put them in second place, and Redfin reported 52 for the quarter.KevinSo that's by the quarter. And they're saying 100 million in a month. Now, here's what's interesting is this would be a 1290 percent increase in traffic year over year for the site. So I don't I can't recall if it's mentioned historic or not, but I think both Zillow and Realtor.com are like heads or some other third party that they probably pay or nudged and were like, Hey, can you help us refute this?KevinThey're like, Yeah, that doesn't quite seem right because the prior month they had like 70 million where I should find the exact numbers. But basically they increased by like almost all of the traffic that Realtor.com gets in a month by a month is what they're calling them. So take it with a grain of salt. But they are everyone does seem to agree that they are trending.KevinNow, have either one of you spent any time on Hanscom? Mm hmm.JulieJust after reading this article.BethAm going to see for it had been on there because I used to use the home snap app and dot com is now they acquired Thomson app whenever and so when I went to go use the home snap app, it was like we're now home XCOM. You got to go download a whole new thing and all this stuff and at first I was like Mac.BethBut then I looked at it, but then it didn't have the same amount of data that I used to get in the same format. So then I was just disappointed.JulieAnd I did go Google Homes in Mandeville, Louisiana, which is where I live, to see if they came up in the paid search, which they did. So also you have to wonder how much of this is just did they take one, not push it as much advertising dollars as they could in that one month. Right. Because Zillow does didn't come up in the paid search.JulieAnd I mean, maybe they do have some and it just didn't come up in that one. But and just push in that one month to have these numbers to show investors and all those different people. So it doesn't mean that organically more people are going there than Zillow. Like there's ways they can wait. Those numbers.KevinSure. And there already are platforms that we know basically get almost all the traffic from a paid activity, names that you would know. I think what's really interesting about their approach is and I'll share it for those of you watching the video, this is a listing nearby and they say shots fired to to to Zillow in particular. I think no fake agents on home scum.KevinSo it shows the listing agent, Buffy Patterson, her phone number, and then it says No fake agents. We connected you directly to the listing agent who knows the home best. No cold calls, robocalls or spam from random agents. And that's their whole thing, is you're listing your lead and their belief is that the best customer experience is to get you in touch with a person who knows at home the best sellers are all agents, the kinds of agents we want to work with who really do know the home they list really well inside and out unnecessarily.KevinI think that's the first kind of floor. And the second is Buffy doesn't pick up the phone. It doesn't matter if she's the most knowledgeable. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how their strategy pushes output.BethFrom a consumer standpoint. I appreciate that message better than the message that they're pushing. And I even just sent you all in the chat that we'll have to provide open the notes. But on their website they are pushing the same message of We are the fastest growing industry. There have all these graphs and all this stuff of why they're so much better and they're moving so much faster.BethBut like what you just said is way more interesting to me from a a realtor and consumer standpoint, because I can't tell you how many times we would be moving and I'm just frantically trying to get any listing information that I can get before I talk to a realtor, because I like to do my own research. And I would accidentally submit the question on Zillow's like promoted realtor versus the actual listing realtor.BethAnd most people don't know that you have to go into the list. There's like a small, very particular place. You have to click to actually get in touch with the realtor that is listing the property both rental and resale. So I like that part from a consumer point.KevinYeah. If again, that person never responds to you. Yeah. Just true. They seem like and anyone from Zuckerman wants to come on the podcast. I would love to have you to talk through this. It seems like they're just on the offensive to try to, like, swing as hard as I can and see what sticks. Like just putting out here millions of free leads.KevinMm hmm. Billions and commission value.JulieWhat's the data point you're using for that?KevinYeah, yeah.BethYeah.JulieWe're going to use Kevin's question.KevinYeah. Yeah. It's like millions of free leads delivered since 2004 when we were home start up or somewhat like, what does that what was. I mean.BethYeah, it's getting desperate.KevinYeah. Speaking of desperate from CNBC dot com, the housing industry in air quotes urges Jerome Powell to stop raising interest rates or risk an economic hard landing. This this whenever this stuff happens I'm always just like are we really spending time on this? I mean I guess people should do it probably is helpful. But the National Association of Homebuilders, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Association of Realtors all wrote to the Fed to convey profound concern about the industry.KevinThe group asked the Fed not to contemplate further rate hikes and not to actively sell its holdings of mortgage backed securities. Not selling securities would, in theory, help hold down mortgage rates, and obviously not increasing short term rates might also help mortgage rates. But it just is like Jerome Powell doesn't work for you. So it's kind of like my neighbor.KevinIf I if I had a neighbor who would be like, Hey, I'm going to write you a letter. I'm also going to get the local butcher to sign on and we would like you to chop down that tree because we just think that a tree is ugly. I'll be like, That's cool. You don't own land. So now what is this really?BethDo write. Great question, Aren't they?KevinAren't they all? I think all these three industry things for also actively running messaging saying there's never been a better time to buy is like wow, how's it both? I don't know. Can you tell I don't like political anything. Yeah.JulieYeah. They had lobbyists that needed something to do. It was like when the all the people came together against a they wrote the letter against AIG when, like, they've used forever, you know, it's kind of the same. Yeah. Same feeling.KevinRight. Also, the people who are against, they are the people who are already leading the field in like all kinds of competition coming from other places to be harder.JulieYeah, it's like a different version of that.KevinFor those of you are are playing along at home with the game like what Metta is doing with Lama too, which is an open source. All of them is basically trying to say, Hey, we're going to if you're going to try to make it hard for the little guys to compete against you, we're just going to make open source software available for people to use that will build almost taking a play out of Google's playbook with Android.KevinLike, yeah, in Nokia you stink at building software to run phones. We'll just build software for you because we're a software company.KevinOkay, moving right along from Inman Re Max becomes the third major firm to distance itself from NPR announcing details of its settlement in the bombshell Commission lawsuit, the franchisors said agents and brokerages, the freedom to set and and or negotiate commissions as they see fit and will no longer require a realtor membership as part of working with them or for them.KevinSo that follows Redfin anywhere and now REMAX All, all. And and they are we're not sure that we can continue for saying we're not going to require membership. Now all these remember the is places and we're going to have Rob hon back on to talk a little bit more about this. For those of you who couldn't come to the summit or missed his session because a lot of people were sad that they missed that one afterwards, you thought it was going to be boring and then it really it wasn't boring.KevinEveryone was talking about it and you missed it. But there's a lot of MLS is that require realtor membership in order to access the MLS and so that's kind of one of the next battlegrounds to come is if that if that holds or whether people will relent in in hopes that the Department of Justice will stop pushing things to change.KevinSo any other thoughts, insights on this one from either you.JulieJust finally the like flood? I feel like everybody's been talking about this for the last year or two. And finally, like once the floodgates kind of opened, people are following. So it's interesting to see movement on it. Instead of just talking about things. It's like people are actually starting to take a little action. Whether that really makes a difference in how things work yet.JulieBut I think eventually they're getting there.BethYeah, Yeah. But does that what we were talking about last week is just Redfin was the first. Now what's next? And now we're starting to see the domino effect happen a little to.KevinRedfin's was voluntary is the one distinction. Redfin's is voluntary anywhere, and Remax is part of the setup. Once they reached on those lawsuits. So they both agreed to pay millions of dollars in fines as well in settlement funds, and then also say we won't make this happen. So that's where some people are, like Redfin. We're just doing this to try to get as far away from this as possible because they don't have much cash to give and a settlement anyway.KevinMM Well, yeah, there's lots of unintended consequences. It might happen from this one. One example that Rob gave was okay, so in theory being able to put I'm not going to offer any money to the other agent and the transaction sounds like it'll be good to consumers and it'll prevent steering, but actually it might make steering worse. Was this scenario of like, okay, if I work a plea, all the three of us work in the same office, I'm going to put I'm not going to pay anyone from, you know, Keller Williams anything but everyone else in the team.KevinLike if you bring me one of your buyers, we'll figure something out. I'll tell them, like, Hey, this this whole thing is good enough that you should pay them some money in addition to as part of the deal. So it actually could make things worse, not better on the steering fronts. All right, Rob, for the rest of that.BethWhat and going back to what you said earlier about like the realtor incentives that people are pushing, there's like people with parallel to throw money and there are the steering wheel, the offering. So I'm interested to see how that plays out.KevinYeah. All right. Things we love, things we hate. So we close out every show, you know, on.JulieAbout mine, my and my bills. If you need something to get off your phone, go do it. We will crochet. Yeah, we.KevinWill.BethIt was really cute. Mine is. I was also influenced, similar to Julie. I had been waiting for our prime date to happen so that I could get my Bissell little green. If you don't know what that is, it's like a portable upholstery cleaner, carpet cleaner, spot cleaner for pets and whatnot. But when we moved into our new house, we have these chairs that we've had since we lived in Texas, which was like three, four moons ago.BethAnd they have they're old, they've been in use, but they've also been in storage and through a couple houses. And so they are stained. And I also have children, so they are stained. And so I just really wanted to bring them back to life now that we have them in use in this house and that little thing, it did its job.JulieTo help the water growth afterwards for you like it.BethIt honestly, I was a little concerned because it didn't I only did two chairs as a test to see and I have to go back and do them again, like out on the patio so that I can like really get the sides by. I showed my husband and I took a picture beforehand and then we looked at it after and we were like, Holy cannoli.BethIt actually worked. I should post like a before and after, but I'm a little embarrassed by that for.KevinMy parents used to have their main vacuum cleaner was a rainbow. I mean, anyone heard of this? Yeah. And it's like one of the last things that was sold door to door by by, like, vacuum salesman. And it was like, the best product ever because you fill it up with clean water and then you just vacuum and there are no bags, and the vacuum just goes through this big water thing in the center.KevinBut like how much dirt you really need to put in water to make it look filthy is not lot of dirt, no wonder. And so I was just like, Oh, it's so gross. But missiles are great ray machines. I'm going to try to solve everyone's terrible audio problems everywhere. I we all love and we cheer all of you when you make great content for social or video work.KevinBut a lot of you really have to pay attention to your audio game because one of the sounds workers for real talk your it doesn't translate and no one wants to watch that and it's that's just like it's painful almost every content creator we've ever interviewed and we talk about like which is more important the photo image quality or the sound quality.KevinThey're like, Oh, you can't fix sound nearly as easily as you can fix image after you shoot it. So this is the latest iteration of the Road Wireless family. It's called the Pro. It's 399 and that sounds like it's a lot of money and it is a lot of money, but just the two lab mikes that come with it, if you were to buy those separately, they are $200.KevinSo what I just said there and the justification, it's basically like free the case now charges every everything else in in the so you just have one charging case and accessories case. You get two different receivers and one transmitter. So you put the one transmitter on your camera and it comes with all the cables to attach this to an iPhone with lightning cable or you have SBC in Android.KevinSo these are the same things you'll watch on YouTube where people just clip and it has like a fuzzy dead cat on the side. You don't even have to use Alabama. Like it's just an all around easy to fill. The batteries last forever. It also has a 32 bit float, which technically speaking, that just means there. But that's like 130 a bit float is just like super high quality recording said it can't clip at and in terms of going too high or too low it can cover all of the all of the sounds and give you the chance in post to choose what you want or don't want.KevinThanks for listening. We'll see you next week.KevinHow about that?BethI like that better.KevinBye! The post Ep 307: The Warehouse Of Empty Promises appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 306: The Girls ClubIn this episode, the ladies take over! Beth Russell is joined by Jen Barkan and Julie Jarnagin and together the three share their Summit recaps as well as how they are dealing with the post-Summit blues. They discuss the passion and excitement that comes with attending a content rich seminar, but also the realities of what that looks like when you go home. They talk about the importance of not being afraid to be vulnerable and admit when you don't know something. The three dive into the hot topics including Redfin's announcement to leave NAR and share their thoughts on the situation.Story Time (01:57)Beth shares her feelings on experiencing the Summit as a DYC employee and not attendee.Julie Shares how being able to communicate data and answering questions and providing info to leaders from other departments is sometimes like a second language.Jen's son, Sam, has a new plan which is “Acclimate, Accelerate, then Dominate.”The News (27:00)Redfin is Leaving NAR (https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-is-leaving-nar/)Mutiny inside NAR as staffers call for resignations of top executives (https://www.inman.com/2023/09/19/mutiny-inside-nar-as-staffers-call-for-resignations-of-top-executives/)Climate Change Pushes Up Home Insurance Premiums (https://www.redfin.com/news/climate-change-pushes-up-home-insurance-premiums/)Why Your Starbucks Wait Is So Long (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-09-20/starbucks-spends-billions-to-slash-wait-times-with-faster-orders?leadSource=uverify%20wall)Resumed Student Loan Payments Shake Up The Housing Market (https://www.probuilder.com/resumed-student-loan-payments-shake-housing-market)Things We Love Things We Hate (51:21)Julie is loving the newest season of "The Great British Baking Show"Jen is enjoying the tv show "Suits"Beth's new house feels like a tree house and she is in love with it.Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript:BethWelcome to the Girls Club.JenOh, my gosh. I did not even realize that it was Girls Club until about an hour ago when I was on a call with Kevin. And bless his heart, he was just slowly fading because he's not feeling well. And I said, Man, are you going to be able to be on the podcast? And he goes, I'm not on the podcast today.JenAnd I said, What? And I said, I guess I'll just be with Andrew. And he goes, Nope, not Andrew either. And I was like, What? I was like, Oh. And he's like, Yeah, it's Beth and Julie. And I was like, Yes.JulieLadies podcast.JenIt's fun. Taking over. We're taking over control.BethNo offense to the boys, but we are so excited.JenYes!BethIs going to be a lot of fun. I can already tell.JenOh, my gosh.JulieYeah, and the first post-summit podcast too. So we got to do it on a fun one.JenOh, my gosh.BethSo, I mean, we're we're going to have a good time. It's going to be, as Jen would say, electric.JenAnd it's going to be like.JulieElectric. Definitely.BethAll right. Well, let's get started. Welcome to episode 306. I am Beth Russell. And with me today is Julie Jernigan and the online sales extraordinaire, Jen Barkin.JenOh, I like it. Yes.BethYou always need like that big tie up because you're just so like, okay, the energy is just I don't want to say electric again, but I can't help it.JenI think my next tattoo needs to be a lightning bolt or something like I do.BethBut you. I need to get matching ones.JenSam. Yes, Sam needs to get one that says dominate. And I need to get a lay up. Yeah. Oh, no. This is the latest. This is the latest Sam thing. So, yeah, he. You know, he's working on site at Chesapeake House, and they.BethLove him and.JenLove him. Yes. And I was. I was, like, trying to, like, coach him on something or whatever. And I'm sure they love that and, like, trying to coach them on their on site process. But he goes, Mama, here's the deal. I got to get acclimated first. Then I accelerate and then I dominate. And I'm like, okay. I was like, I can get behind that.JenYou're going to get acclimated, right? Get your bearings. Then you're going to accelerate. Then you're going to dominate. And I was like, okay, he's going to be a motivational speaker.JulieSo that.BethWas like.JenWriting it down. Like, All right, here we go.BethShe starts structuring her nest.JenTold you for the content. Yes. Thank you very much. That is.BethAmazing. I love him. I feel like we need to start recruiting for Sam.JenAlready telling you.BethIn the next like 5 to 10 years, he's just going to he's going to do great.JenWell, he already is. He already told me he's he's got his sights set on NAHB, Rookie salesperson of the Year. So let's put that out there in the universe. He's like, Yeah, I'm going to be there at IBS. So. Lisa Parrish, Sam Bargain, putting it out there. Salesperson of the Year.BethThat is awesome. He is. That is the energy we all need right now. And I feel like it is an energy that a lot of us have post summit. So as Julie mentioned, this is our first recording post summit and I'm kind of excited that it's us and.JenWe don't have Kevin in the industry. We can like.BethReally talk about it and how it went. Not that we wouldn't want them here as well, but I feel like it's like a little bit more fun with our personalities right now. But it is my first time as a team member and not as an attendee working for the builder. So it was like a mixed bag of emotions.BethI feel like afterwards.JenLike, what do you mean?JulieThere's definitely like a you get home and you have this like and I don't know if it's like really like really relieved that it's over or if it's like sadness because you have this big built up. So there's kind of a little funk. But I mean, it's good because you loved it and it was amazing. Yeah, I feel like I need to sleep for like two days to still, like, get back into my group.JenWe're going to.BethDive right into story time with this one because so like I said, mixed bag. And I think it's just like what Julie said. It's a mixture of like, Oh.JenMan's.BethIt's time. That was like a lot of socializing and I never socialize. I'm always in this cave by myself. And then it's sad also because like, this is the one time year that we in the daily routine would get together. So it's so great seeing people and meeting people for the first time in person that I haven't met before.BethBut then I like couldn't help but reflect on my time as an attendee and that emotion that a lot of the attendees are probably feeling of. Part of it is like, Oh my gosh, I suck at my job. So many people are better at this than me. There are so many creative people, but I'm also like loving that I feel that way because if you didn't feel that way, you wouldn't be like you wouldn't have that fire to go out there and do something different and implement something new and apply a lot of the things that all of the wonderful presenters were talking about at these various sessions.BethAnd so, like, I remember having that fire of like I am ready to hit the ground running and I want to do this and I want to do this, and I have so many ideas. But then I also remember when reality hit and like you get back to the daily grind and how quickly it starts to burn out and I don't want to say burn out because that sounds like super negative, but like it diminishes that flame starts to diminish, right?BethAnd so I think on art, like Maya now as a do you convert person and a coach that has like direct impact on all of these people that were attending is like, now I feel that fire and a new way of helping their flame stay lit for longer.JenOh, I like it more. I mean.BethLike it's like we got to find new ways. We have to now.JenKeep them lit. Yeah.BethThe water bottle, that energy. Yeah.JenSo as you were talking, that's you know, I was thinking about that and I was thinking that, you know, any time you come from a conference or you have this notebook full of ideas right now, like, Oh my gosh, when I get back and I'm going to implement this and we see this a lot happen with our online sales academy, too.JenLike, you know, they come and they're just like sponges and they have their notebooks and they're like, yes, I'm going to go do all the things. MM And realistically you can't do all the things, right. Yeah. So I was thinking when you were talking like advice, you know, is summarize your notes like, so you've got this notebook full of stuff and it's like, go through and highlight the, this is where I'm going to start.JenAnd maybe you pick three things and you go, I'm going to tackle these three things over the course of the next 3 to 6 months or whatever, and then keep revisiting that notebook and it can be overwhelming, like trying to be like, Oh, I want to do this and this and this and this, and then you end up maybe not doing anything well, you know, as if you had like a couple of things that you really implemented well, then then that's maybe be it more successful.BethAnd I think it's about also don't make excuses about why you can't implement something like don't pick the three easiest things that you think you can do, like pick one that's challenging. And I had all the all the people in the marketing room shout, I am limitless on purpose because so many times we like put ourselves in a box and think, Well, I can't do that because of X, Y, Z, and I can't do that in my organization because we don't have this or I don't have this.BethAnd it's like, no, pick something that's a challenge and really hone in on it and try it and fail if you need to. But it, you know, like sometimes failing is just as good of an experience than actually being super successful on it.JulieAnd that's part of the magic of Summit, is those connections. You're there with other people who are passionate about it and you can talk to it. And so I think people need to remember to foster connections outside of something like Summit. So whether that's somebody you've met in a similar role for somewhere else, you have a zoom once a month to talk about challenges you had.JulieIf that means taking somebody on your team out to coffee, you know, once every two weeks to like talk through things and brainstorm like outside. I think fostering the connections is one way to kind of keep that.JenSpark.BethAbsolutely.JenLit. Hey, you got to get you got to get acclimated, you got to accelerate, you got to stay lit and you got to dominate, dominate. You're going to add that and the guy's never going to.JulieDo a podcast together again. They're going to say, we've lost control.BethYou know, the persona that Jen just took on was Love it. I hope everyone who's listening goes back and watches just that.JenThis is like recorded. Okay, So.JulieYou thought you were just hanging.JenOut.BethYou need to make one of your freestyle raps next. Actually, that puts all.JenThat in it. You know, I need to work on this. You're right.BethChallenge accepted. Julie, what do you got?JulieYeah, so I was talking to a builder yesterday. She is new in the role, but not new to home building. Super smart, working hard. And she came to me and said, I'm freaking out because everybody's on me. Like, not enough leads. Not enough leads. We don't have enough. Everything slow. And I was like, okay, let's look at the numbers.JulieAnd then when we pulled all the numbers, number wise, like things look good, you know, we are getting what we were when they felt like things are real. So we're just talking through like, let's take the data. How are we going to talk through the data with them? How are we going to ask a questions about like, why does this feel flow with this?JulieAnd she said something that I thought was really might resonate with other people. She said, it's like learning a language. She said when we talk about it, she was like, I understand it. I get it. When I'm at Summit and I'm learning these things, I'm like, Yes, But she said then, like leadership or sales or somebody comes to me with these things, with these questions and I have to talk about like, what we're doing is marketing.JulieShe's like, Then I can't just communicate it out to them. I can't take that and explain it. And so we just had this conversation about how that in itself is a skill. One thing is like understanding the numbers and knowing what you're doing and having a marketing strategy. That's a separate skill to then be able to take all that data and look at that information and then be able to communicate that back to other people in the organization.JulieAnd I said, That's just going to take practice and that's something you're actually going to have to work at. You're going to have to be in the data every day. You're going to have to start showing this to people and explaining things to people and getting that experience of how you talk about it and how to answer things.JulieSo that was interesting thinking about it like that as a language. She understands it, but she can't speak it yet. Know that's that's her challenge right now. And I think that's it is a harder skill than people realize. They just think they should be able to do it automatically. But it takes practice.BethThat is such good advice and link telling her to get out there and and try and talk to different audiences because how you translate it and how you tell that story of the data is going to be a little bit different based off of the audience that you're presenting it to. And so the more you do that, the more comfortable and confident that you'll be.BethAnd I think it translates in any any position, not just marketers translating data, but online salespeople overcoming objections on the phone, us as coaches, all three of us being coaches and like trying to get, you know, make an impact with different types of people and in different organizations like it, Give yourself some grace. Start from the foundation that you have, build upon that foundation and get practice.BethSo that way it just feels more comfortable and intuitive over time. But that grace is so important. And then advice you gave her so good.JenYou know, and into like as you were talking, I was thinking about so my daughter Mia just came home for fall break from school and I was asking her about her classes and she was like, Oh, I had this presentation. I had to stand up in front of people and I got to 96 and like, I didn't even have to really look at my notes.JenAnd I just felt so good about it. And I was like, Oh, you know, that's so great. Mia, why do you think? And she's like, Well, I really knew the material. And I said, Ding, ding, ding. Like, the more with knowledge comes confidence. Yes, the more that you study and you prepare and you learn it, the more confident you're going to feel about what you're talking about.JenAnd you don't even need it like it just comes authentically out of you, you know, to talk about that as coaches, you know, it's like, yeah, you don't even need to look at a script. Like you feel confident about the knowledge you can present it. So you're marketers. It's like, yeah, you have to put in the work to learn it and study it, right?JenBut it takes time and have some cheat sheet. Like if you're going to be presenting to leadership, like have your notes like because you get sidetracked and you forget what you're talking about and have your notes and your T sheets. Yeah.BethAnd focus on the things that will be most important to them. Like, you don't have to dig into the weeds, you don't have to be super technical and we don't have to let our entire nerdy like, nerd side show like, we can talk it in a little bit.JenLet your nerd flag fly. Yeah.BethTo an extent.JenTo an extent, Yes.JulieYes. Consider your audience for a show.JenHey, ladies, I'm just so happy at you all. Because sometimes Kevin and Andrew are on here, and I'm sitting here like, Okay, yeah, I had no idea what you're talking about. I'm over here in online sales land. Don't know. So they're doling out red flag five to high as what you're saying. Make sure that you're somewhat understandable by the normal people like me when we're coming.BethInto the first thing that I wasn't as strong at as a lot of the technical side of ads because I didn't have to do a lot of that at my builder. Oh, yeah. You know, so like when Andrew and Julie and Becca and Sarah were teaching me the things that I needed to rebuild my foundation on, I would be like, Okay, for Dummies, like, do this for Dummies.BethAnd oh, sister, we all have our strengths. We all have other things that we're good at. But not everyone. And my husband, I know he's listening. He always listens. He always says to me like, Oh.JenThat makes one of ours.JulieMine doesn't.JenEither, but I don't.JulieListen to his. So it's fair.JenWhere even semblance of like.BethWell, he has all this time on his drive in the morning. So he listens to our voices. But he always reminds me like, not everyone knows what you what you know, you know, it's not a natural. So, like, sometimes you have to dumb it down a little bit and pretend like you're writing Marketing for Dummies or things like that.BethAnd it's not a bad thing. It's a good thing because it also it brings us to keep going back to this foundation. It brings us back to our foundation and kind of helps us remember on the basics that we should be focusing on every right while.JenYeah, yeah. And I think it's okay to be vulnerable when you don't know something. So like, yes, I mean, this is yeah, this is about.BethThis is a big topic.JenAnd I think one.BethI think it's a really good topic for everyone listening, but especially leaders that are listening because I don't think and I, I think that's why so many people at Summit were so captivated by Rhonda and Elaina because they are high level within their organizations. But they and even Chris, you know, like not afraid to be vulnerable and let people in because it it opens up the door for other people to be vulnerable.BethAnd it doesn't mean that you have to be singing Kumbaya and like diving into your personal lives. It just means that you are unafraid to be authentically yourself, to be wrong, to fail, and to allow room for people to not know so they can ask the right questions so that you can actually get to the right answers.JenYeah, I know I've talked about this before, probably on the podcast, and I'm just going to say it again. Rene Brown talks about daring leadership versus armored leader in leadership. Armored leadership means you approach things with like, I know everything. Like I don't want to ever look vulnerable, Like I'm tough, tough, tough, right? Yeah. When you approach leadership in that way, you you're missing out on growth and opportunity, approaching it with a daring leadership mindset.JenYou know, I'll admit, like I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. But you know what? You and I are going to figure this out together. Yeah, I'm going to ask questions of you. You're going to teach me. I'm going to teach you, and we're going to tackle this together, you know? So I just encourage leaders like and even us, do you convert as coaches like and it's like sometimes you don't know the answer and it's okay to be like I was just on a call yesterday, totally stumped me.JenI was like, So I gave up my classic, you know, and those of you that know this. So this is the classic pivot objection is like, Hmm, that's interesting. I'm not 100% sure I'm going to take it back and talk about it with the team and we'll get back to you. But I don't know, calling in a lifeline.BethLike if you don't do that as a leader, then you are also preventing your own growth because you just stop learning.JenThat's what I mean. Exactly. You stop learning.JulieYeah. And your whole team is scared to admit when they don't know something, right? Because you look like you always have the answers and I'm going to look stupid. But if they know you're willing to do that, then they're willing to admit when, like, I don't know what that means. I'm just shaking, rattling, vibrating.JenAnd like, Yes, and that and I know exactly what you're talking about. Good for. Oh, okay. That's not Gatorade. Okay, cool. Got it. Yeah.BethNo, I think this is a this is the big topic as of recently. And I can't tell you actually how many times that somewhat summit it was brought up to me. And I don't know if either of you got the same of like people wanting more leadership help, whether it be at the marketing level or the sales and marketing level.BethAnd so it's something that, you know, I've been really brewing on and I'm trying to create a way for that fire to keep burning because I think it's really important that we continue training at that level and at that topic because it as we're learning from the stuff that's in the news this week that.JenSaid, Oh, we got into this, we got to talk to we got to talk about the news, I guess it's like, hey, we'll get there. But it.BethCan it can have a really big domino effect within an.JenOrganization. 100% agree with you on the online sales side. But leadership is a constant. Like just managing online sales team is completely different than managing an on site. So a completely different and so, you know, most sales leaders bandwidth is stretched. They're busy. They're putting out fires with on site stuff all the time. And if numbers look good, it's easy just to go, Hey, you go over their numbers like, fine, okay, check suite, everything's good.JenYeah, but what we know is that, yeah, the numbers look great because numbers look great right now, like as far as conversions go. But we have to look beyond that and we have to manage the program, manage the person, you know, beyond just the numbers. So there's definitely a space for more conversations around it.BethThough. I promise we'll get to the news, but I want to do a hot take if that's okay with you. Girl. Is that.JenYeah.BethThen. And Julie too. Who do you think should manage online sales within an organization?JenOh, well, I'll let Julie answer first and then I'll answer.JulieOh, gosh. To do a marketing marketing director, this would be my first answer. Okay. That's my experience. That's my experience. It started in marketing. Then it was director of sales and marketing was the same person. So I lean towards marketing, not sales.JenOkay, so I have J I have a not an exactly black and white answer. If it is a new program for your organization and you have to get sales buy in, like it's a complete culture shift when you're rolling this program out and sales could be a little bit resistant to it. Mm hmm. It works well to have a sales leader kind of overseeing because online sales is an extension of the sales team.JenThat's how you want to set that role up and position. And so if you have a sales leader over it that's really good at bridging the gap, then it works out better. I think in that situation. Ultimately, the bottom line though, is whoever is going to have the bandwidth, whoever understands the role, the best, who is going to hold them accountable, who is going to be the conduit between sales and marketing and online, which in a lot of cases it's marketing, right?JenWe talk about online sales being like the lovechild between marketing and sales. And so we see a lot of success too, with online sales reporting up to that marketing person. And that is kind of really good. But ultimately it comes down to there has to be communication between sales, marketing and online. If, if there's silos and it never works.BethYeah, no, I think that's a really good answer. And like originally I would isolate on Julie side too, based off of my own personal experience. Right?JulieAnd we're marketers because.JenYou, you, you manage, you manage the team and your marketing.BethSo and they came from sales to under the marketing umbrella in that room. But the reason why that worked to your point, Jen, is because I had the time and ability to understand their role within the organization and the impact which they had within the organization and our successes. And so it made sense for them to be under me within the marketing umbrella.BethRight. And I think that's what the same situation for Julie as well. I don't want to speak on her behalf, but I think that was that was similar for you guys. And so when it comes to online sales, I think, yeah, they could flourish under either, but it's just important that their voice is heard and recognized and appreciated within the organizations that they are fully supported by whomever it is that is leading them.BethBut it has to have the influence of marketing and sales either way.JulieAnd it's not like sells if a sell is if a sales person is going to be the leader, not a sales person, a sales leader is going to manage them. I think they have to understand how dramatically different those two roles are. They can't treat them like a on site salesperson just taking. It's a different it's a different role.JulieSo it has to be somebody who understands that those differences, I think.JenYeah.BethThat can be said for marketing, right? Because like if you have a sales leader in charge of marketing or leading the marketing person, whoever is doing the implementation of marketing, if you have, it's someone that doesn't understand marketing or doesn't recognize the difference between marketing and sales and how they should work together, not separately, then you're setting them up for failure as well.BethSo basically, if you're at the top, if you're in a leadership position in any organization, in any field, you have to take the time to understand what it is that your people do and their importance within the day in and day out operations and the success of the operation in order to be a successful leader at that level.JenAnd this goes back to what we were saying about daring and armored leadership. If you are a leader. Hill, you're like, I've never been an online sales specialist. I have no idea like the ins and outs, right? Because it's at a time like you weren't an online sales specialist and you manage them, right? Huh? Being a daring leader is now.JenI've never done this role. Teach me, you know, show me, show me your process. Show me what you do. Show me your reporting. Show me those and let's talk about it now. You don't have to come in and like, knowing everything or, you know, to me.BethBiggest question. Just be the expert.JenYeah, just ask questions.JulieYeah. I'll circle your ticket full circle.JenIn that manner.BethSo they should let us take over more of that.BethOkay. So I promise we will get to the news. So all of this does lead in to the hot topic of the week, which is Redfin's announcement via an open letter, if you will, on what was it Monday that they published this?JenIt was Monday.BethYeah. That they are leaving the National Association of Realtors and they really put it all out there, which I mean kudos because I love the, the honesty, I love the transparency.JenCurrency things.BethAnd I think, you know, we've had a couple internal conversations about this. But I think the the real interesting thing about this is to see what happens next, because they're the first ones to really say now, like regardless of how the semantics work behind the scenes and what might happen, what they can and can't do at different levels and in different regional areas, you know, where their hands might be a little cuffed, if you will.BethBut I think it's really interesting that they were the first ones to take it out there and say, we're not tolerating this anymore and something has to change.JulieAnd if you're not following this, the few reasons they gave for severing ties was one, the Association of Realtors policies requiring a fee for the buyer's agent on every listing. So and that meant like on redfin.com you couldn't list a for sale by owner. It would have to be someone associated and then also a pattern of alleged sexual harassment.JulieSo there were there were different levels to this. It wasn't just the policies that they're unhappy with, it was also some leadership issues as well. So it's a very layered, multifaceted issue that they're working through and they.JenRealtor Right. As a former member of and they are a no, I like it.JulieYeah. And it really it gets more complicated. It gets complicated because a lot of the MLS is, are tied to the local and state realtor association. So you have to be a member of the Association of Realtors to get access to the MLS. Yeah, well, the in air rules say that if they're not associating with that, none of their none of the people below them down stream, which would give them no access to MLS.JulieSo it's a very far reaching they've said this and there's different conversations about is this just symbolic or are they going to go fight every single, you know, different local chapter? I don't know if they're chapters, whatever they are, to get access to the MLS. So it's very much the first step. It's a big step and it makes a big statement in a very long process of how to untangle all of this that's been going on, how it's worked.JenIn pairs, then going, Hmm, there's been a ruckus around this for quite some time. So like you said, I'll be interesting to see kind of what happens next, like being the first ones to kind of publicly put it out there.BethSo, yeah, beautifully summarized. Really. That was.JenThat was.BethKudos, man. I know what.JenYou're talking about, Julie. Thank you.JulieHopefully it's all right. You'll go read the article and double check all the facts there.JenI read the links in the show notes.BethSo in our next piece of news is also related to the National Association of Man Hours.JenBecause.BethApparently there is I love this word mutiny inside the air. I get.JenMy popcorn.BethYeah, seriously, let me start popping in right now as staffers call for resignation of top executives. Now, this is more based around the sexual harassment claims that have occurred, as well as additional toxic workplace environment situations and cover ups and yeah, there's that's going to take a big bag of popcorn.JenYeah, I think we're just moving on from this.BethYeah, just I think I think it shows a little bit of the ripple effect right now. If Yeah, back up it's back in the news. Now they are they're saying it's only a small number of employee employees that issued this letter, but I think it's still a big step and I think it shows that people aren't going to, like I said earlier, tolerate it anymore and people are willing to put their name on the line in some cases and their job and their their careers to say even within their company with Redfin's case, to say that, okay, like something has to get something has to be done.BethSo let's see how it pans out.JulieYeah, I'm sure we'll be talking about this more.JenYeah. In the future.BethHopefully not as long as mortgage rates.JulieOh, gosh. No mortgage rate stories this week.JenNo, no, no.BethBut this next one, Julie has a good personal story associated with it. I know, I know. But yeah.JenSo I guess.JulieClimate change pushes up home insurance premiums. A recent study from policy genius found that quoted homeowners insurance premiums increased by 21% nationally from May 2022 to May 2023, and that Florida experienced the largest jump with premiums increasing by 35%. So I went and did the math. So I live in Louisiana, south Louisiana, just north of New Orleans, and everybody below Interstate 12, all their insurance premiums have gone crazy.JulieSo my insurance company, who we had homeowner's insurance for a year, went bankrupt. So I got a letter that said they're going bankrupt. You're about to not have homeowner's insurance. And here we found another quote for you, which nobody wants to give homeowner's insurance down here. And it the new quote they gave me was 174% higher than we were currently paying.JulieThis is in March. Oh, boy. Stressed out in March. And it was a great like an insurance company. I had never heard of. We don't even live in a flood plain or I mean, all of all of this area is probably the same. But we're not we're not required to have flood insurance.JenWhen I was there, what was the rate like? Why?JulieWell, they went bankrupt and just nobody wants to take on people in this area. They just say, no, thank you. Most homeowners in church, this is so the quote we got was from like a crazy sounding made up name insurance company. And when I talked to another agent, he said, oh, and I've heard that they asked you to sign over a power of attorney if you work with them.JulieI'm like, well, I'm not doing that. So they finally found me another one, and my premium went up 109%, which was better than the 174%. So when I read this article.JenI got a little.JulieBut how it affects not just my story, but just how it affects homeowners like that digs right into your budget for how much or how much money you have to pay for your monthly mortgage. I mean, it makes a big difference, especially Florida, Louisiana, I'm sure, areas of Texas. I don't know, John, if this affects you or. Yeah.JenWell, it does, because I am below sea level. Mm hmm.JulieFor right there with you. Think we're really close? Yeah.JenYeah. So you have requirements for flood insurance. Anybody that's buying a new home. So this is interesting. Right down. Down the way people that live directly on the river. Yeah. Norfolk, which is really low. If you buy a home over there, as of, I think maybe last year or the year before, you're required to raise it in order to get the insurance.JenSo you have to like so we see all these homes going up on like built stilts, basically, I don't know, like cinderblock foundations, like ten feet high. It's like the most bizarre thing. But it's like in order to get insurance you at that's the requirement is that you have to raise your house.JulieAnd what the article saying is people are now taking this into account when they're purchasing homes. You know, I mean, if I was buying another home, I would think about it like, can we get. But of course it affects school district and all sorts of things. But it does and it's something worth talking about. If you're in an area where the the home insurance premiums are more affordable than just a little bit down the road, I mean, it's things worth thinking about because this is what homebuyers are thinking about as well.JenYeah, I was.BethGonna say.JenUsing that as a Yeah, you're saying using that as a unique selling proposition of Yeah. Hey, compared to this.BethIt works because in your neighborhood alone aren't it a huge master planned community that we live in our side. We actually didn't know this until we were prepping to close, but we are required to have flood insurance and no one warned me how expensive it is.JenRight?BethOh, okay. But that being said, the other side of the neighborhood, there's a street that like when you're driving and it's first on your right hand side, Their biggest selling point is they don't require flood insurance over there. So when people lose their homes, they're like, not only are we in River Island, but oh, by the way, you don't need flood insurance here.BethAnd it's a huge selling point. So I feel like we need to marketers need to be paying attention to little nuances like that because it does affect affordability and it does affect the buyers decision making.JulieYeah, and you need to be listening to your home buyers for anything like that that they're talking about because if that matters to them, it needs to matter to you as well.JenAmen. Yeah.BethSpeaking of affordability and impact on that, we have resumed student loan payments, shake up the housing market from pro builder. Yeah.JenSo that alone gives me gives me stress.BethI can see out you're in you're wiggling a lot right now trying to shake it out.JenNow I have one with student loans, so.BethYeah. Yeah. I don't, I can't, I can't speak to this one personal experience because neither of us had student loans. We were very blessed to not have any. But basically, student loan payments are set to resume this month and that added expense is an unwelcome obstacle for already cost burden homebuyers. So I'm just another factor that we have to we have to consider when talking to our homeowners are soon to be homeowners of what they can realistically afford.BethBecause now what I liked about this one is they're talking about how consumers are essentially bundling their debt. And so they're looking at their debt as a whole number versus like something have been paid off here. They're, you know, and not individual numbers. Exactly. So they're looking at this as a holistic number. And so that payment is just adding to that whole number.BethAnd that's they're feeling that anxiety going into the purchase because it's not just the mortgage that they're considering. They're considering the student debt, they're considering the car payments that are through the roof right now. Our student.JenLoan monthly payment is.BethSo this article said it's.JenIn the artery filled day with something. I feel like I read something or it was like 203 or something in.JulieThis article says Typical monthly student loan payment being around $200.JenOkay. Yeah.JulieAnd the other thing that plays into we just talked to a builder today and we were talking about some different things different builders are doing and they were like, Yeah, but you have to understand our particular buyer, they don't have a 20% down payment and that's going to be an issue too, as all these things eat into people's budgets like that.JulieDown payment is more and more of an issue too. So as far reaching effects for us, I feel like.BethYeah, absolutely. It's really it's interesting that a lot of builders don't even know that about their buyer like courtesy your builder knowing that because sometimes they don't understand the nuances.JenLike.BethAnd I love that they're out there actively trying to learn like I get a lot of builders within our circle asking for a 30 minute call with me to learn about the military buyer and what that psyche is like and how they can help them in a different way. That's outside of some sort of incentive. And I love having those conversations because they are truly making an effort.BethAnd I think all of these articles and the realistic world that we're living in right now is pinpointing that we have to take that 1 to 1 approach and really know what our buyer's life is like and the obstacles that they have outside of just our day to day organization and the products that we have to offer them within our community, but really take the time to learn who they are and what their what their face.JenPersonalized incentives based on what's happening with that particular customer or buyer. So, oh, you have student loan debt. So should the builder pay their student loan? Well, that's a stretch.JulieBut this is Jen's take now.JenOh, pay.BethThat off for you.JenStudent loans are preventing you from getting into this house. What if we paid half of your student loan debt? I don't know. I'm just like.BethI mean, is it less than what they would pay some $10,000 and $10,000? So I'm.JenSaying like, you know, if you want to use that to pay to reduce your debt to income ratio, I don't know, like because from what I know, because I have a kid who has student loans, like the loan amount is, you know, it's spread to keep the loan to keep the monthly payment low. Right. Like paying this high interest rate, it's spread over a long period of time when really it might only be $20,000 that they owe.JenBut like in to make that an affordable payment. Right. They've got this crazy loan thing and whatever. So if if a builder could say, well, pay your loan off or we'll pay half your loan off, I don't know that when this happens.JulieJen, you're getting full credit for this. I love it. Let's get.JenIn.JulieSpecial love.JenIt's thrown.BethIt's a great example of like the amount of creativity that we have to have right now on a 1 to 1 basis. Like, yes, the conversations that I had with a builder recently about like, how can we help the military buyer or even just the reload buyer in general, Like take our situation as a case study. We lived in an Airbnb for two.JenMonths that.BethWas $5,000. Pay for their Airbnb for two months.JenYes, yes, we will help you with your moving costs, your relocation cost, whatever, will you know? Yes. Listen, when when I was in my former life, I mean, I worked for builders that would like, okay, like your homes, I can be ready for another six months longer than what we thought or whatever we'll pay for you for a long term rental.JenYeah, a furnished rental. Yeah. Like, you know, and I don't know, I just. I agree with you that there has to be more some creative solutions and to work with some of these people. Yeah.BethYeah, absolutely. And as marketers, like, we have the you have a voice in offering those solutions up like you have a voice and an impact. And don't be afraid to make those suggestions and say, Hey, I heard this creative idea or this other builder is doing this. Maybe this is something that we can implement. And I love that idea because people forget and builders forget that at the time of purchasing and moving a home, not only is it extremely stressful, but you are hemorrhaging money when you are purchasing a home, whether it be because you have to do an Airbnb or you have to pay the movers or have to tip them, you have toBethbuy the movers food, you have to get out of your lease early, you have to sell your home, you have to move across country and pay for hotels. You have to buy new furniture like you are hemorrhaging money left and right for whatever reason. And so the the different ways that you can relieve some of that burden.JenOff.BethIn creative ways that you can do that. I mean, let's see it happen.JenYou can you can tell that's just me, mood. I know this is I got it.JenYou got to get them food.BethAnd how many times have we moved.JenIn the guy to go buy toilet paper? I mean.BethYour food goes bad. You have to fight rid of all of your food in your in. Like, it's ridiculous. The little things that you don't think about.JenYou need to unpack.BethThese always turn into a therapy session for me. Okay.JenI love it. It's good. Oh, my gosh.BethOkay. Speaking of waiting, I'm. I'm moving right on this thing and waiting for a long time. Why is your Starbucks wait so long, Julie?JulieIt's because people are coming up with weirder and weirder drinks, more elaborate drink combinations.JenAs long as you got to wait for perfection.JulieSo this is from customization. Bloomberg And it says elaborate drinks and an almost endless array of combinations can slow baristas down. But a plan to hasten service has yet to materialize. So they're talking about how it's how Starbucks is struggling because there are so many There was like a crazy number in here. If I can find it for like just a latte, it adds up to more than 383 billion different possibilities of what you can make.JulieThe team had a lot of fun with this one. There was a lot of back and forth conversation about this.JenArticle.BethWe did, and while the different data that was pulled, I is really fun and I don't remember particularly if it was in this article or not, but we talked about it internally. But Starbucks had released that they that their customizations, their personalization of their product, if you will, increases their revenue by 1 billion. But on the contrary, their other data, which is the weight associated with creating said custom drinks, had lost them anywhere between three and 5 billion or something like that in additional revenue because people were leaving and they were losing.JenLike, I don't have time to wait.BethOh Jen, how does that relate to online sales?JenYeah, well, yeah, if, if you're not first or last. So yeah, listen, people, you know, go back to that that study both you and I were talking about, like the personalization study, bomb bomb had presented it last year at our summit and just talking about one customers expect. So that word to expect is very powerful here. As we're talking about this, customers expect personalized service.JenThey they want what they want. They want customization, they want personalization, and they want it quick. And so if we're not able to deliver that, we're going to lose case in point, like, yes, they're making money on their personalization, but they're losing more on people getting irritated and walking out the door. So when we talk about online sales, we got a staff up, we got a staff up in order to meet the demands, in order to provide a personalized service.JenSo Starbucks, you know, they're making changes. They're talking about getting different ice. It's like what they need to do. They need to staff up if they're going to be able to provide this level of service.JulieThe other place I've seen this in home building. So I've been I'm old. I've been in home building since before 2008. I started in 2005 Production Builder. And it's like this is what we build.JenWe started to.JulieHear.JenIs it? Yes.JulieHere's what we build. You can select from these two color palettes and people were fine with that and then 2008 hit and everything crashed. And we said, you can make whatever.JenYou want, hear all the.JulieSelections in the world. So like the pendulum swung the exact way. Then we started not being profitable on that and it was taking everybody forever to get through the system. There were way too many choices. It was overwhelming. Everybody. And we swung all the way the other way where at one point that Idol Homes stable, call me if I'm wrong on this, but at one time I told Homes somebody would say, I will buy that house if you will paint the front door.JulieI think once we painted a front door orange and we live in Norman with you and somebody is like, you have to paint the front door. And we would refuse. We would say, Nope, that's not our scope. If that door is orange, it's staying orange. So like, I think what's interesting, what I've seen in homebuilding is how in the selections world, like that pendulum goes dramatic either way.JenYep.JulieAnd I think where probably Starbucks suffers with they're so huge it's hard to quickly adapt to changes. So if there's a Tik Tok trend and this is from Olivia and Bryce, they had these this conversation on the Slack channel. They were talking about how all the sudden on Tik Tok people are talking about the cool new trend of this weird drink that had 42 different things in it.JulieYou know, it's hard. Then everybody goes and orders that like how do you do that among all the Starbucks in the world slows everything down. So yeah, we definitely see this. And I think the people who deal with it best probably are the people who are faster to adapt.BethYeah.JenYou think Absolutely set expectations a little differently at the beginning. And when you go to order and balance out, yeah, you set expectations and then you don't have an issue.JulieI mean, I think it's.BethAbout living and like we talked about this at our, at the summit for the on the marketing side, my session was on personalization and then taking ideas out of other industries that do it well. And the whole point is that it's somewhere in the middle, like you have to offer enough that you're meeting your buyers expectations of allowing customization or a personalized experience.BethBut you're also living in a world where you can still mass produce something, whether it be a shoe, M&Ms;, Starbucks drinks or homes. I going to say mass produce that in that regard, but, you know, produce a product in an efficient manner that can be delivered on time. So it's just living in that middle ground. And sometimes it doesn't have to be a huge thing, like a bajillion options for a custom drink.BethIt can be something a little bit dial back where the customer just needs to feel control. They need to feel like they had a part in the process. They got what they wanted. Their expectations were met and it's up to us to find what that middle ground is, that sweet spot so that we can work effectively or efficiently in this case to be successful.JenNow lessens. We've solved all the problems today.JulieSolve problems to solve.00:51:00:16 - 00:51:02:13JenSo fun, girls, we.JulieGot all we got to have a girls only podcast every now and again. We got a that's on the schedule.Jen100%.BethI'm down. Put it on. Olivia. I hear you listening in. Okay, so before we end, we have to do our favorite favorites.JulieI do have a favorite.JenOh, my.JulieGosh. So I just found on Netflix there is a new season of my very favorite show, which is Great British Baking Show. I do not.JenBake.JulieDo not bake. I love it. It's my favorite. And there's a new season out and it.JenJust made my day. Do you actually bake or do. I don't watch it because it's soothing.BethI the dry humor is everything.JulieIt relaxes me. The British accent was relaxed me. But I just it's my favorite. I would I have watched these episodes. It's one of those ones I'll put on in the background and just let play because it's very soothing to me. So I'm very excited about that. That is my my favorite Right now.BethI'm learning more about you. I like this.JenWow. This is my favorite show right now. It suits me.BethOh, it had you having a resurgence.JenI know. Yeah. You know, it's bad when my 75 year old mom tells me about it, she's like, Oh, have you seen this new show? Suits? It's so funny and cute. You would really like it. I was like, okay, so I start watching it. I'm hooked. Yeah.BethIt's addicting. So if you haven't watched.JenIt, you guys watch it?JulieNo, I'm too busy watching.JenYour acting for this. Baking show.JulieNo time in.JenTime to watch it.BethSo it's really entertaining for sure. Mine isn't related to TV shows.JenGood. We need something else. Yeah.BethI don't really have any. I. I'm boring, and I watch those same shows, like over and over and over again, but it is the fact that. So we just moved into our house and it looks like a black cave. For those of you that are watching and aren't watching, like my my office looks like a black cave, but it's actually painted a dark olive color.BethIt's called Olive if you love it. It's so pretty in real life. But on Zoom, it looks a little dark, but the house itself, I live in a tree house. It is.JulieAmazing.BethYeah, like it feels like a tree house and I love it. And I go out on this like all, of our neighbors are like, oh, my gosh, your your deck. And oh, my gosh, know. And I'm like.JenNo, it's amazing. It's so nice.BethSo yeah, I'm in. I'm in a pinch me world. So if you if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see lots of tree house pictures and one.JenOf us yeah we love.JulieA pretty.BethYeah I'm not apologizing for.JenI'm so happy for you. It may say you know it makes paying the movers a little bit and making skipping lunch or food. Yeah I got her video.BethLiving in an Airbnb for two months.JenYeah.BethWhich by the way, our neighbor who is building their house, whose house is also delayed, she is now living in the same Airbnb that we lived in.JulieMan providing jobs, providing money for the community.BethAll right. Well, thanks for today. This is.JenFun. Oh, this is so fun. Thank you, guys. It's fun. Have a good one. Bye. The post Ep 306: The Girls Club appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 305: Creating Your Backup Plan with Tara BarliaDue to recent Summit events, we are releasing a special Online People Talking episode! In this episode, Jen Barkan is joined by Tara Barlia! Tara is an Online Sales Specialist at EYA, LLC and sat down with Jen to give some expert advice on having a backup plan. Tara shares that the most important way to avoid burnout is finding a backup person to handle leads over the weekend or during your vacation time so you're not coming back to a flood of emails. Together, Jen and Tara share all the tips and tricks to making your backup plan go seamlessly! Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript:JenHello everybody. My name is Jan Barkan, online sales coach at Do you convert and welcome to online people talking or opt as we like to call it this series is dedicated to you the new home online sales specialist all about enhancing your lives and careers. We'll talk about real life scenarios is dedicated just for you. I am so excited to talk about this topic today.JenI think mainly because when I was an online sales specialist, I did not have a really good backup plan. Partly because I was stubborn and wanted to do everything myself and nobody could do it as good as me, and I quickly learned that was a mistake. Totally regretted that because having a true backup plan to give you that piece in mind so that you can take breaks is so important.JenSo I'm excited to introduce our special guests today. Welcome, everybody.TaraTara Barley Hello, everyone.JenHello. We are so excited to have you, Tara. Tara is the online sales specialist, senior online sales specialist now at the neighborhoods of EIA. So welcome to.TaraApsara. Thank you. Thank you for having me.JenYeah, absolutely. So before we kind of get into our topic today, talking about backup plans, tell us a little bit about EIA for us. Like where in the world are you located? Tell us a little bit about yourself.TaraYeah. So we EIA has been around for about 30 years, mainly townhomes for new construction. We are located in the DMV area, so we have community throughout the D.C. district, Maryland and Virginia. As I say, the DMV, the head of motor vehicle. I know we do get that a lot. But so it's interesting to have, you know, at the same time might have different types of sales going through anywhere from, I guess price range from 600,000 to a mid million.TaraSo big range there. And the market can be different between DC, Maryland and Virginia at the same time. So it keeps it keeps it exciting.JenYeah. And how long have you been in the role of online?TaraIt will be about two and a half years I've been with EIA like.JenLike almost O.G. status.TaraI know through COVID that CRE probably feel longer and then into now. Yep.JenAnd what and what did you tell everybody what you did prior to that? Because I think it's interesting.TaraYeah. So prior I worked with the Washington Nationals baseball team here in DC. I was part of their ticket sales and service. So. So a lot of sales, a lot of customer service, just a very different product that we were selling.JenYeah. So Haaz, if you, if we have any baseball fans watching this. Yeah. If you're joining us, definitely. Chad and tell us hello that you're here, we want to say hi to you. A special shout out to the Chesapeake home team who told me that they were logging in and watching today. So hello, Chesapeake Homes here in Virginia Beach.JenLet me ask you, Tara, really quick, because I think as an online sales specialist out there watching, they can probably join in and answer this question, too, with you. So if your online sales and you're listening, chat this out, what what's the biggest challenge that you're dealing with right now?TaraBiggest challenge, I think just you don't have control of the market, of course. So just going through the ups and downs of that summer months can be a little bit slower when people are on vacation and trying to still find what that urgency is for for our homes. So I think that that's been the biggest challenge. But before we know it, it's going to be fall and it'll pick back up.TaraSo just trying to get people in before that craziness and find a home for everyone.JenSo, so true market fluctuating is one of the the hardest or most opportune time to be an online sales specialist. Right? Because as things fluctuate, we have to continue to evolve. However, what we do is the it's the constant, it's the constant and the variable of the new home industry. So I'm sure everybody can share in that with you that there's a lot changing.JenWe've had a pretty great year so far, right. And we'll see what the second half of the year brings for sure. So guys, I wanted to bring Tara on to talk to you today about having a backup plan. This is something that we see is still sometimes a challenge to figure out. And there's certain there's lots of different scenarios when you would need a backup plan.JenSo you could be a solo online sales specialist like Tara was before today.TaraYeah, literally today.JenLiterally today. Do you have a special shout out to.TaraShout out to Simone? First day today? She's joining me. Very excited.JenYes. Shout out to Simona. We're so excited to have you join the team. Hey, Jessie. Hey, Sam. Sam barking shout out to you, son. Okay, so there's several different scenarios. You might be a solo Aussie and as a solo Aussie, if you're working, if you're on demand seven days a week, you need to have a break, right? So who is going to be in the fort while you're off?JenYou have, of course, vacation. We do want you to take vacations, right? I know, Tara, you like to travel. So figuring out like you love to travel. So taking those vacations, sometimes there are emergencies you need to have. Like who is going to take the leads? And then there's like, overflow situations where maybe you have a lot of leads and you want to have that overflow person that can kind of be your support and backup.JenAnd then you have the long term leave type of situation, which is like a maternity or paternity leave. And for example, and you've got to figure out who is going to cover for you. So there's lots of different scenarios. The one that I want to talk about with Tara that she has recent experience with is having being that solo Aussie.JenSo, Tara, when did you like talk a little bit about when you realized like, okay, like we got to figure this out?TaraYes. So as many of you guys know, leads continue to come in. It doesn't matter if it's a weekend week day holiday. Everyone's continuing to look for for home. So weekends were technically my days off, but people are still coming in, asking for questions, asking for appointments. And like Jen said in the beginning, too, you don't want to miss out on something and you want to be there.TaraBut it's also important to not get overwhelmed and take that break and it'll make you better when you come back and get back on the job. So when I really notice that something might be needed, I'd come in on Monday morning and my inbox would be filled with leads coming in and you wanted to get to the ones that looked like they were the most important or how to prioritize that.TaraReally, You still wanted to get back to everyone. So that's when I really realized that something might need a backup plan. Someone else might need to come help and cover because it is. I think we've all heard Jen say that if you the sooner you get to someone, the more likely they'll still be interested. Haven't shopped around yet, but more likely to get that appointment.TaraSo the sooner the better. And as I realized when I was trying to catch up from all the weekends, my Monday was gone. I didn't even get to my Monday people. And then all of a sudden it's Wednesday, Thursday and I'm still maybe playing catch up. So really important to try and get that backup plan.JenWell, I want to go back to something you said really quick before we move forward. And you're in the way that you're structured before having a teammate as a solo. I see you were working five days a week and on two days that you were off, What was happening on those two days that you were off.TaraTo the leads online, Any form still went to my inbox now.JenAnd then. They were just getting it. Okay, So they were sitting waiting for you? Yeah.TaraMonday the phone calls, the phone inbound, the phone call did go to these sales reps on site, which is great. You know, someone's still answering. However, if they're on an appointment, the phone will ring. There's a voicemail maybe going on, then I never get to them since they might have just called in to the sales rep and hopefully, you know, you booked a lot of appointments for the weekend and they're full are open houses.TaraBut yes, the phones were going to the sales reps to see if they could answer any initial questions.JenSo a little bit of a it was kind of like a like halfway kind of a backup plan, Right. Like the the on her days off the sales reps were taking the calls. So in your call tracking system, you were forwarding those calls to their sales team. But the E leads, Internet leads that were coming in. We're just sitting there in her CRM.JenAnd so what she was saying, guys, and if you're a solo LC, we want to hear from you like solo or team like chat it out. I want to see who's on if you if they're sitting in your inbox and you wait until Monday like you're trying to catch up and they need your new leads that are coming in on Monday are not you're not getting to them, right?JenIt's like you're playing catch up, right?TaraYes.JenAnd then it's like, you know, hey, Steven, how are you? You're playing catch up. And so it's just like a domino effect and you never feel caught up, right? So I finally said how.TaraI admitted it. I did it. I needed help. Yes.JenI said, okay, okay. I given help. Okay. So where did you guys go to look like who? When you're thinking like, okay, who's this person going to be that's going to manage the elites? Who did you work for?TaraSo initially we had luckily we had a community that closed out. Okay. So we had a sales rep that had kind of waiting for the next community to open, had some more free time. So she filled in on just Saturdays and Sundays and would get the leads. We knew this was kind of in the short term.JenOkay.TaraDecision right then since we thought, you know, down the road we may hire another one if this ends up working out. And we would look at the answer how many people are answering and seeing if that number, the percentage goes up, which it did since I think people were getting we were getting back to people quicker. So that's why we ended up hiring another one.TaraBut Tammy was our sales rep who would help me out on the weekends. Okay. Actually log into my email and get all of the leads and be able to respond to everyone throughout the weekend. And just coming in on a monday the first week I came in on Monday had only eight in my inbox, and just like that, I was so relieved.TaraI felt like I can get to those people right away starting Monday fresh as opposed to dread. You know, people dread Mondays already. You don't want to try them.JenMore like, Oh, my inbox is going to have.TaraExactly. So even week one just just for myself to see that was was huge and we'll get it right. We trained it.JenSo why do we need a backup as a solo O.C. To prevent burnout, first and foremost, right To handle our leads better. I mean, if you are if your leads are sitting untouched for two days, you're missing opportunity, right? So there you go. And leads. Right now, somebody has a lead that's like golden butter role, right? I mean, that's a big deal.JenSo that's why we need to look at having a backup in that situation. Who you have like Tara close out community, a sales rep could come over and assist in that way. You might look at a sales assistant or marketing somebody on the marketing team possibly that could do that. Let's see what else? A design assistant I've seen.JenI've even seen managers. Yes, managers fill in right. And learn how to just be in reactive mode, how to enter the leads in CRM, how to what to do on the phone call, just basic hey online sales specialist, your D convert coach Jen Barkan here. Are you looking for guidance structure and proven methods to help you set more appointments and create more sales?JenThen join online sales coach Jesse Suggs and myself. We are offering an intense two day virtual training experience, followed by eight weeks of training and coaching through our online sales academy. This fall. Jesse and I have been in your shoes and we teach from our direct experience and years of coaching online sales specialists just like you. This will be hands on and real world.JenNo theory here. If you're interested, don't miss this incredible opportunity. Reserve your spot today by visiting. Do you convert dot.com? So let's kind of get into that segue by now, as you have, Tammy. Yes, thank goodness for Tammy. MAN Hey, Tammy, what did the like what type of training or what were the expectations set for your backup?TaraSo it was, of course, great that she already had a sales background, knew, you know, with our company a while, she knew a little bit about each community. Of course she knew about hers the most. But I made sure that she had all of our pricing and floor plans. That was simple. As far as other training walked her through sequences.TaraSo she actually would, if she did not get in touch with anyone just like us, she would set up a sequence and it actually, if they didn't answer the sequence would then turn into me. So would be like, Hi, I know we didn't catch up over the weekend and then if they did answer now it's a weekday, I'm back, it comes to me, they call me, they email me so we don't have to worry of losing a lead or anything like that.TaraAnd then I just pick back up where Tammy left off, and it was pretty much it was a pretty good smooth transition from there. And just the beginning of teaching the sequences, sales on site, as we know, may not know all the sequences and all of that, but just teaching that and taking the time to do that was, yeah, it definitely paid off.JenSo yeah, you definitely didn't need to teach her, you know, internal backup, right? They're going to know your going and they're going to know the homes and the communities and things like that. But you, you needed to take some time to teach them, okay, When you get a new lead, this is what you need to do in the CRM, Right?JenSo it's it's very minimal, though. We don't need to put our part time backups through for like online sales training necessarily. Right. In certain situations, we're just kind of teaching them the basics and how to be reactive. And something that Tara said that was really important is that when you have your backup that's filling in for you, it's not necessarily like you don't need to assign like they're not taking ownership of those leads, right?JenIf somebody calls in and she's helping them and she sets the appointment, great, But she's not carrying them through the 30 day follow up process as her own. You know, she's just starting them on the follow up process. And then when you came back, you're picking that back up. So we get a lot of questions about that. You know, as far as like do does does the backup like hold on to all the leads?JenIs the backup doing the the process prospecting? Well, thank you. Stephen. Yeah. I mean, in a perfect world I think everybody should be trained in online sales. But, you know, that's just me. Now, listen, the devil is in the details. And what I mean by that is it's one thing to go, yes, I've got a backup. We you know, Mike is stepping up.JenHe's going to be my backup. But now what? Like, you've got to take some time to figure out the logistics. And we actually have Amanda martin from our team is getting ready to release a playbook for online sales on the logistics and setup for how to do your backup. So I'm not going to go into too much detail here.JenBut Tara, talk a little bit about the logistics as far as like in your call tracking in your like what did you guys do for like email and CRM and call tracking?TaraSo a lot of it we use HubSpot at, at our company here. So a lot of it was training through there. And again, luckily the sales rep has already has an account with HubSpot, but she actually would log in as me too. So it was fully taking on my role just for Saturday and Sunday That way no confusion on the client since that's kind of the most important.TaraAnd if we if they didn't connect, it's, you know, they might have thought it was just me all along. But she did sign her name, you know, in regards to Tara, just so people knew something like that. But again, as far as the sequences would go, it would then go straight straight to me for phone calls. All of our communities then got switched off.TaraI think it was Saturday morning at 10 a.m., got switched to her so that she can get started and do Saturday and Sunday and then it automatically for call will automatically switch back to me on Monday morning. So. Okay. Okay. So let's work on our end all computer and it again it was very smooth transition.JenSo that's the beauty of having a call tracking system and being able to set up like a workflow and schedule. So what I'm hearing you say is like this schedule wise, when this time hit, calls are flipped over to Tammy, and when the shift ends, the calls are flipped back over to Yep, right? Yes. And that's the beauty of automation and setting all of that stuff up.JenSo that's great. The other thing to think about too, I don't know that you guys did this, but you know, if you have a let's talk a little bit about like a longer extended stay. You're taking a vacation and you're going to be gone for more than just a couple of days. Really thinking about don't just set up an auto responder that says, hey, I'm out on vacation, contact my teammate, Symon.JenYou know, really look at having those work emails forwarded to your teammate so that it's a seamless process. We always want to keep the customer in mind here. So if the customer then has to go do another step to contact now. Symon that's not as that's not the best experience possible. So we want that to be seamless as set up filters in your inbox that forwards your emails over to your teammate.JenDon't just rely on the auto responder and then definitely have some time to do some lightweight CRM training, lightweight call tracking training just so they have the basics and understand all of those things. Anything else to add there, Tara, that I'm thinking about? Logistical, logistically.TaraLogistically, I think, yeah, that that was it. And then also the big thing to still still try and get them to know most of the basic qualifying questions just so that they're making good appointments. And it was fun to kind of do that with her since she was an onsite sales rep. So she got to see the side of of seeing how we qualify them for appointments for her.TaraSo that was fun too, to kind of do with her.JenI just saw this out of the corner of my eye here and give your backup, you know, make them a prospecting sheet that has the things that you want to make sure get asked and get entered into the CRM on your behalf. Like these things need to be asked. They need to go in the CRM. This is really important and this gives them a guide to make sure that they they do that.JenNow, a couple of other things to think about. Here's some pro tips for if you're going on vacation. Okay, So we are going to be out. You have found your backup. You have figured out all the logistical things that you need to the first thing you want to do, too, is test it out. Test your backup plan out.JenOkay. Meaning while you are still working and on, you know, you go ahead and you turn everything over and you make sure technically that it's working, that they're getting the leads that they know how to while you're still there and you can answer questions, so do a practice run. The other thing is give yourself a ramp down period and a ramp up period.JenHere's what I mean by that. So if you know, you're going to be going out for the weekend or going on vacation or going on maternity or paternity leave to start your time a little bit earlier so that you're not getting new leads right up until the time you go on vacation. Go ahead and turn things over to your backup either a half day or a day before you are going to be out.JenAnd then also when you come back, you're going to have some catch up to do right, Tara? Yes, you're buoyant. You're having you come back. You know, even Tara just being out for the weekend, right, as a solo or C you're going to have stuff too. So when you come back in and give yourself a ramp up period, don't have you keep your backup on until half day or even a full day.00:24:17:25 - 00:24:44:21JenIf you've been out a while, you have have that person stay on until you can get caught up. So just a couple of things to think about. And then my advice and this is definitely for Martha, who's watching, Don't sweat. Don't sweat the small stuff, right. The the benefit of taking the time off are going to outweigh it not being perfect.JenWhat do you think about that, Tara?TaraYou burnout is real. You you deserve a break and that's why we have these backup plans. So so definitely enjoy that break. And you come back, you feel revamped, re-energized and maybe better for the clients in the long run and your success. So totally agree.JenHey, listen, this is something small. I just did this on vacation, like actually take the time to go in and turn your notifications off, like turn your email notifications off, turn your internal slack off, you know, and just really have a break. You know, sometimes when we it's called a fake break, when we when we're like, yeah, like we're off you know.JenBut what happens is you're anticipating that you might have to do some work, like I might have to go in and respond to that person. I might have to answer that lead really quickly or whatever. It's not a big deal. But what happens is you never fully relax, you never fully recharge. And so what we know, Tara, right, is that if you're not happy, neither are your customers either.JenIf your burnout, neither are your customers. So were you feeling that way? Like, where are you starting to feel like, Oh.TaraIt was just the dreading of Monday more than it should have been? It's probably how I felt. And then, you know, you have your phone on you, even if you're like, I will not answer it. It's the weekend. But you see it and you see it going, Yeah, it's oh gosh. And then you think, All right, if I answer a few now, maybe Monday won't be so bad.TaraAnd yeah, you know, it can cycle. So that's I think when I realized Yeah.JenAnd now you have a, you have a team, right. And, and this is a big leap that you're taking.TaraI and.JenThat's the reason.TaraI will be going on maternity leave at the end of August. So the timing for this.JenSo this is, this is a big leave. This is a big backup situation which now is a teammate. But I just want to also caution everybody that even if you have a team and you're watching this stuff happens, like on teams where you need a backup, you need to have somebody on the bench that's ready. So don't wait.JenI guess I'm saying is don't wait to maybe cross train or get somebody in the know on what it is that you're doing, how your systems work. Take some time to create some you know that you have ready and available that if there was an emergency, if somebody needed to step in, you would have some documentation and be able to help.JenSo flip the switch is what you guys need to be thinking. Hey, I have an emergency, but that's okay. I've got a backup plan that I can just switch on right and execute right away. Okay, fine. Rapid fire fun questions.TaraOkay.JenYour favorite thing about being an online sales specialist?TaraFavorite thing? I mean, there's so many, but I think it's fun to be that first voice or face that they see and really represent the company. So I think it's just fun to set the expectation high of what they'll experience throughout their new homebuying experience. And it's fun to be that that person. Oh.JenI love that answer. What do you do now? What do you do to recharge your battery when you are off?TaraI exercise. I know it's kind of funny, but, you know, let out that steam not get that. I used to run a little bit. Now it's been a little bit more weight lifting. Lightweight.JenOkay Momma.TaraBut getting still getting that hour in for exercise. It's super important.JenOh, okay, guys. She said she used to run a little bit. Oh, what did you just do?TaraI did do the New York City marathon last year.JenAny other New York City marathon runners out there? Shout it out. You're this. You're a whole group of people. What any current books that you're reading.TaraSo I literally just start I think I'm late to this trend but lessons in chemistry I'm two chapters in so do not know much about it but I just finished Verity two, which was.JenOh, very good. That was really good. I literally was I was reading it and I went, Oh my gosh, yeah. My husband's like, What are you reading over there? I was like, Oh, don't.TaraWorry about it. She added a chapter too. So I don't know if you read the the add on chapter. It's very interesting.JenTo her fans out there.TaraYes.JenLet's one thing that most people don't know about you.TaraI'm I was a division one gymnast in college.JenMartha.TaraSo. Yeah.JenHave you met Martha?TaraI have not know.JenOh, my gosh. Any other gymnasts out there? I mean, Martha, I'm pretty sure was like a Division one gymnast, too. But you guys are like.TaraWe have a lot to talk about then. Yeah.JenYeah. Okay, last question, because I'm always looking for something great to watch on TV. Are you watching anything good on TV? Like, what's the latest thing?TaraThe latest? We just finished The Bear on Hulu and it's very good. It's about kind of starting a restaurant in Chicago and how crazy that industry is. Speaking of different industries, it is wild to see see the food and restaurant industry.JenDoes it make you not want to eat out?TaraNo, that's fine. It just intends to start at your own restaurant. It's a big challenge, but it's very, very good. Yes. Okay.JenWell, okay. I'm going to have to check it out. It's very fair. Thank you so much.TaraYes, thank you for having me. This is so fun.JenOh, my gosh. You are just fantastic. I'm so excited that you took the leap to have a backup. It also just validated the fact that you needed a teammate, your company supported you, got you a teammate, and we're just looking forward to that. So much. So thank you so much. And thank you, guys.TaraThank you. And we might have to do an update when I get back from maternity leave. Yes. Yes. Okay.JenOkay. We are we're going to do an update. Thanks for watching.TaraThank you.JenThanks for watching. Opt in. Hey, guys, Make sure you check out D convert dot com. Sign up for our newsletter if you haven't because we are constantly sending out great content and be sure to watch out for Amanda's playbook on backup plans and how to set those up. And we will see you next time.TaraThank you. The post Ep 305: Creating Your Backup Plan with Tara Barlia appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 304: Collaborate and CommunicateIn this episode, Kevin Oakley is joined by Andrew Peek and Julie Jarnagin! The team is excited about the upcoming Summit and shares how they are preparing for the big event. Julie ponders how a team can see problems in marketing before they happen and Andrew and Kevin share their thoughts on how they would go about fixing the issue. They discuss how difficult it can be for a marketing team when communication is lacking or kept from them and it leaves their arms tied.Story Time (1:50)Julie has been debating how to see marketing problems before they happen.Andrew has no storytime but promises one after the Summit.Kevin is frustrated for marketers who don't have all the information. Whoever is making big decisions and working collaboratively is paramount.News (26:13)Homebuilder sentiment goes negative for the first time in 7 months, thanks to higher mortgage rates (https://apple.news/A7XhetA63SmWydghS9zfozA)Storyliving By Disney Shares Inside Look Into Cotino, It's First Residential Community (https://www.builderonline.com/land/development/storyliving-by-disney-shares-inside-look-into-cotino-its-first-residential-community_o?utm_source=newsletter&utm;_content=Article&utm;_medium=email&utm;_campaign=BP_091923&&oly;_enc_id=0562I8022834C8U)House poor is back: 'the new normal for the foreseeable future' (https://apple.news/A7XhetA63SmWydghS9zfozA)More than a third of Gen Z works both a full-time job and a side hustle — and many still don't feel financially secure (https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-side-hustles-full-time-job-financial-security-ey-2023-9)Things we love / things we hate (41:05)Andrew loves the new Barbie Movie!Julie has been taking a knock-off brand of Airborne to keep her happy and healthy for the Summit!Kevin's favorite is Lance Lambert, specifically his X account.Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript: The post Ep 304: Collaborate and Communicate appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 303: Things We Never Need To Say In The Industry Ever AgainIn this episode, Kevin Oakley,  is joined by Beth Russell and Julie Jarnagin! Kevin recently got back from a conference and shares his thoughts on the experience as well as the importance of understanding your audience. Together, they reflect on the uncomfortable challenge of change but agree that it's necessary and urge listeners to surround themselves with people who will be honest with you and genuinely help you through it. The team discusses things that never need to be said in the industry ever again!Story Time (11:24)Julie had a builder ask if video was “worth it?”It's Beth's birthday week and so she is reflecting over the change this last year.Kevin brings up things we never need to say in the industry ever again News (40:04)Will the Mortgage Rate Spread Narrow or Not? That is the Question (https://blog.firstam.com/economics/will-the-mortgage-rate-spread-narrow-or-not-that-is-the-question)1 in 10 Home Sellers Are Moving Because They're Being Called Back to the Office: Survey (https://www.redfin.com/news/moving-return-to-office-survey-2023/)Where Is the Housing Market Headed This Fall? (https://www.probuilder.com/where-housing-market-headed-fall)Higher mortgage rates continue to impact the housing markets (https://apple.news/AW-eEur1VTc-0uqCPW8w2UQ)Things we love / things we hate (53:31)Beth hates unpackingJulie is listening to a podcast called "The Dr. John Delony Show"Kevin is enjoying the “Compound and Friends” podcastQuestions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript:KevinHi, I'm here. This is six calls into the day Kevin!JulieThat's a lot.KevinMy favorite kind of days. But I'm here. We're going to do it. And I guess feedback. Our producer, I think it was maybe just her feedback, but she likes spicy Kevin.BethSo I think we all love spicy. Kevin's spicy and like trolling. Kevin Oh, I live for it.KevinYeah, I remember the 10,000 hour thing. You school this on?JulieI think.KevinSo I just got exposed at this conference. That's about nothing other than learning. And the people are all totally different is again, that realization of like, I'm old because I care about things that my 20 year old self would have been like. Why does that have what does it matter? Why are we thinking about, you know, what is space made of like it's empty space, you moron, move on.KevinBut I'm here. I'm listening to this guy talk about the units that make up space and how that defines time and thinking. How does this apply to what we do? And I can make connections. And it's it's weird. Just I remember was like going it's it's this 10,000 hour thing of how do I translate that to someone who only has 100 hours in in a way that's meaningful because, you know, like I was trying to download our team about one of my takeaways and then I'm like, this won't mean anything to some people.KevinLike though they will actually think, why did Kevin waste his time going to California to listen and learn about this? And so any time you're sharing, you have to understand your audience and and where they are. But it's it gets harder and some ways it gets easier. This is why now remember why I wanted to talk to you about this Julia is it's it's somewhat easier to process through the stuff like on the back burner of your brain, but it's even harder.KevinLike I'm finding myself pausing more often, like I have a small seizure and it's because I'm it's not because I don't understand the material. It's thinking like, how do I reframe this or filter it for this person who's been in our industry for a month?JulieYeah.KevinYeah. That gets incrementally harder, I think, at least for me.BethI mean, it's hard. I just had a call this week where I was like, I how? What did I just say? Because it was one of those challenging situations of like, how is and that's exactly what's happening to me. It was like there was a stop in my brain of like trying to filter out what was going on in my head and what was coming out of my mouth in a way that would be digestible to the person on the other line.BethAnd it probably was to them. But to me I was like, No, that I need to get back on a rhythm.BethBut that's where the storytelling comes in and I think y'all are both great at that. Even when you don't realize that you're pulling in a story or an example or something. So I see that, you know. Kevin, if we're sitting in on a call and you're pulling from something, some example you've heard or a story, so I think that's what you're trying to attach, the two things you're trying to attach the concept to whatever rolodex of stories and examples are in there somewhere to connect them.KevinYeah. Here's here's the most recent example of this that I still am processing a little bit, is working with a rather I mean, a very large homebuilding organization who wants to create a new set of dashboards on a quarterly basis to give to their leadership team about marketing and online sales and how it's going and they showed an example of an old one that they've been doing internally.KevinI think some other people were helping them and it was like 45 pages and we rebuilt one after much thinking and work. And it's nine pages, I think, or sorry, it's 11 pages. It's 11 pages, but the first four pages are just an illustration of the proverbial funnel illustrating at the state level, individual market level, etc., how everything is working.KevinLike all of the important metrics, the conversion ratios and visually how they all connect and then as I'm thinking about the audience that they're going to give this to and, and this is a presentation format too, I think it's important, understand. So they're like the person who used to do this, they hated their life for that entire day because when I was there trying to stand up and talk, they went through all 45, 50 pages and watched everyone's eyes glaze over or start looking at their phone or, you know, they and we interpret that sometimes as how those people are.KevinSo rude. How could they not? But to me it was more like, actually, you should probably never get past these first five pages that are funnel analysis with this audience. If you get to page whatever, and it's a 14 way breakdown of how their Google ads are performing, something's wrong because it's not it's not the level that a CEO CEOs should be at ever.BethYeah, yeah. They need something to anchor on to. And with that visualization visual visually.JulieThis.KevinJust makes me feel so good about myself. I'm sorry, you're not supposed to.BethThe word with the funnel.KevinThere's many words.JulieLike.BethOh, well, it's something they can anchor to because if you just start going through numbers, if they're trying to connect, they're just going to grab a random stat number and get stuck on that and you're going to get into a weird hole of questions that you may not want to be into. So that gives them a good first thing to hang on to as you're taking them through the journey.KevinWell, okay, I'm going to try to keep my brain and then we'll be we will move on to the real show here in a second. But one thing I through my brain is this is a bad idea. Like as a as a builder partner, they're going to hate this idea that I'm presenting of making the funnel the main part and then being able to break out why afterwards or during Q&A.;KevinBut just really focusing on on funnel analysis. And I kind of saw a little bit like, oh, what if they're not comfortable hanging out at that level for 20 minutes? What the leadership team, there's some people are like, hurry up and get to the part where like I'm in every day and I understand and I know that I know more than they do about it.KevinAnd so I feel comfortable presenting and talking and looking through versus staying high level with high level individuals sometimes can be intimidating. And so there is a little bit of storytelling and example giving that had to give them the confidence of you don't even have to know all the answers. You have to understand the relationships. But that's part of like this will work if they start getting excited and talking to each other about how come appointments are converting to sales in the same way as they were last quarter?KevinOr why do we think so? So is this it's this weird thing of am I just shortcutting the shortcut or is this really the most important anyway, that's.BethI think it's a matter of is the presentation as important as the dialog that occurs around it? You know, like if the presentation doesn't invoke an interesting dialog that can lead to change, then what is the point of the presentation in the first place? It's just another hour of someone else's time. This is why I love the fact that I'm married to my husband and I know that he is listening right now, so shout out might, but he does like he briefs for a living.BethHe briefs very important people for a living and he is phenomenal at his ability to take a very complex subject matter and articulate it in a way that not only gets people engaged and provokes conversation, at least this is what I get. I don't really know what he does. So this is just my perception of this.KevinIf he told you, he'd have to kill you, Yeah.BethThis is my perception of it. But it's fascinating. Watch and watching him talk about the art around the briefing. And it's just like us. Like it's the art around coaching. It's the art around speaking to high level individuals. It's there is an art about it, and you have to tailor what it is that you do to your audience in order to provoke conversation that will lead to change and it's fascinating how many people actually do that wrong.KevinYeah, senior leadership's perspective usually has. Why is this person telling me numbers that I can look at and see numbers?JulieYeah.KevinYou don't need to be presenting like a first grader at show and tell.BethYeah. And it's like, how many times do we hate going to conferences where people are just reading slides? Yeah, like it's you. You've got, you got to make a conversation out of it. And just like in home and home, buying and selling and in marketing for our builders, we have to create emotion during the process because emotion is oftentimes a trigger to everything else that follows.BethAnd so like the ability to do that with high level, you got to you got to like all somewhere to start that conversation.KevinYeah. And not be afraid of a little bit of.BethConflict.KevinConflicts. Right. Fact a lot of times as a marketer, you're that's why I keep going back to the example of Survivor. Like players who win Survivor sometimes are creating conflict artificially when there wasn't one or the amplifying conflict in another party sometimes. I mean it's it's it is such a good like like chess and poker good analogy. Okay a little palate cleanser before I start the show.KevinSean Carpenter texted me those. Sorry, Sean, you didn't give me permission to share it, but you texted me, so you should know better. He said It blew my mind today, listening to the podcast that Jenn wanted to be a vet when she was younger. I feel like this should be a like Red and Jerry Seinfeld voice. And so she ended up marrying her husband and now she still gets to hear Barkin all day at work.KevinDog emoji, laughing face Emoji. All right, let's get started.BethAnother thing that we like more as we get older, come you.KevinYeah. All right. I mean, I want to stand up, you know? All right. Welcome to marketers marketing the podcast from the industry leaders. How do you convert where we talk about the current and future state of marketing and online sales for builders and developers across the globe? We're not here to sell you. We're here to help you and to try and elevate the conversation.KevinIs there a topic you'd like us to cover or a question you'd like us to answer? We'll do it. Simply send an email to show at. Do you convert? Dot com. Welcome to episode 303. I'm Kevin O'Kelly. And with me today is Beth Russell and Julie Jernigan.JulieAnd so.BethI.KevinWe don't have to yeah, we keep talking about this, but there's nothing else to say. We already said it, so we just go right into story time. All right, Julie.JenOkay. I have a fun conversation with the builder this week, so she said, we have this great binder, high quality makes videos for us, but they're really expensive. And she said, we do. You know, that's kind of our company branding video as we do some community videos. But she was like, I want to do all these house tours and this and that, but they're so expensive and I don't have room in the budget.JenSo we had a really fun conversation around video and not just your very produced high quality video. The number one thing I would say, but this doesn't work for them is you need to learn internally how to do some of this video yourself and start doing it. But in this specific case, they are maxed out like their team just got smaller.JenThey all shift roles. They're all they're just doggy paddling, you know, trying to keep up with everything. So then we took it down to the level of finding multiple vendors for different things. So just like you might have a professional pay the big money for the main photo on your homepage, you can do the same thing with video.JenYou can take somebody who is fresh out of college or whatever to do your video. But what it all came back to is even that takes legwork. Like you're going to have to know. You can't just say, I want to do more videos, so we're going to do video if you are maxed out and everything else. So this whole conversation, that video and finding somebody else and that it may take a few people and you're going to have to be really specific at first about what you want it for and what it needs to look like and who's going to edit it and how they're going to know where to go.JenAnd you're going to have to see if that in your priorities of the thing. So it was funny too, because the owner happened to be on this meeting and he was just sitting there quietly. So there's a whole conversation. So it was just interesting because in the end it's still all I love video. I wrote a whole book on content.JenI think everybody needs more and better content, but in the end you only have so many hours, so many man hours and so much budget, and it's whether this is the time for that or if that needs to be on your 2024 plan and how you're going to set all that up. So it was a fun conversation to work through with them.KevinYeah, again, it's different perspectives, different levels, different insights, different priorities. But I think I'll intersperse some things that I took away. But but one of the people who spoke at a conference I went to is the CEO of Shopify, and he talked about how they created a tool that shows the cost of every meeting. So when you invite people, every time you invite more people to your meeting, it shows incremental cost to the organization.KevinWhen you see, you know, $9,000 for a 30 minute meeting, you have to justify in a summary, if you call the meeting, why it's worth that much after it happens. Anyway, a little extreme, you could argue. But then he also started talking about how they every year they just delete all reoccurring meetings. He's going to start just randomly deleting Slack channels.KevinAnd the idea here is if it needs to happen, it'll start again. But if not, you're just keeping things. And so just that idea of revisiting on a regular basis, why am I doing this thing? Could be video, could be Google ads, it could be anything. Why am I doing it? This is the reason that I started. So the reason why I should continue to.KevinI need to take a different spend. Should I be doing this at all? That whole, you know, stop doing list is as important as the to do list.JenWell, and on that level, it's really interesting because she has been there a while, but somebody else has been cut in the marketing director role and that person shifting out. So she's just adopting and she put that person was great at her job. Amazing. But it's somebody walking into something that's already existing. And so I think that's going to be a big job for her, is then figuring out what how.KevinThat's more fun. Let's just talk.JulieAbout that main event.KevinShould she go and start making changes quickly? What what would you both tell someone who's dropped in that position of like taking over for someone who's done a great job but is is no longer in that role?BethI think I mean, having just left somewhere and someone that I, I knew and worked with kind of walk into my position slightly, I think it's really interesting where it's kind of like a marriage of both where, you know, you want to go fast in terms of making your name and learn and get your hands dirty. But you don't want to make too many changes that are going to rock the boat because you might not know enough yet and go in the complete opposite direction.BethSo I think it takes that time, like Julie said, like taking that time to walk through the options and the realities of what is actually available when it came to video and what was realistic. Okay, I see a problem here. I see something that I could change. But at the end of the day, capacity wise, investment wise like this doesn't need to change right now.BethI can do this later. It's not like a necessity for me to go in and just like rip everything to shreds. Essentially. This is me being dramatic.KevinBut yeah, joining me. Other thoughts?JenYeah. No, I agree that there's definitely a time period for keeping it as is and seeing how things work and really not making too many dramatic changes. Right when you walk in unless she's she's been in a role in the department so there are probably think she's familiar with enough the brand new thing she's taking over. Yeah I think it's worth some observation time before making any huge changes which I don't think she is.JulieYeah. Listening to this.KevinThe first thing I always would tell someone is don't change anything for until you are certain you know what the issues are. And what I mean by that, one of the reasons you don't change anything is because it doesn't require any of your cognitive load. If you're maintaining it's a lot easier to maintain than it is to create or destroy.KevinMaybe it's easier to destroy than anything. But that's I know I get off topic, but you're just letting things flow and and observing because one of the things you have to understand quickly is that the scoreboard is not the only scoreboard. So there might be some internal scoreboard or dashboard or whatever that says leads are up, good sales are up, good.KevinBut it all depends on the person you're working for, and it's a combination of that scoreboard and that person's perspective of everything. I've worked for people as a marketing director who have said, you know, like, we don't need more leads. I don't want you doing anything to create more leads. Leads aren't our problem. Go solve this other thing.KevinAnd I'm like, I'm new here. But when they hired me, they told me my job was to create leads. So that's the risk, is you don't have street credibility for that position even if you've been in that organization. Everyone's looking to try to figure out, did they earn this title? Did they just get this title because other person laughs, What's going on?KevinAnd so you still need to do an analysis of both scoreboards and look for the easy win opportunities that cause the least disruption for others. Because that's how you prove value is. I just made everyone's life better and you had to do nothing different. Do that for as long as you can before you have to start getting in the middle of everything else.KevinSometimes you don't get lucky and like the thing that has to be blown up is the fact that I'm I'm laughing. As I say this, it's only been true a couple of times. You're like, We just have to fire all the salespeople and start over. And I can show you mathematically and in the CRM why that's true, that would be a really hard place to start, but that sometimes that is the case.KevinBut if not for as long as possible, get the easy wins that have big impact on other people's roles. All right, Beth, what do you got?BethWell, this week was my birthday week.KevinOh, happy birthday.JulieThanks.BethI'm doing all the sound effects today.JulieThis is great.JenYou should have worn your tiara today.BethI should have worn my tiara on my sash. That would. Except it ripped out my hair, which was not a pleasant experience. It's super pretty, though, so I really should have worn it. That would have been great. But yeah, I'm not typically one to reflect on my previous year. I'm just like, Oh, you know, another year, I'm another year older.BethIt's fine. But this year I was kind of it was somewhat unavoidable because it was on my birthday last year that it became abundantly clear that all the goals that I was working towards and the goals that I had set for myself in my professional career were not going to happen. I was I was not going to achieve them at my current place of work.BethAnd this realization was dramatically catastrophic to me, and it forced me to take off blinders that I didn't even know existed. And it forced me into a period of serious reflection in my life. That period that that lasted from probably anywhere between four and six months, where obviously a lot of changes happened because now I am here. But it's interesting because I was in the mindset at that time before all of this happened that no matter what, I was going to stay on this path, I had my goal, I was going to achieve it, and I had already given so much of myself in order to achieve what I had achieved that the idea ofBethleaving that was so incredibly uncomfortable to me that I had basically avoided any thought of change.JulieYes, fully.BethLike those blinders were were up. But now I was in it like I was forced into a stage where I had to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. And for me there was nothing more uncomfortable than the thought of leaving some place I loved and that I had dedicated my time to. And that had brought me so much joy.BethAnd I share this not just because, like for whatever reason, just to share it. I think it's because No, I know it's because that at one point in all of our lives, we we come to that place or to that crossroad where we have to get comfortable in the uncomfortable, whether it's in our personal life or our professional life.BethWe are at one point in our life going to come across something where we are forced to make a decision that we we never thought that we would make. And it is so incredibly uncomfortable for us. But the reality of it is that it's only through doing that are you able to make a change for the better. And what I learned during that period of my life was that change is okay and that it's important to not go through that alone.BethI had I had to make that decision a very personal and selfish decision. I had to make that and come to that on my own. But I leaned on the people around me that supported me and not just the people that were going to nod my head and nod their head and agree with me or go into a period of self-pity with me or like crawl into that ditch with me.BethBut people that were going to force me to want better for myself and forced me into change and and forced me to ask myself questions that I had I had been previously avoiding because they were so invested in my success and they wanted something better for me. So in saying that, I mean, you don't have to do it alone.BethLean on the people around you, find people that will challenge you and support you, find good mentors.JulieAnd.BethJust make that next change because I think this last year has been incredibly fulfilling for me. Incredibly, incredibly challenging. And I if you would have asked me this on my birthday last year about where I would be in my professional career, I don't think I would I would answer that. I'm a marketing coach. A do.JulieRight.BethAnd it's been fun and exciting. And I'm so happy. I'm so happy that I'm here.KevinWell, we are happy that you are here, but I skating part things that make me feel strange or uncomfortable, like self celebrating ourselves always makes you uncomfortable. Same thing. I mean, I remember the first time, not the first time. It was. It was the third year that Mike Lyon was like, Hey, Kevin, I think there's this thing and I think you could come work with me.KevinAnd I was like, at the time I was 32 years old, I was running to homebuilding divisions for NPR. I had stock options that were worth millions of dollars. And Mike's pitch was, take a 70% pay cut and come work with me and we'll see what happens.JulieAnd I was like.JenI have.KevinFour. I have four kids. My my wife just gave birth to our fourth. What? None of this makes sense. But again, I'm going to keep doing this for a while probably. But this conference that I went to, one of the speakers is the CEO and founder of, I think the second most profitable options trading firm of all time.KevinAnd she showed the slide like if you gave her $100 back in the eighties, you would have $3 million. Now, that's how much money her company has made for herself and her employees. And so now she started this nonprofit specifically trying to teach women how to play poker, because her argument is that women need to learn the skill sets of poker.KevinAnd to her, one of the most important skill sets is knowing that it's okay to take risk. That risk is mandatory. You you have your hand of cards. You've got to make a calculation and decision of what should I do or not do. But also sometimes you if you just fold every hand, you're never going to win. And her take as a woman was just that women are never taught to take risk.KevinAnd even in my own life, like I'm I'm definitely the Yeah, I'll just stay out of poker like just play super conservative, get that pot as big as you can and just like, hope you win by causing everyone else to die of boredom and just, like, irrationally go all in because they're just sick of sitting there like, that's that strategy.KevinBut so when I hear you talking about that story, I just to what I what I translate it to is part of it is chasing the goal that you had. And the other part is just saying like, that's too risky. But now on the other side, do you feel like it was as risky as it felt?BethNo, not at all. And I think, like I battle with the word risk slightly because I don't know if I necessarily felt like it was risky. I think perhaps a little bit it was like, okay, I just built all this. Like, am I willing to risk, like, completely altering everything I just worked for for seven years? Right? So I guess the other is there is a little bit of risk in there involved, but ultimately it came down to compromise.BethIt came down to how much of myself am I willing to compromise and what am I even living out? One of my mentors is bold. Eutelsat is also a very good friend of mine and he was the one that was like sat me down and he was like, What is your superpower and are you living it out right now?BethAnd we had like a two hour conversation actually at some after hours about what that meant. And like he just started ripping out those blinders that I had. And I think it was just that I had compromised a little bit of what my superpower was in order to fit the box of what other people needed.JulieAnd yeah.BethAnd it was it felt really good.KevinOn the psychiatrist psychiatrist couch together. So this is.JulieGreat.KevinI know you don't like the word risk, but what I think is probably happening is the fear of not getting to where you wanted to was causing you to put the blinders on in the first place.BethOh, yeah.KevinIf if if I don't put the blinders on, I'm not going to attain the level or position that I want to get to. And that's all I'm trying to say is, at the end of the day, the biggest risk that the speaker and I go back and talk to other people are look at my own life. It's like the biggest risk would have been not doing anything.KevinYeah, that's I always say that's the don't you're trying to sell someone the donut hole the cut out like not an actual small little piece of a donut but your sound the thing that doesn't exist and saying that's the problem so that's, that's the hard part about it. But taking risk is okay. And I, like any of my friends, personal friends who've been like, Hey, I'm thinking about starting my own business or doing my own thing.KevinMy answer is always do it always, because the risk is not like you're not going to die if your business dies, but you will know whether you actually want to run a business or not. You're capable or not going to do it. If death is not on the other side, it's worth trying. Now that also, like as an efficiency focused organization, which I would consider, do you convert like one of the ways I explain to people is we are an efficiency focused digital marketing organization trying to help builders get the best quality traffic for the least amount of money.KevinSo one of the things in there is like a lot of what we do is working and we might not be taking the risk for someone's money individually. So like builder A of 80 or a builder number one of 80, we might, based upon their resources and availability, might not be doing a lot of testing with them. But across all 80 builders, there's always different tests being done and that's a it's analysis of risk.KevinAnd I feel like I should just write a whole blog on maybe a series on risk because it's not talked about enough. And as a manager, we know we have to manage people. We know you have to manage a budget. Managing risk is not talked about enough or understood clearly enough and it's really, really important. It blindsides people more than missing a budget.BethYeah, I would agree. It really takes us even for this.JulieFascinating Hey online sales specialist, your D convert coach Jen Barkan here. Are you looking for guidance, structure and proven methods to help you set more appointments and create more sales than join online sales coach Jesse Suggs and myself, we are offering an intense two day virtual training experience, followed by eight weeks of training and coaching through our online sales academy.JulieThis fall. Jesse and I have been in your shoes and we teach from our direct experience and years of coaching online sales specialists just like you. This will be hands on and real world. No theory here if you're interested, don't miss this incredible opportunity to reserve your spot today by visiting d convert dot.com.KevinOC first story time. Just go the way Olivia reminded me that I want to talk about like things that we just keep repeating in our industry. And it's not really the thing. It's the it's the well, it is partly the thing. So one example would be and these are all things, by the way, I have said too, so it's not casting stones with glass houses, but I remember the very first presentation I gave at the Builders show and it PCBs.KevinI talked about a backpack on Amazon having more content than a home builders quick movement, home. That was 14, 15 years ago.KevinSo let's just get more creative. And this again, this is for for me as as well as everyone else. Let's get more creative with our examples. If we've heard an example 30 times in the last ten years as a as a presenter or someone making content, I think we should all push ourselves to keep looking for more and different examples.KevinAnd I'll give you one of mine that I've pushed, you know, so I've talked about pre-sell without fail and wrote the book and given all kinds of presentations and done it. And yet the audience and this is we keep repeating the same thing because we're like the audience hasn't heard enough and we know repetition is important. So we say it again and again, again.KevinBut I think my challenge is let's get more creative to try to find out if it's not just us. The presenter that's repeating the same thing. People have heard, but not actually finding a way to help them solve the problem. And that's why I use stories analogies is because my hope is that the person I'm telling that to can retell the story and get a similar outcome or help people's opinions or mindset change.KevinSo a lot of times builders on their on their home site maps or community descriptions are talking about, you know, faces one through 17 and all of them are on the map and they're on phase one, but they're showing everything. And so for me, the example is, you know, Apple just came out with the iPhone 15 and the 15 pro and someone tweeted immediately after, like, I'm on my way to Apple.com to order my iPhone 14.KevinCan't wait for it. It's like, no one does that. As soon as the phones announce, the only people buying the 14 are price conscious folks who probably can't afford or wouldn't buy a 15 anyway. But it would be as insane for Apple to put on their website iPhone. I mean, I can do it now. I can. I can project into the future the iPhone 17 coming September of 2025.KevinYou would never, ever, ever see that on Apple's website because you can't buy it yet. And certainly in the process of launch in neighborhood there's there's a period where you're going to put that community out there and you can't buy it because you're building that list. But Apple knows how long they need to build their list, and it's about 2 to 3 weeks from the time we say it's here to the time that you can go online and order it.KevinThey figure it out through probably millions of dollars and out. And, you know, tons of research that that's the only window they need to have. So you got to figure out what your window is. But you don't need to communicate years or decades in advance. You're going to have Homesite 2312 available at some point. So just let's get creative because if if the industry isn't solving that problem, we can go back to content around the backpack if we have to.KevinBut the more interesting question that I think our whole industry needs to start thinking about is what are the barriers? Because the barrier is not anyone I talked to. I don't know if you two are talking to people, but I haven't heard anyone say no, we've got enough content on all of our stuff, like I'm good with it or pictures are all awesome, our descriptions are great.KevinNo one's happy with the content they have. So what's the real problem? And we keep pointing the finger. This is going to get me excited. We keep pointing the finger at marketers and. If you're interacting with marketers on a regular basis, you know, the problem is not that the marketer doesn't want the content. Maybe, and this is why I'm so big on high mark as a potential solution for this in our industry.KevinYou know, this is it. Them and Mark and Beth are doing a presentation at the summit Higher understands that the reason we have crappy content is because people who aren't marketers are constantly changing the product with your regard and no care as to whether we have content just made content. There's just like this little hidden space in every home building company where for people who have no connection to consumers or marketers are coming up with all these new things and changing stuff all the time and like, yeah, just figure it out.KevinJust figure it out. Like that's the freaking problem. And using it addressed not how to hire a photographer. Did you know that you can get renderings that like for it's such baloney. That's not the problem. The problem is that there's these other morons changing things too often that no one's asking to be changed. Like if they're How often?KevinHow often do people redesign cars?JulieRight.KevinIt's usually on like a three year, 3 to 5 year thing, and there's little micro changes in between. They don't and they don't have 45 different cars available at Toyota to go buy for each. Kevin And then we're going to show Toyota's car car selection tool and they're like, this is amazing. Look what it can.JulieDo because there's only seven different.KevinCar types.JulieYeah.BethThere's like five is from.KevinThat's why when NPR bought Heartland and they we had 45 different floor plans and they said no, you can have 12. And after the initial freak out of that's not possible. We'll never sell another house again. Everyone's going to want something we don't have. I got so freaking excited as a marketer because thinking of of, okay, I'm going to defend my budget.KevinI'm going to keep that same amount of money. But now I can develop content around 12 floor plans instead of 45.JulieYeah.KevinIt was like Angels started singing. It was, This is going to be the most incredible thing ever.JulieMm hmm. Yeah. So look for.KevinLook for what's causing things not to change. Not just telling the people that it needs to change. Please.JenI literally just had this conversation with a builder yesterday, and you were not on the call because I asked them what is because they're overloaded? What is eating up your time right now? And that's what that's what it was. That's what I want is this.KevinFor people in a room somewhere making changes without talking to anyone?JenYes. And all they're doing is updating floorplans and rendering and all this. So it's just funny that you say that because I literally just had this conversation with someone yesterday.JulieYeah, well, and.KevinI mean, at Idol, they have collaborative teams that work on such things at Style Craft, where you were both they have collaborative teams. Yeah. Cross department teams that work on this things. Yeah. But so many builders I interact with, I'm like, who does this stuff?BethBut it was still a problem like.KevinSteve in accounting.JulieCommercial. Oh, okay.KevinSteph, thanks.BethThanks, Steve. No, I mean, it would still problem though. I mean, we had a huge group of us coming across, like you said, from all different departments coming together to make these decisions with the changes that were still happening so often that I had to just eventually put my foot down and saying, I'm not changing it until this is an issue or I have this many changes or whatever, or if we're making this many changes, I need this to be the process that we follow because there's just no way that as a singular person or in our case, two people, that we're going to be able to maintain content across 40 communities with 40 differentBethfloor plans, with 40 different variations of things happening, like that's just that is outside of the realm of reality.KevinAnd there are answers coming. And here now to do it better and differently, one from other industries, two from products like High arc. And this is I mean, again, if you're listening and you're coming to the summit, you're going to hear it. It's not like you're going to not hear this talk.JulieBut yeah.KevinThere are ways to get what we want and need.BethAnd there's ways to go about the changes better, which again, I don't want to say too much about because we'll talk about at the summit and I have a blog post that I finally wrote a blog post and Julie edited it, shout out Julie. That is about different ways that we can go about making changes that are planning, planning things out.BethBecause I don't think that as an industry we're doing it the most efficient way.KevinNo, no, not at all. All right. First up from the news, will the mortgage rate spread narrow or not? That is the question from first imdb.com And this. Remember, I went on a tirade about like if you're a marketer trying to ignore what interest rates are and how they are determined, all that stuff, it's time to go to school.KevinBy the way, that was my actual story. I got distracted. I didn't share my story time, but one of the notes that I wrote down was Bill Gurley, a prominent investor venture capitalist, said that the idea of professional research no longer exists for most people, meaning when your teacher in school assigns you to do a research project on, you know, the Pyramids of Giza, you either lie and makes things up or today use GPT, or you go and read books, watch documentaries like you can see in this information.KevinAnd yet the concept of professional research done outside of work hours is like, Are they paying me for news? I mean, I don't know, maybe you just want to find the answer or learn me because it's going to make you better, which will eventually pay you more because you are better. But it kind of goes along with this is a continuation of that rant from previous episode.KevinAnyway, so this is an example of me. So I, I see this article posted in my first reaction as I've spent 200 hours learning about mortgage rates and how that determined all the rest. I don't need to read anymore on this topic, but what the heck, I'm stuck for 2 hours on a plane that's not taking off. So I'm going to read the article.KevinAnd essentially what what the author argues is that one of the things that we're not thinking about that will keep rates higher for longer is the fact that rates being higher, where most people think they're like everyone's dating the rate, right? Everyone's waiting to refi. And one of the things that causes rates to be held higher is the belief that people are going to pay off their loans early.KevinSo if I'm buying a mortgage backed security that's supposed to be full of loans that are 7% for 30 years, what's the likelihood that those loans go for the entire 30 year period and aren't paid off early if rates go back down to five? Right. All those are gone. And so that risk of loans being that's a negative thing for an investor to have loans paid off early.KevinAnd because of that negativity, there's extra costs being that then raise the rate because of that thing. Like I had no idea that that was part of the calculation, but it makes sense now. The inverse is also true on a coaching call this morning and the builder said, Yeah, you know what? We've noticed that buy downs are becoming less expensive for builders or this builder in particular.KevinWhy would that be? Because the inverse is also true. That's why I love learning stuff. It gets me so frickin excited. The inverse is true. Why would a buy down be less expensive? Because what's the likelihood that, yes, I am going to charge the builder money to buy down the rate? What if now that customer is going to get a 4.75% loan?KevinWhat's the likelihood that they will carry that loan through to maturity? It's higher because if rates go down to six or five, they're not redoing that loan. So they were saying, you know, it still has three and a half, 4%, but it's used to be seven to buy that down. So it just never pays to continue doing professional research because it's just always insightful to me when I learn something new.KevinIt makes me excited.JenAnd this article is worth reading because I do not get quite as excited as Kevin on all of this. But this one, when I read it, it was it did lay things out in a way that it was like little light bulbs went off and helped explain it. So if you're also struggling to make sense of all of this, this is a good one to go and.JulieClick on and.KevinRead again because people will see something or say, Kevin's, you know, just a mad old man. No, I'm not saying you have to understand it. I'm saying stop trying to not understand it. That's all I'm saying. Like, keep trying to understand it. Don't just say huh.BethFind new ways to explain what's happening in the industry other than the backpack.KevinYeah. All right. From Redfin.com, one in ten home sellers who found this one, by the way, they deserve a price because this one love this one. One in ten home sellers are moving because they're being called back to the office. We haven't found this article.BethI'm looking, but.JulieI don't see I'm.KevinGoing to default to.JulieFriend. Thank you.KevinOkay. Good job, Olivia.KevinReturn to office. Mandates are forcing some people to choose between selling their home at a loss or losing their job and turn it into a rental. Potentially. Roughly 20% of surveyed sellers say they're moving due to safety, crime concerns, a desire to live somewhere more aligned with their social views and or lower taxes. But 10% said they're moving because they have to go back to the office.BethI mean, it goes back to I think it's an interesting, like granular data point of like because they specifically because they have to go back to the office, because we think about like relocation and things like that. And it says, oh, my work is moving me. But in this case, like, no, your work is forcing you to actually come in and now you need to live closer.BethIt kind of Did you see the Post from the New York Post article about the project by EIA in Montgomery County, Maryland? It almost makes me think about that a little bit because like they are doing a project that allows for lower income people to instead of doing that, the 10% or whatever, they increase it to 40% of lower income in this building.BethAnd they are trying to increase the amount of available housing in a safe area that allows for us a closer commute. And the example in the article of someone who lives in that building is an individual who's like, I think she was like a nurse or a educator or something like that. I'm sorry, I can't remember what my head but she because this became available to her, her commute cut down from a 45 minute commute to a ten minute commute.BethNow, for a little bit of perspective, even 45 minutes in the Montgomery County area. So anywhere around the greater D.C., Baltimore metropolitan area, 45 minutes is a win. So for her to be able to have 10 minutes of a win is is gigantic. And so these people that are are now trying to get to work and having to go to work every day and they're just trying to get closer.BethThey need to get closer. And it goes back to their need to move because their life is requiring them to.KevinYeah, remember, that's the fifth of the five days displacement that causes people to need to find a new home. And we're seeing this you know, we work with builders, I think, in 40 different states. And remember, if it's 10% in the survey that means in some markets it's lower. And in some markets it's higher. And one of the places they reference here is Boise, where two people work for the same employer.KevinIt sounds like to me it's Facebook or Meetup, but they're being told that they both have to come to the office three days a week or lose their jobs. They're probably gonna have to take $100,000 loss in their home in Boise And the home that they are going to end up buying in Seattle is going to be much smaller.KevinSo you just think about those markets. San Antonio is a relocation for remote work, heavy market. Boise was a big market for that. Northern Colorado. Some of these start to make sense. Now the question is, is this going to be it's going to be positive, you would think, for Seattle. And just because there's there's not still a lot available in Seattle from the from the used home market so for for prices in the market so people are being forced to move back to I think it's going to continue to push them higher.KevinYou know super interesting article. Thanks, Olivia, for finding that one. And you did this one I think from CNBC econ. Higher mortgage rates continue to impact the housing markets. Danielle hill, realtor.com chief economist this was you right, that found this one?BethNo, this is shout out, Becca.KevinOh, okay. Okay. Good job.JulieHere.KevinBut this is a video, so I don't know how to go into more of it.BethWe'll have to just embed the video into the show notes now.KevinWell, time out. We'll just pick a different article. So it's like we can't put articles that are videos and. Sorry, that was. I should have thought that one. But we got to we got to be able to talk about it. All right. Next up from Pro Builder AECOM, where is the housing market headed this fall with buyers and sellers glued to the sidelines of a high priced undersupplied housing market, experts weigh in on what's to come.KevinWhat's to come?BethMore of the same.JenThat's one thing. Those were kind of wild. You said, I don't think it's going to get any better, but I don't think it's going to get any worse because it can't get any worse. Number one, don't jinx us. Number two, we've seen it get worse. You know, we've seen it worse than this. So I was shocked by that vote.JenI thought that was a little.KevinYeah. And promote our links to Realtor.com or the full article is we'll put that link in the show notes. But remember, they're talking about the housing market, meaning residential in its entirety. So when they say I can't get much worse, they're talking about existing home, the number of existing home transactions that are occurring. Remember, prices are not bad.KevinIt's the number of homes that are are transacting that he's talking about being so bad.BethAnd guess who's still the bright spot?KevinYeah, I mean, what's the saying? I don't know if we can, but, like, tell this person in a room full of short people.JulieBecause.KevinLike, Yeah, I mean that's the thing that kind of it does affect my mental health a little bit. When people say, again, I'm talking to people not from our industry directly all the time who are like, Oh builders, man, this is just got to be like the best thing ever for them. They're loving now. There are we do have to, to working with who are having their best months ever.KevinYes but there are also a lot of builders who are, you know, eking by hitting their sales goals. Profitability is okay. But again, they're like, this is this is just infinitely harder than it used to be. And then going into the fourth quarter, it's like, oh, man, I really I'm not excited for what we're going to have to ride through here.KevinSo, yes, it is a bright spot in terms of, I would say availability of housing. Yes. So if you if you wiped builders off the map, there were no builders. The whole housing market would be you know, I think the kids say left.JulieLike.KevinSo homebuilders serve a really important purpose and we are there. But the costs of doing business for builders are not improving as fast as we wish they would, which means affordability is still a challenge.BethYeah, and while it's true that it remains market dependent, I think the builder to builder, it's also really interesting to watch. I don't know if you all have seen this, but we had a brief conversation of the doers versus the thinkers. And then there's the people that can think and do simultaneously, which is a magical little unicorn that everyone should have within their organization.BethBut it's a matter of like there's people that are in markets that are still doing well, but they just haven't gotten it right from the builder side because they're not sure how to take advantage of a market where they all where they are the tallest person in the room. They're not using the right messaging. They're not using the right messaging at the right phase of the funnel.BethThey're not getting creative in what they're doing. They're just riding the coattails. And then something blips and they're like.JulieOh.BethWhat do I do with my hands? And it's interesting.KevinYeah, And I love how it ends, actually. This is who is still buying homes today. The answer is you have to purchase a home. And I think Rob Hahn, who's another one of our speakers at this year's event, I think he coined the term the four D's, which were diamonds, death, diapers and divorce. I think we added the fifth D, which is displacement, which kind of talked about what the article terms of having to move back to a different physical location or move physical location.KevinThat's the only reason people are buying. It's not because that there's a red tag clearance sale going on. They're already in the market and that will potentially steal market share if you do that, right. But there's a lot more people being created by that activity. All right. Our favorites. Things we love and things we hate. Let's just rename it that next time.KevinOlivia. Things we love and things we hate. Anything is up for grabs. What do we got today?BethI hate unpacking.KevinAll unpacking. Okay, tell us more about that. Why do you have so much stuff that's you.JulieThat's a.BethGreat question. And we keep purging. Julie and I were just talking about how like one of the beauties of moving is the ability to like it's a forced spring cleaning. And so you, you get to purge like I am still throwing things away left and right. And we did that prior to moving. But you know, it is just can I just can like all the boxes magically just, you know, like Mary Poppins into their place because that would make my life really look a lot easier right now.KevinYeah. It's I love talking about it because we went we're now done with it. Yeah. The whole mental connection that you have to your house and the things that you have to start thinking about again that you stop thinking about at your old house. There's all this emotional energy that's spent, intellectual energy that's spent for moving. What's the physical?JulieYeah, yeah.KevinBlood sucking leech like reality of unpacks in cardboard boxes. Yeah, It's not a good combination. Okay, that's good. You can hate that. Julie, What about you?JenWell, this might be embarrassing. I don't know, but I've been listening to a new podcast, and it's John Delaney, and it's like the old school, like somebody calling in and asking for advice, like, Oh, my God. Like, yep. Or he's it's. That's what we should do, counselor. Guys, I'm like, I'm fast. It like I'm obsessed with it right now.KevinThat's what we should.JenI don't know if it's cringing or where people really. Why don't you listen? But I know I love in it I'm into it right now.BethMillennial need watched or listened to Love Line like let's be racy.JenIt's not racy like that. It is, but it's like just any kind of it gets like a little mini counseling session. And so that has what I've been listening to lately.KevinThere is a gentleman I can't remember his name, but it was on Redwood Studios, AM talk radio, and every day he would take like 3 hours of calls and he would play solitaire. So you'd hear him shuffle the card. Sometimes, like I've always answering people's questions, but every like nine out of ten answers or get a lawyer, he would call them questions and he would ask them on a question.KevinQuestions like, You know what need you need to do is get a lawyer. And this guy made a career off of telling people to go get legal advice. Now, is is.JenThis once more, go get a counselor like you need trauma counseling.KevinSo this is like real life crime podcasts. This is I haven't killed anyone yet, but I'm thinking about it.BethYeah, Yeah Yeah. Is it like a little touch of a Reddit thread? Am I the ahole?JenBecause, like, sometimes that's all I hold.JulieMm hmm. Yeah.KevinMine is a podcast recommendation that I got from another podcast that I listen to called a compound in France. It's a stock market, one most of you shouldn't probably listen to it, but acquired is the name of it and they are, let's see, 3 hours, 4 hours, two hour. They're really long podcasts on a single company kind of giving there.KevinWhat they do is they go and they read 8 to 10 books on a topic that interview people and then it looks like twice a month they do these three hour summaries in audio format. And it's I mean, it's it's all LVMH, the NFL, Nintendo.BethQualcomm, Marvel one or the.KevinAmazon, of course, Altimeter, Sony, Peloton, FDX, Standard Oil like that's a really old company. Sometimes they do multiple parts, but it's one of those podcasts where you don't. I don't feel compelled to listen to all of them. But if there is a company that I really think does something well or I use like my own life and I'm curious about the background, it's just a really great it's like in between an audio book and a podcast, typical podcast in length and complexity.JulieOh, that's fun.BethI'm already Google, right?KevinYeah, that'll do it. Wait. Oh, you have another one, Beth, you want to complain about? Can you have something positive?BethYeah. Seriously, I just love the. I hate this way. No, the positive of our houses. I'm so like, by the time you guys see me next, next week, Monday, I should be in my office, in my new house, and I'm obsessed with the color that we painted it. And it was a little bit of a risk going back to that word, Kevin But it's a ripe olive by Sherwin-Williams.BethIt's a deep, moody green, and my crown molding is painted it. My doors are painted it, my walls are painted it, my panel, it is the whole office is this deep, moody, green, and it has a vibe. And I'm.JulieObsessed.KevinSo you like cozy, like cave? Kind of like it's not going to be dark. No cream.BethBut yeah, it has. And it has has. The ceiling is white and the floors are white. Okay, So like, there's a balance, but I don't know, I just it gives that feeling of like an all leather bag.JulieYeah.KevinIt looks like you should be signing the docket. Like the Declaration of Independence. Yeah.BethBasically, I need a portrait of George Washington.JulieOn the wall.KevinNicole, I learned something from my son, Hayden. He's in fifth grade, so he has to do a report on a president.JulieMm hmm.KevinAnd you could be lying to me, so don't. Don't at me. He's. And he got second choice, I think, to pick any president you want to do. And he picked Grover Cleveland.JulieOkay, Now.KevinEither one of you know any interesting information about Grover Cleveland?JulieNo. Nope.KevinNo. Apparently, allegedly he is the only president to serve two terms that were nonconsecutive.JulieMm.KevinHe was both the 22nd and the 24th president of the United States and had an incredible mustache.BethHe did that. That is true.KevinOh, all right. That's actually it. We're done now. The show is over. Have a good week. We'll see you next time.JulieBye bye. The post Ep 303: Things We Never Need To Say In The Industry Ever Again appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 302: The Measure of SuccessIn this episode, Kevin Oakly, Andrew Peek and Jen Barkan! The team is currently participating in fantasy football and Jen shares her stats so far. Together, they consider how to measure the success of an ad if it doesn't become a lead and talk about how everything is hanging on interest rates right now. Spicy Kevin makes several appearances and keeps the conversation interesting!Story Time (06:34)Andrew is trying to figure out how you measure the success of a phone call or ad if it doesn't end up becoming a lead? Or can it be considered successful at all?Jen's daughter is going through the vet school application process and it's made her compare that process to people applying for The Nationals this year.Kevin says that managers and senior leaders who have zero desire to unpack why things are working are insecure in their own ability with what would be revealed. News (31:26)New sustainability tools help businesses and cities map environmental information (https://blog-google.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-apis-environment-sustainability/amp/)In Its First Monopoly Trial of Modern Internet Era, U.S. Sets Sights on Google (https://dnyuz.com/2023/09/06/in-its-first-monopoly-trial-of-modern-internet-era-u-s-sets-sights-on-google/)Mortgage demand drops to 27-year low as interest rates pull back (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/06/mortgage-demand-drops-to-27-year-low-as-interest-rates-pull-back.html)ONE+ By Rocket Mortgage® Is A 1% Down Payment Option (https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/one-plus?qls=QNS_20180523.0123456789)Favorites/Hates (59:50)Andrew watched a documentary film called “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” on Amazon. Jen loves that college football is back!Kevin's favorite is a sports jacket and a youtube video by Kyla Scanlon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdBSaG2cujM Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities can be found at Do You Convert All Access or on the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.Subscribe on iTunesFollow on SpotifyListen On StitcherA weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We're here to help you – not to sell you!Transcript:KevinJen do you know who you want to trade?JenWell, I tried to pull one over on Jackie Lipinski and tried to get Justin Jefferson from her, as if she didn't know who that was. But I did. I did try to offer her a couple of really good legit players, but she denied me.KevinOh.JenYes, I have not.KevinYou're a fantasy football professional, so can you talk right now who's like, if you had to call it right now, who has the best team? Do you think?JenUm, I mean, Jackie has a pretty good team. Mike has a pretty good team. I have a pretty decent team. I mean, I'm really not a professional. I just like to pretend that I know what you want.KevinRight. You won that unicorn trophy.AndrewIt's great.JenYeah, I won.AndrewIt's gold.JenI won once. Yes, but it's really just. It's really just luck. Plus, the way that we do it, guys, is this auto draft. So it's not even like you, you just, just auto automatically picks your players. You don't really have any say in what's.AndrewGoing to have the winners decided with the auto draft.JenSort of yeah.AndrewWell if you don't like such a.JenLineup it says projected standings with Mike Ryan and first place.AndrewSo happens every year somehow.JenTrying to.KevinRAZ Ev