Podcasts about Professional Builder

"The enormity of the challenges we have in front of us right now, in terms of the deficit of housing, just requires all of us to work together." This episode revisits the National Housing Supply Summit in March 2025! In this conversation, Devon Tilly and co-host Dennis Steigerwalt chats with Matt Hoffman and Stephen O'Conner about affordable housing, the new administration, and the White Paper: Federal Policy Opportunities to Expand Housing Supply. Request a copy of the White Paper here: https://housingsupply.us/ Our co-host Dennis is active in all things real estate with a specific focus on innovation in the residential development and homebuilding ecosystems. He is a ULI Residential Neighborhood Product Council member, a Professional Builder 40 under 40 recipient, and an active member of Geek Estate. In his spare time he enjoys big adventures with his wife and sons on the water and in the mountains. Dennis is the president of the Housing Innovation Alliance, a future oriented community for production homebuilding. The Housing Innovation Summit is the best place to get engaged + connected where you'll gather insights + have a voice at each turn. The 2025 Summit is co-hosted by the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh. We'll be at Phipps Conservatory in the Oakland neighborhood and hosting Innovation in Action tours around Pittsburgh. Matt Hoffman has spent his career applying his strategy, business development, and innovation skills to solving problems that create growth and opportunity in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. With over 20 years' experience building businesses in the housing and technology sectors, in February 2024 he completed a two-year assignment as the Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service at the General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees the U.S. government's civilian real estate portfolio of more than 365 million square feet. His core focus was the implications of “the future of work” on the office portfolio and transitioning federal buildings to net zero emissions. He helped launch the federal government's Workplace Innovation Lab (WIL) and federal coworking offering (think WeWork just for federal employees). He represented GSA on the White House's housing supply interagency policy council. Based in the Washington, DC area, Matt has a passion for finding housing solutions for the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD) community and currently chairs the real estate finance committee of Benedictine Programs & Services, which helps I/DD children and adults achieve their greatest potential. He is a graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (MPP) and Brown University (BA). Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. O'Connor has been deeply involved in addressing the multifaceted challenges surrounding the crisis in affordable housing. His long and effective history of advocacy focuses on the promotion of equitable housing opportunities through the development of inclusive communities to enhance the quality of life for diverse populations. With a Ph.D. in Planning and Public Policy, Dr. O'Connor's expertise extends across various sectors within the housing spectrum, including affordable housing finance, housing policy analysis, and land use planning. He is often called upon by governmental agencies, political campaigns, and non-profit organizations to help develop effective policy frameworks and practical interventions to address housing disparities. As an educator, Dr. O'Connor is committed to developing the next generation of housing advocates, developers, and policymakers. He serves as a mentor and a teacher, inspiring students to explore the intersection of housing, social equity, and public policy. His dynamic teaching style and hands-on approach are informed by more than thirty years of housing industry experience. Personally, Dr. O'Connor and his wife, Sandy, have served long tenures with several medical mission charities. In addition, they have founded two 501(c)(3) organizations to raise money for cure-focused medical research. They have two children and two beautiful grandsons.   Read James Rouse's book: https://a.co/d/4cVwaKN Read the "Abundance" book:  https://a.co/d/1N0kr4e Keep up with the Art of Construction (AOC) podcast on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn! Subscribe to us and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

Want to SCALE your construction biz? Book your strategy call here: https://tpb.tools/pod-call Your sales process is probably what’s costing you projects - not your building skills or your pricing. In this episode, we reveal the five critical mistakes builders make during their first prospect interactions that cost them thousands in lost contracts over time. We break down a proven triage call framework that helps construction businesses position themselves as the expert, uncover client motivations, and build the confidence needed to win more profitable jobs. You’ll also learn why "speed to lead" matters so much in construction, how to use "minimal encouragers" to dig deeper into a prospects needs, and why having a visible checklist creates instant credibility. We go on to explain how to create micro-commitments that make the final decision feel natural, and share specific strategies for addressing common concerns around timelines, budgets, and financial security. Key moments: 00:01:05 Transfer Conviction Through Process 00:02:48 Call Leads Within 24 Hours 00:03:46 Expert Questions Build Trust 00:04:38 80% Emotion Drives Decisions 00:05:54 Visible Checklist 00:07:28 Beat Price Objections 00:08:29 Show Project-Specific Success Stories 00:09:23 Create Micro-Commitments 00:10:51 Book Next Steps With Both Decision Makers Tune in today to transform your approach to winning new clients, convert more leads, and book yourself out 6-12 months in advance with higher-margin projects. -

In this episode of the Third Thursday Podcast, host Branden Bodendorfer dives deep into two powerful and contrasting leadership styles—being a bridge that connects people and a lighthouse that provides guidance and clarity. With thoughtful reflection and practical insight, Branden explores how these leadership metaphors apply to real-world team dynamics and how understanding when to use each style can elevate your influence. Drawing from personal experiences and lessons learned, Branden shares how he evolved from relying solely on visionary leadership to recognizing the importance of relational leadership. He opens up about past leadership missteps and offers a compelling case for balancing connection with direction. You'll also learn how the Key2Success Planner, especially the Professional Builder and Team Builder tools, can help you identify your leadership role each day—whether that's unifying your team or standing firm to guide them forward.

Want to SCALE your construction biz? Book your strategy call here: https://tpb.tools/pod-call There’s a simple 4-step process that transforms change orders and variations into profits for your construction business. Most builders and construction companies lose money on change orders and variations. But with the ACES framework - variations can become profitable. One Sydney-based construction company implemented this framework and consistently increased its project margins from 22-23% to 26-27% by properly managing variations. Tune in to discover: ✅Why proper variation management prevents costly disputes with clients ✅How to avoid doing work for free ✅Practical strategies like charging administration fees for pricing variations ✅Why weekly variation meetings with clients eliminate "surprise" bills ✅How to train your team to recognize and document change orders properly Key Moments: 00:00:43 The ACES formula 00:01:40 Increased margins00:03:46 Anticipate variations before they happen00:04:33 Capture all changes in writing00:05:13 Charge fees for this00:06:22 Price variations for maximum profit00:06:58 Account for timeline extensions00:07:30 Create bulletproof variation management system Ready to stop the profit leakage? Click play to discover how the ACES framework can revolutionize your construction business and protect your bottom line. - Free training: https://info.theprofessionalbuilder.com/151ways -

Stop chasing low-paying clients! Your most valuable asset in your construction business isn’t your tools or skills - it’s your ability to attract premium clients who value quality construction. In this episode, Owen and Marti reveal how builders can use simple marketing strategies to position themselves as trusted authorities. Tune in to discover: ✅Effective marketing strategies for construction companies (these are easy to implement and work like crazy) ✅The key differences between being a generalist, a specialist, and the sought-after authority in your construction niche. ✅Why relying on a single marketing channel is a recipe for disaster and how diversification creates stable, predictable growth for your building business. ✅Actionable strategies like leveraging strategic alliances with real estate agents and architects, implementing a lucrative referral program, and developing persuasive client case studies. You’ll also learn a highly-effective qualification process to identify ideal clients, weed out time-wasters, and ensure project budgets align with your scope of work. Which means you’ll be able to pre-qualify leads and avoid costly mismatches. Key moments: 00:02:48 Dream Project Criteria 00:04:44 Become The Authority 00:05:49 Trust-Building Tools 00:07:46 Introduce Your Dream Team 00:10:45 The Dream 100 Strategy 00:13:30 Profitable Referral System 00:15:50 High-Intent Lead Generation 00:17:13 Showcase Success Stories 00:20:15 Qualify Fast Ready to transform your construction business? This episode provides the blueprint for securing profitable projects 6-12 months in advance, perfectly matched to your expertise and business goals. Tune in now to learn how to attract high-paying clients and fill your project pipeline. - Want to convert MORE of the leads you get? Download our FREE 10-step sales process: https://info.theprofessionalbuilder.com/10step-sales-process -

In this episode of The Builder's Ladder, we talk with Corey Brown, owner of Kiwi Built in Wellington. Corey shares his journey from working for others to running his own successful small business specialising in high-end heritage renovations. Corey reveals the lessons learned and struggles overcome while growing Kiwi Built - sharing actionable advice for builders, remodelers, and tradespeople looking to scale effectively. Tune in to discover: ✅Building Systems for Success: Learn how Corey transitioned from doing everything himself to implementing systems that give him his life back and allow for scalable growth. ✅Strategic Partnerships for Growth: Hear about the power of collaborating with architects and other professionals to pre-sell services and expand your reach. ✅Financial Management for Profitability: Learn how real-time budget tracking and accurate quantity surveying can maximise your profit margins. ✅The Importance of Community and Mentorship: Hear how finding positive communities and investing in business coaching accelerated Corey's growth. ✅Developing a Skilled Workforce: Learn Corey's strategies for finding, training, and retaining talented tradespeople in a competitive market. Tune in now and learn from Corey's experience - to get insights to help you scale your building business effectively. Key moments: 00:02:00 Starting Kiwi Built00:03:00 Wife runs the office00:05:00 Real-time budget tracking00:06:59 3D model pricing00:08:02 Delegate, don't DIY00:10:05 Marketing strategy evolution00:12:30 Seamless villa renovations00:16:20 Coaching builds confidence00:19:56 No weekend work00:22:00 Positive builder communities00:23:02 Training restoration apprentices -

In todays episode, Marti from The Professional Builder interviews me on the top habits and tweaks busy business owners can take to get their body and energy back on their sideTop Giveaways: https://bodyreset.online/top-giveaways/Want our health to upgrade your body and energy? Go here: https://bodyreset.onlineIf you're new to my channel, my name is Olly Wood. I'm the founder of Body Reset, focused on improving the health and performance of busy professionals over 40. How I got here…2015: Started my career as a fitness professional after doing a full 180 on my corporate career trajectory.2016: Facilitated in-person up-skill workshops for clients and fellow PTs in exercise and movement.2017: Added an online element to my 1:1 coaching to add community and key nutrition and recovery resources to help my clients get results quicker.2019: Expanded my online reach as I continued to help more and more busy professionals in their mid 40s & 50s.2020: Launched a 12-week Gut Reset program to help as many people as possible get their health back on track through lockdowns.2021: Brought in key team members to help go deeper into the areas of bloodwork and menopause as we passed 150 members.2023: Passed 300 members and had a team of 15 helping support our clients across the world.Today: Body Reset has helped over 4000 members get their body and energy back on track with a team across the world as we continue to innovate and refine our core programs to achieve better results faster for our members. These videos we put out for free are to help as many people as possible take the first step (or the next step) in their health journey to show up as their best without short term diets or fads.In your corner,Olly► 4 Ways I Can HelpWork With Us Directly: https://bodyreset.online/Free Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/624778944323289YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OllyWoodMPInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ollywoodnz/

The difference between a struggling and thriving construction business isn't volume - it's controlling the four profit levers most building business owners never touch. While most chase revenue, top builders and contractors maintain 25% margins by mastering these hidden profit zones Tune in as we expose why revenue pursuit without profit focus keeps builders trapped on the hamster wheel. You'll discover exactly how top-performing construction companies maintain 20-25% profit margins while staying booked 6-12 months in advance with quality projects. Discover: ✅ How one Sydney builder grew from $1.5M to $8.5M in just two years using these exact strategies ✅ Why most builders confuse markup with margin, instantly reducing profits by 3-4% on every job ✅ The simple daily accountability systems that improved one builder's project profits by 27% without complex software ✅ How properly handling variations can increase your gross margin from 21% to 27% on high-end projects Key moments: 00:03:50 Profit over revenue00:05:00 Pricing for profit00:07:20 Markup versus margin00:09:50 Track labor hours00:11:40 Visibility creates accountability00:12:10 Variations bring profit00:15:20 Control your progress00:17:20 Beyond price competition00:18:50 Free profit tool Check out this episode to stop pricing to win work and start pricing for profit. - Access your FREE 4-lever profit calculator and resources:https://info.theprofessionalbuilder.com/4growthlevers-training -Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder’s Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business. Follow TPB for more:

76% of construction business owners spend 15+ hours a week on tasks their foreman could handle Today, we’re exploring why 80% of your building project's success depends on your foreman - and how to transform this role from a glorified carpenter into your mini-CEO. We dive deep into practical systems for empowering your foreman with clear scorecards, ‘Wildly Important Goals’ (WIGs), and accountability measures that drive results. You’ll see how to create visibility across your projects, implement default calendars to eliminate constant interruptions, and build competitive performance tracking between sites - so you can boost company-wide success. Key Moments: 00:01:20 The foreman escape plan00:02:20 Foreman-appropriate tasks00:03:30 Busy builder vs business owner 00:04:40 Foreman scorecards00:06:40 Site success = company-wide performance00:07:10 Visibility equals accountability00:08:20 Default calendars00:12:10 PSR method for problem-solving 00:14:10 Three delegation questions 00:18:10 Foreman and project pricing Tune in now to escape the "busy builder" trap and become a true business owner by leading your foreman the right way. -

There's a critical difference between being a great builder and running a great construction company. Most builders are working 60+ hours weekly yet struggle to break past mediocre margins. This is because running a successful building company requires an entirely different skillset AND mindset than being a great builder. In this episode of The Builders Ladder Podcast, TPB growth advisor Josh shares what he's learned from analysing thousands of building company financials - along with guiding contractors through business transformation. Tune in to discover: ✅ Why 70% of builders can't track their true margins (and how to fix this) ✅ The "golden ratios" profitable building companies hit (this is about gross profit, net profit, & overheads) ✅ Specific mindset shifts required to evolve from "busy builder" to strategic business owner ✅ How to stop wearing all the hats without sacrificing quality or control Plus, you’ll hear about what separates builders who achieve remarkable transformations from those who stay stuck working IN their business rather than ON it. Key moments: 00:01:10 Josh's background 00:05:30 Financial numbers 00:06:20 Golden ratios 00:08:40 Surrounding yourself success 00:11:50 Top 5% do this 00:13:30 Sports team vs a family 00:15:10 The "stop doing list" for builders 00:17:40 Working ON vs. IN your business 00:19:10 When to check numbers -

There are hidden costs in your construction business which could be killing your profits. David Baker, founder of RapidQS, joins us for another episode of The Builders Ladder podcast to share exactly why most builders are silently losing money on every project. After losing $2,500 on a $6,000 bathroom renovation early in his career, David discovered a key pricing element most building business owners overlook - properly accounting for time and management costs. In this episode, David shares: ✅Why sitting at your desk pricing jobs at night isn't "free time" - it's profit walking out the door ✅The exact “P&G” costs you must include on every quote (from site admin to vehicle charges) ✅How his company scaled from 2 jobs per week to 140 monthly by mastering these fundamentals ✅Why growth often means lower initial profits (and how to navigate this transition) Plus, discover RapidQS's journey from small local operation to international expansion. Including candid insights about the realities of scaling a construction-focused business. Key moments: 00:02:10 Beyond materials and labor00:03:20 New builds & small jobs00:06:00 Site protection costs 00:08:20 Losing money on jobs 00:13:30 Growth = smaller margins 00:18:30 What to focus on in tough times00:24:00 Create content to save time & energy00:30:50 The best partnerships Tune in for practical wisdom about pricing, leadership, and finding your "zone of genius" in a growing construction company. -

Imagine structuring your week so effectively that you only need to visit sites once or twice a week, while your residential building business runs better than ever. Join your host, Marti Amos, for another episode of The Builders Ladder podcast - where he shares the ‘perfect week formula’ successful residential builders are using to scale & operate their $10M-$25M+ building businesses. Most building companies hit a ceiling at $2M-$5M because they're trapped by the "no one can do it like me" mindset. Learn how to break free using Marti's proven frameworks and strategies, including: ✅The specific activities $10M-$25M+ builders focus on (and what they deliberately ignore) ✅How to structure your perfect week for maximum impact with minimum hours ✅The "Business Maturity Date" concept that helps you plan your exit from daily operations ✅Exactly how to train your team to handle problems without constantly needing you Whether you're doing $1M or $10M, if you're tired of being chained to your business and want to build a building company that runs without your constant involvement - pay close attention to this episode. - Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder’s Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business. Follow TPB for more:

If you’ve been curious about breaking into luxury residential construction, this episode of The Builders Ladder provides a realistic roadmap for you - from someone who's built this path over 15+ years. Award-winning builder Stephen Malinger shares his journey from doing decks and bathroom renovations to becoming Sydney's leading specialist in bespoke architectural and luxury homes. With achievements, including the 2021 HIA-CSR Australian Home of the Year, Stephen reveals how he built Mallinger Construction's reputation in the premium market - including a recent $180,000 bathroom renovation that showcases the scope of truly high-end work. Tune into hear about key elements that differentiate successful luxury builders, including: Creating professional documentation that resonates with architects and wealthy clients Building relationships with 6-15 person architectural firms for consistent premium work Managing weekly payment schedules and cashflow on multi-million projects Structuring contracts to protect yourself on complex, multi-year builds Understanding when to use cost-plus vs fixed price models Whether you're currently running a standard building company looking to step up, or already operating in the premium building space but wanting to improve your systems - this episode provides practical insights for building a sustainable high-end residential construction business. Key moments: 00:03:00 Journey from basic building to luxury projects00:07:00 Positioning strategies for premium builders00:12:00 Marketing approaches that work in luxury00:21:00 Building strong architect relationships00:26:00 Managing high-end client expectations00:32:00 Navigating complex contract structures00:44:00 Cashflow management in luxury projects00:50:00 Keys to successful market transition Listen now to learn how to transition to a high-end residential builder - while avoiding the common pitfalls that catch many builders off guard.https://www.facebook.com/groups/TPBmember: https://www.facebook.com/TheProfessionalBuilderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’re a building company owner, you’re probably stuck doing EVERYTHING in your business - while a never-ending to-do list keeps you up at night. All for painfully low margins. Which means no rewards, holidays, or fun from all your hard work. This episode of The Builders Ladder podcast aims to change that for you. You’ll hear about the three critical challenges that keep most builders trapped working 80-hour weeks… And the proven systems to break free - so you can grow your construction company to create the business and lifestyle you deserve. Join your hosts, Marti, and The Professional Builder’s very own growth advisor, Brynn Wilson. They share why builders struggle with cash flow, unreliable teams, and razor-thin margins. Tune in to discover: Why most builders are trapped handling day-to-day tasks instead of growing their business How one Aussie company tripled their revenue to $9M, cleared $400k of debt, and nearly doubled their personal salary The crucial difference between accounting profit and what actually lands in your pocket Why marketing should focus on conversion rather than traffic The systems needed to step away from day-to-day operations Whether you're drowning in admin work or ready to scale, get practical strategies that’ve helped thousands of builders like you transform their companies. Key moments: 00:01:40 - Three main challenges most building businesses face00:06:35 - What marketing must focus on00:08:35 - Real vs accounting profit 00:11:00 - Calculate your Professional Builder's Rate00:13:35 - How two builders transformed their business00:21:15 - The importance of working ON vs IN your business00:24:35 - Five key levers that impact business success00:29:05 - Why mentorship accelerates business transformation - Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder’s Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business. Follow TPB for more:

Every building business owner knows the pressure of running a construction business can quickly stack up. But what if there was a proactive approach to maintaining mental fitness - focused on prevention rather than crisis? In this powerful episode, Rafael Caso from ‘Live Well Build Well’ reveals their unique "tradie-led" program that's transforming mental health in construction. Rather than lectures from experts, they showcase real builders sharing what actually works. You'll discover: • The simple yet effective "5 S Framework" for mental fitness that can improve your mental health and business performance • Practical techniques for transitioning from work mode to home life… so you can actually SWITCH OFF after work • How to harness the power of small, consistent habits to achieve major wellbeing gains • Ways to assess and improve your mental fitness starting today Key moments: 00:02:36 Rafael’s journey 00:06:05 LiveWell Build Well's mission to boost mental fitness 00:08:02 Hacking sleep, eating and work routines00:13:19 The power of sharing relatable stories & strategies 00:17:17 Why mental health issues are so prevalent in construction 00:22:22 New partnerships and programs in the pipeline00:26:02 How builders can become industry wellbeing champions00:28:29 Marti and Rafael's favourite tools for mental fitness This episode provides actionable strategies for business owners in the construction industry. - Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder’s Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business. Follow TPB for more:

"There are different approaches that can be used to make sure we are on the right path for different sorts of {climate} goals." This podcast focuses on the Housing Innovation Summit this coming May 2025. We encourage our listeners and partners to share and engage with us during this conference coverage! In this conversation, Devon Tilly and co-host Dennis Steigerwalt chats with Dr. Eric Holt of the University of Denver, and Dr. Melissa Bilec of the University of Pittsburgh. They discuss the history of the HIA Summit at the University of Denver and talk about the summit's new home this spring 2025 at the University of Pittsburgh. Keep up with the Art of Construction (AOC) podcast on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn! Our co-host Dennis is active in all things real estate with a specific focus on innovation in the residential development and homebuilding ecosystems. He is a ULI Residential Neighborhood Product Council member, a Professional Builder 40 under 40 recipient, and an active member of Geek Estate. In his spare time he enjoys big adventures with his wife and sons on the water and in the mountains. Dennis is the president of the Housing Innovation Alliance, a future oriented community for production homebuilding. The Housing Innovation Summit is the best place to get engaged + connected where you'll gather insights + have a voice at each turn. The 2025 Summit is co-hosted by the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh. We'll be at Phipps Conservatory in the Oakland neighborhood and hosting Innovation in Action tours around Pittsburgh. Dr. Melissa Bilec is a prominent voice in sustainable engineering, climate change solutions, and environmental justice. She co-directs the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, a University-wide center promoting sustainable research and education. She serves as the Special Assistant to the Provost for Sustainability. Dr. Bilec's research is dedicated to developing sustainable solutions for buildings and healthcare to tackle climate change. Her work aims to mitigate climate change and address global waste challenges by advancing circular economy principles in the built environment. At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Bilec has led greenhouse gas inventories since 2008 and serves on the Chancellor's Sustainability Council to guide the University's climate strategy. She has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles and secured over $20 million in funding. Her earlier work focused on community-based infrastructure projects, including transforming a century-old hot metal bridge into a pedestrian bridge. Dr. Bilec led Civil and Environmental Engineering's inaugural Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Committee and serves as the co-faculty advisor for the Pitt Society for Women Engineers.  Dr. Eric Holt is a Professor of the Practice in the Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management at the University of Denver (DU). He teaches Construction Building Systems, Introduction to Architecture & Design Management, and Construction Estimating.  He has 30 years of experience in the construction industry. His career includes construction material sales and marketing, plan reviewer and building inspector, custom/production home project manager, and small business owner and architectural designer for new homes and remodeling projects. Eric earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University in Construction Management. He serves on the NAHB Student Chapter Advisory Board at the national level and as the DU NAHB Student Chapter Faculty Advisor. His research focuses on the housing industry around alternative building methods, workforce development, affordability, and the technology utilized in homebuilding construction. Read more about the Burns School of Real Estate at the University of Denver! Subscribe to us and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

Most builders take on every job they can get, yet struggle to make the profits they deserve. Stephen Mallinger does something different. He picks just 2-3 high-end projects at a time. As a result, he’s built a profitable building business - without the constant chaos. In today’s episode of The Builders Ladder, Stephen shares his proven approach to cost-plus contracts… Building lasting relationships with staff and subcontractors… And creating a business model that prioritizes excellence over volume - for long-term stability and profits. Key takeaways include: How to attract and win luxury projects (even if you're currently stuck in a low-margin market) The advantages of “trust & transparency” that has wealthy clients choosing YOU over your competitors Proven strategies to build a loyal team that stays for years (Stephen reveals how he's retained team members for over two decades) How to escape the "volume trap" and improve profits with just a handful of premium projects at a time Whether you're struggling with pricing, team management, or finding your market position - Stephen provides battle-tested insights for building a sustainable, profitable construction business that works for you. Not the other way around. Key moments: 00:00:30 From apprentice builder to running his own business at 2000:04:50 Building high-end projects & winning industry awards00:07:35 Approach to managing teams and ensuring quality00:14:35 Importance of contracts and transparent pricing00:21:10 Work-life balance and daily schedule00:24:20 Cost-plus model explained 00:31:35 Building and maintaining contractor relationships - Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder’s Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business. Follow TPB for more:

Too many builders stay stuck on the tools, unable to step back from their building business to grow it with tools like social media. And when they do manage to grow, they’re often left putting out fires on multiple sites and dealing with team dramas. David Baker, founder of Rapid QS, joins us to share his practical approach to building an A+ team, market expansion, and content creation — including the mindset shifts that helped him stop being a slave to his business. Listen to discover: ✔ Insights on scaling a business rapidly while maintaining quality through strategic hiring, content creation, and market expansion ✔ Specific instructions to use in job ads to quickly identify detail-oriented candidates and instantly bin those who don't meet your standards ✔ The "Omnipresence Strategy" that has potential clients seeing you everywhere (without burning out or living on social media) ✔ The real reason why successful builders treat their business like a sports team instead of a family ✔ A profitable marketing opportunity most builders are missing (one builder used this to generate 150 leads in one weekend, with a 30% close rate, and $2.25M in potential revenue) ✔ Plus More This conversation covers all aspects of growing a successful construction business — from marketing and content, to team building and culture. Key Moments: 04:15 Why marketing needs fame AND fortune05:30 Investing in team development23:40 Creating marketing omnipresence 29:35 Handling debt collection and business relationships34:50 Running business like a sports team vs family35:35 Rapid team growth - Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder’s Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business. Follow TPB for more:

Sick of babysitting your team when you should be running your construction business? In today's episode of The Builders Ladder, we break down a no-nonsense system for sorting your A-players from the deadweight that's costing you time and money on site. Once you've got the right crew firing on all cylinders, you can finally step back from constantly putting out fires and micromanaging every decision. You'll get battle-tested tools for running toolbox talks that actually stick, simple scorecards that keep everyone accountable, and proven ways to invest your time where it matters — growing the business instead of chasing up mistakes. Plus, discover why treating your staff like a professional sports team (not a family) is the key to better margins and smoother projects. Key moments 00:00 Welcome and Episode Introduction03:00 The Core Concept: Growing Your Team06:15 The Daily Stand-up Framework 09:40 The Team Ranking Exercise15:45 Managing Your B-Players18:45 "80% of Effort Goes to Non-Performers"21:05 Finding and Training Support Staff - Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder’s Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business. Follow TPB for more:

Every builder wants more premium clients. But relying on word-of-mouth or waiting for the next job to come in is risky business. You need a solid plan, especially heading into 2025. Join us as we share the lead generation systems our top TPB members used to crush 2024 (and continue to use in 2025). If landing consistent jobs is a sore point for you… Today’s episode gives you a 2025 Marketing game plan for more leads, more jobs, and more contracts with quality clients. Tune in to discover: ✔ Why waiting for referrals isn't enough in 2025 ✔ What's really stopping clients from choosing you — and how to fix it so you win more jobs ✔ The proven lead strategy: 10 ways to attract clients who value quality and pay what you're worth ✔ How to turn more quotes into signed contracts ✔ Plus more If you're tired of chasing dead-end quotes and want to start booking premium projects in 2025, this episode shows you how. Key moments: 00:00 Intro 02:10 Why word-of-mouth is unreliable 05:20 How many customers are ready to buy 06:30 The five key customer concerns in construction 09:30 How to nurture leads 15:30 The 10x10 strategy for more leads - Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder's Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business.

Many construction companies would kill for more development projects with less cash down. In this episode of The Builders Ladder, Ammon Acarapi from Loan Market Development Finance explains how to do just that.  He shares how non-bank funding is helping builders and developers take on more projects with less money. Ammon's approach offers construction companies and developers a big boost, including:  Up to 80% LVR on pre-sold properties.  Flexible financing based on the final property value.  An equity-based lending method that skips income checks.  These options can lower the barriers for construction companies to expand. Could this mean traditional bank loans are no longer needed for building businesses? We'll let you be the judge of that after this episode. Tune in to discover: ✔The legal and ethical “funding hack” that lets you start projects with just 20% of the usual cash ✔How one developer funded seven times more projects (without using a bank) ✔Why top developers are ditching banks to speed up approvals ✔How to fund turnkey projects without massive cash deposits ✔Why cash flow might not matter in your next project — if you use this tool ✔Plus More! Whether you're just starting or looking to scale — this episode offers tools and tips to level up your building business. Key Points: 00:00 Intro 04:45 Lending & equity. 15:11 High-yield investments 22:39 Non-bank lending benefits 29:08 Get this before development funding 32:11 Keys to success - Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder's Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business.   Podcast Exclusive! Get 151 'Tips & Tricks' that could add $250k to your bottom line:  https://info.theprofessionalbuilder.com/151ways

The construction industry isn't female-friendly, right? Wrong! Sara Johnson, CEO of ITM, joins us to share her path from marketing expert to business leader in the construction industry.  In this talk, Sara tells us why old ideas about construction are wrong. Instead, she explains how the industry welcomes women more than most people think.  Listen as Sara also shares how being curious helps leaders succeed — and why it matters most for business owners. Y ou'll also hear why ITM's team-based business model works so well.  (Hint: It's based on building trust between local business owners.) Sara offers clear steps to building a strong and lasting construction business. These lessons about leading and staying strong will help any building business owner succeed. Tune in to discover: ✔One important leadership trait that makes or breaks a building business CEO ✔Why curiosity is your secret weapon as a construction business owner ✔The marketing mindset that turns marketers into CEOs ✔The surprising truth about how women are treated in the construction industry  ✔Experienceing tough times? See how to lead a team through challenging market cycles ✔Why failing can be better for you than succeeding We've spent 20 years helping building companies succeed. We're pumped to see women taking on every kind of job in construction. Key Points: 04:40 – Insights from a global team 09:50 – From marketer to CEO (success traits) 16:50 – ITM's community-focused business advantage 22:50 – Overcoming stereotypes as a woman in construction 30:20 – ITM's approach to education and mental health support 34:00 – Traits sought in ITM store owners  - Our construction business coaching has helped 2,500+ building companies succeed. Subscribe to The Builder's Ladder Podcast for weekly, actionable insights — tailored to help you grow a profitable construction business.   FREE 10-step framework to close more construction deals: https://info.theprofessionalbuilder.com/10step-sales-process-5

Running a construction business can be challenging, but with the right guidance, success is within reach. In this episode, we sit down with Marti Amos, founder of The Professional Builder, and David Baker, Director of Rapid QS, to explore Marti's journey from overcoming financial hardship to building a thriving global enterprise.Tune in as Marti shares valuable lessons learned along the way, including: How to take a business from making millions but struggling with profit, to sustainable success with proven frameworks. Key hires that can help free up your time and increase efficiency. The importance of hiring a QS to improve your project management. Navigating tough times and the strategies  Tips for hiring top talent and fostering business growth. 2:38 Marti's background and starting TPB 10:10 Transforming a business for profit with plug-and-play frameworks 17:04 The first crucial hire to buy back your time 20:16 Why hiring a QS is a game-changer 24:19 Marti's toughest challenges and how he overcame them 31:18 Growth at TPB and a secret hiring tip 37:00 Marti's new book   At The Builder's Ladder Podcast, we're your partners in building a thriving construction business. Subscribe now for weekly episodes packed with actionable tips. Follow TPB for more: -https://www.instagram.com/theprofessionalbuilder/ Get your business health audit + free resources (including website audit) here -  https://www.theprofessionalbuilder.comhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/TPBmember: https://www.facebook.com/TheProfessionalBuilderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's time to build a thriving construction business, not just survive another day.   In the 2nd part of our Q&A Series, Owen and Courtenay discuss The Builder's Ladder. This is TPB's roadmap from startup to significance in the residential construction industry.   Learn about The Professional Builder's approach that focuses on: • Systemized steps to build a thriving business. • Understanding key metrics to drive growth. • Monthly performance checks and ongoing community support.   The episode also covers: • The Business Performance Check (BPC), TPB's process for monitoring construction business health monthly • The Health Audit, a self-assessment tool to determine if TPB's program is the right fit for you • TPB's targeted programs to address specific needs at different stages of business growth • How to use the Professional Builder's Rate (PBR) calculator to optimize your work hours • Strategies for overcoming key challenges faced at the $3M and $10M revenue milestones   Take control of your construction business and achieve long-term success.    Tune in to the full episode and explore the free resources mentioned in the episode below:

We're almost halfway through 2024. Have you achieved most of the business goals you set this year? If not, this short, action-packed episode can help you. Our goal at TPB is simple. It's to help builders get booked out with 6-12 months of profitable projects. Bump up their gross profit margin to 20%. And win back at least 8 hours a week. In this podcast episode, we're recapping how we've helped over 200+ builders achieve this in 2024 so far. From slashing their marketing down to 20 minutes thanks to some handy AI tools… To stopping on-site fires breaking out each day… We'll pinpoint what's working right now in the industry to help our TPB members make more profits, win back their time, and remove them as the bottleneck. And we're investing heavily to ensure our members get these results even faster the next 6 months. Here's what we discuss in this episode: • The sales and marketing strategies used by TPB members to book out their pipelines for 6-12 months (00:55) • How to leverage the shared best practices inside the TPB community for growth (03:38) • The mindset you need to break free from feeling stuck and take control (08:22) • Tips on hiring and managing a team that buys you back time (10:57) Celebrate these milestones with us and listen to the wise words of Marti, Owen, and Vinnie here on The Builder's Ladder Podcast. Tune in now! Join Our Community

A HUGE episode that a lot of you have been waiting for. We sit down with Marti Amos from Professional Builder to speak about all kinds of ways that builders can improve their business. Tune in now! Instagram: www.instagram.com/rapidqs TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@rapidqsnz Facebook: www.facebook.com/rapidqs LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/90736230 YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCyfrzvUvNx5rnvJuq9cgziQ

As a builder, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day chaos of your business. Before you know it, you're clocking 50-70+ hours a week and the business consumes your entire life. That was the reality Ken faced when he enrolled in The Professional Builder. Listing down the tasks he was doing by himself, he found out he was working for 70+ hours each week. But just 4 months in, he got an initial 40 hours per week of admin tasks off his plate. Plus he hired a site manager who "kicked him off-site", which freed him up even more time to focus on marketing, sales, and systems improvement. Today on The Builders Ladder Podcast, Vinnie and Ken discuss how Ken achieved these results. Tune in to discover: The power of testimonials in growing your construction company (06:06) • How TPB helps builders get unstuck (08:16) • How increased confidence can help your business grow (10:23) • The essential tools and strategies to buy back your time (14:31) • The importance of peer learning and collaboration in your business (15:08) Tune in to this short yet insightful episode and grab these tools that helped Ken free up 70 hours of his week: • Know the tasks to get off your plate: https://tp-b.com/stop-doing-84 • How much is your hourly rate? Check it here: https://tp-b.com/pbr-84 Inspired by Ken's story? Join the 700+ builders who are learning and growing their businesses:

Meet Justin - he's one of The Professional Builder's newest members, joining us over 6 months ago. By approaching our “Growth Accelerator” program like he was "training for a marathon", he has: • filled up his pipeline until July • put systems in place that free him from getting bogged down in day-to-day tasks • Hired a foreman who will save Justin 40 hours/week Today on The Builder's Ladder, Vinnie sits down with Justin where he reveals: • The benefits of implementing systems for your building business (01:18) • How Justin got such significant results in a short period (05:21) • The strategies Justin applied to fill up his pipeline (10:17) • Importance of videos and step-by-step approach to learning (11:40) Here's the link to the “1% Referral System” Justin used to get booked solid in 2024 (free download): https://tp-b.com/1-referral-82 Join Our Community

A lot can change in your business in a few months if you work on the right things, like for the builder in this weeks episode.  Meet Daniel from Sydney. He joined The Professional Builder last October 2023 seeking to scale up his biz. His results speak for themselves: Secured a Steady Pipeline of Projects Built a Team of 6 Freed Up a Day a Week ‍ What changed? Systems for marketing and delegation. Daniel streamlined his marketing system using the lessons he learned in TPB. With more clients coming in, he hired more people and delegated most of his builder tasks to focus on business growth. In this episode, Vinnie, TPB's Head of Member Success, chats with Daniel about: The importance of implementing systems in your business (01:28) How delegation helped Daniel to scale his business faster (09:28) The effective marketing strategies Daniel used to attract the right clients (12:51) How charging for quotes positions you as a premium builder (13:43) Why taking action is key to success (15:59) BONUS: Know which tasks to delegate using our Stop-Doing List: https://tp-b.com/stopdoing-list-81 Reduce mistakes and redo's from your team onsite with with the 287-pt Onsite Checklist: https://tp-b.com/287ptchecklist-81 Leave a review on your preferred podcast platform if you enjoyed this episode.Join Our Community

Running a construction business can feel like wandering in a forest without a map. You keep going in circles until someone shows you the way out. That's where The Professional Builder comes in. We're here to guide you out of the rut and toward success! In this episode, Marti Amos, founder of The Professional Builder, joins David Baker of Rapid QS as a podcast guest. From overcoming bankruptcy to building a globally impactful business, Marti's done it all! He will share the lessons he learned along the way such as: How Marti went from corporate to building business coach (12:55) The importance of adapting your business model to meet the needs of your market. (25:53) How to create a solid sales and marketing strategy for your business. (38:01) Setting a "business maturity date" and strategically hiring team members to scale faster (44:55) Preparing your business for global expansion (from his experiences of expanding TPB internationally) (46:52) Looking to grow your building company in 2024? Marti and David's conversation is the perfect starting point. Tune in to gain valuable insights and actionable strategies for scaling your business! Join Our Community

No man is an island… especially if you're building a business! For almost 2 decades, The Professional Builder has helped 2,500+ builders achieve business growth. We know your struggles because we've seen them all. The key lesson? You don't have to go at it alone! This episode gives you a sneak peek into our thriving community. Discover how TPB empowers builders to: • Fast-track your success using our proven systems that can help you reach your goals (04:50) • Bridge the gaps by showing you how to overcome the biggest hurdles holding you back (08:57) • Gain valuable insights from seasoned builders who have already achieved success (10:40) • Learn how to shift your focus from daily tasks to strategic growth for your business (13:39) Are you ready to build the business of your dreams? The TPB community is about collaboration, support, and achieving incredible results. Excited to say hello to more time, more profits, and a sustainable business? Tune in and see if TPB is the right fit for you! Join Our Community

Has your construction business hit a brick wall? That's totally normal! Builders think more projects are the solution when they hit a profit plateau. Well, they're wrong. Turns out, the sledgehammer you need to smash this figurative brick wall is your identity. How? Marti and Owen are spilling the beans in this episode! They're cracking open "The Professional Builder's Roadmap". This is your guide from starting up your construction biz to growing it to significance. Think of it as your business GPS, with you steering the wheel. Along the drive, you'll wear three hats: builder, business owner, and entrepreneur. Different stages of the biz need different identities to solve their unique problems. But how do you evolve into your final form of entrepreneur extraordinaire? No worries, we're breaking it down like this: Why You're Not Growing from Your Builder Identity 3 Critical Factors to Shift from Builder to Boss 3 Aspects of Accountability for Business Growth Setting things straight for smoother operations How to use performance reviews to level up your team (and yourself!) Building a business that doesn't need you glued to your desk 24/7 Uncovering hidden gems for growth in the construction world Time to ditch the toolbox because you are BUILT TO LEAD! Tune in, write down your takeaways, and start your construction biz journey here!Join Our Community

Life will often take you to places you least expect. What's important is how you design your life with the cards thrown at you. Take Owen's case for example. He's gone from a professional athlete to The Professional Builder's General Manager. How did this happen? Let's find out! Owen Chambers is all about peak performance. As a professional water polo player, he thrives in an environment where he's pushed to his limits. During his off-seasons, he worked construction jobs. He enjoyed the work, atmosphere, and people in the industry, but skill-wise, there's a lot to improve. Over time, he became interested in learning about pricing, processes, and the ins and outs of the biz. This curiosity led him to TPB, where he became one of Marti's first mentees. Eight years later, he's seen TPB grow to where it is today, with over 700+ current members and 2000+ businesses helped. An athlete's mindset revolves around continuous improvement, discipline, and teamwork. This mindset is also crucial for building a sustainable business. Want to achieve consistent, peak performance for your biz? Tune in because we dive into these topics: Community, coaching, and accountability are the 3 pillars of construction business success. Structure and planning are crucial for construction businesses. Invest in your physical and mental well-being. Reframe challenges as opportunities.  Momentum is your friend. Delegate tasks wherever possible. Consistency is key. In TPB, we know that you can always be better every day. That's why we're giving you a weekly dose of inspiring stories and doable advice. Tune in now and take action! Join Our Community

Curious about the men behind The Professional Builder? Allow us to reintroduce ourselves! Let's start with the big boss… Marti Amos is not your run-of-the-mill podcast guest. Well, because he's the host of this show. But his journey coming from a 400-person island to coaching over 2,000 builders to success is worth a gold medal (or more). He started young, learning leverage by hiring his friends for pamphlet duty. Business is in his blood because he finished his degree at Otago University with honors. But life wasn't always sunshine and spreadsheets. Marti faced challenges like parental divorce, setbacks in studies, and even near-bankruptcy. But, he dusted himself off and built TPB to help construction companies thrive. Why serve the construction industry? Find out in this episode! Interjected into Marti's anecdotes are these key takeaways: How to be accountable for your decisions, failures and successes The importance of specialization and focusing on only one business How to systematize operations and drive consistent results The need for sharing knowledge and experiences Why leadership skills and a strong team are crucial for your biz What continuous learning can do for you and your business This episode is a power-packed cocktail of fun, inspiration, and practical wisdom. This year, let's build a business that not only survives but thrives! And don't miss Marti's upcoming book, "The Profitable Builders Playbook". It's filled with actionable strategies to skyrocket your success. Join Our Community

"If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance a lot less." Brad Leavitt is President and Founder of “A Finer Touch Construction” - a Scottsdale based luxury residential and commercial builder. AFT Construction, as known throughout the industry, is an award-winning construction firm and has been nationally published in magazines such as: Fine Home Building, Luxe Interiors and Design, and Professional Builder. Brad was awarded as an “Icon” in the AZ building industry by Sources for Design in October, 2019. He was also recognized as a 2022 Phoenix Titan 100. The Titan 100 program recognizes Phoenix's Top 100 CEO's & C-level executives. They are the area's most accomplished business leaders in their industry using criteria that includes demonstrating exceptional leadership, vision, and passion. Collectively, the Phoenix 2022 Titans have a combined total of annual revenue of $32B and employ more than 85,000 individuals.  Brad Leavitt is an energetic public speaker and ambassador for many national brands including Kohler, Louisiana Pacific, Rinnai. Pella, Subzero-Wolf, Buildertrend, Cambria, and Elkay. Brad completed a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management from BYU in 2005 and worked on notable projects around Phoenix, including the Omni Montelucia in Paradise Valley. His Podcast, “The AFT Construction Podcast”, is focused on bringing value to its listeners, no matter their industry. The topics are focused on marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, organization, building science and construction. AFT has continued to exceed industry standards and create strong client relationships based on integrity, reliability and quality. Brad is married to Ashley Leavitt. Together, they have 6 children, 5 girls and 1 boy.  Brad is active with all 6 of his children, serves in his local community, and loves all sports Mark LaLiberte is the co-founder and president of Construction Instruction. He has dedicated over 30 years to the building industry. Through his lectures, site assistance, Building Better Homes video series and his mobile App, he provides builders, architects and manufacturers with an in-depth look at the current and future state of housing. His work has earned him a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Energy and Environmental Building Alliance (EEBA), where he developed the highly acclaimed Houses that Work lecture series. The HTW Series has been delivered for over 16 years by the Ci team in 100's of North American cities. He was the 2013 Building Science co-chair for the Hanley Wood Vision 2020 project and he has provided technical assistance and a voluntary board position to the Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks, Alaska for over 10 years. Mark also helped develop the training curriculum for the 2012 Repair Corp Project for Habitat for Humanity that provides assistance to improve existing housing for our Veterans. He works with various manufacturers to assist in developing products and services for the next phase of efficient homes. Mark is the co-creator of the Ci App and animation studio, which developed the number one mobile App in the construction industry and builds realistic state of the art contextual animations on building science concepts and technical installation practices. He is also President of Sales Instruction Inc., helping to bridge sales and marketing efforts to our industry. Working with leading industry suppliers and manufacturers, his sales training company creates a common language to drive sales and increase productivity for sales teams. His passion for educating lies in knowing how vital the building industry is.  Building healthy, safe, durable and efficient homes has an effect on the buyer, the builder, the economy and the planet. View Videos of the virtual podcast here: https://youtu.be/ywp9Lr0lWv4 AFT Construction's website: www.aftconstruction.com Listen to the AFT Construction Podcast: www.bradleavitt.com AFT Construction on Instagram @AFT_Construction AFT Construction on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzB4R_DHPVV1SPh7RUfR5jg Construction Instruction website: https://constructioninstruction.com/team/mark-laliberte/ 

What do you need to elevate your business to $10Mil in profits? Is it bagging huge projects? Hiring highly-skilled individuals? Getting the best gear and software?It's cultivating a winning mindset. TPB Boardroom Member Richard Phiskie takes us on his journey from renting a property for his young, small family to expanding Dimension Building, his award-winning company, to a $10Mil construction business.Here are the key takeaways from this amazing session with Rich: Balancing business with his wife and establishing clear boundaries between work and personal time Prioritizing qualities like passion, a willingness to learn, and team compatibility over technical skills when hiring personnel Optimizing time, resources and personnel that enabled Rich to establish a second location in Twizel and expand his team Delegating and promoting staff to bigger responsibilities Marketing and sales process of a premium construction company Creating a loyal, highly-skilled and tight-knit team by being open about sales, P/Ls and construction business know-hows Curious to learn how The Professional Builder can help you create a $10Mil Construction Business and bag numerous awards? Rich's story is a testament to our vision of helping great builders build great businesses. Tune in, jot down notes, and take action ASAP!https://www.facebook.com/groups/TPBmember: https://www.facebook.com/TheProfessionalBuilderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Predictable, Profitable & Professional. Growing your building company in 2024 is about working harder on smarter things.  In this episode of The Builders Ladder podcast, Marti and Owen delve into the common construction business strategies they observed from The Professional Builder's top 5% of members who are in their “Boardroom” program, because, as the saying goes, "Success Leaves Clues." To make this episode more fun, they attempted to wrap up the episode in 24 minutes. Let's find out if they managed to beat the timer! Here are the nuggets they shared in this episode: The best practices of TPB's top 5% that took their construction business to the next level, including reporting of numbers and weekly meeting rhythms.  How they selected better team members and held them accountable to budget timelines, and quality standards. How they began delegating tasks to work ON their construction business rather than IN their business. Hint, it's aligned with their Professional Builders Rate… What numbers they tracked, including W.I.P, Cashflow, Margins, Leads… The importance of having non-negotiables and how they enforced these both on site and in the office… AND with clients. How they managed to get out of their comfort zone and handle the uncomfortable tasks all construction company owners have to handle… From talking to an architect, owner, roofer or team member…  We will explore these takeaways and provide a few examples from our members because here at The Professional Builder, we don't just offer guidelines; we're handing you the entire blueprint to a successful construction business! So crack open a cold one and take some notes on how you can play to win in 2024.https://www.facebook.com/groups/TPBmember: https://www.facebook.com/TheProfessionalBuilderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Success isn't relevant to how hard you work. You can be lazy and successful all the same time by winning the property investment game. And this is exactly how David Leon did it.  David Leon is an entrepreneur, property investor, property coach, worldwide renowned public speaker, and author of multiple books, including Lazy, Happy, and Successful.  In this episode of The Builder's Ladder Podcast, David will take us on his journey on how he turned his laziness into something positive and reached his level of success today by winning the property investment game.  Here's what to expect in this episode:  How David started real estate when he had no money Winning the property investment game through long-term vision Business philosophy to minimize risk Laziness can be a good thing The importance of surrounding yourself with better and smarter people This episode is your treasure chest, filled with nuggets of wisdom to supercharge your journey to property investment success. Ready to level up your property investment game? The Builder's Ladder Podcast has your back.  Listen to the full episode now and pave your way to success in the world of property development!Learn how to start real estate investment: realestatemastery.co.nzWant to be lazy, happy and successful? Start here: LazyHappySuccessful – Slow the fuck down and succeedhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/TPBmember: https://www.facebook.com/TheProfessionalBuilderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

Brad Leavitt is President and Founder of “A Finer Touch Construction” - a Scottsdale based luxury residential and commercial builder. AFT Construction, as known throughout the industry, is an award-winning construction firm and has been nationally published in magazines such as: Fine Home Building, Luxe Interiors and Design, and Professional Builder. Brad was awarded as an “Icon” in the AZ building industry by Sources for Design in October, 2019. He was also recognized as a 2022 Phoenix Titan 100. The Titan 100 program recognizes Phoenix's Top 100 CEO's & C-level executives. They are the area's most accomplished business leaders in their industry using criteria that includes demonstrating exceptional leadership, vision, and passion. Brad is an energetic public speaker and ambassador for many national brands. He completed a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management from BYU in 2005 and worked on notable projects around Phoenix, including the Omni Montelucia in Paradise Valley. His Podcast, “The AFT Construction Podcast”, is focused on bringing value to its listeners, no matter their industry. The topics are focused on marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, organization, building science and construction.  In this episode we discuss what Brad did to build his company from scratch to do doing large multi-million dollar projects, how to manage the fluctuating prices, and what and how you should be charging for your services. 3:36 Starting in the Business  6:10 What does it take to become a contractor  10:03 Breaking into the high end luxury market 13:59 Business challenges today 19:30 Net Zero High Performance 20:47 Cost Plus 31:36 Current developments and changes in the industry   For more from Brad and AFT: social media: @aft_construction  AFT Construction Podcast www.aftconstruction.com  

Today's Show: In this episode, we'll be talking to Brad Leavitt, President and Founder of "A Finer Touch Construction" (AFT), a Scottsdale-based luxury residential and commercial builder.

Today's episode is a special one. Not only are we featuring a giveaway, but get some great advice about being a responsible business leader from Matt Neumann, Chief Executive Officer at Neumann Companies, Inc. If you're a business owner or manager looking to make an impact, this episode is for you. As a second-generation family business owner, Matt is committed and recognizes the long-term approach to business growth and investment. Matt was awarded 40 under 40 by the Business Journal, Professional Builder, and Midwest Renewable Energy News, and was recently awarded the Wisconsin Way Future Leader of the Year. Throughout the episode, Matt shares insight on what has made him a successful leader, from the top attribute a leader needs to have to the steps business leaders need to take in their businesses to stay relevant. ________________________ “A sustainable business is also one that's giving back from the profit it earns." - Matt Neumann, CEO - Neumann Companies, Inc. ________________________ Fast Break is hosted by Matt Cranney, Executive Vice President of M3 Elevate

Dennis is the president of the Housing Innovation Alliance, a future oriented community for production homebuilding. He leads business strategy, market engagement, and program development with reach across 2000+ companies impacting 40%+ of U.S. annual housing starts. Prior to the Alliance, Dennis helped change the face of the housing industry in Saudi Arabia. Dennis helped to create a nationwide program to develop a modular housing industry - modeling 26 strategic initiatives that would jumpstart the creation of a robust construction ecosystem, evaluating 200+ global technology providers, and securing initial approval for $4B in government investment. He was also a key player in SABIC's Home of Innovation program, a $30M+ multi-year market engagement program focused on encouraging collaboration among the housing value chain and ensuring that better construction practices are adopted throughout the GCC region. The program resulted in the Middle East's first LEED platinum home, a pilot community of 1,200 LEED Silvers homes and a 20,000 sq.ft. LEED gold interactive exhibition center, which has become the epicenter for collaboration in the region leading to $2.5B in new economic opportunities. Dennis is a member of ULI's RNDC Blue flight, a Professional Builder 40 under 40 winner, recognized by ModConnect as one a top influencers in offsite construction, and an active member of Geek Estate. Dennis and his wife are active participants in fundraising and event planning efforts for the Children's Free Care Fund. In his spare time he enjoys big adventures with his wife and sons on the water and in the mountains. He supports the efforts of other entrepreneurs - advising and investing in start-up companies ranging from CPG to Proptech to Robotics. In this episode, you'll discover: Sentiments on the global housing market How the Housing Innovation Alliance is disrupting the market Becoming the tip of the spear in impact and innovation Leadership insights from decade-long projects Balancing communication and thinking styles And more! Resources: Housing Innovation Alliance - Where Innovation Meets Action Show notes If you enjoyed this episode, and you've learnt something or it inspired you in some way, I'd love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, and post it to your Instagram Stories, and tag me, @elinormoshe_ or Elinor Moshe on LinkedIn.   Don't forget you can also join the free facebook community to discuss your journey in the building industry; https://www.facebook.com/groups/constructingyou/  

Do you ever wonder what it truly takes to set yourself apart from other general contractors and thrive as a business owner?In today's episode, Max outlines 11 of the most essential characteristics that make up a professional, high-performing general contractor.  If you're curious about the business that we are in or franchising opportunities,  visit our website: www.businessforbuilders.caFind us on social media!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5TB0m8gR8J-dljH8PY5B2QInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/businessforbuildersFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/businessforbuildersTiktTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@business_for_buildersLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/businessforbuildersTwitter: https://twitter.com/BizforBuilders

In episode 56 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, we're joined by Paul Rojas, Managing Partner at RCR Lawyers. Throughout this episode, Paul explains the importance of a properly defined building contract and how it can help your building company with the ever-changing costs in the industry. INSIDE EPISODE 56 YOU WILL DISCOVER How to make sure your building contract has a cost escalation clause That it is your right under the contract to suspend works if you're not getting paid Why sitting down with your lawyer at least once a year is important How the more transparency included in your contract surrounding variations can save you time, money and possible court appearances Why copying and pasting a building contract from the internet is a detriment to your business And much, much more. Listen to the full episode to uncover exactly what you need to be incorporating into your building contracts to mitigate risk and set your building company up for success. ABOUT PAUL ROJAS Quality delivery and client focus are at the forefront for Paul, Managing Partner at RCR Lawyers. Paul also heads up the Commercial Litigation practice for the firm, and is a key driver of the firm's overall development, growth and innovation. Backed by a wealth of experience, Paul can help you with any contractual disputes, trade practices and refining your building contracts. Connect with Paul: linkedin.com/in/paulrojas TIMELINE 1:41 About Paul Rojas 3:23 How to continually improve your building contracts 8:22 The consequences of leaving your risk management unchecked 9:53 How to ensure you get paid 21:27 Why talking to a lawyer early can save you time and money LINKS, RESOURCES & MORE RCR Lawyers: rcrlaw.com.au APB Website: associationofprofessionalbuilders.com APB on Instagram: instagram.com/apbbuilders/ APB on Facebook: facebook.com/associationofprofessionalbuilders APB on YouTube: youtube.com/c/associationofprofessionalbuilders Join the Professional Builders Secrets Facebook group for builders & connect with professional builders world-wide: facebook.com/groups/builderssecrets

In episode 53 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, we're joined by Clint Best, an Executive Business Coach with APB. Throughout this episode, Clint takes a deep dive into the mindsets of professional builders and how incorporating a growth mindset for yourself and your business can have profound benefits across the board. INSIDE EPISODE 53 YOU WILL DISCOVER The importance of mindset in a professional building company What the difference is between a growth and fixed mindset Why a growth mindset is key to running a successful business How to develop and incorporate a growth mindset into your building company; and yourself Why knowing who you want to become helps shape the trajectory of your business And much, much more. Listen to the full episode to discover how a growth mindset can transform your business and free yourself from doubt and fear. ABOUT CLINT BEST Clint was trained and certified by the world's largest business coaching team and was eventually named the Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006, before leaving to form Kaizen Business Development in 2007. He has been successfully coaching business owners in Canada and the United States for 18 years and now forms part of the Executive Business Coaching Team at APB. Connect with Clint: linkedin.com/in/clintbest TIMELINE 0:39 How mindset impacts a professional building company 3:03 The key mindset to unlock your businesses potential 15:25 Proven ways to conquer fear 23:06 Mindset habits for successful builders 34:53 How to become a realistic optimist LINKS, RESOURCES & MORE APB Website: associationofprofessionalbuilders.com APB on Instagram: instagram.com/apbbuilders/ APB on Facebook: facebook.com/associationofprofessionalbuilders APB on YouTube: youtube.com/c/associationofprofessionalbuilders Join the Professional Builders Secrets Facebook group for builders & connect with professional builders world-wide: facebook.com/groups/builderssecrets

In episode 51 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, we're joined by Co-founders of the Association of Professional Builders Russ Stephens and Sky Stephens, along with APB's Head Coach, Andy Skarda. Throughout this episode, the trio explain APB's 10 professional builder levels. INSIDE EPISODE 51 YOU WILL DISCOVER The definitions of APB's 10 professional builder levels Where your building company ranks The milestones you need to accomplish to progress through the levels How long it takes to become a Certified Professional Builder How to reach the ultimate goal for builders And much, much more. Listen to the full episode to uncover exactly what makes a professional and successful building company. ABOUT RUSS STEPHENS Co-founder of the Association of Professional Builders, Russ is a data analysis expert who has introduced data-driven decision making to the residential construction industry. Russ is also a proud member of the Forbes Business Development Council. Connect with Russ: linkedin.com/in/russstephens ABOUT SKY STEPHENS Co-founder of the Association of Professional Builders, Sky specialises in taking complex business strategies and converting them into actionable step-by-step guides for building company owners. Sky is also a proud member of The National Association of Women in Construction and the Top 100 Women in the broader construction sector. Connect with Sky: linkedin.com/in/skycheristephens ABOUT ANDY SKARDA Head Coach at the Association of Professional Builders, Andy specialises in helping business owners in the building industry identify and implement the skills and systems they need to be successful, without needing to go back to school. Or more importantly, without going bust. Connect with Andy: linkedin.com/in/andy-skarda-92a6875/ TIMELINE 1:46 What are the professional builder levels? 5:00 Levels 1 through to 10 27:34 Certified Professional Builder and progressing to the next level 36:43 How long does it take to work through the levels? 42:44 Where you can find these levels LINKS, RESOURCES & MORE Professional Builder Levels: associationofprofessionalbuilders.com/levels/ APB Website: associationofprofessionalbuilders.com APB on Instagram: instagram.com/apbbuilders/ APB on Facebook: facebook.com/associationofprofessionalbuilders APB on YouTube: youtube.com/c/associationofprofessionalbuilders Join the Professional Builders Secrets Facebook group for b

For the past 19 years, Matt has built an illustrious career in every sense of the word; he has not only significantly increased profits for builders (as a builder himself), but has created fulfilling and meaningful experiences for homeowners all over the country. Through his extensive knowledge of technology and builder challenges, Matt continues to pioneer sales and marketing innovations that deliver substantial results. Starting out as an on-site salesperson in 2004 to working his way up to owning his own homebuilding company. Matt has taken the reins in many high-level sales and marketing roles for homebuilding companies of all sizes and markets throughout the country and is credited for significantly improving marketing strategies, from setting up top-performing online and on-site sales teams to creating and designing award-winning websites focused on lead generation. Matt was selected to Professional Builder's Forty Under 40, and NAHB's One to Watch Award, authored “The New Home Builder's Guide to Online Sales and Marketing”. As Vice President of Group Two Advertising Matt helps builders all over the country take their sales and marketing to new levels. Most recently, Matt has started his own homebuilding company, New Home Inc, in the highly competitive Raleigh NC market.

Brad Leavitt is our guest on this episode. He is President and Founder of “A Finer Touch Construction” - a Scottsdale based luxury residential and commercial builder. AFT Construction, is known throughout the industry, as an award-winning construction firm and has been nationally published in magazines such as: Fine HomeBuilding, Luxe Interiors and Design, and Professional Builder. Show Highlights Include: How simply asking more questions turns any construction project into a collaborative effort (4:53)  The “60% Rule” for determining if you should delegate your responsibilities (6:35)  Why fearing your competitors may prevent your business from growing (11:25)  Don't be afraid to have some fun and make fun of yourself. It may just open up a world of new business opportunities (18:17)  Build new relationships and find new clients by playing basketball and golfing (21:28)  The social media secret for attracting and building a relationship with clients years before speaking to them (24:29)  How to create an army of “Silent Salesmen” who promote your construction company for free (29:26)  If you'd like to connect with Brad, you can visit his website here:  https://www.atfconstruction.com/. For more info on the next Contractors Coalition Summit visit this link: http://contractorcoalitionsummit.com/  To connect with Duane, Dave, or one of our show guests head over to https://buildernuggets.com and join our active community of like-minded builders and remodelers.

In this episode, Jeff, Jeff, and David discuss: David's journey in home building and his God focused service.Restructuring your business to restructure your time.Local service then expanding beyond your community.Giving with your heart and your head.  Key Takeaways: While many people are generous with their money and resources, many do not leverage their time.Everything we have was given by God. How you choose to use that to serve determines more than how much you make.When you combine giving time with giving money, you make much more of a difference than just writing a check.You will find joy if you use your God given skills in your philanthropy.  "The business moved from being me focused, to being other focused. When I became other focused, great things happened. It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody but when you take good care of people, they'll take good care of your customers, and everything seems to work out." —  David Weekley About David Weekley: David M. Weekley, Chairman of David Weekley Homes, began his home building company at the age of 23. Since 1976, he has been recognized twice by Inc. Magazine as having one of America's 500 Fastest Growing Companies; in 1986 he was the National Association of Homebuilders' Builder of the Year; in 1989 he was named Houston Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc; and in 2018, for his distinguished business accomplishments and continued contributions to our community, David was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame.David Weekley Homes was also named National Builder of the Year by Professional Builder magazine for its second time in 2013. David Weekley Homes was named a Customer Service Champion and has ranked highest in Customer Satisfaction among new home builders in multiple markets, according to J.D. Power and Associates.  David Weekley is an avid student of the most progressive management methodologies, where people are the primary focus of the organization. The company has been named to FORTUNE magazine's “100 Best Companies to Work For®” list 15 times. David Weekley Homes has earned multiple honors in the areas of product design, marketing and management, and closed nearly $2.8 billion worth of new homes in 19 different cities in 2021. As a community leader, David has served on the Vestry at Palmer Memorial Church and is Past Chairman and Executive Committee Member of the Sam Houston Area Council of Boy Scouts, Past President of the Houston Chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization, Past President of the Greater Houston Builder's Association, former Chairman and Board Member of Metro Houston Young Life, former Chair of the Greater Houston Community Foundation, Trustee Emeritus for Kinkaid School and Chairman of Kinkaid's $42,000,000 Capital and Endowment Campaign.David holds degrees in Economics and Geology from San Antonio's Trinity University. He and his wife, Bonnie, have been married for more than 45 years and have three children and eight grandchildren. Connect with David Weekley:Website: https://dwff.org/ &  https://www.davidweekleyhomes.com/Email: dweekley@dwhomes.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/davidweekleyhomesLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/david-weekley-homes/Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidweekley/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidweekleyhomes/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidWeekleyHomes/    Connect with Jeff Thomas: Website: https://www.arkosglobal.com/Book: https://www.arkosglobal.com/trading-upEmail: jeff.thomas@arkosglobal.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/ArkosGlobalAdvFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/arkosglobal/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkosglobaladvisorsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/arkosglobaladvisors/

Ben interviews Anjela Salyer, Division President for Mattamy Homes of Tucson. Anjela Salyer joined Mattamy Homes in Tucson in 2014 as Director of Sales and Marketing and was promoted to the role of VP/Division Manager in June 2019. Under her leadership and direction, Mattamy's Tucson Division has increased its closings by 182% in just two years, growing its market share to become the sixth-largest builder in the market. In 2020 she was named by Professional Builder magazine as one of the Top 40 Under 40. Follow Anjela Salyer LinkedIn Find Ben at Red Cliff Homes Website Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn YouTube

Market Proof Marketing · The Nationals with Lisa Parrish Hello new podcast format! Let us know your thoughts as we experiment with having our guest episodes as stand-alone episodes. Also be sure to check out Kevin's recent "Digging Deeper Into Buy Online with Denise Dersin from Professional Builder" interview and learn more about the upcoming Market Proof Marketing Academy happening on December 1-3, 2021 here >>> www.marketproofacademy.com Kevin Oakley is joined by Lisa Parrish, Chief Creative Chick at Team PMP - Peter Mayer Productions, who has been producing homebuilding industry awards shows on a national level for over 35 years. They discuss why every sized builder has either a person, a place, or a space worth being recognized and how to submit and enter to win The Nationals awards. They also discuss: How entering the awards helps builders present, make a case, and make a compelling story to present what you have accomplished. How a builder was originally reluctant to enter their project for awards ended up entering, winning, and then was able to utilize their awards to get more market share where they build. How to become a judge either at a local or national level. The shift to virtual events, virtual hybrids events, and the return to in-person events. The Nationals deadline to submit for entries is October 18, 2021, Enter Here: www.thenationals.com/entry-information 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-itunes Follow on Spotify —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-spotify Listen on Stitcher —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-stitcher  A weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, and others 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 167: The Nationals with Lisa Parrish appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

This episode originally aired 100 episodes ago, as Season 2 Episode 13. Vaughan Buckley is known throughout the housing industry as a modular construction expert, advocate and innovator. Among all his accolades, he was named to Professional Builder magazine's Top 40 Under 40 list -- before his 30th birthday! I sat down with Vaughan during the 2020 International Builder's Show in Las Vegas (pre-COVID-19) to discuss his personal background and his meteoric rise in business. For more information on Vaughan's organization, Volumetric Building Companies (VBC), visit https://vbc.co --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/myles-biggs/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/myles-biggs/support

Market Proof Marketing · Nurturing Active Leads with Jessie Suggs This week Kevin, Andrew, and Julie welcome the newest Do You Convert team member Jessie Suggs! We discuss her experience going from working in marketing to being an award-winning Supervising Online Sales Counselor at Mungo Homes, what digital solutions her team made in the last few months, and she talks about nurturing active leads in this fast-paced market. Story Time (1:30) Julie talks about her local Mom Facebook group and how she utilizes her neighbors for local recommendations over yelp or google reviews. Andrew discusses a few recent home builder Facebook ads that he thinks are promoting the wrong message. Kevin takes us back to his childhood where he talks about his dad's financial adviser woes and how that ties into current agencies needing to act like a fiduciary, and if they aren't then they need to join the dinosaurs. In the News (15:18) Opendoor Withholds Listings From the Market. (mikedp.com)  Your Next, Best Sales Tool: 
The Marketing Technologist. (probuilder.com) Printed in days, a house: New York firm takes 3D printing to the next level. (reuters.com) 360 Topic of the Week: DYC Welcomes Jessie Suggs to the team! (40:42) Jessie Suggs talks about what her life is like with only one phone now, her career as a #MungoMarketingChick, the creative digital solutions she had to apply to her online sales process, and nurturing active leads in this market. Jessie has over five years of home builder sales and marketing experience. She began her career with Mungo Homes in marketing, then transitioned to an online sales specialist role, ultimately serving more than 140 communities across the Southeast. In 2020, Jessie led an online sales team that managed more than 10,000 leads and generated more than $146 million in sales revenue. A three-time honoree of Mungo Homes' CEO Circle of Excellence, Jessie Suggs is a National Home Builders Association Silver Award Winner for 2019 and 2020, was awarded the 2018 Internet Lead Specialist of the Year by the Building Industry Association of Central South Carolina, and was recognized as a Home Building Industry Leader by Professional Builder in the annual 40 under 40 Class. 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-itunes Follow on Spotify —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-spotify Listen on Stitcher —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-stitcher  A weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, and others 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 137: Nurturing Active Leads with Jessie Suggs appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC. The post Ep 137: Nurturing Active Leads with Jessie Suggs appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Tiny Home Tours Newsletter - bit.ly/THT-Newsletter Aaron Fensterheim is the owner and founder of a van conversion company, Off Grid Adventure Vans (OGAVans). He and his team offer standard, partial, and custom-built camper vans from their workshops in Fredrick, Maryland. Aaron sits down with our team to answer popular questions about using a van builder and the camper van conversion process. Their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oga_vans/ Their website: www.OGAVans.com

Rich Binsacca, Editor-in-Chief of Professional Builder, drops by to discuss the 2020 Housing Giants, big picture builder trends for the next year & more. The post Ep 107: 2020 Housing Giants with Rich Binsacca appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Market Proof Marketing · 2020 Housing Giants with Rich Binsacca Rich Binsacca Rich Binsacca, Editor-in-Chief of Professional Builder, joins the podcast to discuss the 2020 Housing Giants List. He shares big picture housing trends for the the next year, and how COVID-19 might impact them. Story Time (1:40) Kevin swallowed a live fish? Becca share her experience with her first warranty appointment after being in her new home for over a year. Andrew shares a continuation of his new home saga (it's been two years now… is it still considered “new?”) Kevin taps into the dark side (of marketing), and urges builders to experiment now while the market is hot. Also, he was a recent guest on The Weekly, ProBuilder‘s new live streaming event! In the News (19:17) More Remote Work Opportunities May Make Suburbs More Desirable (Zillow.com) Unbounce offers new pricing model by conversion (Unbounce.com) Google will now allow auto-delete more user data after 18 months (Adage.com) 18 months is 20 years in internet years – is the info even still useful? The need for (mobile) speed: Small improvements have a big conversion impact (SearchEngineLand.com) Speed is necessary but relative 360 Topic of the Week: ProBuilder's 2020 Housing Giant Rankings with Editor-in Chief, Rich Binsacca (31:17) Kevin and Rich discuss: How the Housing Giants rankings are determined Big builders keep getting builder – acquisition and expansion The “Magnificent Middle” of builders generated $41 billion in revenue in 2019 Square footage dropped, price increased, particularly among starter homes The effects of COVID-19 on housing preferences Downward trend of builder incentives What might cause the current hot market to cool? The #1 issue the housing industry needs to solve A sneak peek at Utopia – a new channel that will focus on housing technology and innovation Questions? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights and opportunities in the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group. Subscribe on iTunes —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-itunes Follow on Spotify —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-spotify Subscribe on Google Play —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-gplay Listen on Stitcher —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-stitcher  A weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, and others 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 107: 2020 Housing Giants with Rich Binsacca appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC. The post Ep 107: 2020 Housing Giants with Rich Binsacca appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Holly Slevcove, project manager for the New Home Company (https://www.nwhm.com/), was a team member when TNHC won Professional Builder’s Builder of the Year in 2019. A risk-taker, she specializes in project management and land acquisition for residential home building, primarily focused on the Inland Empire and Orange County. How did she get from college graduate to project manager in under 3 years? It wasn’t easy. It took hard work, perseverance, and another woman who believed in her from the start. Thanks to Holly for joining me on the podcast, and to all of you for listening. Links to more information about the New Home Company, Professional Builder’s Builder of the Year, and the 2020 WIRC conference which PR and PB will be co hosting this year can be found in the episode’s show notes. https://www.probuilder.com/2019-builder-year-new-home-company https://pbprwomen.probuilder.com/2020/ Women at WIRC is now available on iTunes, Google Play, and anywhere else you get your audio. If you like what you’re hearing so far, I’d love it if you took a minute to rate and review the show on whatever platform you use. Our next episode will feature another female professional who is making some serious moves in her industry. Until then, follow us on social, and keep on WIRCing.

As I get ready to wrap up my first season of the Sticks and Bricks Podcast, I am so excited to offer a two-part interview series with a well-known thought leader in the Home Building Industry. For as long as I can remember, I always gravitated to the writing and wisdom of Scott Sedam in the articles he wrote in Professional Builder and other industry publications. Scott is the owner of True North Consulting – and – he’s been helping home builders improve operations for such a long time. I held on to an article that he wrote in October of last year that reviewed 10 Lessons Learned from the last downturn. In that same article, there was talk of an economic slowdown looming in the first quarter of 2020. The coronavirus showed up instead – and – the effects of it have been felt by many across the world. I thought it would be interesting to take the 10 Lessons listed in that article and see if and/or how they related to the current situation. Scott’s long tenure in this industry with some of the greatest home building legends leads to some interesting stories and advice in this interview.

Rich Binsacca This week Kevin chats with Rich Binsacca, Editor-in-Chief of Professional Builder magazine, about what the home building industry is experiencing in the current climate, and how that's changing rapidly. They discuss: What he's seeing and hearing from builders across the country The differences between 2008, 2011 and today Results of the Coronavirus Business Impact Survey – what builders are experiencing and how they are reacting to the current climate The impact that builders expect on their business and how that perception has changed in the last 2 weeks Virtual and online technologies that are taking hold Operational opportunities for builders Question? Comments? Email show@doyouconvert.com or call 404-369-2595 and we'll address them on the next episode. More insights and opportunities in the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group. Subscribe on iTunes —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-itunes Follow on Spotify —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-spotify Subscribe on Google Play —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-gplay Listen on Stitcher —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-stitcher  A weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, and others 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 94: A Bird's-Eye View with Rich Binsacca appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC. The post Ep 94: A Bird's-Eye View with Rich Binsacca appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Rich Binsacca, Editor-in-Chief of Professional Builder magazine, joins Kevin to discuss what builders around the country are experiencing and challenges they face in the current climate. The post Ep 94: A Bird’s-Eye View with Rich Binsacca appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Vaughan Buckley is known throughout the housing industry as a modular construction expert, advocate and innovator. Among all his accolades, he was named to Professional Builder magazine's Top 40 Under 40 list -- before his 30th birthday!  I sat down with Vaughan during the 2020 International Builder's Show in Las Vegas to discuss his personal background and his meteoric rise in business. Enjoy! Connect with Vaughan Buckley on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaughan-buckley-6a130412/  For more information on Volumetric Building Companies (VBC), visit them at the following areas: Website - https://vbc.co/  LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/volumetric-building-companies/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/volumetric.building.companies/

This special episode is extended story time with Kevin because his internet wouldn't allow for a normal recording session to happen. Enjoy! Story Time: The Oakley's begin the process of looking for their next home – and things don't all go quite as expected The minimum standard for digital marketing keeps getting higher and higher. If you've rely heavily on the MLS to drive sales you might relate. News and Q&A; : (25:00) Deadline for nominations to Professional Builder's 40 Under 40 is Monday November 25th! Facebook is offering to give home builder's extra ad money if they follow certain guidelines Unbounce offers new “Smart Traffic” option for landing pages Brand new budgeting tool and blog post from Kevin on DYC.com Complete Google Analytics overview and setup walk-through now live on DYC.com Subscribe on iTunes —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-itunes Follow on Spotify —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-spotify Subscribe on Google Play —> https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-gplay A weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, and others 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 75: Extended Story Time with Kevin appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC. The post Ep 75: Extended Story Time with Kevin appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

This week we’re going over a list of features that many homeowners are requesting in new homes that they’re buying or building.  This is according to an article in Professional Builder magazine where builders, architects, designers, and other industry experts were asked about must-have features that today’s homeowners want.  Take a look and see how many things on the list will be included in your new home.  You may not want to include all these elements, but consider the ones that are best for you and your family.  Show notes at BYHYU.com

Barry Gittleman is a 1989 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, retired submarine service Commander, and a 2003 graduate of Harvard Business School. After a few years doing strategic consulting with Boston Consulting Group, Barry got into the home building industry just as the Great Recession was beginning. Ten years later, Barry moved from Atlanta to Salt Lake City for the opportunity to become an owner of Hamlet Homes, a private company with a founder seeking a succession plan. At Hamlet Homes, Barry and his team are committed to providing home buyers with quality homes in attractively designed neighborhoods in Northern Utah. Hamlet Homes will celebrate its 25th year in 2020, and has built over 3,600 homes in 62 neighborhoods. Hamlet Homes recently was named the Salt Lake Chamber’s Veteran Owned Business of the Year for 2019, won Best of State 2019 for Real Estate Development, Best of the West for both Real Estate Services and Architecture and recently was acknowledged on Professional Builder’s Housing Giants list for 2019. In this episode, Barry and I discuss: His path to becoming on owner of a successful home building business  Short- and long-term goals for Hamlet Homes and the help they need from the Service Academy community The most important skill he learned in the Navy that has helped him as a business owner Connect with Barry Gittleman: Barry on LinkedIn Hamlet Homes If you found this episode valuable, please share it with a friend or colleague. If you are a Service Academy graduate and want to take your business to the next level, you can join our supportive community and get started today. Subscribe and help out the show: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Also available on Google Play, Spotify & Stitcher Leave us a 5-star review! Special thanks to Barry for joining me this week.  Until next time!

Matt Riley is a Vice President at Group Two Advertising. For the past 15 years, Matt has built an illustrious career in every sense of the word; he has not only significantly increased profits for builders (as a builder himself), but has created fulfilling and meaningful experiences for homeowners all over the country. Through his extensive knowledge of technology and builder challenges, Matt continues to pioneer sales and marketing innovations that deliver substantial results. Starting out as an on-site salesperson in 2004 to his latest homebuilding position of VP of Sales and Marketing, Matt has taken the reins in many high-level sales and marketing roles for homebuilding companies of all sizes and markets through-out the country, and can be credited for significantly improving marketing strategies, from setting up top-performing online and on-site sales teams to creating and designing award-winning websites focused on lead generation. There are many reasons that Matt was recently selected to Professional Builder’s Forty Under 40, including authoring “The New Home Builder’s Guide to Online Sales and Marketing” and leading Royal Oaks Homes (his last homebuilding company) to be a top 100 builder through an acute understanding of new digital trends and how to execute them. A trailblazer within builder sales and marketing, Matt really does do it all. You may have heard him speak at NAHB’s IBS, Pacific Coast Builder Conference, HomebuilderTECH, and other industry conferences and events. Connect with Matt on Linked In

Adam Van Bavel is a Business Development Manager at ONeil Interactive-digital marketing agency for home builders. He was a winner of a prestigious Professional Builder 2019 40 under 40 award. Adam’s passion is helping others. With a background in digital marketing, sales, and PR, as well as a genuine interest in listening to others, Adam’s goal is to utilize client input along with fresh insight to create powerful outcomes. A four-time Baltimore City Paper Readers' Poll "Do-Gooder", Adam spends his spare time focused on social good. Ulman Foundation is near and dear to Adam's heart. To learn more about their mission and how you can get involved visit: Ulman Foundation changes lives by creating a community of support for young adults, and their loved ones, impacted by cancer. They envision a world where no young adult faces cancer alone. If you're involved with NAHB's Young Professionals, please remember to use #NAHBYP to help spread awareness and share best practices. Connect with Adam on LinkedIn

Ingrid is the director of Online Sales at Trendmaker Homes in Dallas, TX. She accounted for 42 percent of the overall sales by building real estate agent relationships and growing co-op sales from 26 percent in 2014 to 78 percent in 2018. Ingrid was recognized for her accomplishments with a prestigious Professional Builder 40 Under 40 award in 2019, Silver Award for Online Sales 2017 Manager of the Year from NAHB, 2016 and 2017 winner of Online Sales Manager of the Year, Dallas Builders Association. Ingrid was born in Manila, Philippines, and lived in a one-bedroom apartment with 16 relatives. “All I remember is we were happy with what we had and blessed to have a roof over our heads. It’s all about perspective.” When she is not selling homes, Ingrid runs half marathons and enjoys "glamping" in an RV with a fully stocked kitchen, functioning bathroom, shower, and a memory-foam bed. Shout out to Ingrid's mentors: Mike Lyon with Do You Convert for online sales training and Jeff Shore-for always being coffee worthy. Videos Ingrid recommends: Initial video-putting face to the name Confirmation video/Introduction to sales person Congratulations on your new home video Spotlight video for a quick delivery home Tools mentioned this Podcast: Bomb Bomb Vidyard Free Plug In for Gmail Connect with Ingrid on LinkedIn This episode was brought to you by Rent The Runway

Kristi Allen grew up in the home building industry as the third generation of a family-owned home builder. Over the last 12 years, Kristi has worked in home builder sales and marketing as a Community Sales Associate, Design Studio Consultant, Sales Manager, and as the Online Sales Counselor and Online Marketing Manager for McArthur Homes. In 2011-2012, she was responsible for a complete overhaul of the McArthur Homes website and online marketing strategy, which now account for over 50% of all new home sales. In 2012, Kristi created the My Home's Story program, an app which allows builders to update buyers while simultaneously generating website traffic, social media interactions and most importantly, more sales. Kristi has been a contributor to articles in Professional Builder magazine and was recently named to their 2015 Top 40 Under 40. She was a top-rated speaker at The International Builder Show in 2014 and 2015, where she enjoyed sharing her experience in successfully using technology to cultivate more new home sales. Kristi loves running, traveling with her husband and spending time with her three beautiful children.

PCBC (Pacific Coast Builders Conference-the Art, Science + Business of Housing) 2018 took place in San Francisco, CA.  Chris Hartley-VP of Sales and Marketing at Dunhill Homes was an award winner of Professional Builder's 40 Under 40 and conference attendee.  He shares his conference takeaways and highlights in Episode 11 of the New Construction Marketing Podcast.  

 How do you diagnose the best way to help a struggling community with your marketing efforts? Story Time  The importance of clear communication and definition of the “problem” Don't change your answer (if it right) just because of pressure from others News How FB ad strategies affected the last election KW build an AI app for their agents (SO smart) How fast your page loads on mobile is (really) important Surprise! New home sales were UP (why reading beyond the headline is important)  360 Topic Of The Week Fixing That Broken Community Identify where things are breaking down before jumping to action Mike Lyon's Professional Builder article on conversion benchmarks Question Of The Week What conferences would YOU go to? https://moz.com/mozcon https://unbounce.com/events https://seattle.digitalsummit.com/ Resources Mentioned Pingdom – Page speed insights   Read the full transcript of this episode here.   A weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley & Andrew Peek 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 sell you! The post Ep 4: Fixing That Broken Community appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC. The post Ep 4: Fixing That Broken Community appeared first on Online Sales and Marketing for Home Builders - DYC.

Ryan Ott is a professional builder and has helped many people to fulfill their dream or a tiny house. In this interview with Guest CoHost Emily Gerde, we learn about the cost involved to build a tiny house and much, much more. If you are dreaming to own one in the future, this interview will prepare you to ask all the right questions and make a plan before you spend any money. Best to do it right from the beginning.   Visit our website for more tiny house information and lots of Sustainable Living info.    Ryan Ott is the owner of Midwest Tiny Living LLC. Based in Minnesota, Ryan brings a lifetime of experience and experiments to the tiny house community. His approach is to custom build homes for the clients he serves which helps them make the transition in a way that works best for them. This technique, he feels, is the best way to ensure a successful transition from living in large rooms to living in a large world.   We discuss all things tiny houses including pricing, planning, building, and parking. Ryan gives us an insider view of tiny house building and inspires us to think about the tiny house movement as a bigger goal of home ownership.  Ryan gives practical advice on how to plan efficiently and what to consider before finalizing your design. He does a great job explaining the difference between RV's (which I accidentally call mobile homes), and tiny houses. From insulation to size and practicality, Ryan gives us the insight you need to make an informed decision about building a tiny house. With personal experience in living in a tiny house and camper, I can attest to his assessment of the pros and cons to both.   We dive into what it takes to make a tiny house and why prices vary from state to state. There is a growing confusion with tiny houses prices with most information coming from tiny house television shows. Ryan gives a step-by-step explanation of the cost of materials and how quickly they add up but also assures potential tiny homeowners costs can be decreased easily with used materials, sweat equity, fewer windows, smaller trailer and used appliances. He encourages you to build to the 98% of your life, by making sure your daily needs are met. He gives a great example of a bathtub being an unnecessary item if you take a bath twice a year or a huge kitchen if you only seat more than a few people on holidays. His practical planning advice will assure you design the tiny house that best fits your needs and wants.   Financial freedom is a big part of the discussion as we discuss how tiny houses will save you a lot of money in the long run with no mortgage, small utility bills and low maintenance costs. Tiny homes are one piece of the puzzle for finding new ways to offer affordable houses. This may require some trailblazers to get zoning regulations changed in their area, as well as finding ways to build them up to a specific code to allow more parking spot options. When it comes to parking Ryan believes we all deserve to follow our dreams and live where we want to live and thrive.   You can find Ryan on his website at https://midwesttinyliving.com/optin-17461619   You can also find him on Instagram and Facebook @Midwesttinyliving    

Title: Growing Your Business Topic: Is your business ready to expand? How to know when you (and your business) are ready for the next step.During this edition of CareyBrosPros, you’ll find out : What issues, specific to the Construction business, can stand in the way of success? How to know if your business is ready to expand. What all business people should plan for.Guest: Mark G. Richarson – Author, National Speaker, and Business Advisor. Mark is a Fellow at Harvard University’s “Joint Center for Housing Studies,” lectures at MBA programs and writes columns for Professional Builder and Professional Remodeler. His books include: Fit to Grow, and the best-seller, How Fit is Your Business?Phone: (301) 275-02083 Points for Success – from Mark Richardson : Think. Not just do.Define “growth.” Act #Business #BusinessGrowth #GrowYourBusiness #ConstructionBusiness #ExpandYourBusiness

Title: Growing Your Business Topic: Is your business ready to expand? How to know when you (and your business) are ready for the next step.During this edition of CareyBrosPros, you’ll find out : What issues, specific to the Construction business, can stand in the way of success? How to know if your business is ready to expand. What all business people should plan for.Guest: Mark G. Richarson – Author, National Speaker, and Business Advisor. Mark is a Fellow at Harvard University’s “Joint Center for Housing Studies,” lectures at MBA programs and writes columns for Professional Builder and Professional Remodeler. His books include: Fit to Grow, and the best-seller, How Fit is Your Business?Phone: (301) 275-02083 Points for Success – from Mark Richardson : Think. Not just do.Define “growth.” Act #Business #BusinessGrowth #GrowYourBusiness #ConstructionBusiness #ExpandYourBusiness

This week we have a list of features that many homeowners are requesting in new homes that they’re buying or building.  This is according to an article in Professional Builder magazine where builders, architects, designers and other industry experts were asked about must-have features that today’s homeowners want.  Take a listen and see how many things on the list might be included your new home.  You may not want to include all these elements, but consider the ones that are best for you and your family. Show notes at BYHYU.com

Daniel Naim, co-fundador del VBC y Constructor ha sido seleccionado como uno de los 40 constructores mas destacados menores de 40 años. Esta selección la hace la revista Professional Builder todos los años a nivel nacional en Los Estados Unidos. En esta entrevista hablamos de su carrera profesional y de su labor como Presidente del Venezuelan Business Club USA.

Jennifer Barkan works in real estate for Rose & Womble in Virginia and she came up with a very creative idea, incorporating animal rescue into her Ask Jen Live segments when she features a new home. Through this program, she's helped get over thirty dogs adopted while showcasing new homes for prospective homeowners. What's good for animals can be great for business! In this episode, Jen details how she started to blend animal rescue with new homes and the enormous impact it had on social media engagement. She also shares a heartwarming story about the overweight small dog Bey. Jen is a graduate of Old Dominion University and on today's episode she talks about her five dogs: Tito, Gizmo, Minnie, Marley, and Rousey, named after Ronda Rousey. Rose & Womble New Homes http://www.roseandwomble.com/newhomes/ Ask Jen on Rose & Womble's site http://www.roseandwomble.com/NewHomes/AboutUs/WhoIsJen.aspx Ask Jen Live on Social Media Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AskJenB/ Twitter https://twitter.com/askjenb Instagram https://www.instagram.com/askjenb/ Periscope https://www.periscope.tv/askjenb YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKqvbAyZTxx8DbwhUvX8HHA Norfolk SPCA http://www.norfolkspca.com/ DONATE to the Norfolk SPCA http://norfolkspca.com/donate/index.html Rose & Womble's Announcement of Jen Barkan Winning Gold at The Nationals blog.roseandwomble.com/jen-barkan-wi…he-nationals/ Professional Builder's 2016 40 Under 40 Awards http://www.probuilder.com/professional-builders-2016-40-under-40-awards Thanks to Ramona Rice for introducing us to Jen Barkan! Ramona also works at Rose & Womble and is the host of The Sports Gal Pal podcast. New episodes are in the works. http://www.sportsgalpal.com/ Jennifer's dog Rousey is named after UFC fighter Ronda Rousey http://rondarousey.net/ All of Pawprint's music is composed by Luke Gartner-Brereton. Luke is a musician based in Australia, and he composes a wide variety of songs and musical loops http://vanillagroovestudios.com http://soundcloud.com/luke-gartnerbrereton If you want to learn more about Nancy and Harold, go to our About Us page at http://thisispawprint.com/about or listen to our introductory podcast episode, "Fifty Puppies and a Podcast." http://thisispawprint.com/000 Pawprint (or Paw Print) is a weekly podcast dedicated to animal rescue, adoption, and the heroes who make it happen. Volunteer, adopt, or foster a dog, cat, rabbit, or other wonderful pet through your local shelter, humane society, SPCA, pound, and animal control. Help increase animal protection, welfare, and rights. http://thisispawprint.com http://animalrescuepodcast.com