Options...The Next Steps !
By
Mike Moore
Reprinted from:
Builder & Developer Magazine
What are you going to do next? Sales are good, maybe you don’t need to offer options, or at least you can cut back on the choices you offer! What about telling those prospective homebuyers, “no”, more often. “Let them buy from someone else, we’ll sell our homes as fast as we can build them anyway.” I’ve heard these comments and many more. Most of you have thought about this, even if you haven’t made any of these comments. Production building and options aren’t an easy fit. Anyone who has set-up and executed an options program knows that. Can’t we just stop offering all these choices? Answering that question is your next step. If you have answered that question, and I mean really answered it, then you are committed to offering your buyers choices and finding the answers to all your options needs. If you are still debating the value of giving your buyers choices, then settle that debate first. Options is a new direction for your business and needs unfailing commitment and tremendous enthusiasm to make it work.
We can accomplish anything, but not alone. Decide you don’t care who gets credit, and start asking questions. Are options really about options or are they a piece of the puzzle in the evolution of how to sell new homes? In a society clamoring for personal choice, ways to separate themselves, and show their individuality, options becomes a Tool for Selling and The Story to Market. If we didn’t mind being the same, would there be a multibillion dollar fashion industry? Would there be brand name extension in everything from headache remedies to potato chips and toothpaste? Housing isn’t a commodity, it’s a fashion item. With options we are defining how to sell and deliver this individuality to the homebuyer. Don’t fool yourself that this is just a high end niche market. Go shopping at the outlet centers and you’ll see that this fashion first desire, runs deep and wide in our society. You invest huge dollars in models and sales offices to make a fashion statement, now make the commitment to deliver these choices and fashions to your buyers. How do you deliver housing fashion? Maybe part of the answer is to allow your buyers to help, let them have choices and you win. No matter how beautiful you build it, it won’t be theirs unless they choose it, and make it different from their neighbors.
With BIS just around the corner, decide how you are going to look for expert help! Aligning yourself with an expert who can help you deliver personal choices to your homebuyers is the next step. By now it is obvious you need to put this selling puzzle together, but you will have to decide it’s time to take action. Think about it! There is little to no risk in aligning yourself with a proven expert and trying something different to deliver personal choices. Good marketing is social science at its’ best. Challenge yourself by exploring today’s possibilities to enhance the presentation of your homes. Minimize your risk by making sure what you try, does what you are already doing, with an upside for greater return.
What should you be looking for in the experts to assist you? Options is about fashion and selling as a marketing strategy. Then they must possess fashion selling and marketing expertise. They must also have management and consulting skills. It will require these skills to develop the design process to offer personal choices and make the selection of options an enjoyable experience. You’ll also need to create the management system to control this selection process. Who will see your homebuyers? Who will manage these people and make sure all the after sale contact is positive? This after sale attention is a valuable step in improving the home buying experience. Fashion, sales, and marketing experience won’t be enough. After the options selection process, the administration of options is confusing at best and a disaster if handled poorly. Most of you have experienced or witnessed this for yourself. So, operational expertise is also a must! Knowledge of construction needs, order processing, and customer service are a necessity. These abilities can deliver the options selection, management, and consulting that will bring the puzzle together. Experience in the industry and product and marketing knowledge from outside the industry are necessary. If all the experience is inside the industry the knowledge will be too limited, and if it is only outside knowledge, it will not be specific enough to handle your accounting, purchasing, construction, and vendor needs. Align yourself with a company that can provide all these services and get started. Become the builder of choice by offering your homebuyers choices with a system that works.
As a builder you hire experts everyday, that is your expertise. You have the ability as a contractor to bring the experts together. Now find the expert to help you bring options together. Don’t risk this new business by going it alone.
The options puzzle is a Profitable Triangle consisting of you the builder, your vendors, and the homebuyer. This triangle can either be managed to give you a competitive edge and add profits, or it can swallow dollars as mysteriously as the Bermuda Triangle. BIS is the perfect time to come out, see what is available, and decide who you will align with. It is what you’ve always done to answer questions, solve problems and serve your homebuyers. Now isn’t the time to retreat to business as usual. Now is the time to make your decision, align yourself with and expert and try something different.
