Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of the homebuilder Marketing and Growth Show. I'm your host, Jeff Schneider with Velocity 23. Today I have a very special guest joining me, Rob Krohn. And I got to know Rob when we shared the stage together at the 2024 International Builder Show. Rob Krohn is a brand and marketing strategist with 25 plus years of experience partnering with high growth B2B and B2C organizations to successfully meet and exceed their business goals. Rob's currently the VP of Marketing for EPCON Communities and EPCON Franchising where he oversees marketing strategy, program implementation and analytic evaluation for all of the company's marketing initiatives. He drives leads for the corporate homebuilding businesses, the company's franchise opportunity, as well as serving as a consultant to EPCOM's National Network of franchise builders. He also helps to steer EPCON's efforts to integrate advanced technology for home builders, placing the company at the forefront of the home building technology innovation. Rob speaks frequently at industry conferences on topics such as traditional and digital lead generation, lead conversion techniques, marketing technology, as well as virtual and augmented reality. Today we're talking about the use of technology and data in the home building industry. Rob, welcome to the show.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. 25 plus years just means I'm old I think at the end of the day.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: So you know what, age is just a number. I look at it as experience level.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Sure, appreciate that, thank you.
Awesome.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Well Rob, tell us a little bit more about yourself. How did you get involved in the industry?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Sure, I started out in the agency world, graphic designer, working for various advertising agencies in a variety of industries.
I eventually went out on my own and I started my own marketing company. So I had my own marketing company for six years. One of my clients at that point was Sentex Homes. I helped do their regional marketing in the central Ohio area in that time. In the five, six years that I was working with Sentex, I actually helped to launch their first 55+ community in this market. And you know, that kind of gave me a really good inroads into all of the activities and efforts necessary to bring a new community and to bring a home builder into a market and bring it to life. I then eventually worked with the chief architect with Sentex when he left, went out on his own and helped to build his first website and his promotion and helped to build his home building company.
I then after closing down my agency, I went back into the corporate world and worked for a number of high growth tech startups.
So software development Companies, things that were really entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial, very high growth, but learned a lot about the technology space, development of web applications and resources, and just understood what was necessary to take a company and help them to build 300, 400% in a very short amount of time.
That's a little bit different background than I think a lot of people that are in home building have come through. And I'm not a lifer in the home building industry. I've come to it, I had dabbled in it, and now I've been with EPCON for just over 11 years.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: Oh, wow, Nice.
So that's quite the background. You're right. A lot of people that are in the industry, especially a lot of people that I see that are in marketing positions typically come from the sales side of things.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And what I think it's really helped me is I've seen a lot of different industries, I've seen a lot of different approaches, both B2B and B2C. And I think in all those different experiences it allows you to have an outsider's perspective. Even though I've been here for 11 years, to me I'm still taking an outsider's perspective because I've seen how other industries have done it, how they've evolved and changed and we're able to bring, you know, leads and interests into their companies.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: That's a really interesting perspective. What are some of the industries that you kind of look forward to, to see, you know, to, to pull inspiration from?
[00:04:19] Speaker B: I. Well, I've. I've worked in sporting goods, I've worked in insurance industry, I've worked in auto glass repair kind of industry and handling claims on behalf of insurance companies. I've, I've worked with in the healthcare IT space. There's a lot happening there and I think a lot of my foundations came from the healthcare IT because it was very much. It continues to be a very hot space with a lot of innovation, a lot of software development companies taking place there. That was in revenue cycle. How do hospitals get paid for the work that they do?
That doesn't sound all that interesting. But, but at the time when you're in that space, you're learning about it, you're learning about the audiences, you're learning how to message. And it's the development of the online resources versus the offline resources, the different levels within an organization you have to speak to. You can imagine a healthcare system, they have their CFO, they have their frontline VPs, they have their directors, and then they have the staff using a platform so when we would be marketing into a healthcare system, you had to message to every level. Because you did. If you didn't get buy in throughout the entire organization in the ways they wanted to hear about it, you probably weren't going to get very far. So it was just a very multi leveled tier of communication within the organization.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really good point. And so how do you see that translating back to the home building industry that, that, that messaging on different levels that way?
[00:05:58] Speaker B: So because I work on both our home building side of the business as well as our franchising side of the business on both B2B and B2C. And it really applies many times on our franchising side. When you're trying to introduce a business opportunity to an individual or a group of individuals about a home building franchise, there's sometimes a team of three. There might be a land person, a salesperson and a finance person. And you have to be able to explain the business opportunity to different people in different ways so that they really understand the value that we could bring to them. We're often talking to existing home builders. That's the majority of the people that join our network are either existing home builders or land developers.
So we have to be able to go speak to them of why they would want to join a franchise as something they already do for a living. They're already successful doing it. Why would I ever need to buy a franchise? And then we have to be able to explain that to them in language that they understand and be able to pull out the benefits at each level that they're concerned about and why together all of us can work better and more efficiently, you know, is part of our network.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay. And so that kind of is the B2B side of things. What about how does that translate over to the B2C side of things? When you're talking to consumers about, you know, purchasing a home in a community and that kind of thing.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Think about, especially in our space is we're primarily a 55 plus builder.
Our homes are very, and our communities are very popular with a 55 plus buyer. But there's multiple tiers of people in that decision as well. There might be an individual buying a home, there might be a couple buying a home, there might be multiple family members involved, like their kids or grandkids being a part of that conversation. So let's say we're out appealing to an individual or a couple. We have to be able to bring forward the lifestyle that they're going to achieve within our communities. Something that they've probably been wanting all their lives. We're a low maintenance community. So no mowing, no raking, no edging, all of those things. The yard work, how would you rather spend that five, six hours on the weekend? Do you want to do it doing yard work or would you prefer doing something that you'd love to do?
But then there's also the analytical people. Okay, what's this investment going to look like? How is this going to impact me financially? Can I afford this home? So it's completely different mindset, the aspirational person versus the analytical person. Now if you get other members of the family involved from grandkids, kids or grandkids. Okay, how do I look at this from my parents perspective? Is this going to be a good investment for them? Are they going to be happy in this community? How does it impact me as their child or their grandchild? Maybe I'm an adult child that's still wanting to live with and take care of my parents. Because we have multigenerational people that move into the homes. The parent lives on the first floor, the adult child lives in the second floor. And so then they're a caregiver within the home too. So it's. And they have different wants and needs than the buyer. So it's really about how do you message properly for the audience that you're speaking to. And it's different from day to day, from person to person, from buyer segment to buyer segment. Now you bring in a real estate agent into the equation as well. They're trying to advise their buyer. Is this going to be a good setup for you? So we've got to be able to be able to talk to the real estate agent and arm them with the reasons why our communities and our homes would be good for their client.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: That's really insightful. I think. You know, oftentimes we talk about buyer Personas in marketing and adjusting your marketing messaging for each individual buyer Persona. And tell me a little bit more about what that looks like. How do you guys plan out your marketing messaging for those different stakeholders in the example you just shared?
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you not only take the different buyer Personas and there's different personality types within those buyer Personas, but now what type of marketing or resources they respond to. Some want you to meet with them person to person. I want you to guide me, be my personal guide through this process. Others want to do the research on their own. Let me look and see and feel everything that you have. And when I'm ready, I'm going to raise my hand and come speak to you. Some people are visual, some people are audio.
And then how does that audience respond to all the various assets, resources that you provide? So you've got to really start to think about how do I most efficiently produce content that my audience wants to see in the way they want to see it and making it all available.
Now there's another aspect of this you tie in. We're currently going through a change from a primarily baby boomer audience that's buying our homes to now a Gen X segment of the audience that's coming in. So we've got generations at play.
I'm solid Gen X and I'm very much give me everything I need online and when I'm ready to talk to you, I will. I kind of fit that Persona.
A baby boomer buyer, as we've experienced, is very much they would prefer to come speak with somebody. And how do I represent both of those audiences, appeal both of those audiences within the marketing tools and resources that we provide, within the social media posts that we do, we have to make sure we've got a little bit for everybody or else somebody will slip off the. Slip through the cracks.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. So that planning of that messaging to those different types of personalities and, and that sort of thing. Where, where do you begin with that? What, what does that look like?
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah, the, the fun part is I not only work for a home builder which we build corporately in six corporate regions. Columbus, Indianapolis, Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta and Nashville, but then I also have a network of 80 builders around the country in 28 states. So smokes we're not only doing it for ourselves, but I then have to act as a consultant to all of those builders and kind of teach them and educate them on how they go into a new market where someone may have not have heard of epcon, may not be aware of our product, and we are a pre sale model. So we have to be able to paint that picture of what it is we do and how it impacts their lives. Before we ever have a home available to them, it's still an empty field or still a wooded lot. We have to start to be able to paint that picture. I with all of my builders, it goes back to something very fundamental. How many homes do you think you want to sell now? Every builder I talk to wants to shoot for the moon and make large estimates or goals. And I'm like, okay, realistically, how many homes do you think you could sell and build in the next 12 months.
And we use that, and we start to then back through how many leads they'd have to generate at what cost, and then what that total cost would look like. And it's a way they've never. Many of them have never really analyzed marketing that way. They want to spend as little as possible and generate as many leads as they can. But I think anybody that's done this particular profession for a while knows that's just not realistic. There's a lead cost number, and you have to be able. I always be able to go to them and say, are you willing to commit this amount of money to your marketing efforts in the next, you know, 12 months? If I can get a yes there, I'm like, okay, now we can start to advise you on how to break out those dollars to be the most effective at achieving your lead goals, to achieve your sales goals. Now, there's a lot of places that can break down if you're implementing the wrong marketing strategy, you're generating the wrong kind of leads, or then you're not converting the leads. Are you converting those into appointments, into sales? So then we start to analyze as numbers start to get generated. Okay, how are your conversions happening? Are your web visitor to web lead, web lead to appointment, appointment to sale? Are we having breakdowns in any of those areas of conversion? It's a really strategic level of looking at their marketing program in a way many of them haven't ever done. Just post something online, and I want a hundred people to show up. It's just not realistic. So I really try to start at the very basics. Can you commit to this? If, yes, I can show you how to do that. Once we do that, we can analyze it and see where the breakdowns are.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. Yeah. Talking about the different funnel stages and the lead conversion rates for each one of those stages is something I really enjoy talking about as well. What have you seen? Like, can you give me an idea of what some of those different conversion rate percentages are like? What would be a healthy percentage as an example? From website sessions to leads?
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And I look at various numbers that people put out, and I know, do you convert? Kevin Oakley talks about this a lot.
So, you know, I've gotten to know Kevin a little bit over the years, and I know you've spoken with him, but I'm always hearing between 1 and 2%, from web visitor to inquiry, a phone call or an online registration.
So we're ticking up. We're above that. So I'm very happy with that. But if you want to 2% on your web visitor to. To inquiry conversion, that would be great.
Then you go from a web inquiry to an appointment kept. We're really looking for a 40% web inquiry saying, hey, I want to know more about it. To actually showing up for the appointment. About 40% there and then the appointment cap to sale anywhere from 20 to 25%. So one in four, one in five of every appointment should hopefully buy a home.
That's the online course of things. Then you talk about the walk ins, the people that walk in, see the sign, come in, say hello. You know, the national average I think is about 1 in 13. So 7 1/2% of all walk ins end up purchasing a home. I think from an Epcot standpoint we're a little bit higher than that. We set ours as a one in 10. One in 10 people that should walk in should be purchasing a home and we're actually exceeding that right now.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing. So what do you attribute to that increased ratio for the offlines? This is a really interesting topic that comes up a lot. It's talking with builders and they go, oh, I don't know how to get my salespeople to capture contact info or do follow up and that sort of thing. And we actually do mystery shops just locally here in the Edmonton marketplace. And we did a lot of them this summer, dozens and dozens. And it was shocking to me how many times you would leave a show home even after having a conversation with the salesperson and you don't know their name and they don't know your name. Yeah, like you didn't even get an intro that way. So I know there's challenges there. I know that that's a common challenge for a lot of builders. Give me some examples of what EPCON does differently in that area to help get that better conversion rate.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm over the marketing program but I'll speak to what our sales team does. And so there's a lot of training involved in holding people accountable. So if you've set standards and goals, okay, well we're going to hold you to them. We're going to track it and we're going to measure it. Then there's training that goes on on a regular basis of how to properly follow up with a prospect, somebody that's come in, there's the email or phone calls or whatever approach you take. Okay, now we're going to watch and see. Are you following that process? Are you doing it? Our regional sales directors do an amazing job working with their sales Teams all the time saying, okay, here's where you're at, here's what you've been doing. I've. We can track your activity level, you know, where are things falling short and then continuing to work on that. But it's really. It's setting those standards and then be holding them accountable for it. And it's not a punishment. You were talking about with secret shops. We very much look at secret shops. It's not a punishment. We're just saying, okay, here's some opportunity for coaching. There were some things that you should have done between this point and this point that you didn't do. Let's please remember to do. It's like, you know, I played football and it's like watching game film. It's like, let's watch the game film and see where your technique might have been a little bit off. And if you tweak it here or here, you know, hopefully you'll have some more. More success moving people through the line and leading to that sale, which is really where everybody wants to get to.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. No, I think you nailed it when you said that these are coaching opportunities, because that's when you approach a builder to talk about that like, you know, we have that capability or that service, and that's oftentimes what comes up. I don't really want to film my people.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: We.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: We do video secret shops, and they're like, oh, I don't really want to film my people. That just seems wrong. I'm like, it's not punishment. This is coaching capability. And I think you nailed it with that analogy of like reviewing game tape. Right. It's really powerful to be able to stop and look and go, oh, okay, I see. Yeah, there was an opening there that I missed in the moment and I, you know, should have asked this question or it could have led into this other topic. Yeah, yeah, we.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Because we work with a network of smaller builders, they may just not have the staff to be managing and maintaining everybody. If you can imagine, a home builder is also trying to coach his sales team while also trying to help with the marketing, while also trying to be over construction. I mean, that's just a lot of hats for one person to do. That's where we offer sales training to our entire network that they can be a part of. The corporate training is also available to all our franchise builders. It just becomes something that they can learn from what we're doing corporately and then getting that information passed down and it's the ability to be a part of something Larger. That's been very helpful for our builders across the country.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah, those are really good points, Rob. I think that the ongoing training is such a, an important part of keeping those conversion rates up, because oftentimes when we're doing a funnel analysis like that, we do the same, same kind of technique, the same kind of method, and that comes up as well. It's like, well, we can really.
You have the ability to really impact your session to lead conversion rate. There's all sorts of different lead generation techniques that you can use and tactics that you can use. But where it gets tough is when you're getting down to the sales side of things. So that lead's been generated, how do we move them over to an appointment or, you know, that appointment's been booked, how do we, how do we close them? Right, yeah. And that requires training. Absolutely. Rob, maybe can you talk a little bit more about some unique challenges that you're seeing out there?
You know, what are, what are some areas where maybe you've determined a better way of doing things or you've kind of been there, done that, that, that you could share with our audience? That might be some helpful advice to them.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the challenges, often trying to ask people to do more than they're capable of or something that's not in their skill set.
I know a lot of my builders that in our network that I have conversations with all the time. I go, you probably have a marketing person that you're trying to have be a writer, be a web developer, be a strategist, to be a photographer. It's like you're asking too much of one person. And I said, if you find somebody that can do all of those things, well, you're probably not paying them enough and you're probably burning them out. I go, you wouldn't ask your electrician to do your roofing, and you wouldn't ask your flooring person to do your water pipes, you know, your plumbing. It's really finding people and employing them to do their. What is their best skill set. And I think that very much comes in with how do you manage leads as well? So an online lead, someone who's been on your website and looked through all the information, all these marketing resources that you've provided, they've done a lot of research, but they're registering online or calling because they probably need more development.
It's an analogy I call is they're wet wood and they need to be dried out.
Salespeople burn hot with dry wood, and if you can Develop the lead to the point they're ready to buy. Now, they're dry wood to give them the sales and they can go. But it's really that wet wood analogy where salespeople aren't wired for that, they're ready to close and I need the person they get excited by, the people who are anxious and ready to buy and have all of the boxes checked and said, yeah, I'm ready to go. And then that's where salespeople come in and do their job. That's what they're better at than anybody else. But if you're gonna be handling web leads and phone calls, it really is a different skill set to build rapport, to answer questions, to have people trust them in that back and forth conversation without physical presence. It is so much more difficult. And it is a really unique skill and not everybody has it. What oftentimes builder try. Builders try to do is have the wrong person doing the wrong job or one they're not necessarily the most skilled at. And if you can kind of work through that process and get the right person doing the right job, you know, you ultimately have more success in the end.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. That's a really, really valid point. I think that kind of bridges the gap towards talking a little bit about AI and that sort of thing as well. Because I know so many marketers look at these new AI tools and they just rub their hands together and go, I can eliminate so many, you know, outside agencies or store, you know, other processes just by leaning into AI. I know that's a popular topic. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah, when we spoke at one of the conferences earlier this year, I said, I'm the builder on stage that we haven't figured it out. We don't have all the answers.
I go, there's a lot of smart people on stage that are going to basically give these great case studies on everything they've done right and how they've implemented AI to its greatest possible outcome. And I said, we're the opposite of that.
We're learning as we go, we're testing, we're playing with it. I gave my team, my marketing team, permission to just take time to play because that's how people learn when you're a kid, when you're a baby, how do you learn? You just play, you try, you do different things. You see what it's capable of. Not with any expectation of whatever you're going to produce is going to be something amazing that I can put to practice this week. But if you just sit There and test it and play with it and try different things and succeed and fail, you're going to learn so much more. And I gave my team permission to do that. And within very short order, they found platforms that they could put into use to help execute on various tasks. And that's from product or home design descriptions, to helping with blog articles, to helping with ebooks that we produce, to producing certain images. And is because I allow, because I promoted their. Their ability to just play and not expecting anything. They enjoyed it more, they learned more and figured out how to apply it within their. Their jobs. Now, when you're developing content that has to appeal to another individual, I believe the human element has to still be there. I think it's great to use AI to generate ideas and that you may be able to manipulate those ideas, but anything that it produces right out of the box often needs additional editing, additional manipulation to get it into your company voice or to put some nuance to it, to what you're actually trying to achieve. So we do a lot of that. We'll use it to generate ideas, initial drafts, and then we take those and we edit them. It still needs that human element to get it to where we want it to ultimately be.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really good point. Oftentimes, I think what makes a piece of content really impactful is speaking from experience.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: And AI doesn't have any experience, so it can't produce content that comes with that kind of impact.
So, yeah, I 100% agree with you there. We do a lot of content over here for home builders, and we get asked that question all the time, do you use AI? And we do, but primarily for that messy first draft. And what that does is just allows our team to get into that human editing much, much quicker than how it was before, where we're starting from scratch with a blank document and warm fingertips on the keyboard. Right?
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's a lot of companies and builders, regardless of industry, they haven't got it all figured out and they feel like they're falling behind. And, you know, I was there on stage basically saying, I hope you don't feel that way because I'm right there with you. We're all in this together. But you have to start. You've got to start small and work your way up. Just like anything, any workout program, any diet you go on, anything you do, you've got to start, but start right away.
Start to do things so you don't fall farther behind, for lack of a better term, but, you know, start to Learn, start to learn what it can do, what it can't do, how things work. You know, watch some videos, read some articles, see what other people are doing and then go do it. It's not that scary. Once you start to play with it and do things with it, you'll learn quite a bit in a short amount of time.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's such a great perspective to take on it because I feel oftentimes like people don't want to engage with something or try something new until they have the full outcome figured out. Right. Like until I have all of the steps to get me to the finish line, I don't want to start. And I think that's a really good point.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Yeah, things change way too quickly to do that anymore.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: Being with software development, it's a minimum viable product. What can you get out into the market and let people start to test it? You'll learn so much more by people looking at it, seeing it, testing it, telling you what needs to be better. But if you waited until everything is perfect, you may have just completely missed your opportunity and another company may have come along and jumped in front of you. So it's very much, it's like do enough to test it and then keep going. If you wait too long to be perfect and you're going to miss it, you're going to miss the boat.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. Rob, maybe you can talk about some other commonly held beliefs that you disagree with in this area. It's a question I love to ask people because it just kind of shines a light on how we all think differently about different situations.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I'll start with one. It continues to be pervasive, is we are in the 55 plus home buyer space and that older generations, older demographic does not use technology. And that is just completely false. It's just a non starter conversation. If you don't think that the buyers over 55 are using technology and that you've got to do some other approach and not implement new technology, you're completely missing an opportunity there. I mean I would watch my mom at 75, 80 years old, working with her iPad, you know, going through the various things that we've produced. I was like, you know, she's my biodemographic at the top end. I go and absolutely, she's looking at everything online. And then you start to think, this is where I get out. A little bit of soapbox too is I'm an Xer.
We're the oldest Xers. Are 59. I'm not there yet, but I've had a computer in my hands since elementary school. I mean, all the technology that I've had to learn and adapt to throughout my entire life, that continues to happen. If you're thinking that demographic isn't using technology, I'm like, I don't know how to any clearer say it. It's like we've had it in our hands since almost day one. And we will continue to evolve with it because it's what we do. We adapt to anything that comes along and we've done it as a generation. And. And if you're not supplying that level, we don't really have any interest in talking to you. That's how you build credibility with your audience, is giving them what they need. A lot of builders will like to hold back. Well, I want them to come talk to me. I'm not going to give them everything because I want to be able to share that with them personally. I was like, you will never get the chance to talk to that buyer. The credibility comes from giving them everything they want up front. And then they'll say, hey, hey, I'm willing to come talk to you because I see what you have, I want what you have now. I want to come in and validate that what I'm seeing online matches what I'm going to see in person.
So that's a little bit of that generational shift and at least the mindset. Another kind of thing, and this is controversial, is that as a marketer, I'm saying this, that everybody's a member of the sales team. And I reverse that and I say everybody's a part of the marketing team because a sale is a transaction. It's a moment in time. It's the signing of a contract. Now there's everything that happens before a sale and everything that happens after a sale. Now, that's not to shortchange the work and the efforts of a sales team. Absolutely not.
They're vital to any business.
But there's things that happen from the first touch point where they first become aware that you exist as a builder and what your product is to long after they've become a customer. And that involves marketing, it involves accounting, it involves sales, it involves operations, it involves warranty. You think of all of those departments are going to impact a person's impression of you as a company. And all of that impression is part of the branding marketing side of any business.
So I try to broaden that scope of when people think of marketing, it's not just advertising, which is what a lot of people think. It's just, well, you did an ad, a pretty picture, cute slogan. But it's everything about what people think of your company.
Your brand is not what you tell people it is. It's what people experience. And everybody in your organization is part of that experience. And if you haven't put that forward as one of your company goals or values, that every interaction, regardless of what it is over the 20 year lifespan of they first becoming aware of you until after they've been a homeowner, every interaction they have is going to reflect in how they think of you as a company and how they talk to others about you as a company.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really powerful statement. And I think you're right that a lot of people kind of overlook that. You know, we want our brand to be this. Well, your brand is determined by the people. Your only ability as a marketer is to influence that as much as you can. And I agree with you that the biggest impact factor in all of that is the experience.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
So talking a little bit more about adopting technology and getting into data and that sort of thing, Rob, what are some things that you see other builders doing or maybe partners doing that you believe that they should stop doing?
What does that look like to you? Or what comes to mind when I ask you that?
[00:35:07] Speaker B: Yeah, stop doing is setting business goals that aren't based on some level of data.
How many homes that you can effectively build or sell has some basis in data, how much you can sell them for, has some level of data component to it. And if you're going to set business goals, they should be based on something that you have in front of you that says, here's what we've accomplished in the past, here's what we think we can accomplish in the future. Here's the people and resources necessary, here's the funds that are necessary, here's how much we can effectively deliver in this timeframe. And that can always be part of your goal setting as you go forward. If you want to grow and expand. Okay, what does your data tell you of what's necessary to do that? Where are those additional expenditures? But I see it. I see a lot of builders that set their goals really high. And I say, well, where did you get that goal? It's like, it's what I want to do.
Yeah, but do you have the infrastructure to do it?
A lot of that comes within our franchising division. If I talk about that, how many franchises do we want to sell in A year? Well, a lot of that is how many can we properly onboard train up, get them the resources, give them the guidance and support they need, and get them up and launched in a reasonable amount of time. I mean, all of that comes into play. I three years ago now had put forward the fact that I wanted to add a marketing analyst to our organization and I was able to work that through where I was able to add a person, a resource into our company. That's the marketing analyst and he's looking at every part of our data chain. So what's happening on our website? What are the conversion ratios going that are going through?
What is our cost per lead, what is our cost per sale? And then how do we deliver reports out to all of the powers that be? I've got six regional presidents, so we deliver monthly reports to our regional presidents that give them what's happening in their particular market. Then we consolidate all those reports and do the executive summary for the owners of the company and the executives as well. And so that I can be able to show them what marketing efforts are in play, what we're spending for those and what results we're achieving through those. Now that really helps us to analyze where are the holes in the system, what's going wrong, or where are we not converting at the proper levels. Now we can very quickly start to attack those areas and improve them. Something we didn't have before. We had ad hoc reports, we had our thoughts on what was happening, but now we can very succinctly dial in on what is happening and how to improve things. Another part of that was having systems put in place to be able to gather all of the data and be able to pull reports on it quickly. And that took some consolidation and alignment between different departments. What is a lead? What constitutes a lead? How are we counting that number? There's a, there's an idea. An inquiry is not a lead. So if I'm calling and asking, hey, are you a home builder? Yes. Well, that's not a lead. But if I'm calling and asking, you are a home builder that has product in this price range that meets what I'm looking for? Yes. Okay, well then that person's a lead. And are we counting that and tracking that properly? And that gets rid of some of the fluff numbers and gets to interdepartmental alignment that says, okay, well marketing's producing is what sales was asking for. And now are we converting that at a high enough level?
[00:38:55] Speaker A: So it sounds like having some service level agreements there between your different departments so that there's a common understanding of each department's role and responsibility and how those two interplays is a big component of that.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it's what other industries always do. And what I've found in home building with a lot of builders that I speak to, they don't have those types of things in place. A lot of builders are effective at building a home, but it's that side of the business, from marketing to sales that they've really never concentrated on or in the bigger builders have it. But you know, you get into the mid to smaller builders, they don't necessarily have those tools, resources, people or experience on how to build that process properly.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. And that's a really good point.
Well, that actually kind of bridges into the next thing that I wanted to talk about a little bit is what would you recommend for these builders that aren't as far down this path as where you guys are at? Where would you recommend that they get started? Like what, what should they look at first?
[00:40:02] Speaker B: I, I think it really goes to what your business goals are. I, I always start there with any conversation with one of the builders in our network. What are your realistic business goals coming up?
What is the likelihood of producing the leads you need to achieve those business goals? Are you willing to commit the dollars to, to get there?
And I have calculators that I put forward and I say here's what that dollar amount looks like on what we believe is just the averages. Is that how much you're committing today or willing to commit to? Yes. Okay, now we can start to talk about how to dial in and most effectively use those dollars and who should do it? Number one question we have for incoming builders is should I hire somebody? Should I use an agency?
What should I do? Who should help me with that particular aspect of my business? What we hope they all get to is having someone who's trained and educated on staff while also using an outside agency.
Because the outside agency is going to have multiple skills. They're going to have designers, developers, programmers, all the things they need. But if you have a skilled marketer on staff, they can help manage and guide them. They're going to understand your business and be able to translate that language to that outside agency and be able to accomplish a great more than somebody, maybe just one person on staff. Now if that's what you need to do is have an on site staff person actually advise them on, maybe this is the type of person you should look at. Here's the industries that they should potentially come from the background that they could have. Who's going to be the most effective person for you to come in? But it's, do you have a trained person on staff to do this work? Marketing is the last thing many builders think about, but it's the first thing they need to start generating revenue. And that's what marketing really is, is the beginning of the generation of revenue. And if you think about it differently and think about it in that way, you'll think about it sooner, dedicate more resources and the right people to getting it accomplished.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes so much sense. In my experience in the industry, oftentimes what I see is somebody that's in a marketing decision making role. You know, there, if you look at their history, it was.
[00:42:20] Speaker B: Well, I started as a sales associate.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: And then I was an area manager. Then I became a sales manager. Now I'm a director of sales and marketing. And I find that we don't share the same, we don't speak the same language a lot of the time. It's difficult that way to try to get them to understand how, you know, marketing's job really is to line them up so sales can knock em down.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: For, you know, lack of a better term. But yeah, no, that's a, that's a really good point.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the, that's the demand generation versus lead generation versus advertising or just communicating. And many times people with sales backgrounds, they know how to tactically promote something going on. But how do you build a campaign that over time builds your audience? Doesn't a term I use is heartbeat marketing. I did something for this weekend, 10 people showed up, but then it goes away. So you get that little blip and then it stops. Where a marketing program hopefully gets you 10 this weekend, 15 the following weekend, 20 the next weekend after that. And it builds on itself over time. So it's that reverse hockey stick as opposed to the heartbeat type of approach.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really good point. We talk about building a growth engine that's kind of our wheelhouse and it's the same concept. Like part of my soapbox is let's stop doing campaigns that are in reaction to what's happening to the market and instead let's focus on doing something that's a little bit more systematic and, and focusing on building a growth engine that's going to continuously put new leads into the system and nurture them along and warm them up and pass them off to sales when they're ready. And I think that taking that approach requires a different mindset for sure, first and foremost. But I think ultimately helps builders grow and scale better.
Rob, given your experience in this industry and all your marketing background, I'm really curious to know what is something that you see a lot of other builders trying to do that you've figured out a better way of doing it?
[00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's universal in almost every industry. It's not just home building, it's not just home builders is that most companies are trying to find that campaign or the postcard or the headline that's just going to move the needle and cause all these results to go viral, to use an old term. But that may happen on occasion, but it's often not repeatable. What did really well one time, the next time you go to just pull it out of your back pocket and create something unique, it doesn't work as well. So I think the approach that, that I take, my marketing team takes and that we try to teach our, the builders, our network is it's putting in the work. It's every day following a strategic plan, executing on that plan, measuring results, tweaking, making things better, be willing to test, fail fast, fail often, learn what works, do more of that, do less of what doesn't, and over time you will continue to build on those results. It's like working out. If you work out one time and you work out really hard for two hours, you're not really going to see results. But if you put in the time several times a week for multiple weeks over time, you're going to see the results. And that's what to me, the practice, the effort, the dedication to marketing is it's not about a singular campaign or a headline. It's a strategy, strategic plan that you execute and follow on a regular basis.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: No, I love that. That, that really resonates with me too and the way that I look at it. So Rob, tell me a little bit about a recent accomplishment of yours that you're really proud of.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Well, I think something that we're very proud of in our marketing team is quick move in homes campaign that we just recently did.
As a, as a corporate entity, we've rarely done a lot of inventory Homes, we are usually we, we market it first, we sell it second, we build it third. And we don't do a lot of quick move in inventory homes. Well, this year we reversed that a little bit and we had a much larger supply across all of our corporate or three of our corporate regions. We had a number of quick movement homes. And over the course of a week, my marketing team sat down created a new campaign with our agency and launched it in seven days. We went from initial concept to launching the campaign in seven days.
And over the past three months, two months, we've been promoting that campaign and all the components that went with it and special weeks of coming out and touring our inventory homes and such to where we have achieved about 80% of the sales necessary for our large supply of inventory homes. And I said it just took a lot of time, effort and dedication from people, my marketing team, as well as our agency to accomplish that and to meet company goals, ones that we were kind of unaware of and kind of caught us by surprise.
And it was brought to us, and my team came together and did that. And that, to me, is a really proud moment for us as a marketing team and to really see the business goals that were achieved in that time as well. Now, that has now made us look at the coming year. You talk about learning and testing and doing things differently. We're now going to extend the amount of time we're working on our inventory homes would typically do it in the fourth quarter. Now we're going to do it in the third and fourth quarter next year because that's now more in alignment with business goals as we started to build more inventory homes.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: That's incredible that that's a really fast launch. Hats off to your team for that.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I. Hey, they did a great job. I was. I'm very proud of the work that they did.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: So, Rob, one of my favorite questions to ask everybody that comes on the show as it pertains to you and your position, what do you see as some of the emerging tech that's coming that's going to shape the future of your role?
[00:49:00] Speaker B: Well, one that's already evolving for us in implementing across our company is the work we're doing with Hierarch, which is a lot of the visualization tools that were a great bridge between marketing, sales, and construction.
One thing I had gone out to vendors for years and I said, there are marketing and sales tools to create visuals, and there are sales and construction tools that take what people choose and help to build the home. But how do we bridge those three together? The old process was the product department would come up with the construction plans. The they'd give them to us in the marketing team. We'd send it off to our vendor and they would start to create visual assets.
Well, in the meantime, the product and construction team start to build out the home and they make changes. So a door becomes a window or transom's put in or something else changes. So by the time our visual asset is produced, it no longer matches where the product is now.
So then we'd go back to our vendor and have them adjust the elevations and all of that. And meanwhile the product continues to evolve.
So I had brought this forward to a number of vendors. I go, can you bridge that? So we have a single source of truth. So if there's a change in product, visual assets, change in real time, put that forward to within our company. And Hierarch came into our consciousness and it was brought back to me. I said, that's exactly the, the platform and the solution that we've been looking for, the one I've been talking about and hadn't been able to find. So we've been working with them and they have really helped us to bridge those three aspects of our business. Marketing, the sales, sales to construction. And it's made our process more efficient and it's made it more real to the buyer because now they can start to design their home, not look at representations of a home. And that subtle difference is a huge breakthrough for us. They pick the color palettes and they pick the various aspects of the structural options that they want. Okay, now you've designed your home, but yeah, there's a lot of platforms can do that. But now that platform creates site specific construction plans directly from it.
So now there's no other step involved.
You've made the selections. The salesperson was able to get the buyer to buy in on it. And now construction builds directly from the same platform. And that's been, that is and will continue to be a huge development for our company and the industry as a whole.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: And sorry, what was the name of that platform?
[00:51:50] Speaker B: Hyark.
[00:51:51] Speaker A: Hyark.
[00:51:52] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: Cool, I'm gonna have to look for that one. I'll put a link to it in the, in the show notes for everybody to the audience so they can check that out.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it's this greater opportunity to visualize the home that you want to live in.
[00:52:07] Speaker A: This has been a really great conversation. Rob, before we come to a close, I want to ask you what are three things that somebody that's listened to our interview today should take away from this?
[00:52:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Hopefully they find at least one thing that they could take away from it if they've taken the time to listen. And I appreciate the fact that you did. I said, number one, treat marketing like any other major area of your business, whether it's accounting, legal, construction. Marketing is where revenue begins. So treat it that way.
Don't shortchange it.
Find somebody that knows what they're doing, and ultimately your company will do better. Always start with the basics.
Marketing is getting very complicated, but the basics are pretty simple. Are you willing to dedicate the time and attention and financial resources to making it work? If you're willing to do that, everything else becomes easier after that. Then it's a matter of nuance and picking individual things. But if you're not willing to make those commitments up front, you're not going to achieve your business goals.
Number three is don't be afraid of trying out, learning about, and employing technology.
Whatever segment you're building for, there's some level of technology you can employ to make that process easier for you or easier and and more personal for the buyer. And if you haven't done anything, do something. And never stop being willing to test and try new things, because once you do that, you fall back very quickly.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: That's great advice. I love it.
Awesome, Rob. So if somebody wants to reach out to you, how would they do that? Where's the best place to find Rob online?
[00:54:11] Speaker B: I'll just see me on LinkedIn. So Rob Krohn at OB Krohn on LinkedIn. It's a great place to just kind of find us. Or if you have an opportunity, check out epconcommunities.com or epconfranchising.com for the two sides of our business, two different websites, and take a look, see what we're doing and what we have available.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Amazing. And I'll make sure that I link to those in the show notes as well, so everybody has access to it.
[00:54:40] Speaker B: Fantastic.
[00:54:41] Speaker A: Awesome. Rod, thank you so much for your time today. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Learned a lot myself, and that's probably my biggest takeaway or the thing that I love about doing these interviews is I get to learn alongside the listeners, too. So this has been really great talking.
[00:54:59] Speaker B: With you as well. I love what I do. I love being a marketer and talking to other people within our profession and. Because that's how we all learn and how we all get better.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely.
So thanks everyone for tuning into the show today. If you liked the episode, give it a thumb up. You can follow us and subscribe on Spotify, on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. And we're looking to build our audience. So the best thing that you can do to help us out is send a link over to a colleague if you found this particular episode valuable. Thanks again. Love you guys so much. And we'll see you on the next episode.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: Thank you.
