Market Proof Marketing: Home Builder Marketing Insights

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 302: The Measure of Success

In this episode, Kevin Oakly, Andrew Peek and Jen Barkan! The team is currently participating in fantasy football and Jen shares her stats so far. Together, they consider how to measure the success of an ad if it doesn’t become a lead and talk about how everything is hanging on interest rates right now. Spicy Kevin makes several appearances and keeps the conversation interesting!

Story Time (06:34)

• Andrew is trying to figure out how you measure the success of a phone call or ad if it doesn’t end up becoming a lead? Or can it be considered successful at all?
• Jen’s daughter is going through the vet school application process and it’s made her compare that process to people applying for The Nationals this year.
• Kevin says that managers and senior leaders who have zero desire to unpack why things are working are insecure in their own ability with what would be revealed. 

News (31:26)

• New sustainability tools help businesses and cities map environmental information (https://blog-google.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-apis-environment-sustainability/amp/)
• In Its First Monopoly Trial of Modern Internet Era, U.S. Sets Sights on Google (https://dnyuz.com/2023/09/06/in-its-first-monopoly-trial-of-modern-internet-era-u-s-sets-sights-on-google/)
• Mortgage demand drops to 27-year low as interest rates pull back (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/06/mortgage-demand-drops-to-27-year-low-as-interest-rates-pull-back.html)
• ONE+ By Rocket Mortgage® Is A 1% Down Payment Option (https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/one-plus?qls=QNS_20180523.0123456789)

Favorites/Hates (59:50)

• Andrew watched a documentary film called “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” on Amazon.
• Jen loves that college football is back!
• Kevin’s favorite is a sports jacket and a youtube video by Kyla Scanlon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdBSaG2cujM 

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] 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.

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A weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We’re here to help you – not to sell you!
Transcript:
KevinJen do you know who you want to trade?
Jen
Well, I tried to pull one over on Jackie Lipinski and tried to get Justin Jefferson from her, as if she didn't know who that was. But I did. I did try to offer her a couple of really good legit players, but she denied me.
Kevin
Oh.
Jen
Yes, I have not.
Kevin
You're a fantasy football professional, so can you talk right now who's like, if you had to call it right now, who has the best team? Do you think?
Jen
Um, I mean, Jackie has a pretty good team. Mike has a pretty good team. I have a pretty decent team. I mean, I'm really not a professional. I just like to pretend that I know what you want.
Kevin
Right. You won that unicorn trophy.
Andrew
It's great.
Jen
Yeah, I won.
Andrew
It's gold.
Jen
I won once. Yes, but it's really just. It's really just luck. Plus, the way that we do it, guys, is this auto draft. So it's not even like you, you just, just auto automatically picks your players. You don't really have any say in what's.
Andrew
Going to have the winners decided with the auto draft.
Jen
Sort of yeah.
Andrew
Well if you don't like such a.
Jen
Lineup it says projected standings with Mike Ryan and first place.
Andrew
So happens every year somehow.
Jen
Trying to.
Kevin
RAZ Even though he's the commissioner right? Yeah.
Jen
Yeah. Like Jalen hurts or your quarterback.
Kevin
Let's see. Here's here's what makes me mad is I had to make myself like math again. Like I failed the honors pre-calculus. And I took it twice. And then I never had to take math again. And I was like, I'm never. I chose a different like, I was like, I'm going to go Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science because I'm not taking anything close to math.
Kevin
And then I had to make myself like math when I became a marketer, became important. Yeah. So it drives me nuts. Like I'm going up against Lipinski and it says projected score of 124 and a half for me, this is 122 and a half for her. Okay. How is it possible that what's going to happen is going to happen?
Kevin
I'm going to get 65 and she's going to have 172. I mean, that's just gambling. That's just randomness.
Jen
They're just taking average projections. But what happens is somebody could get hurt. They might not even play. Hey, I mean, like, you never know.
Kevin
I just think if we have, you know, I that can take us to Mars and back. Can it give us better projections at this? Like, come on, ESPN, get some GPUs fired up And.
Jen
Then but there is.
Kevin
Machine learning.
Andrew
Human.
Jen
To human factor.
Andrew
Are reliable, unreliable.
Jen
Human factor.
Kevin
But they're all being paid off to like take a fall and stuff anyway. Right. Like it's it's all statistically for sure. Oh, it's all over.
Andrew
If there is no drama in the game, no.
Jen
One wants to think.
Andrew
It's like people think all the housewife shows are real. Like if there's no drama, there'd be no show. It's all manufactured.
Kevin
I just think it should show around. You should be like, Here's. Here's that. Every year I am like, okay, I'll give Fantasy another shot. And then after the first two or three weeks of the same thing happening every time, or it's like I should have 180 points and I get 30.
Jen
Like, there's no no, you just have to make sure that your players don't have a bye.
Kevin
I don't. I do believe that never happens the first two or three weeks before I get.
Jen
Okay.
Kevin
So that's why I was wondering, besides you and Mike, who is most likely to win so I can just trade them my best players now.
Jen
But now you're playing that game we're not in. Oh, man.
Andrew
I just opted out this year because now we have enough people. I do convert, you know, I don't feel like I'm like.
Jen
No pressure.
Andrew
No pressure because I was not adding to it. I would I would set my thing, but I was just like, Oh, there's another person playing. I don't watch football. I watched some college football, but professional. But they said on.
Jen
Usually guys, I went to the Virginia Tech Old Dominion game this past weekend. It was freaking electric. I was pretty sure Old Dominion was going to get pummeled, but they played pretty good. You know, that's my alma mater.
Andrew
Since that's where you went.
Jen
That's where I went to school, right? I'm a die hard fan. I go, Every time you have a home game, I'm there. But when they started playing Enter Sandman at the beginning, I mean, it was like it. In fact, they when everybody's jumping like that, it registers on the text size. Yeah, my grandma, I don't know what the type, but I registers as an earthquake.
Jen
It was crazy. Like, I was like, almost. I was so overcome with emotion. I was, I was like, it's not even I mean, look, I pay Virginia Tech a lot of money because my child goes there. So I like either way, whoever won it was fine. But I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, I brought me back to Meredith Oliver's fanatical selling and like, we have to our customers need to be fans of, you know, our our business and our brand and our company.
Jen
And yeah, I mean, it was it was a thing, man. I was like, I'm all in on these Hokies.
Andrew
So you can't replace you cannot replace humans, I guess is what it is.
Kevin
Yeah. It's not human to happening this year, but sometimes soon I'm going to have to get my kids to the summit just for like the first 30 minutes and then tell them to leave, because I think that's the only atmosphere that work. And I understand like, Oh, okay, Dad, you do you do real work outside of just talking to your computer upstairs.
Andrew
Or they might be like, wait, So you go on stage and talk for like a couple of minutes and all these people give you give you money, they listen to you. I don't know. That sounds like a scam. I feel like that's what you promise.
Kevin
No more sports talk for the rest of the podcast.
Andrew
No more sports.
Kevin
Let's start. Walk on to marketers marketing the podcast from the industry leaders. How do you convert where we talk about the current and future state of marketing and online sales for builders and developers across the globe? We're not here to sell you. We're here to help you and to try and elevate the conversation. Is there a topic you'd like us to cover or a question you'd like us to answer?
Kevin
We'll do it. Simply send an email to show at. Do you convert? Dot com. Welcome to episode 302. I'm Kevin. Okay. And with me today is Andrew Peek and Jen Barkin.
Andrew
We're here. It's so exciting.
Kevin
It's a chat. Are we allowed to announce what's happening?
Jen
Oh, my gosh. What's happening?
Kevin
See, the thing that you're doing?
Jen
Am I doing.
Kevin
Fast with the ends with podcast? Oh, are you kidding me? Talking about that? And we're not talking.
Jen
About that yet.
Kevin
Okay, we'll talk about it.
Andrew
I think you just talked about it like it's like, what do you know?
Kevin
We didn't.
Jen
We are pretty sure you didn't mind people talking.
Kevin
Oh, all right. Well, that's funny. What do you got?
Andrew
Oh, what I got This is a fun question. And I talked about yesterday and this morning, so my. Oh, this could be open discussion. Maybe we make it a parallel to the online sales world. But at the same time, how do you measure a successful ad or how do you measure a successful phone call if it doesn't end up with a lead or an appointment?
Andrew
Can it still be successful? It's kind of like a gay like principle or like theory. Question This is like the long essay question at the end of an SAT. I don't know if they still do that or not. It's been quite a few years, so sort of open ended discussion. So let's talk about this with Beth, a coach convert and Bryce, a marketing strategist.
Andrew
And it really went down to this rabbit hole of like, oh, you kind of need to be rooted in some type of principles before you decide what is success or not success, because it could be like, Hey, it's really efficient. Was that successful or not? We need every single click out there. Like maybe that's actually the opposite. It's unsuccessful or maybe a very, very limited budget.
Andrew
So having a really low or very efficient cost per click is success. Or maybe it's a coming soon community. You need as many leads as you can and you just need to spend as much as can. It doesn't matter what the cost per lead is because the urgency of more leads is significantly more important than trying to save some of the marketing budget.
Andrew
So I kind of just gave the answer. It really depends. It really depends. There's no there's no good.
Jen
Answer, but the right answer as to your.
Kevin
Question, it's a hard question. Salespeople leads.
Andrew
Well, that's it's online sales. People talk.
Jen
And I was going to say I was going to say I don't know what the right answer is, but I would think it would be a good ad, would get leads and appointments and sales.
Andrew
Yeah, sounds good to me.
Kevin
You know. Yeah.
Jen
If it's a it's.
Kevin
It's you know, I other maybe maybe land I don't know of a longer purchase cycle for most people to deal with and then homes.
Andrew
Yeah.
Kevin
Maybe mega yachts or airplanes I mean but like if you're shopping for an airplane, is that comparable to shopping for a car? I don't know. Like.
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boats, boats and car boats and there's lots of personalized ocean.
Kevin
Like I've seen lots of visualization tools for customizing your own private jet. Being advertised is like the new way to sell expensive stuff to people.
Jen
I mean, ads are the need though just that really any.
Kevin
Well right but I mean is like the number of decisions and trade offs to consider and you know but at that that's just what makes it all more complicated and.
Andrew
Very complicated. It's a hard question. Like it's well, it's I think it's.
Kevin
It's it's the question in advertising. But for us, it's important. Remember that there are multiple parts of the funnel. Different ads serve different purposes for different customers in different stages. You know, you can't I think about this way if you think about a pie pizza and everyone inside of that pie, it doesn't matter if you spend $2 million or $2,000 a month on search, if it's only within that pie, there is always a tradeoff of like if you spend all $2 million and the pie doesn't expand and it's not really pie, it's Rubik's Cube because it's like seven dimensional.
Kevin
But you you can't have any one tactic that you can just never max out.
Jen
Now.
Kevin
Not just in terms of I guess what I'm trying to convey is it's not just that the ads will get more expensive, but it will not raise the number of people that it reaches if it's defined by a certain radius or shape or audience already and so can't.
Andrew
Yeah, we can't really create a market sort of.
Kevin
Well, yes, but I guess my point is each channel is by definition we don't think about this way. It's own market. Like only the people who are searching can be reached by search marketing. It makes sense. Yeah. If people who aren't searching or they're not searching at every moment of their decision making process. Right.
Jen
And so if they're searching, we want to capture them with your.
Kevin
Yeah, if they are search, you want to capture them. But you also have to realize that every every line goes back to Steve Schumacher's joke, which you repeat all the time, is if you've got five different things that are viable reasons why someone ends up being a purchaser or they have a realtor, they're referred by a friend, they saw you on a social ad, they did a search, they went on an event and then they purchase who gets credit.
Kevin
But it's just the acknowledgment that you have to have that every customer becomes a member of multiple channels, advertising channels all the time. And so, like there is this well-rounded ness that I don't think I understood early in my career that now that everyone's I mean, it's everyone's I'm data driven, dated or data driven, and it's like that curve that we get a name Dunning, Kruger data or whatever.
Andrew
Greater than.
Kevin
Feeling data over.
Andrew
That data.
Kevin
Yeah, but I would say to your point, what's the word you used to start with a piece that we need.
Andrew
People we.
Kevin
Know we need. Well, anyway, it's a good ad we need. We need what?
Andrew
Before to me is as context we need I don't even know. I don't know where it's just come out my mouth is what usually happens.
Jen
It's a struggle and.
Andrew
Eventually it forms a sentence that makes sense.
Kevin
Yeah, but anyway, the whole world has gone so over onto the data side that for sure there is a serious lack of around principles of thinking principle.
Andrew
That we have principles.
Kevin
Here that we will.
Andrew
Live by principles. That's what we need and building principles come from.
Kevin
This is the LinkedIn post that I made a little while ago. The principles come from having an ultra deep understanding of what your consumer's experiencing and doing and thinking That's not defined by just asking them, What are you doing? What are you thinking? Because they can't, they can't articulate. They do what's called preference falsification, where they just say what they feel like they're supposed to say to appear good.
Kevin
And so you have to have that deep understanding. Just know like, well, of course they're doing these other things. And I don't actually I need data to continually prove to me that they're doing that because I'm constantly watching consumers do what they do and interacting with them and talking to them anyway.
Andrew
Yeah, it's a loaded question. Yeah, we talked about it probably like an hour and a half until yesterday and today. Beth and Bryce. Well, not that single question, but it was a series of question. Yeah, from a very intelligent builder partner of ours. And it was like, Oh, this is actually like, this gets deep. Like you can't that's not a surface level question.
Andrew
It's not like, Hey, just check on that. Click the rate, the CPC and conversion rate, and it is your answer because you could have amazing conversion rate.
Kevin
And I think.
Andrew
I just asked.
Kevin
My sister, here's our episode and she doesn't listen anyway, but she's a CMO now at a at a university, I guess. I mean, sorry, Kristen, but, you know, remember all those bad things she did to me when I was a kid? There's no payback. She she read like a Harvard Business Review magazine article and then, you know, reached out to me and was like, how do I get my team to do this?
Kevin
Like, I read this in an article and it's like, I mean, okay. But I think that's where our prints were. The principles come from Your principles either come from just things you like, observed from afar, or someone else just told you that's a terrible way to develop or principle you can shortcut by getting a coach right? Jenn My coaches help you shortcut to the best principles, but if you're going to your coach and you're like, Hey, I think maybe we should do, you know, squats this way.
Kevin
Andrew Instead of this other way. Why I someone on TikTok said so you're like, Well, I've been in a couple competition. Like, that's, that's not good, right? So I think that's, that's where the friction comes from, is people who have strong principles without strong experience of testing those principles. They just decided it were good principles. Like that's and I it's just important for me to articulate, I guess, to everyone else.
Kevin
And our principles don't come from our feelings. Back to your T-shirt. Andrew Yeah, the principles come from the data, but the data combined with experience and observation, not just data on its own. Yeah.
Andrew
And then kind of testing against those principles reinforces the.
Jen
Principle, the direction this conversation was going about ads, successful ads.
Kevin
There. Again.
Andrew
I think moving it towards online sales world is like a principle on a phone call. Here's the intent of this.
Jen
So this this kind of plays into yeah, let's just just well, it just plays into the whole coaching and being coachable and wanting to do things the right way and the like. You said, the experience that like our coaching team, do you convert as like thousands upon thousands of hours in the seat. But, but then also coaching and training, I mean, just thousands.
Jen
I don't even know what that might be.
Kevin
Hundreds of years. I think if you add up the whole. Yes.
Jen
Yeah, hundreds of years. And so it's like when we are speaking from like experience and relevance in the market because we work with, you know, over a couple of hundred online sales specials a month. So we know like what's happening in real time. It's a few, it's like this is yeah, like this is we're not this is not just, are we?
Jen
We're not is like pulling this out of thin air. What we think like this is what we know, you know, because of what we see on a daily basis. So and you got to be coachable. You got to be open to listening and learning. And I was actually on a podcast yesterday with the homes for Hope program. Yeah, it's awesome.
Jen
Derek And he asked me something came up about coach ability and I was like, Yeah, you know, as a coach you can, you can be like, we're totally invested in that online sales specialist, right? But they have to be invested back in us. We can train, we can coach, we can lead them to the water. We can't make them drink.
Jen
It can't make them do that. They got to be invested back. And so, yeah.
Kevin
That's well, and I'm going to get I mean, you use a spice emoji so I'm, I don't know if you've chilled out since then, but I'm going to bring some spice back. So I feel, I think it's not the right word. I don't want use that word. There are absolutely managers and senior leaders out there who have zero desire to unpack why things work are working, and that it seems to be my hunch would be my hunch would be managers told me my wife, that I should never use that word.
Kevin
Do people not use the word hunch anymore?
Jen
I just know. Yeah, I use that hunch.
Kevin
Okay. She's like, when you use that word, stop it.
Andrew
Is it like, quote, a word? I don't know if like that. That phrase.
Jen
Like moist.
Kevin
You know, my hunch is that they are insecure in their own ability with whatever it is that would be unpacked.
Jen
Absolutely.
Kevin
And that leads them to be like, nope, don't want to like results are good, don't care about. And I'll give you the tangible example here. There is a builder we were speaking with who it looked like the online salesperson was averaging like 30 to 40 leads a month for the last six months. Okay. And we were on a quarterly leadership call and our online sales coach, working with that person has been talking about things a certain way based upon an understanding that that lead volume, by the way, that lead volume is given by the LSC in the reporting that we use, it comes from the CRM, but he's always have the availability to make sure
Kevin
the numbers are accurate and consistent. So our leadership and the leadership sales manager, VP of Sales Marketing is like, Oh no, no, no. That only gets like way more than that. We're talking like a hundred plus more leads a month than what that is showing. But it's in this other system that doesn't talk to our CRM and, and I was like, well, that's why for about an issue, I don't know, two years we've recommended to stop using that thing and sorry the answer came back was but it's working really well for us.
Kevin
Like how do you know?
Jen
Do you know.
Kevin
Because you're your online salesperson doesn't know. Apparently because they don't, they don't count those things. There's no tracking of of how those people are followed up with. And what it boils down to is it's just someone who's highly uncomfortable with the use of technology themselves, someone somewhere told them or whatever, like this is a good thing to use and things are going fine enough, but that's just a that's a huge blind spot that is going to cause massive panic at some point that could be avoided if you just.
Jen
Hear.
Kevin
More about how you how you got to that end result.
Jen
There is definitely a.
Kevin
Know.
Jen
You know, listen online sales contribution is so high. I mean, 45 to 50%.
Kevin
Of.
Jen
Sales are coming from this program. But there's still this disconnect of the resources, the support, the time spent understanding, learning the tools, the systems, the reporting.
Kevin
For this role.
Jen
And so there's a lot of like just wild, Wild West happening out there with some of the online sales specialist because there's management is not is not getting in there and taking the time to understand it's it's like you said, Kevin, maybe a lack of understanding or technology but there's also bandwidth issues to feel like everybody is spread so thin and when push comes to shove, we need sales to keep everything running, right?
Jen
So I'm going to take my efforts and focus on the the sale, the end of the funnel here. But really, we're not going to get sales unless we have a point difference. And if we don't have a point, we got to manage it. So it's really the shift perspective that needs to happen. And I was talking with somebody earlier today that there's still there's still broken parts of the CRM, there's still broken parts of how the leads are managed and things like that.
Jen
And it's like, Hey, we've been talking about this for like a year that's still broken.
Kevin
Like, isn't that funny? Like serums As a broader topic, I feel like, you know, there was a time where it was like, are you using Outlook Express or Outlook or like, what's your email client? I haven't heard maybe once in the last two years someone talk about email or questions are around email and how to write their own email client, right?
Kevin
Mm hmm. Why the heck aren't serums the same way? It's 2023.
Andrew
2023. That would stress me out like I won Lead, lost or won. Lee That you lose. I'm like, that could be X amount of profit from one sale of the home that they just ignore that to someone else.
Kevin
Again.
Andrew
And that just like.
Kevin
All this.
Andrew
That makes me feel.
Kevin
Older. We're on the call and I'm looking through their CRM system and there were months at a time where not a single prospect was ever entered into the CRM by the onsite sales team. That's like millions more months in a row, not a single lead.
Andrew
My that could have been like, that's like, I get weird. I'm like, we could it's like they could have just like, paid someone to pay the whole company notification.
Jen
I mean.
Andrew
Anywhere.
Kevin
They were always the lost revenue or. Ms..
Jen
Ms. Yeah. Or, you know, just looking at even when we could go on and on about this. I mean, you just looking at like, you know, average appointment to sale number right now is 21%. That's a, that's, that's strong 21%. Right. The average walk in traffic conversion is historically like 10 to 12%. Right. So we go, okay, we're still 21%, like one out of five keep appointments are going to write a contract, but we're still not focusing on that.
Jen
During the handoff or making sure that this connection with on site and online is at the forefront of our training and our our discussions. I had some math this episode is all about now. I did some math on Friday where they're right, right now they're at 11% conversion of appointment to sale. And I'm like, if you did these four steps and you were able to increase your conversion to 21%, that's an additional $19 million of revenue.
Jen
Yeah, sales revenue, 19 million, 50 million, which equated to like an additional because we did this math in front of the sales team, that's an additional 400 and something thousand dollars in commission or whatever. That's like being left on the table as like when you put it in that perspective, like, well, oh, you know, like just, you know, like these.
Jen
And again, this goes back to what we were just talking about, Like we're not just coming up with like, yeah, we think you should do it this way. Like, we know this works. We have the data to support it. We have the conversion metrics to show that this is what the averages are.
Kevin
Okay, What do you think.
Jen
These four things.
Kevin
One more thing. Let's just say just for fun.
Andrew
Okay, fancy.
Kevin
Because no one else is listening. Right? Lower left lead to employment ratio. Yeah. Is currently.
Andrew
Can brighten 18.
Kevin
Percent and our and our average benchmark currently is.
Jen
40.
Kevin
40. Okay lead to of women.
Jen
Will get to women. Yeah.
Kevin
My favorite is when the person who has an 18% lead to appointment currently is again the one suggesting that they have found a better way something comes out. I mean and this is where this is where our approaches differ because we're all different humans that do convert, as I'm kind of like I mean, I'm going to explain to you why there's that.
Kevin
That's a bad idea. But you don't I would say to everyone, like, you don't pay me enough to make your decision for you. So, I mean, try it for a week or two, but not longer because you can't afford to go to five. Like 18 is bad enough. Let's get you to 35 with these proven things right first.
Kevin
Oh, yeah.
Jen
Yeah. Now, I just say that.
Kevin
John, about that school application, I.
Jen
Oh, man, I feel like I you go back to school just by now. You know, I did apply to vet school and I if you guys knew that I did at one time want to be a veterinarian.
Andrew
Sent a telegram I.
Kevin
Think like, yes.
Jen
I didn't get in. There's only 30 vet schools in the world.
Kevin
Ohio State is one of the best I hear like, yes, there goes a.
Andrew
Lot of things.
Jen
My daughter is in her senior year, Virginia Tech, and is going through the vet school application process right now. She's applying and like I think 15 schools out of the 30. Oh oh yeah.
Kevin
Is she going to live here or something?
Jen
I so I said if you if you get into Ohio State you can go to Kevin's for dinner. So you know he'll take care of things every sale, you know, they'll feed you, make sure you're okay. But as she's going through this, you know, she's super stressed out. She's having to, like, go back through the last ten years of her life and basically and think about all these things and these prompts.
Jen
It's like, what's the defining moment of when you wanted to be a veterinarian, Right? So she's having to go through this. And I said.
Andrew
These questions are terrible.
Jen
Well, and listen, the vet schools, they only accept it's like the hardest one of the hardest things to get into. They only accept like a 100 out of thousands and thousands of applications. Wow. So I'm like, you've got to do something in this essay to make like to stand out. Like the first sentence has got to be some catchy thing, you know?
Jen
But it made me think about a couple a different think it's a one. If you are thinking about applying to the Nationals, you should because it's a great way to go through and like you go back into the archives, you just document all of this awesome stuff that you've done in your career and put it on paper. And if you're thinking about doing it, you should go for it.
Jen
But also make sure you tell this, tell a story that is what is going to help you stand out All in all of those applications that come in. So tell a story, be specific how you overcame something or whatever. But also maybe think about like when we're communicating with our customers and we're sending follow up and we're sending and we're leaving phone messages and we're communicating like you got a you got to spice it up a little bit.
Jen
Like you got to be personal. You got to you got to put something in the subject line that's going to break through the clutter. It's going to make you stand out instead of touching base, checking in. How's it going? Because people's inboxes are inundated, like and they just get so many, you know, especially if if they're looking at your builder, they're looking at ten other builders that are all sending emails that are all sitting to these letters of.
Kevin
We are.
Jen
All doing all the things.
Kevin
We have.
Jen
We hope. We think, who knows? But you've got us. We've got to break through the digital pollution, right, and cut through the clutter. So that's good luck to Mia. Little Mia.
Kevin
She's like, Our.
Jen
Locations are due September 18th.
Andrew
So 15 of them, But I'd be paying someone to do that, I think.
Jen
Yeah, Yeah. That's what I would like to donate to the MIA application fund. But you've got to, like, pay like zillion dollars for all these different applications. So I'm really excited for. So put out some deposit invites.
Andrew
To the universe.
Jen
Yes.
Kevin
To see what's her favorite animal is a dogs.
Jen
Yes. She's actually doing the research study on cows right now. So she gets to go hang out with cows and draw blood and do little like feeds. She had to, like, pile up on a big, like, green machine and, like, feed them. And I don't know, she's she likes horses, too. She's done some stuff with the horses, but mainly small animals.
Kevin
Not a horse fan. Human kryptonite, those things.
Jen
You're not a horse.
Kevin
They can be really good. Yeah. It's not safe. Yeah, that'll.
Jen
Oh, they're so beautiful too.
Andrew
About, like, the miniature horses. Those are fun.
Kevin
Little tiny, maybe. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew
Was just to see.
Kevin
What would you rather be? Fight one giant hundred foot horse or 101 foot tiny horses?
Andrew
It's like running around a little baby horses.
Kevin
Sorry, everyone. I'm in some kind of strange, strange minute here. On to the news multiverse.
Andrew
This is Earth four.
Jen
Hey, online sales specialist, your D convert, Coach Jen Barkin here. Are you looking for guidance, structure and proven methods to help you set more appointments and create more sales? Then join online sales coach Jesse Suggs and myself. We are offering an intense two day virtual training experience, followed by eight weeks of training and coaching through our online sales academy.
Jen
This fall. Jesse and I have been in your shoes and we teach from our direct experience and years of coaching online sales specialists. Just like you. This will be hands on and real world no theory here. If you're interested, don't miss this incredible opportunity to reserve your spot today by visiting. Do you convert dot.com.
Kevin
Man first up from D and Y use as I stand for, I need to know the news. The news. It's like.
Andrew
Okay, so two syllables that has generated.
Kevin
This one wasn't me.
Andrew
How about this?
Kevin
So we're we're using the link and its first monopoly trial of modern Internet era. The US sets its sights on Google. So for those of you old enough to remember, I think the last big Monopoly trial breakup that happened was AT&T. That was then split up into seven different regional companies in 1984, the article says. But effectively, the United States government is saying that Google is preventing any new opportunity for search to occur.
Kevin
Google basically does what Facebook did back in the day. It was like any popular social app. We'll just go out and buy them. I mean, if you guys spend $1,000,000,000, going to spend $1,000,000,000 to Instagram, but it just prevents anyone from getting to the point where they could be a rival. And the charge here is that they're doing that with search and what's going to be so one, it's a big deal.
Kevin
The other thing is it's hard for monopolies. Monopolies are not illegal monopolies that harm consumers are illegal. And Android Android is was one really smart move by Google of saying we're going to make an operating system that's basically free. I mean, the catch is it has Google search built in as the default option, but it's hard to prove monopoly like consumers don't pay for ads on Google.
Kevin
Consumers don't pay for Google sheets for Google Docs. They don't pay for it. I guess you're getting a lot of, you know, in quotes, free as are straight resources.
Jen
Yeah.
Kevin
You're getting a lot of resources as a consumer that you don't directly pay for. But they're going after it. And I think it's it's not I don't want to say this, it's just a distraction, but it's a really big distraction because this is like a very low percentage chance. But if it does like you, you just imagine working at Google in the senior leadership and you're like, we should be working on AI and we should be making this better and this better and YouTube and oh crap, we are.
Andrew
There like we have Mitch McConnell reason out over here telling us what or how to run the business. I agree.
Kevin
It seems like Google is a monopoly.
Andrew
I think their monopoly in that they own their own search. Like you Google something, it's the verb, it's what you do versus what you do. I think they're trying to prove, right. Did they do things that were like the competitive nature? Of course they did. They wanted to get rid of the competition. So there's times where I'm like, I don't make any sense this.
Andrew
I can't stand this type of thing. But then I'm like, we kind of need more regulation over here and like zero regulation and stuff like this. So I feel like, you know, like there's contradictions there with government involvement in business and stuff like that. But this is like, come on, like, this is so dumb. Like everyone that.
Jen
Like it.
Andrew
On this thing against Google uses Google likely for their search engine and they're not on asked Jeeves or or Amazon.com or Bain. They're using Google to do it so and there's a reason it's still the better product. And they kind of prove that if even if they did all these, I think that's where the cases is. Probably even if we did not do these things, people would still use Google.
Andrew
They're not using Bing. They're not switching to another search platform at all.
Jen
They're going all use being anymore.
Kevin
Yeah, they don't.
Andrew
Even have points. You can get the search stuff.
Kevin
On pay, please. Bing.
Andrew
They try to pay you. Yeah. You give pretty.
Kevin
Little coupons or. Yeah. I mean, this is just one line builder here in Texas as an example. But year to date, they have 330,000 unique sessions from Google Search, and they have 13,000 from Bing, 4000 from Yahoo! 2000 from DuckDuckGo Technical.
Andrew
And those are the people, the tin foil hats, but the DuckDuckGo. So yeah, like the conversions, they're like, well, those are the crazy ones, so you don't want those people.
Kevin
So next from Google itself, new sustainability tools help businesses and cities map environmental information. This is again interesting one to me because Zillow's kind of led the charge of adding all this additional information around property. You know, like safety scores. And I think they also they do have it was started by Brad, Adam and I forget the name of the company where they give like a climate score rating.
Kevin
But now this is being built into Google Maps platform. They're going to let you see solar energy potential. So it'll identify roofs and talk about the amount of information that likelihood that it will produce a certain amount of power, air quality information and common allergens. That's and so everyone who has a Google map built into their site, you wouldn't, in essence, if you thought that this was important enough to be able to opt for offer a toggle on your own site or experience with access to this same information.
Andrew
Like it's pretty cool. The solar one is a little bit interesting because our you know, our electricity rates here expensive. We have a moderately large our home 3300 feet so we and I'm home all day so there's no saving of power during the day by turn AC down and we run the AC 23 to 60 days of the year for the most part.
Andrew
So we've considered solar. So Project sunroof in our home is newer. Like for some reason, like our house is not in there yet, which is really bizarre. Sort of imagine even like a brand new home. It's obviously not going to be in there, but being that we have no trees because they tore everything down to make it easier and more efficient to develop.
Andrew
We have some trees growing, but I'm like, man, solar is like ripe for most new home builds, especially in the South. Like, I think we did do a private survey with our property at one point and like the amount of power we can produce is insane. So I think that's like, oh, that could be that could be a really cool selling tool to go new home construction.
Andrew
It's more efficient. Oh, and then now you have solar, the ROI on that. The payback is extremely quick because like you, the efficiency of it for a new home compared to an existing home, an older established neighborhood would be there. So be nice if they I would imagine as it gets use more often the how it refreshes the map and how that would be a little bit quicker.
Andrew
Yeah, just fast for like two, three, five years from now. Pretty cool. All the tools we have.
Kevin
I don't have the exact number, but whoever originally shared this article in my social network also included a stat that I, if I remember it was either close to 50% or like 60% of people who were surveyed had considered at least one environmental factor as part of their search for a home. I imagine both of you living near water in Virginia Beach and near Tampa, that like that's a but even in Ohio, like you can't build homes in a certain level of a floodplain.
Kevin
Let's say 100 year flood, I think is you just can't build in here. So it's kind of surprising in one sense that that number sounded like a good number to use as a stat because I would think like 100% of people are considering like possession of the sun and amount of shade. Yeah, it seems like people who, you know, still quote like, did you know that 94.9% of people use the Internet to shop for a house?
Kevin
And like we stop talking about this, it's everyone is like everyone.
Andrew
Just remember that.
Kevin
Are we doing this? Yeah. Well, like, of course, the environment's a big like, that's what location is. It's all those things wrapped up together. But I mean, do you remember doing, like, a specific thing that you were?
Andrew
I'm a for me, definitely with hurricane evacuate like we just had a hurricane one week ago that passed by us. So we still had, you know, work zones. I think it's part of the same records and it's like ABCD and then X non evacuate or like a is like you're on the beach or you're a mobile home. The trailer home, manufactured home, no such a wind, wind and water and then B and then we're C, we're actually like B and a half.
Andrew
Like our kitchen is a B, the rest of the house is a C for whatever reason. So we, we stick with C, we're like, okay, if that gets wet over there, it's fine. We're staying like we're 13. You're yeah, you're gone. You're thinking.
Jen
I'm underwater.
Andrew
You're under water. So we're like 13 feet above sea level. You're below sea, you're like a bowl. You're like, you know.
Jen
Traffic is is.
AndrewYou have tunnels.
Kevin
Sinking. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Jen
So you're saying bought a house in the flood zone. And I knew that. So this I'm not a good candidate.
Kevin
It's gone. But you still porous. I mean, if it was bad, it's.
Jen
Okay to tension Lake. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew
If you need insurance, if you don't like, that's a huge factor.
Jen
Flood insurance required.
Kevin
It's just a good thing that it's me. It goes in the category of if this place your advantage, you should be talking about it. If you're a builder in Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Southern California or the center of California, and you have now the ability availability to show the potential of solar usage on a on a home like you should be.
Kevin
You should be talking about that. Definitely. Yeah. All right. Next up from CNBC dot com, we're going to start with the scary and then get to someone trying to offer a solution. Mortgage demand drops to a 27 year low as interest rates pull back the average contract interest rate for 30 year fixed mortgages was $726,000 or less, decreased to 7.2% from 7.3%.
Kevin
Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home fell 2% or 28% lower than the same week. One year ago. So affordability matters, huh? Who would have thought who.
Andrew
Would have thought of that? You were going to think there's some really smart builders that are offering some bite out of mortgages and I think the show 5.45 or any number less than seven is really attractive.
Kevin
Yeah, rates are I mean, again, I think it's catching people off guard. And I don't want to go into an economics lesson, but what's happening right now is that the government has to sell so many more treasuries to fund the government that investors are demanding a higher rate of return. And so, again, people just keep getting confused. It's worth at this point, it's it's kind of like, again, it's September of 20, 23.
Kevin
Interest rates have been kind of a big deal for a while now. So if when I say interest rate, Treasury bonds, Treasury bills, tenure and you're like, whatever, just shut up and move on to the next topic, you should go watch a couple YouTube videos. Well, I'll give yeah, something like this. You know, it's a bit like you have at some point you have to be like, Huh, I guess this is big deal.
Kevin
You you don't have to understand it to solve it. You again, you can't empathize with your customers, say can't communicate, you can't educate, you cannot build trust. If you're not making any content about this at all because you're scared of it. Like just, you know, so people are like, I don't understand. We didn't raise interest rates or interest rates only went up by X when the Fed.
Kevin
Well, the Fed's not the only factor here. You know, and and so rates are still sliding higher and the government's going to need more money for a while.
Andrew
So I mean I think you would say. Kevin and to end interest rates is the I'm trying to think of the right word to phrase it at principal. That's a strong word. I think we all can feel that word. What it means like interest rates, that is the single biggest factor right now, above all everything else, like you could have a purple house with backwards doors and windows upside down, sideways, all this stuff.
Andrew
And the interest rate is right on that single home. Somehow, who cares? Nothing is selling, right? Yeah. Like it overrides the most amazing campaign, the most amazing website, the most amazing content. Yeah. Location. All that stuff is the rate right now. Shoot, we had a home just list in our neighborhood, and it's one that's like, closest to our our size home and like, Oh, what's something listed for?
Andrew
It's like seven something. And then I see that's not the Zestimate, the Zillow's I've heard the call their, their mortgage calculator. I'm like, Oh gosh. I'm like, that's a whole different type of person income job life wise compared to, say myself.
Kevin
I mean.
Andrew
When we got it and at this house now we're at two points, you know, like that's a whole different ballgame as far.
Kevin
As ask your parents for money. I don't know if you saw that Barbara Corcoran video. So. Barbara Corcoran, she's had a couple of these viral comments. I don't know if she just doesn't have anything going on with her real life.
Andrew
CPR form.
Kevin
Statements that are compelling. But the first one was, of course, like if rates go, go down, prices will go up. So you better buy now. It's like, okay, we just want to look at one way and that could happen. It also could be their rates go down because the economy is terrible and people that have to sell their house and then there's more supply, then demand, and then prices go down.
Kevin
So either one could happen, but now she's come out and she just her it was one of these like dude bro podcast about like how to get rich quick. She's like, you just got to get into real estate and like if you can't afford it, no big deal. Just ask your parents for the money. Like the boomers have money, just get their money.
Kevin
And so then she's just getting trolled. Get the boom so hard by people who are screenshotted that and they're like, you know, in their clearly not rich surroundings. And these are like teenagers even. They're like, yeah, thanks, Barbara. I'll definitely just ask my parents for, you know, a couple million to buy that apartment in Manhattan. And I'm like.
Andrew
I can imagine the reactions on that would be hilarious.
Jen
Well, you know, just despite the Straits, it's not like, you know, you can easily slip into this, like, dude, I'm like, oh, my gosh, this sucks, right? But when we look at I mean, I just talked to a builders like we had our best month. August was our best month than ever, you know, at their best, Like it was.
Kevin
The best.
Jen
Month ever, ever. And, you know, conversion rates are still really strong, even more so than they were first quarter. Like.
Kevin
Yeah.
Jen
So it's like, yes, it's there and it's harder, but there's still a lot of positives happening justifying.
Kevin
Way more there. There are actually way more positives than the negatives. I'm telling you I would rather have rates where they are or higher than I would like to have the same number of existing homes available on the market today as there were in 2018. If that happens, I'm telling you it's not that that is bad. I will find it.
Kevin
A whole bunch of other things. More fire will take an extra couple million homes, you're saying?
Jen
Because you're saying because the existing inventory is so low. That's yes, it's so good for us. Yeah.
KevinThe only common factor, not not the only the main common factor that unites individual markets that are struggling right now are builders are not hitting or exceeding their goals is where existing home supply get This has returned to like normal normal. And it's not like poems are sitting around forever, but they're like this is the same month supply that was like considered healthy is violently unhealthy now because.
Kevin
Because why? Because if you get the same healthy supply as is normal and demand is still down here, that's not good like you. Yeah. And so anything that reduces supply and this is why people get into housing experiences of like builders don't want to build that. People truly think this is hilarious. They think home builders are like Louis Vuitton and they're thinking of like, you know what?
Kevin
We'll do here's we'll do Jen. We'll just build homes a little bit slower or we'll make them a little less available just to protect the prices of our homes. Right. They've never met D.R. Horton. They've never met else, you know, Century Jimmy, like some of these builders that just focus on volume like that. It's hilarious. But your point is again, Andrew, 100% correct.
Kevin
We would not be in this House now when rates went down to three and a half and then kept going lower. I was like, Melanie, I mean, we own this property since 2015 that we built on and we had a loan and still the we were paying off on the land. But the loan on land was like seven and a half percent.
Kevin
Your land aside, you realize that if we build a that's basically the same size as the house we're in now on the seven acres versus a three quarter acre, we all have a lower payment than what we are paying right now, paying the land and.
Jen
The spray money. Basically.
Andrew
She was like, Shut the front door. Kevin, are you serious? This real interest rate, principally.
Kevin
What she said like, well, then why.
Jen
Are not doing that will ever see is that low.
Andrew
Yeah. I don't I don't ever want to see that low.
Kevin
But that's.
Andrew
That's.
Kevin
Conspiracy. That's what I wish more people would just honestly talk about if it went back to that guess what would happen like there's there is my friend Rob John says that you know there's just that these are the five these are four days and we added a fifth I think. But deaths, diamonds, diapers, divorce, divorce and displacement like physical, those are the reasons people move.
Kevin
Yeah, those reasons haven't stopped.
Jen
Right.
Kevin
What has stopped is the availability to easily move around.
Jen
Right.
Kevin
And transact. And so that means that I think it's very likely that when rates do go down, there's going to be a whole bunch of people just like the the race was on and people realized that there are still going to make money During the factors. Half of the world was shut down. The race was on to buy things and do things and get things.
Kevin
I think there's a whole bunch of people who the minute rates get below 500 are like, Oh, this is our chance. We got we've got to say this. Yes, we made the dumbest decision ever to move to Nowhere Vermont and work remotely and try to raise yak wool on the side. We need to get back home to Chicago.
Kevin
Yeah, You know, put their house up 400%. Yeah. And that is. I'm just telling you, whatever keeps inventory low as what I'm in favor of for our industry now as a human being and wanting people to be able to have access to housing, I think it's terrible. Absolutely terrible. Yeah. But it it is it makes the market work right now.
Andrew
I think there's a lot of people that regret not doing something with the massive amount of equity they have. So they're like this. This might be like, who knows what's going to happen? Like, this is our chance. We have half million or whatever, number two, three, 400,000 inequity. I want to do something with it. I want to move.
Andrew
So there's there's a lot of reasons, I guess.
Kevin
Yeah. Now, you can't really touch that equity because there's.
Jen
A lot of people.
Andrew
Look expensive.
Jen
Websites and looking and lots of traffic to get you know people are looking.
Andrew
People love new.
Jen
Homes. It's just waiting.
Kevin
But it's to the rescue, maybe.
Andrew
Rescue.
Kevin
To the rescue, maybe.
Andrew
Like a rocket is.
Kevin
Is one. Plus buy rocket mortgage, a 1% down payment option. Andrew, you found this?
Andrew
I did find this. I was actually. So we reified with Rocket. I logged in, we revived like 20, 20, 20, 21 or whatever, whenever it was. And then I saw this as like an ad something like, Oh, they got me. They got me enough to share this with, with the team. Like, this is interesting and it just read the fine detail.
Andrew
So it, it essentially it is targeting it's first time buyers or if you're a repeat buyer, but you do have to fit certain income requirements they give you. You could put down 1%. That's all they're asking for, 1% down payment. They'll give a 2% grant as part of that down payment. So you're at three and you could only give up to 3%.
Andrew
So there's max down, payment is 5%. So they're making sure that like, okay, they they'll make more money with less down payment. They have more principle to have interest attached, attached to, but then there's no PMI on it. So that's really interesting. But the and the credit requirements to you looking at this, I'm not a mortgage broker. I'm not a finance person, but you're like, okay, 620 or better.
Andrew
That's pretty low. I feel like for like what seems in my brain like this seems to be like a higher risk product or, you know. Beth our team was like, This feels really familiar to VR alone in terms of requirements. Like it's it's kind of what the VA offers for military. But there are you know, there's that every mean something I'm not educated enough in this as far as like what does qualified income mean versus income on it.
Andrew
But it seems like it is targeting kind of like the middle ish class income levels and that kind of like in number, we're not probably a lot of people that are very great renters. They pay on time. They have no issue with that yet. They're stuck. They're kind of like, I can't get a down payment, I can't get a down payment on houses, keep going up.
Andrew
Interest rates are higher. I want to get out of renting. This seems to be the perfect thing for them.
Kevin
So, yeah, my niece, this seems like a product product for and it's not it's not just I'm almost positive this is a government for Fannie and Freddie have kind of somehow this has been devised and rocket does always a really good job of packaging things up. They do easily and simply for people but I'm pretty sure this option exists for from a lot of different sources.
Kevin
But my nieces, I think she's 24. She's made good money for a couple of years. She's lived with her her mom. She's getting married and she's like, I really want to buy a house, but I can only afford to put down or only want to put down X. Even though she has more money, she just doesn't want to put it on one.
Jen
Of the.
Kevin
Media.
Andrew
You want to have backup? Yeah. You're like, Cool. That which makes sense. Yeah. You think that'd be like, rewarded somehow? Maybe it is like less down payment.
Kevin
By banks because they know that's more risk for.
Andrew
Them. It is risk. But another thing I think a take on this too, is if you read it, I think most builders I'll be meaning for a second any incentives, they're usually not great at explaining them on their website. Intentional, not intentional. To me, I think clear is kind of the more direct you are with it, the better conversions you'll have.
Andrew
So I don't know if there's any like, Hey, just leave a little bit info out. People want to call. Well, that's not good because it's in the cards you get or confused. People like, Hey, I'm trying to read this thing, you know, online salesperson. Like, well, they didn't tell me either, so I don't really know. I don't really know.
Andrew
So I think I.
Jen
Read that deceptive. What itself what are you talking about?
Andrew
I think it's like 90% clear and at the bottom there are some like really? Well, that number does make sense. You know, about 6000 there but that's not reference in I was little details I think might not be the best.
Jen
Answer but it's just written the word incentive. Okay. We're like.
Andrew
Incentive.
Jen
Buying options.
Kevin
Home buying like.
Jen
New home options.
Andrew
Okay, I'm buying.
Kevin
I don't know if.
Andrew
I can tell if you're messing with me or not, because.
Jen
Options.
Andrew
Feels like a really weird word. Really? Oh, we should talk about that. And options versus incentives and do a Did you watch the story on Netflix? I'm really distracting this right now, but it's about words choosing words. It's about when oxycodone content was created and they did a group what's a focus group on naming the drug? Like what is morphine mean to you?
Andrew
They're like cancer death, my grandmother passing. What does this word mean to you? Oh, headache. What does this word mean to you? OxyContin, Breathing like oxygen and as all positive words. And they're sitting there and you're like, oh, well, this is terrible. Like, if you if you watch another person affected by it, you're.
Jen
Sitting there like, so and so and so it's it makes a big.
Kevin
Difference.
Jen
And will mean something rid of the word appointment of somebody is like thinking like I blow.
Andrew
My mind. I'm stuck in nerd corner only know what's happening.
Jen
And now we we were like don't even say appointment because that means that's transactional and the last more stressful. Like if you get an appointment like you're, you're going to go to contract basically what.
Andrew
Word to be like.
Jen
So like we don't even say that we were to discovery tours this Discovery tour community visit. If there's somebody who's really like, I don't know, like, Hey, how about let's just touch up with an informational session to get you started? Like, I.
Andrew
Hope they're not like, so, like an appointment. I feel like I'm Jerry Seinfeld, right?
Jen
But I guess softening that verbiage, that's when like, you know, anyway, I don't know how we.
Andrew
Got my language is.
Kevin
My grandma.
Andrew
Means something while.
Kevin
She's still alive. She's 104. So there might be something to this. But her and my grandfather used to take vitamin. Oh, Andrew.
Andrew
That sounds made up too.
Kevin
And it like had oxygen in it. And I, like, I was, I don't know, five at a time.
Andrew
I see it now.
Kevin
But I was so like, I'm pretty sure you can't put oxygen into powder form and shove it inside of a capsule.
Andrew
Like it's just hydrogen.
Kevin
And I think they're probably that's one of the jokers got away with that is they're like, well you're breathing, you know, you're breathing while you're taking it. So you're taking it out.
Andrew
I guess I need to know what's in this. I found.
Jen
It. It's like.
Andrew
Well, I found the Amazon thing, which is terrible. It's it's like a white he gets like a white and blue bottle vitamin. Know about it, But no ingredients. Ingredients aren't even.
Kevin
Yeah, well, my father in law also sells total shyster thing. He sells saltwater. It's a cure all. He's from West Virginia. Okay. Okay. And then my mom used to take Queen Bee Rock Royal Honey, It was. It was special honey in gel tabs that only came from Queen Bees because Queen bees have some ideas. Like, why do we all want to live for?
Kevin
Oh, wait, I guess that's insane.
Andrew
Say I'm quality over quantity. I don't know.
Kevin
If on.
Andrew
Any given time.
Kevin
I'll just be paying way more attention to cosmetics and vitamin companies. Yeah, because I know more and that's just make up more stuff. It's getting.
Andrew
Let's make it as.
Kevin
We have plenty to talk about. That's interesting to them that we don't have to.
Andrew
Make it and we have discovery tours. We could tell them about this information.
Kevin
Oh, it's I like this. I don't know. Do you like this, Kevin? Or do you hate this? Kevin, This Kevin could never appear another episode again. It's just too much cost me.
Jen
Have you heard today? Maybe. Is it too much or not enough?
Kevin
No, I think I think it's just the knowing that this is my last thing of today. And I get that you.
Andrew
So every Thursday for the month of September, I think it's month to September, Starbucks is doing buy one, get one fall drinks after 12:00. Oh they.
Kevin
Should be Stanley.
Andrew
They should be sponsoring me. Right. And that's why I went and got one before. Like this little thing doesn't look so little. I don't I'm not a big dude. I'm like, five, eight. But that's in this cup look so dainty. Like, that's a top, but it's the pumpkin cream cold brew.
Kevin
People always think this stuff is contrived and made up, but I will add a Starbucks card and all access you all can scan.
Andrew
And they better post a picture using it.
Kevin
But I'm just kidding. Ha ha ha ha.
Andrew
You better use.
Kevin
All right, let's move on to our favorites or things we hate either in either one. Oh gosh. What are your favorite shows? Books, Things you've watched. I'm going to give away one of my secret favorite thing I like. You know, I share a lot, but then I'm always like, Ooh, that person's got really good stuff. I can't share it with anyone, but I will.
Kevin
I will share it today. You want I start inter Yeah.
Andrew
You talk about West Virginia. So we were recommended. I'm not recommending this.
Kevin
I'm just West Virginia. You're you wonderful people. My home.
Andrew
Country roads. Shenandoah River. Right. It's a great place. So there's this documentary. I think Johnny, Johnny Knoxville made it so someone from East, right? But it's the wild and wonderful whites of West Virginia. Just watch on the Amazon. It seems like it's a high school project. Someone made an I'm movie and it's about this family the house and West Virginia and Boone County, Boone County, West Virginia.
Andrew
And it's just a train wreck of I mean, you don't watch it and try to figure out who the father is of any of these children. I think it's one person, the great grandfather or the grandfather. It's the craziest thing. But it's about this family that's they're all related interbred. So it's it's it's insane. I'm like, what are we watching right now?
Andrew
But someone recommended it to us. So sure enough, we watched it. I'm not advising to watch it or to not watch it, but if you need something that's a change of pace.
Kevin
You're doing this with, you're like, Hey, watch this thing.
Jen
You don't need to be. You don't need to justify your favorite. Oh, you're very handsome.
Andrew
This is definitely not I mean, this is about a ancestral family that's inbred. It's a little.
Jen
Weird. Are you favoring favor?
Andrew
I don't know. This is just.
Jen
Wild. It's.
Andrew
It's interesting when we finish this whole thing, if that says anything. So we didn't turn it off. I've heard people left.
Jen
It was like the train movie.
Andrew
Nobody watching it was a train wreck. You're like, Wow, this is real. Everybody. When I said West Virginia, so am I, my boom mic. But the boom, my boom arm that I got, the new one, it's perfect. It doesn't.
Kevin
Move.
Andrew
The other one's on the ground. I need to throw it away.
Jen
So not 20.
Andrew
Bucks. It works. I just need it. It's a lock in place versus have this tension, which would be perfect, but it just stays where I put it because it's a simpler design. So sometimes the better, the more expensive option isn't the best one. So that's it.
Kevin
Jen Just this.
Jen
Are my favorite. My favorite thing right now is got to be that college football is back just coming off of my weekend attack and my monarchs are back. I love college football, so.
Kevin
I do too. I don't have as much time anymore to watch it, but I still remember with fondness. I forget what I forget the exact year I think it was before we had kids. It must have been before we had kids. But I watched college game day every Saturday for the entire season and every state game. You guys, sometimes watch the second state games.
Kevin
I was that.
Jen
Why don't you go to the Ohio State Games?
Kevin
Well, there's like 110,000 people there. Yeah, I get that. Tickets are kind of expensive and I have a lot of people. And honestly, it's not a good environment to take like a nine and ten year old kid, too. I did take him to one last year. It started sleeting and snowing and they begged to leave in the middle of the third quarter.
Kevin
But I usually take like one or two people to a game. But it's not. Honestly, it's if I could go and watch the very beginning, like you're talking about, like watching the best in England come out or do script Ohio and the crowd cheering like, that's the best. Yeah, that's the best. I mean, I'm not actually a football person, but, you know, like, I can't stand watching high school football.
Kevin
We go to the high school football games. I can't stand it. It's the least interesting sport in the world to watch. I think.
Jen
It's yeah.
Kevin
At times college is better because you're higher up, you get perspective, whatever. But yeah, yeah I.
Andrew
Feel we watch but I'm not sure how I feel about the what's that and I and I know some of the players making stupid money like, I don't know, I'm just like I don't even though like, they're.
Kevin
All.
Andrew
They're making, like they're getting endorsement deals and it's legit. Yeah. Even though I'm like they are and that they have this stuff, it just makes me feel like So that guy is making some stupid money off on the field and these other 12, 11, whatever. Like or not, I don't know.
Kevin
No. The Ohio State quarterback last year bought like everyone on the team. It was either like a 500 or $1,000 gift card and told them all to get nicer clothes to wear during the walk that they do from like he's like, you all need to not be slobs. Like go, go get some nice clothes.
Andrew
That's nice. But I also feel like but look at you. You can afford it.
Kevin
Oh, let's.
Jen
Go get.
Andrew
Like, I'm not wearing those clothes because I resent it. Is that envy or jealousy? I don't know.
Kevin
I don't know what it is. But if you want to send me a gift card, anyone listening, you're welcome to. I'm not too good for it.
Andrew
I'll take it. You need like, a thousand for like, an Ohio State game, food, all that.
Jen
You're going to get. And I'm going to need to get a new suit for the summer.
Kevin
Time for that is the last one. I know, I'm kidding.
Jen
But I'm just saying, like.
Kevin
Now you've just I'm going to spiral. I'm going to do a, you know.
Jen
Now.
Kevin
Full on spiral now because like, I only see you all in person, if we're lucky, twice a year. I don't mean you. You do you. I mean anyone you ever see in person. Twice. More than twice a year. Yeah. Like, I mean, I'm sure you do remember what I wore last time, but also, there's pictures I don't grow anymore.
Kevin
And not. I mean.
Andrew
And they're expensive. I mean, like, nothing.
Kevin
Is on me for, like, my jeans, but she has no, she doesn't really care about suits or sport coats. I do get a lot of compliments on my hooded sport coat thing. We've seen that. Your junk. Now what is that? That's my favorite. Hold on. Sorry. I love you're going to edit this, but I can talk.
Andrew
So sport coats are expensive. Have you bought as a male? I don't have a female jacket. It's just as much.
Jen
Yeah, they're pricey. Probably not as expensive as yours, but I just bought or Sam had to get a new suit. Yeah, And I was like.
Andrew
You're like, Okay, yeah.
Kevin
So I don't know the brands. Sorry. Let's see if we can find it. Okay. This is a.
Jen
This is a jacket.
Kevin
Oh, no, can't count. This is a Alberta zimny.
Jen
Oh, it is jacket coat.
Kevin
It's a sport coat with a hood and whatever these are called. The hood can be unzipped.
Jen
That's great.
Kevin
It has like to, like.
Jen
Take the hood.
Kevin
Off. You can zip it and button it, or you can just button it or just zip it. It looks like it's got like three layers kind of built into it.
Jen
That's your favorite thing.
Kevin
It's really good. I get I mean, I know I ask people, especially strangers, because they don't know me. I'm like, are you just being nice or do you really like this? You know, you're going to be a little awkward, like, No, that's awesome. I got to get one of those for my husband or whoever. I'm like, Okay, cool.
Kevin
So now check that out. Now, my real favorite link is in the show notes is Kyla Scranton on YouTube. This is a younger lady who talks a lot about economics and human behavior. I don't I mean, she got she got famous via TikTok. I haven't watched her tiktoks and so she does some weird things. But this is a talk called how individualism Changes the economy.
Kevin
And what I like about it is it talks about how this idea was started in the United States around the time period of in between World War One and World War Two. We got to get people to buy more stuff. How do we get people to want to buy more stuff? And just some of the crazy things that ended up happening as a result of it, like two, three different people really formed this idea of using psychological all weak spots in our brain to get us to want things.
Kevin
And kind of the icing on the cake for me is it leads into how Guatemala, where we spend a lot of time as a family doing humanitarian work like we cause the Civil War because, you know, kind of like we're talking about the words the United States Fruit Company, I think, or the whatever, some fruit company that owned all the land in Guatemala, they were going to lose it.
Kevin
And and so they positioned through through the use of words and said, well, the communists, which in the sixties it was all like, oh my gosh, the communists are everywhere. You know, we're scared of of Russia and communism. So they just called these people who wanted to give workers in the fields a little plot of land if they work long enough, they're like, you should be able to get a place to build a house.
Kevin
And they called them communists. So then we started a war that split up a country. And it's just, you know, they had like 30 years of civil war and a bunch of people got butchered because the guy decided, hey, you know what? We could shift everyone's opinion of this. We just use a different word to a full circle.
Andrew
What words are important words? You know, a word.
Jen
Change up your language.
Kevin
Yeah.
Jen
Watch your mouth, Young, young man.
Kevin
But it's one of those things that I'm watching and my family walks in the corner and they're like, What are you? They just, like, slowly walk out hoping I don't notice. They're like, We don't want to sit down and watch this, but oh, I enjoy it. Oh, man. All right. That'll do it for this week. I'll do it.
Kevin
We'll see you next time. Actually, no, at the summit. No. One more and more, then we'll see you at the summit. Oh, Final, final. All unplug if you are all access. If you're in all access and you go to the event. So we have basically just under 400 people coming to this year's summit. And I think there is, I don't know, 40 or 50 people who have RSVP in all access.
Kevin
If you are happy that you're going in there, I'm going to run a separate contest with a separate prize. So you just got to go push a button, say I'm comin. You'll go see what else is coming. You can talk to them there. We've got the summit app coming out shortly, but go there and check that out and you might get invited for a happy hour in in Dallas somewhere.
Kevin
I like it just for this for special people.
Andrew
Okay. Houses and not the one after the first.
Kevin
You don't know about that one. You got to go on an all access special one. You might get invited for. All right. All right. I'll see you next time I get to go.
Andrew
See ya.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 301: There's No Toenails In Our Carpet!

In this episode, Andrew Peek is joined by Julie Jarnagin and Beth Russell! Andrew weathered a hurricane in Florida which prompts the three of them to list off selling points in homes for Florida residents. Together, they discuss desperate marketing methods that can lead to a negative impact on potential buyers and also lead to consumers pushing for more out of their builders.

Story Time (05:47)

• Andrew is puzzled by a townhome construction company using a sign spinner to market their brand.
• Julie is hearing from builders that shoppers are pushing for more and more in there potential homes.
• Beths house closes this week so she is getting photos taken of it before they move in. 

News (26:01)

• Zillow-Redfin Partnership Increases Exposure for New-Construction Listings (https://www.nahb.org/blog/2023/08/zillow-redfin-partnership?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=0828&utm_campaign=MMB2023)
• Maui broker: Hanging up on vultures, holding on to hope (https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/08/23/maui-broker-hanging-up-on-vultures-holding-on-to-hope?mc_cid=e418b5c730&mc_eid=0a5dca5654)
• Homebuyer mortgage demand picks up for 1st time in 6 weeks (https://www.inman.com/2023/08/30/homebuyer-mortgage-demand-picks-up-for-1st-time-in-6-weeks/?utm_source=mortgagebrief&utm_medium=email&message_id=32562139.109634&utm_term=&utm_campaign=MortgageBrief_20230830)
  

Favorites/Hates (46:23)

• Beth is loving a sliced baguette with prosciutto, goat cheese and hot peach chutney
• Julie’s hate is the back to school germs but her favorite is Dayquil getting her through the podcast recording!
• Andrew is loving his cheap boom stand.
  

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] 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 Stitcher
A 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:
JulieYeah. So how was the hurricane Andrew?
Andrew
It was great. You know, it's kind of like you build up all this emotion and anticipate emotion and you don't really want anything to happen like you, don't you? Because that's. That's really terrible, right? But then you're like, Oh, we're not in it. Like, could it be a little bit rougher outside the wind, be a little bit stronger? That's terrible to say.
Andrew
But like, sowe had, like, I don't know, 40 to 60 mile an hour winds, which really isn't that big a deal. It's a big deal because it's, you know, eight, ten, 12 hours. It just keeps going and going and going versus like a storm rolling through our biggest thing that happened. So I'm in Tampa Bay by the beaches.
Andrew
One, I was we have the Alexis the show I the ones with a screen they're terrible. Oh yeah I think the.
Beth
Show.
Andrew
Echo show whatever it is. Yeah. And so it shows like the news and I'm like, all these words they use are just like, oh, my goodness. Like, the rest of the world thinks we're. We're like, We're dead. It's awful. And basically from the truth, basically, basically. So meanwhile.
Beth
People in Florida are actually writing rafts down.
Andrew
Yeah, they're like having fun taking pictures, trying to get there's now like kind of viral spots that will always flood. And side note, they flood like, any time anyways. So, of course, a hurricane comes by and it looks really cool and floods all over the place, but it's in a flood anyways. So fortunately everything was all good. The kids had three days off of school, which is insane.
Andrew
Hurricane days, great. Hopefully they there aren't too many more. I'll have to make them up and we start earlier. We get out sooner, so that's kind of annoying for some are plans where we will plan everything but I mean, I feel like it's the summit is coming up and then that means there's a hurricane. So hopefully this is one that's out of the way.
Andrew
I'm like, oh, it's going to July, It's going to die early because they all usually get it bad up over Louisiana compared to.
Julie
Either hits Andrew or it's me in Louisiana or yeah, somehow it goes to Texas, which has happened a few times too. But so far we've been lucky this year. But you know, knock on wood. So in Oklahoma, when I lived in Oklahoma, it was always when the weather guy pulled out his sparkly tie that were for sure getting hit with the tornado.
Beth
That is part of my.
Julie
Yeah, it was like they were like, so excited and like, well, don't be quite this exciting.
Andrew
These tornadoes are terrifying to me.
Julie
Too excited about them.
Andrew
Yeah. Tornadoes aren't like, oh, we have a couple of days to plan and like, if it gets really bad because at least for us, like if it were to be really, really bad, we could go like 20, 30 miles east and you're fine. Like, it's still going to be really bad weather. But, you know, the hurricane force winds aren't, you know, as big as like the hurricane going through the whole southeast.
Andrew
Like it's like, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 miles from the center. So we could just go towards Orlando where the builder show is and be fine if it's it's hitting really rough for us. But a tornado. Like, here I am.
Julie
Yeah, there's definitely a good warning with the hurricane, but it's hard for me because the hurricanes are like, should we go? Should we go? What's everybody else, do you know? Yeah. Yeah. So that's hard for me because we're, you know, newish down here. Six years, I guess.
Andrew
Yeah. And after I get used to it, I'm sure there's. I think there's a paradox name for that where like, you prepare, you prepare, you prepare. Nothing happens eventually. Like, we're not doing anything. No one put their shutters up on our street, which last storm, everyone's like, Hey, you need help, Hey, you need help. And I was like, Forget that.
Andrew
But what it it made me realize talking to people the next day. So we're in a 2019 KB home, 30 to 85. That'll be our floor plan. That's really great. It sounds like a car. Other than the defective flap on our van and our bathroom that keeps like, rats out, I guess. I don't know that. Like when it when, when there's when it's like, super annoying.
Andrew
Just like tapping on the house. Yeah. Other than that noise, like dead quiet. I mean, you heard the sound like a bin. Wake us up. So I'm like, This would be perfect marketing if someone wanted to even approach hurricane marketing with building. But it's it's a reality down here in Florida. Everyone else I talked to was like, Oh, my gosh, that storm was so loud.
Andrew
The wind was howling. I'm like, Mm. It was really quiet in our house or like, you have new windows and like, yeah, they're like, well, what brands you get, like, I don't know, whatever, like fit the margins for the builder, which I'm sure they're, they're nice, they hit code but they're not going to be super premium windows at all.
Andrew
But even then, like it was quiet, like that's worth it. As far as we had three kids, they didn't even wake up as a thing passed by. So big selling point for us. Florida people for sure is just like little bit, little bit ease and peace and quiet. So yeah let's well let's jump into a into story time actually.
Andrew
Let's get this thing started. So welcome to episode 301 and they are Dr. Andrew Speaker. And with me today is Beth Russell and Julie, Dani and Ariel. I read your 1300.
Julie
We didn't start a new season. We talked about it, but we're at 301.
Andrew
We got to keep going. We got to hit 1000. That's the next worth mentioning number, I think is thousand.
Julie
500, five.
Beth
Hundred, over 500 like it was in 500.
Andrew
500. It's like anniversary dates. Like which ones count? Like we'll be 13 years and February like doesn't count, right. 1315. So that's one.
Julie
Unlucky number 13. It's like the elevator floors. You just don't know. 13.
Andrew
Maybe we skip it. Then I'll tell her that we.
Beth
Don't have to do anything that our building yesterday during our walk was like talking about how he was only married once and will only ever be married once. But it's because he got a divorce. I never wanted to get remarried and I was like, Oh, how many years even were you married? And he goes, 13. Oh no, I'll skip next year.
Andrew
13 Oh, Oh, yeah, yeah.
Beth
Interesting.
Andrew
But we got a 14. It's fine. Yeah, let's just not count anymore. It's all made up anyways, so let's do some stories. I'll do mine because mine's quick and fun and easy. There is a townhome project that is for sale, like maybe a two or three minute walk for me, brand new. And we don't have much new construction, so I've been watching it and we drive by it.
Andrew
It's this shortcut on the way back to our house. So seeing the progress is fun and they look really nice. But here's the thing that is weird, and they have a sign spinner company they contracted to. Yeah, just. Yeah, bang your head on the keyboard. Same. Your instrument.
Julie
Person standing.
Andrew
There. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Better like a really like, you know, top notch, like in person that you trust with your kids to watch or like no, you wouldn't trust this person to do anything with anything. I'm like, Why would you hire this company? And I pass by them every Saturday and Sunday. The spinner is out there standing there in the heat, 90 something degrees.
Andrew
I'm like, That's torture. This poor person having to sit out there like for 6 hours at a time. They have no teeth. And this is I'm not I sound very negative. I'm coming from the perspective of this is your brand and refreshed reflection of your brand. This is an interaction of your brand says I'll call the name said golf went homes and a sign looks really nice.
Andrew
And next you have this person holding it who maybe hasn't made the best choices. And that's where they're at in life. I don't know where I'm assuming a lot there, but you would not be wise to say, how am I hire that person to represent my brand? That's so weird to me. It's so strange. And the rest of the marketing really isn't that bad.
Andrew
Like the content they produce, like on Instagram and social to to show the homes off of their pictures are actually pretty decent. It's like, why did you make that decision? Yeah.
Beth
It it makes me think of I don't I'm doing a plug real quick. But for Carlos, the IT presentation at the summit, it's about consistency and that is like being inconsistent with your brand. Every everything is reflective of your brand and everything from the people you hire to choosing to do a sign spinner in the first place. All of that is reflective of your brand.
Beth
And so that is that showing that you're lacking consistency can reflect a lot on and raise some red flags for people when they're pursuing working with you as a brand.
Andrew
Yeah, that's the first perception. Is that the first impression? Yeah.
Julie
We don't know the background of the story, but it sounds like it could be that the sales person in that neighborhood was maybe given some leeway to make some decisions or do something that sounds like something an onsite salesperson may want, but maybe not. Maybe you're.
Andrew
Mom. I want to know. I think we are going to tour the model home this weekend just to go.
Julie
Find out more.
Beth
Go undercover.
Julie
Report.
Andrew
It, go undercover. I don't think they know me. Hopefully not through like I listen to the podcast and now on my poopy list because.
Beth
You think.
Andrew
I'm getting a haircut tomorrow. So does that count? I don't know. I'll shave my beard off of like, Oh, look at this little child coming in here. Oh, where's your.
Beth
Mother? See that?
Andrew
Now? I don't even want to see that. I don't know. Do the mustache. Do the mustache one time. Yeah, but I'm like, Oh, the sign spinners. And I feel more that most people are like, This person's in this heat. Oh, my goodness. Like, how why would you do that? Versus like, I think that'll be the first thought versus like, oh, that person looks like maybe not near the most trustworthy.
Andrew
Where'd you find this guy? They'll be like, You really paid this person to stand out there in the heat for that long. Like, where's the cooler? Where's the water? Was there a.
Julie
What? If you're saying that it's like the owner's son or something.
Andrew
I'd feel terrible. And there's, like some challenges there that and this is actually like a good job for the person. I would. I'd feel.
Beth
Pretty good. But that's also horrible if they're not hydrating them like, say, that's like this beautiful store background story of like they help this guy out and he's out there spending this time with all these.
Andrew
Guys, very skilled.
Beth
High grade him.
Andrew
Right.
Beth
Now.
Andrew
It's this one camera. It's not the well some propels whatever may be.
Beth
Getting my case back like.
Andrew
Yeah, hook them up look them up. But yeah it's it is strange but I a while back I'm like why didn't they just pre-sale. Why don't they just presale. But I see like maybe the way they had, you know, hopefully prices are still going up. There's very limited land where we are, so maybe that is maximizing profit revenue or maybe not.
Andrew
I don't know. We'll find out the story at some point, I hope.
Beth
Julie But it's interesting, like from a case study perspective of your local person who has seen these homes go up, you know, it's rare that new homes are going up, albeit single family or townhome. So you're watching it. You're watching, you're waiting and maybe you're in the market. So you try to join a list or you've tried to reach out.
Beth
And then that urgency is kind of killed. When you see something that's great, maybe it's not as nice as I thought it was. So yeah, it's it is an interesting case study.
Andrew
And they had some goofy stuff with Zillow, but that could be another. I'll save that for another story. Just some perception of like, Oh, that price looks so much lower than it actually is because it hits a different number of you. We'll do that one next week, I guess. Julie, What you got?
Julie
Yeah. So we always talk about how we kind of hear the same things over and over this week. For me, it's been builders saying that home buyers are coming in and asking for everything they want, you know, price of a home and they want all the extra added features and they need an extra room and they need, you know, just all the things and so it was interesting to some were builders who were really struggling in the last month or two and some were like still doing okay.
Julie
And still hearing the same thing. So I have no data on this. So this is my theory. So you can you can disagree with me if you don't think so. I think one could be that there's a perception by some people that maybe it's a buyer's market right now, whether in their market, it really is or not. So they feel like, ooh, they're desperate.
Julie
Like I should ask for more. And I don't think we are helping ourselves by like putting all these kind of flash sale things on our websites. You know, I think that makes it look even more like they can ask for those things. My second is, and I think Kevin mentioned this on one of the meetings, that if people are going to my Oklahoma accent almost came out right there to hear it.
Julie
If people I don't.
Andrew
Know.
Julie
If people are paying 7% or over, then they're like, if I'm going to pay this much, I want to get everything I could possibly want. Like I don't want to settle if I'm having to pay a premium right now. But yeah, you know, maxed out my monthly budget, then I want everything I want. And then my third theory is maybe if you just have a lot of nationals in your market and the nationals builders are starting to like throw stuff at people because they're just trying to get it off their books.
Julie
So that's my theory. What, what do you all think is making people all of a sudden come in and start asking for more and more?
Andrew
More?
Beth
Well, I love what you said about like that high level messaging, you know, on the website screaming different sales, because I think it connects to what Andrea was talking about and how the perception that we're showing people. Right. The perception that we're giving off and it's this it reeks desperate in some cases when the high level or the early part of the sales funnel, you're saying, oh, we're going to give you this and we're going to give you that, well, then people are going to naturally push, especially when they're seeing all these things in the market about how terrible and how historic this market is.
Beth
They're going to try to see if they can if they can get more out of it. On average right now, I think the national average is 6% in concessions on spec homes. And there's some people probably more likely the the big box builders or even in like the the markets where people are having a bit of desperation where they're giving 9% or more in concessions to people to get these homes moving.
Beth
So I can't blame the buyer. But at the same time, we have to be aware that on the marketing end, what message are we sending to people and how much are they going to push back and what are they what are they going to take psychologically from this message?
Julie
And I think a lot of the sales people haven't ever had to deal with this, probably if they're have just been in the role in for a few years, I mean, before COVID and all that. So it's also I think, training people on how to deal with that if they come in and just want everything.
Beth
Oh, absolutely. It takes a lot of creativity from the sales side of things of how to I think the skill of negotiation has somewhat been lost through the process of COVID and people are slowly on the sales side from what we hear, trying to get it back. But it's, you know, this isn't something that they've run into before and it's really, truly unlike anything any of us have really run into before.
Beth
So there's a whole different bag of tricks that they have to start developing on the onsite side. And a lot of that is just core creative negotiation.
Andrew
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's right. I think more one. Do we think it's a buyer's market or a seller's market? This is just.
Julie
Well, yeah.
Andrew
I don't know. I don't even know. It's like I think the market.
Julie
Yeah, I, it, it's a market. I think it depends on the market and I think that Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call it a buyer's market. It's just, it's so dependent right now on where you are and what's happening I think.
Andrew
Yeah.
Beth
It depends on who you talk to. A seller is going to tell you it's a seller's market and a buyer is going to tell you it's a buyer's market and it's just because it's a different perception of reality in either direction. And like you guys just both said, it really depends on where you are trying to.
Julie
And supply is still low, but demand is pretty low too. So it's just a different a different market than we've seen lately.
Andrew
Yeah. You're saying that really maybe thinking that I'm like, what kind of market? It's this thing Like, it's. It's almost white out, you know, It's happening.
Beth
But identity crisis.
Andrew
Identity crisis? Who am I? I don't know. Midlife crisis. But it made me think about, like so when prices were going up, they're going up because it still fit the monthly payment, right? Like, we'll just keep bumping the prices up because rates are 3%, three and half percent, two and a half or whatever percent. You kept going up because it still fit.
Andrew
If you know the amount of people that can afford 2500 per month is ex cool, let's just keep going until those you know it's and it's siphoned off safe an office vast amount of people and we're really in the same spot it's just like well how less people can afford 2500 and then the combined monthly payment with the perceived value and so they're like, well, we're not going to spend 2500 or 28 or 2000, whatever number may be if they feel like they're not getting value out of it.
Andrew
So they're asking for more asking for more. But it's always been about at least my brain. This could be completely incorrect. Whatever they can afford per month is going to be. That's your that is your market. That's how you could sell, too. So if you have people coming in and their cap is 2500 and all your homes based on the average down payment, based on what people can afford, is going to be 2800.
Andrew
While there's very few people that can move from 25 to 28, unless they're talking about negotiation baths, like are they actually being honest with how much they have? Maybe they have another 50 K over here, they probably don't or another ten K every year, or maybe they can move things around and just delay purchasing. They could pay off that credit card or like, Oh, their truck lease has gone in a few months.
Andrew
Maybe they could stage. Things were like, Ah, they don't have a car for a little bit. This is, this sounds like fraud. I'm saying fraud. Like, let's not get a new car for a couple of months. Now you can afford this house. And if you need to get a new car later or just just wait on that a little bit and all these conversations that are outside of my scope of of contacts, but it's all about the monthly payment is what I feel like.
Andrew
So I think the value is where they're looking at. Julie As far as they're asking for more because they feel like I'm not getting that much home at the payment, that it has to be at 6% or 7%. Even so they I rather rent here because I have all these lifestyle resort luxury amenities that are actually better than than buying right now.
Andrew
So I think marketing though, like I'm looking at a I'm a builder here. We're rolling back we're rolling back home prices over 250,000 in savings. Right? That's like kind of terrifying, right? That's like.
Beth
Walmart question.
Andrew
Yeah, rolling back. That's definitely a rollback of prices. I think even the smiley face rolls. I think that's a fair remember, we're rolling back prices, but that's like, oh gosh, like why better negotiate? Like, I better try to push the price down even if they don't offer. I think that's like training people to push the price down, try to get more.
Andrew
Try to get more. Try to get more.
Beth
Yeah. And then from a marketing and a high level like C-suite conversation of are we priced right in the market and are we you know we we've seen builders that out priced themselves purposely and then had to roll back their pricing in order to better fit in the market and adjusting pricing may not be the solution. It depends.
Beth
But going back to what you were saying, Andrew, is data was released recently that said post-tax median income wise, new home buyers are spending like up to 70% of their income on housing right now.
Andrew
I believe.
Beth
And it's like because they have to if they need to move. Right. But that's where I have to.
Andrew
Yeah, exactly. And I still think builders are not really marketing new versus used that way. Yeah. And that's always been a thing like I think we can buy we go back five, 300 episodes ago, 285 episodes go and be like, Oh, we need to sell new versus used new versus used. Like my example with the the windows or your windows are new.
Andrew
The average hurricane decibels in your house will be 70 instead of 90. Well, that's a pretty that's like chainsaw versus a I don't know, microwave being on whatever the noises at the noise level for a hurricane. But I think that's still something that is still missed all over the place like new carpet. But what's his name? Quint Ren Lears what I was talking about that there's no toenails in our carpet.
Andrew
When I go look at those, there's nothing. You're like, Oh gosh, that's disgusting. There's no this, there's no that. But you're like, Oh, now that you say that, like lay on this carpet like it is clean. No one else has been on this carpet for the past.
Beth
This toilet hasn't leaked.
Andrew
This toilet hasn't looked like all those things. I think that is like there's tons of value in that without having to go down in price or add more or give more concessions. Just if we talk about it a bit more.
Beth
Yeah. And in this market, more than ever, existing homes are looking at new homes as their competition because there's so little existing homes on the market everywhere that they have to.
Andrew
What fun, what a great market. It's like everything everybody. What's that on Reddit? Maybe people like it and it rates. It's a conference. The situation's like, well, you're the I don't want to say the word because I need like my own censoring. So it's like, Hey, am I the ahole or not? And so then people rate the situation like this is kind of like where everyone kind of sucks here thing.
Andrew
It's not a buyer's market, it's not a seller's market. Beth, what do you have?
Beth
Well, on a happy note.
Andrew
Yeah, let's do some.
Beth
Happiness regarding buyers. You're just being a buyer. We close on our home next week, so why the time.
Andrew
Is so exciting?
Beth
Yes, it's. It's very exciting. And by the time this episode goes live, we will be closing. Are we living in it yet? But we will be closed on it. And it was funny when we did our walk yesterday, like I said that we had, we were talking to our builder and my husband was referencing like one of the first episodes that I mentioned us going through this process and building our home.
Beth
And Kevin was like, He can get it done. How fast? Like, there's no way. And he did it.
Andrew
So.
Beth
Man Shout out Charles, Charlie at Die on a Tough lot. So I'm super excited.
Andrew
What are you most excited for with your home?
Beth
Honestly, it's like the home itself. There's a lot of things up the porch. If you've seen the porch, say more. If you haven't, you need to go and find a picture of the porch. And that experience. But it's just being settled like we're living in an Airbnb. This isn't our space. This isn't our stuff. You know, I miss our our pillows.
Beth
I miss the rest of my clothes. I've been rotating through the same clothes for like three months now, so I'm just excited to get the rest of our stuff back and feel settled as a family because we're supposed to be here at least three years, which is long term for us. Yeah, so and it could be even longer.
Beth
So we really are just excited to feel settled.
Andrew
Hmm. That sounds like a Hallmark commercial. Julie. You could probably really take that and make it sound really good. Feel So let's write a book. Let's write a book about that, Be at home, feel sad. There's a lot of value in that. Yeah, it's like the journey is done. Like we arrived. Like we're here. You can breathe.
Beth
Yeah. And final content coming. So, like, I'll do a walk through of the house. I'm going to try to get professional photos of the house, which is done because once we move in, because we live in our homes, is going to be too messy.
Andrew
Like there's nothing like a model home. Are the neighbor to us. He's OCD. I mean that with all all endearment, like your mother's yard three times like the same spot. It's amazing. His house is a museum. It's insane. I'm like, I don't know. People live like that. And he has guests all the time. But your house. Our house?
Andrew
No kids, not you.
Julie
That is to make believe.
Andrew
Even like the. Like I feel like it's like, what's that? And Christmas vacation where the neighbor next door, like their house is like, all these things, everything's breakable. You walk in, you're like, Oh, no, this base is six feet tall. I don't want to stand next to it. Yeah. So that'll be that's going to be the pictures ahead of time.
Andrew
Did you do any pictures during the build as far as like to know where any electrical things are or that's just not your, your level of commitment to that type of content.
Beth
Personal. Yes. No no. Part of that is that we weren't local when a lot of that stage of construction was happening. So we have a walkthrough video after electrical. Okay, But it's a little darker. You can't really see much because obviously there's no light and it's a video, so it's not as high quality in this case. And the time of day we have trees blocking the sun too.
Beth
So like I could make it out and I have like a good idea where things are. And I saw a frame and took a bunch of pictures at frame but could have done a better job.
Andrew
But my last overly personal question, this is the first time you lived in the South. You were in Texas before.
Beth
No, we've lived in the South for most of the time. My daughter was born in North Carolina.
Andrew
Okay. Okay. There you go. That's that is south. It cools down there. But to me, you have to have fans in every room. Is. Is that you? Okay?
Beth
No. So here's the thing.
Andrew
She's crazy.
Beth
I know. No, it's actually part of his budget. Part of it is like, I'll try not to put a fan in eventually, but the fans that like the vendor was charging for, like, I'm not going to pay that. Oh, I can. I can put in a fan.
Andrew
Andrew your hubby is pretty cool. Does he even do the latter.
Beth
In this house? He will because they're very nice. Nice. Yeah. We'll put in our own fans in some places, but we have fans all on the porch. We have fans in the main living areas and then I'm the person that like keeps the air on like 68 nice at night.
Andrew
I like it. That was our first when we moved in. That was the first thing we went to Home Depot or Lowe's. What I think pretty sure is Home Depot. I think that's the thing. Growing up, you either go to Lowe's or Home Depot and that's how you stick with your life. I'm a Home Depot person. That's just where I'm loyal to Home Depot.
Andrew
I want the floors that look like that. I want the orange and white signs. I think we bought like 14 fans. And that was the first thing we did before. Yeah. Wow. The fans are coming in. Yeah, we need the fans. So, look.
Beth
I'm just thankful for Labor Day sales because it's helping.
Andrew
Us out. True.
Julie
Right. It is. It's good timing. That's true.
Andrew
It is perfect timing. We'll see if there's any builder of Labor Day sales. That'll be fun to watch. I haven't seen any yet.
Jen
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Andrew
Well, let's get on to the news. We have this first one. This is a this is interesting from NAHB talk. We love them. Zillow Redfin Partnership increases exposure for new construction listings. So this one is interesting. Essentially, all your listings will be pushed over to Redfin and Zillow and Redfin are being friends. It feels kind of shocking, but it's mutually beneficial.
Andrew
What do I think about this?
Beth
Yeah, I think it's exciting.
Julie
I think it's a great thing. I mean, it it sounds good. It's more exposure for the builders. I don't see any cons from our end on it.
Beth
But I think the big win from it is that they're syndicating the builders content, not just the MLS listings, which is huge because that is the thing that was been that was so hurtful to so many builders was like, No, we don't want to use the MLS. We want to have control over all the content and not it not be the MLS content.
Beth
And so the fact that they're going to be putting their community pages on which if you have your feed set up properly, then it's the content that you own from your own website. So that part is the cherry on top.
Andrew
That is, that is really nice. Yeah. More exposure the better. I like it. I think it's a, it's a win for everybody. Zillow, Redfin builders. Yeah. The whole home construction industry like the more I think we forget about that, the more people that see where it says what's out and selling says new construction. It's like blue and white text.
Andrew
You start seeing that more and more and more like that just fuels the demand. Just like if you're car shopping and all sudden or this is opposite here, hurricanes and saltwater and Teslas apparently don't mix. So now there's all these not so great jokes about Tesla. They catch on fire. The saltwater, apparently, and the batteries. I had no idea.
Andrew
There's been four Tesla fires since Tuesday night where I'm at in Pinellas County. I don't know how I'm playing them. I thought Xbox with my hands, which is like a foot wide, but I'm like, Oh, enough. So that Lindsey, my wife, texted me and we are looking to get in Tesla next year. It's like, Are you trying to kill me?
Andrew
All these Teslas are catching on now.
Beth
There's just the nightmares, the awareness.
Andrew
Thank you so well, don't go like in the water, like a submarine. This I think that's the that's the goal there. But it just increases the awareness, increases demand. Just having it out there that much more, which is great for for all builders that's Yeah.
Beth
And I think like it's a good like we're getting recognition that we're important to you know what I mean? Like we want to be seen more in our content matters, our listings matters, Our, our homes matter. Everything that we do matters. Okay? And so, like, put us out there more, man, And it's right on the heels. It feels like we were heard.
Andrew
Right?
Julie
Yeah, it did feel like for a while we were getting buried on some of these sites by all the existing homes and we would be like on another tab if you didn't do that. So. Oh, yes, It does seem like now that new construction is such a big percentage of what's available and out there we're getting a little more love.
Julie
That's nice.
Andrew
That's right. But it's the the slogan for the Builder show. Oh, it's right there. It's on my brain. Oh, my goodness. I don't.
Beth
Know. It's not my.
Andrew
Brain. All home start here. And people are like, Oh, that's cute. And they think about it like, Oh, I want to say a bad word. Can I say bad word? I'm not going to say it backward. Be like, Oh, I be like legit, like every new home. Some people are anti-development, right? They're like, not my backyard or whatever it may be.
Andrew
But you know, okay, so homes are going away. Attrition just naturally, hurricanes, they're going away all home start here. So homebuilding is so important. Like every new home starts with a builder, like the homes that are 50 years old. Good. 20, 73, that home that's 50 years old with all the character at some point had no character, wasn't redone and painted 15, 20 times.
Andrew
So yeah, just the awareness on new homes and just that say respect. That sounds a little weird. And I'm like, like sucking up, but like, it's pretty important. Like new homes. New homes are important. Yeah. Let's go to some. To me, this is maybe I'm spicy today. A little spicy.
Beth
This one's from real spicy.
Andrew
I'm like, double caffeinated may for some real estate news.com. It's titled Maui Broker Hanging up on Vultures Holding on to hope. So I read this, and I'm friends with someone from Hawaii. We train together as as often as we can. And I'm like, Man, this, like, gets me fired up a little bit for some reason. Essentially, we had all day that we I didn't experience this.
Andrew
I can't count that as mine. All the fires in Hawaii and just the developers and brokers and just investors, anyone trying to get that land which is so limited and also so valuable and just kind of like disregarding like there's people still like they can't go to their homes. There's the, what do they call them? I forgot the zones you can't go to because they're sold active, burning all that already jumping in like vultures is.
Andrew
But this article describes trying to pick up the land or houses that burned down. But were y'all's feelings and thoughts on this very complex history? Very complex history. So it's delicate.
Beth
The one one word ick.
Andrew
Yes.
Beth
It's sad. Like we you know, we had had this conversation with the builder the other day and and prep for my summit talk. I had this conversation of like, we forget that this is an extremely personal purchase and journey. Like these people are going through an extremely personal thing and we're just like, people are just going in there and being grubby, you know?
Beth
And it just it's just.
Andrew
It's just epic.
Beth
I understand it. I get it. But it's like.
Andrew
Yeah, I get it. Yeah.
Julie
And then because of that, they put a moratorium on the land transactions, which is bad. Yes, it's good because they did it for a good reason. But then it's also bad for the people who really are trying to do, you know, a land transaction that was already happening or just trying to do business and get back to normal.
Julie
So they're having to do it because of people doing wrong things and then it's slowing everything else down. So it's just frustrating that those people are screwing things up for everybody.
Andrew
Yes, it I didn't intentionally try to set up this way, but 2 minutes ago I was like, we need this, like respect for homebuilding. All homes start here. And then this kind of goes it's like, well, how can say both things? It's like, But if we want that, like less of the attitude of not in my backyard or like, Oh, developers are this or this, it's like, Oh, this type of article, like, doesn't really help even kind of forgetting about the not forgetting about the history of like the United States to the Kingdom of Hawaii and like that history there.
Andrew
A lot of people in Hawaii. Have you know, a lot of mistrust to people on the mainland and all that, rightfully so. So then you have people from the mainland trying to come in and once again, and their their perspective, get this land. This sounds like it's a little political, but I'm not trying to be political at all.
Andrew
It's but it's yeah, it's really interesting reading that. And the broker gives his stories about he's taken all the calls. He's the one wanting to voice his thoughts and concerns and feelings to the people calling, trying to buy the property that's burned down while these he had, I think, had eight, eight or nine agents in his office. Only two of them have somewhere to live.
Andrew
And they're still working, probably because they have no work, limited places where they can go. So working is actually like a nice break from wherever they're having to stay at and they're having people like, Hey, I'm trying to get this house, like just interested in buying it looks like more. And they're like, Are you kidding me? Like, I'm sleeping like and my mother in law's house like, Yeah, get out of here.
Beth
Literally, the dust has settled and cleaned up and it's just, you know, it's sad.
Andrew
It's like the roofing ads and flooding ads. We start to get like, the day of the hurricanes. You're like, Come on. Or especially they start knocking on the doors and they're like, Hey, let me inspect your roof. It might have been damaged. And you're like, Get out. This is insurance fraud. But a little like most of the time, like, where are you from?
Andrew
And we were yeah, they truly try to try to push you on that. Oh, let's see. We got one more from Inman. This one work. For all I know, we had some trouble with with getting that pulled up. Okay. Okay. Here we go. Let me get here. Home buyer mortgage demand picks up for the first time in six weeks.
Andrew
What's exciting.
Julie
Which is good I mean, it's. It's up 2%.
Andrew
Yeah, I feel like a little There are.
Julie
Many things that could, like, affect that, you know? So, I mean, it sounds like it's exciting and maybe it's exciting. But also I look at it and I'm like.
Andrew
Oh, okay.
Beth
That's interesting.
Julie
If we keep setting up.
Beth
Watch all this more engine housing news, like every day, they're like half a percent, you know, like they're celebrating every little like blip or change, which I get. But it's almost like, okay, like just like you said, it's like you don't really have a reaction to it anymore.
Andrew
That you're kind of numb to it or used to it, or you're like, This almost feels like like a parent asking a kid, So how's your homework going? Well, I'm almost done. I did so much better than last week. Just forget about that. I stayed behind a year and I'm repeating same grade because we're actually down. We're down 27%, but we're up 2% this week, which is you always have to go deeper.
Andrew
In articles, which I did a post on on LinkedIn seems like Monday or Tuesdays I get in some mood where it's really easy to write. I'll probably start putting them on the website instead of just posting to LinkedIn so that everyone can see it. But like you really have to deep dive on to like if a metric is being shown, especially a single metric like mortgage demand picks up and that's applications.
Andrew
So applications increased 2%. You need more context to that than just one than just one number was a pretty much hold. And ten of my my blog posts I then I talked about like we only understand what is applications is that unique applications maybe people are actually I don't even know like it's getting nerdy It's it's actually unique applications are up or people now applying to more than one place.
Andrew
And so applications are up because there's more applications being submitted. I don't know. So actually applications down, I don't know.
Beth
But depends on what they of these two.
Andrew
Yeah, total applications could be up, but unique applications or household applications, whatever you want it to be tied to a person could be flat, even up or down. But I mean, this all seems positive in the right direction. Of course, interest rates are, you know, all over the place. Yeah, they're they're fun to watch. I follow Lance Lambert on Twitter for my interest rate news.
Andrew
I think a lot of people do. He's like on it every day, multiple times throughout the day. So.
Beth
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see like when this podcast goes live, what the latest article is or what the percentage, you know what I mean?
Andrew
I hope it keeps going up, but it's a fall. I mean, if you look at just Google Trends or if you're if you have home builder home builder datacom access like the seasonality is obvious. This is the back half of the year. It goes down. That's just what it does. It's just how it is. Yeah. So be interesting.
Andrew
See how that how that goes. But there's also inventory for existing homes is still all time low. So will it kind of counteract that? I don't know. I guess we'll find out. Buckle up. Buckle up. We want to go on to Kurt Favorites or did anything else pop up we should talk about because we do have three news articles.
Andrew
We kicked one out.
Julie
Well, we had the question of the week.
Andrew
Oh, Crime of the week. How can we forget that?
Julie
You see that one?
Andrew
It said, Who wants to read it if you haven't pulled out before me? That's good.
Beth
Oh, I don't trust myself to read it. I'm like, going to fumble like three one.
Andrew
I was written like 400 bucks, so she should probably read it.
Julie
I'll try it. Right? Yes. And we won't say the builder here. Okay. But we'll say, basically, I keep thinking about social media and how feasible would it be for a home builder to try to monetize it. I wonder if you have any experience coaching home builders on this or would be willing to approach the topic on one of your podcast.
Julie
I'm not sure what monetizing could mean for us when our core following on Instagram is real estate agents and our post are more brand and sales oriented, seems like we'd be able to monetize easier for audience was made up of more vendors and subcontractors, and we offer sponsored content to promote materials we use to build our home. So they're asking about monetizing, making money off of their social media accounts and posts.
Julie
So I have lots of thoughts. You'll have thoughts.
Beth
I have so many people, if they're not watching the podcast recording, they should be right now just because of the faces not cooperating with me.
Andrew
I was like.
Beth
I'm thinking.
Andrew
Really positive. Hurry, be honest.
Julie
Thank you for sending a question. That's amazing and we love it. And this is such a fun one that I don't think we've ever I don't think we've ever talked about before. So if you sent this question, this is amazing. Thank you. And yeah, we have.
Andrew
Built some parameters.
Beth
About this before. Like it's a natural thought that people have probably looked into, like people are making money off these platforms. Maybe we can extend our revenue and make some money off of this, too, but let's think through it a little bit.
Andrew
Yeah, maybe we focus on. So let's let's define monetization. The the person asking the question stated that they're looking to sponsor based off of like manufacturer sponsors. So not trying to get like money from Instagram or Facebook or whatever. So like hey will post your I don't know, whatever brand facets, cool color, 300 bucks for and they'll do a post about it or like a series of posts.
Andrew
So that type of monetization versus trying to get 100,000 followers and have you know, million plus views on reels which that seems much more daunting, although they should be doing the same things to get that amount of use. Because if whoever's doing the buy essentially on their account, we're like, great, your reals, get 400 views, here's $6 or something.
Andrew
I don't know.
Julie
So and to be fair, we used to do this back when I started, when like if we wanted to print a new brochure, sometimes there would be vendors come to us and be like, We will help you pay for that. If you put things about our products in the brochure, you know what I mean? So this isn't a new, totally new concept.
Julie
It's just new to this this avenue or this distribution channel. But I would look at what what is your goal of your social media accounts? Is it to make money through avenues like that or is it to connect with your potential and current home buyers? So I think that would be number one if changing the avenue is going to impact that in a negative way.
Julie
If you start talking more to subcontractors and vendors, then you're not talking to your number one customer and audience who are home buyers. Number two, when you think of monetization, you're thinking of giving somebody else those advertising eyes, but you are you're advertising yourself with that. You may not think of that organic as like you're selling yourself, but that's your own space.
Julie
So I think you need to protect space. And then if you do want to do something along those lines, I would think of it more in the terms of a collaboration than a monetization So to collaborate with another social media account or something, I can see possibilities there. But the monetization I can't see how that long term would bring you more success to your home building goals than using that avenue for, you know, for your number one goal, which is, I'm assuming, selling homes.
Beth
Yeah. And I think like, while it's tempting, we have to look at who we are on Instagram. Are we an influencer or are we a brand? And, you know, it's the brand who collaborates with the influencer and pays the influencer for the posts, not the brand, taking money to do posts for other brands. And so just knowing our role on these platforms like, you said, and how how we are perceived to the customer or the people interacting with us on these platforms is vital in that decision making of if we pursue because it is interesting, right?
Beth
It's just like if you have a model home and you can link your model home furniture to a store and get a little bit of a kickback to, you know, sending them to the store to for buying that product because they found it in your model home. Like, it's an interesting concept to look into, but ultimately, you have to know who you are in that scenario and who you are to be your audience before you make that decision.
Julie
And is it a distraction? You know what I mean? Like it's just distracting you from your your main goal.
Beth
Yeah, I like the idea of the collaboration of like, you know, collaborating with the the brand who makes this faucet. And I'm showing this faucet being used in a beautiful trend setting brand new home versus, you know, me selling that faucet.
Andrew
Mm hmm.
Julie
You're still speaking to your home buyers.
Andrew
I don't know if there's anything to add based on what he said, and I have no idea that was perfection. But I think the only thing I could add is we have this very expensive resource, finite of time. And if you were to spend, let's say, 5 hours a week dedicated to this, could that 5 hours which five times 50 to 200 fit, say 200 hours a year, be put toward something else that would have much higher revenue, much higher profit and then for your career growth, because I assume this is the market that ask the question could that then so that 200 hours per year benefit them better for their career and some other
Andrew
way? And I feel like the answer is yes. Like I think learning how to grow the account, that's very valuable, especially if you were to, let's say you're working with a regional builder and then you kind of went to National, you're like, Hey, I took this local builder, regional builder from 2000 followers to 20,000, you know, I work for a big builder like, Oh, well, you know how to do this process That could be valuable.
Andrew
But I think chasing this is I don't mean it offensive, but like chasing kind of like the pennies and dollars when you could you're kind of ignoring the, the checks with the commas in them. I'm trying to get like 200 bucks, 300 bucks when it should be like we're trying to make 20, 30, 40, 50, 100,000 on, on selling other products.
Julie
Yeah. I don't think the math adds up.
Andrew
Yeah. And just like the time, but maybe it could be a fun. We have interns or you're just intern paid interns. I mean, I think all interns should be paid, but we had like, a team of people, like, Hey, we have someone who's at X rate per hour. They're dedicated to this. They manage and run it. Cool. That can make sense.
Andrew
But I would be wary of like some of that we talk to on a daily basis. I'm like marketing coordinator, director whatever their title might be. Like, Hey, I'm a spend a fifth of my week focused on this week. Oh, like you could probably have a lot more revenue driven activities doing something else versus that. I think it's a fun idea.
Andrew
Like it's a good idea.
Julie
Like it's fun topic.
Andrew
Yeah, yeah. Shout out to just putting it out there and asking it. Most people I think, would not ask it. So. Yeah, yeah.
Beth
And I love it. You talking about I think it was a great question.
Andrew
Yeah. Well especially we see in other industries all the time. Yeah. Like all over the place. But I think it is, we are industry so special. There's big revenue attached to it. So then one transaction lot of revenue compared to, let's say, you know, I'm in the fitness space and so if you're selling like a supplement, you're like, cool, it makes six bucks per, per jug of whatever or whatever.
Andrew
So it's a little different thing when it's like, Oh, that one transaction, $6, this one transaction, 60,000. So yeah, one transaction is important. Fun question, Fun question. Move on to current favorites or not. So favorites. Yeah. Favorite. Not favorite.
Beth
Oh, not favorite. I don't have a not favorite this time. Last time I went on like some random like Brant. I don't know. Who knows. But this time I have this link shout out to my cousin who's the reason why I'm addicted to this, but I forget. Okay.
Andrew
Okay. Get ready to be present.
Beth
How do you pronounce it?
Andrew
First, Julie?
Beth
I'm going to pronounce it wrong and everyone's going to make fun of me. But, like, forget it. Oh, like the.
Andrew
Yeah. Shit. Yeah.
Beth
Okay. Push it out. And then goat.
Andrew
Cheese. I like goat.
Julie
Cheese. That was my favorite.
Beth
And then hot peach chutney.
Andrew
Okay, Some spicy, peachy stuff.
Beth
Spicy and sweet. That's the beauty of it. And then you have the salty.
Andrew
And it this you just like random.
Beth
I went on like a like a whole week where it was my lunch every single day. Every day I just made a plate and I would like, text a picture to Karla. I'd be like.
Andrew
I'm doing. Yeah, that sounds good. Does that sound good?
Beth
So try it, everybody. Costco sells goat cheese in, like a two pack. That's much cheaper than the grocery store. You're welcome.
Andrew
Yeah. Forget the grocery store and you go through the goat cheese. Okay. We'll need a new recipe next week. Julie.
Julie
My not favorite is the bad school germs, because I have something that my son had. And then now I have. And my favorite chick, a big shot of DayQuil before this podcast took NyQuil last night and they were laughing. You probably can't see on the camera, but I drink a Coke, which I'd never do, but it looks like red wine.
Julie
But it's bad. It's not.
Andrew
It's not.
Julie
Aware. So that's what got me through this. This podcast is sponsored by.
Andrew
DayQuil and a.
Julie
Little bit of caffeine.
Andrew
Finally. Well, my new favorite is, I think last time I talked about how this oh jeez, I'm getting wrapped up this boom, this make boom stand is terrible. It was on the floor next to me, blue, which is like a legit brand that's like a hundred bucks. Which, I mean.
Beth
I thought it was a woman at first. I was like, What are you doing? Andrew?
Andrew
What happened to your legs? Yeah. So I'm like, Oh, let's go. Premium, right? Buy once, cry once, just get it over with is the best one and it usually works well, but If the humidity changes or stuff, then it starts to just my micro just be like falling down, falling down. So I'm like, I need to get one.
Andrew
These cheap boom stands that you just really you have to lock in place. I haven't touched this really. I don't think since they put it in front of my face for the podcast, this was like a $20 knockoff one from China that someone bought 20,000 of brown container ship to the Amazon for from Amazon. They're making a bunch of money now and now this is great.
Andrew
It's my new favorite. I don't even know what brand it is because there's like 30 of them that are exact same thing on Amazon. You just pick the one that's like then show up the next day. So that is exciting. So that's my favorite. My least favorite was I don't know what it is. We have three Starbucks. Oh jeez, Where I'm at, there's a Starbucks within 5 minutes, like every corner has a Starbucks where I'm at.
Andrew
So from our house, there's three within 5 minutes. East, north, south, right there. Hurricane time comes. I'm like, Well, let's get our last Starbucks before everything shut down tomorrow. Like you just notice me shut down. All three of these places were closed. It was like seven in the morning. Hurricanes gets there, allegedly. That's when picks up at like 10:00 at night.
Andrew
It's since COVID. It's so weird. At least down here. Maybe they're all like this. I have no idea. The ones down here, if they just decide to not be open or maybe like enough people don't make it on the shift or whatever, they just close up. No signs, nothing. They're still open on the app. So Starbucks.
Julie
You're making me frustrated. Before the hurricane was like this one bad enough that some people left town.
Andrew
So we didn't get the vibe. There really wasn't many who did evac our evacuations. If you're familiar. Like it's like mobile homes. Okay, Those are evacuated. Nursing homes are usually evacuated, depending where they are. And then like if you're on the beach because they close, the bridges are back evacuated. But like most people didn't board anything up there wasn't like it really was like, oh, it's here.
Andrew
But like, it was pretty calm, like the vibe. If you go to the store, there's no water. But that's kind of like the usual thing. There's no water and like random stuff that just is gone. But it wasn't the same tense feeling like when we had Irma a while ago where we're like, Oh, this is serious and everyone's kind of sick, really freaking out.
Andrew
So I want to. Duncan was open, Chick-Fil-A was open, McDonald's of every other place was open. But Starbucks, what's wrong with you? Oh, well. Well, that's it for this week. Thank you for listening. And don't forget to become a member for free Converse all Access community app for homebuilders and developers. What's the scenes videos from the podcast? Frequent exclusive postings and analysis from the USC team, access to private hangouts and much, much more.
Andrew
See all next week.
Beth
Now have a good one.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 300: Good Content Looks Effortless

In this episode, Kevin Oakly, Andrew Peek and Julie Jarnagin are joined by a surprise guest, Karla Tuten! The team celebrates the 300th episode by keeping it casual. Karla gives a deep dive into visual marketing and offers tips for builder content, especially for those who don’t know where to start. They discuss the challenges of creating good content that contains real facts, real data and is packaged well graphically. Good content looks effortless, but takes a lot of effort. 

Story Time (05:58)

• Andrew is worn out from the Market Proof Academy and, once again, wishes for one more day.
• Julie's mom is trying to buy a car but feels like the car salesmen should be trying harder to sell their cars to her. No one is following up or reaching out. 
• Kevin says creating stuff is tough sometimes.

News (35:55)

• Mortgage rates could hit 8%, economists say, citing a worrying sign not seen since the Great Recession (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mortgage-rates-could-hit-8-economists-say-citing-a-worrying-sign-not-seen-since-the-great-recession-edf2b4a4)
• Don’t Discount the Merits of a Friction-full Transaction (https://crystal.geekestate.com/dont-discount-the-merits-of-a-friction-full-transaction-newsletter-263/)
• China Evergrande, Giant Real Estate Firm, Files for U.S. Bankruptcy (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/business/china-evergrande-bankruptcy.html)
• First-time homeownership surges: Half of all home buyers are making their first purchase (https://zillow.mediaroom.com/2023-08-23-First-time-homeownership-surges-Half-of-all-home-buyers-are-making-their-first-purchase)

Favorites/Hates (53:27)

• Andrew is hating his boom stand because it keeps sliding down
• Julie is loving "Homework Helpers" for help on her sons homework.
• Kevin is enjoying his app "Sunshine Birthdays"

Check out Kevin's NAHB Webinar on Navigating the 5 Phases of a Market Correction! 

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] 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 Stitcher
A 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:
I'm just starting this slide, this misunderstanding, disagreement. I don't know what it is, but Andrew says, and I don't. You don't want to make anyone mad. Labor Day isn't his favorite holiday, but it's.

Andrew
Because I have nothing against it.
Kevin
is it because its a Holiday or because there's...?
Andrew
No no, I think there's other holidays I need to list before it. I guess I'm getting called out here a list of like I think there's other shut everything down worthy holidays that are not fully shut down for everyone. It's like that's a bank holiday only. I'm like, well, that should.
Kevin
Be arguing for more days off generally.
Andrew
Right? Like, that's like a mixed day. Like sometimes it's like, are banks closed? Not closed. I don't know. Schools are still and sometimes that one should just be Everything's done. I'll swap Labor Day for him. Okay. If we're to pick like, all right, there's eight holidays where everything's shut down. Christmas, July 4th, Memorial Day, whatever the other ones are.
Andrew
Thanksgiving.
Kevin
I figured it was just because, like, something that the weather in Florida wasn't working. Oh, it's still hot.
Andrew
And we just started school, like, three weeks ago, so it's like a month in a school. So it's like, do we need a holiday?
Julie
I don't know. Yeah, like something.
Andrew
Late September.
Julie
That end of summer real. I mean, that's how some people think of it, right? Like the polls close on Labor Day. But here too, it's still so hot.
Andrew
Yeah. Mhm. I think so.
Kevin
I just we had a we had a little typhoon here in Columbus, Ohio.
Andrew
Oh.
Kevin
Last night I kind of felt like what, Because, you know, Julia lives in Louisiana.
Andrew
She gets it all.
Andrew
I have pretend hurricanes.
Kevin
But there's this thing called a heat dome. How is it that every like three years they come up with some new term.
Andrew
They get me the clicks, heat dome. I like it. And we Google that there.
Kevin
There's a heat dome over over the Midwest and not the edge of the heat dome if you turn on the radar. And it was just this weird. It looked like just someone poured water out of a pitcher and it was just rolling straight from the corner of Michigan, straight down central Ohio. And it just kept coming. And it was like 7 hours of lightning, strong wind and just a ton of rain.
Julie
Oh, wild.
Kevin
Like, do I have to move? I mean, I Anyway, it was a good time.
Andrew
I just Google it. Yeah. Interesting. AP all about this. Hmm. And pumpkin spice lattes just came out today. It's related to the heat dome.
Kevin
We had this conversation on one episode. Yeah, there's a new pumpkin drink. What is it? It's another cold drink called chai something pumpkin. So now you have three pumpkin options at Starbucks.
Andrew
That's a lot.
Julie
Yeah. I don't do the pumpkin drinks.
Andrew
That's a lot of, like, pumpkin pie, spice, flavors all in one.
Kevin
This is to my favorite section, but ever since I got to spin coffee machine, I just don't. I do not desire Starbucks or like coffee out in the same way.
Andrew
Do you like iced coffees? I feel like you can't beat iced from Starbucks any like I have not been. You can.
Kevin
Do it. You can do cold brew. You can do nitro drip cold, whatever. Like it just says put ice in your cup and it cleans out the hot water. Puts in cold water.
Andrew
Yeah, we're all gonna all.
Julie
Be inside out. And Olivia said she's literally drinking the pumpkin chai right now. So she's like, Oh, there you go, pumpkin chai on trend.
Kevin
Is it good? I feel like it would be because chai is kind of a.
Andrew
I like chai. Yeah, 30 Chai. If I've had that chai with the espresso, it's amazing. We hear it's amazing. Like The Wizard of Oz back there helping to steal that.
Kevin
My favorite from my time in Nepal is Milk Coffee, which is, I think goat milk. Oh, no water and instant like instant crystals.
Andrew
Weird. Sounds like it's like that.
Kevin
And they're not the best milk coffee. Experience my life. All right, let's get started.
Andrew
There's the goat. Yep.
Kevin
Well, welcome to episode 300. I'm Kevin Oakley. And with me today is Andrew Peek and Julie's aunt again.
Julie
Me? Oh.
Andrew
Who knew we'd be doing this 300 episodes later?
Julie
That's impressive. That's crazy exciting. I have.
Kevin
I thought we make this our last one. Let's just end it right. Fine.
Andrew
I'm fine with that grand.
Kevin
Valley.
Andrew
Three. I want to be something new.
Julie
That's on market this year to make it really good, though, so.
Kevin
Oh, you know what we should do? Because this is what cracks me up when people do like season six episode one, it's like, just start. Like, I don't know why there's so much conscious thought put into that, but we should just. How about season two begins with a sincere one. We'll start with the season two episode one. Let's just start over because it's going to get obnoxious when we get to, you know, we got to figure out something else, Olivia Because when we get to episode 1200, it's just, it's too many things to say.
Andrew
Yeah, we can have different.
Kevin
Episode 1234.
Andrew
Thousand. It's now 2028 time right now. Oh, gosh, that's a long time.
Kevin
Oh, man. So the other thing that we're just going to keep talking about her like she's here with us, our producer, Olivia, is like, you know, we really do need to do live episodes of the podcast. So, okay, I think we decided on once a quarter, she's checking the calendar, but we will you'll hear about it that way.
Kevin
You can all join in, ask your questions, but they'll be fun. Fun time. Yeah. Maybe we can maybe pull people in for live Q&A or some live storytime we'd have to have like the voice and the voice.
Andrew
Changer.
Kevin
And zoom. That just makes you look like there's got to be the person in hiding and like, a in voice changer. I sorry time about this traffic that. Yeah.
Kevin
Oh, all right.
Andrew
Story is good for that speaking. Sorry time was up first. I got one. I didn't write it down. Yeah, I got one. Yeah, we had the academy last week, so that was. That was amazing. Taking through. Jeez, 11, 12 people. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. What's that like 12 hours of instruction? It wears me out like, Oh, my. And I'm.
Andrew
I'm doing half of it with Sarah. And what's, what's fun is over time, this is like inside knowledge over time. It's like, okay, you take that segment, I would take a break for a little bit. Like I just can't like, look at like at Zoom nice and pleasant for this long and I need to go camera off for like, for a little bit, get a little snack, refill my coffee, whatnot.
Andrew
So, you know, each one, it just changes and changes. And we Sarah and I meet afterwards every single time. Like, what can we do better? What can we do better? And every single time I'm just like, man, I want another day, which is like torture for everybody. Like, it's already four days. Andrew What is wrong with you? But there's just so much you can just keep going and going.
Andrew
I wish there was some way this. I'm just really open talking right now. We teach the definitions. We teach knowledge, the foundational things. All these things are super important thing. It's the analysis. And that is the most difficult part for everybody. And teaching, I don't there's we could teach it, but it's just so much just like experience. You just need the reps near the reps and the reps are what's Malcolm Gladwell 10000 hours.
Andrew
You need your thousand hours and an analysis. You need your next 1000. They need your next 1000. Time to get to ten. You're like, Oh, okay, this is fairly comfortable, but just getting over the hurdle even to like you spent 200 hours in analytics trying to solve a problem, not just like poking around in there. I wish there's a way to expedite that for people, but there's just there's not no.
Kevin
I don't think you want one. I mean, we've had lots of folks that are good intentioned and they're like, Kevin, we should just take this whole market, provide rhythm, and just have it spit out the answer.
Andrew
Like an app.
Kevin
Or give us, you know, even internally had a conversation where some people here were like, we just want a number to tell people for this thing of like, this is the goal. I was like, I mean, it doesn't really I, I know this is a well overplayed expression, which I think that reminds me, Olivia, next time I'm on the podcast, I want to have a whole section about things we never need to say again in our industry, that that's just I'm, I keep hearing the same.
Kevin
Like those were analogies and examples to use 12 years ago. Are we still talking about the same thing?
Andrew
But I don't know.
Kevin
The last one is in play. Chess. You do not want to. If you are a great chess player, you there should be no reason that you want to dumbed down the rules of the game to get back to checkers when you are a grandmaster at chess now you do have to be able to. And if you're a true grandmaster, you should be able to teach someone the basic rules and fundamentals of chess without losing your mind, screaming or pouting like a child.
Kevin
Okay, So that's that's I think, part of it.
Andrew
That's fair.
Kevin
But holy cow, what is this drive to get everything so really simplified? So I'm using the chess analogy because I think this is what I mean. I'm on Chess.com if you want to sign up and play me, I'll do it. But just know that I'm in the middle of probably parenting one of my four children and I will mess up.
Kevin
So excuse a great chess player yet, but thinking moves ahead, right? The more moves you can think ahead, the better. And how I view the analysis problem is that people look at it and go, I just want the answer. And again, there's all sorts of reasons why that's.
Andrew
Like the final move out. The final move. I don't care how we get there.
Kevin
But I think they do sometimes and this is on on me and all of us to do a better job teaching and training. They look at what someone who's thinking eight moves ahead and by I don't mean moves, I mean layers. Okay. To go away from the analogy of chess back to the actual thing we're doing here of there is the data and that in itself, let's just say, encompasses three or four layers of analysis, potential analysis.
Kevin
And there's always more than one potential. There's one potential. There's at least one true problem or issue. And each of those has no more than three possible reasons why there could be more than one true issue. And then that that, you know, extrapolates. But even beyond that, then you have to start talking, thinking about like, okay, well then let's layer over our company culture and then let's lay over how this sales manager thinks or how that salesperson acts or the usage or non usage of the CRM or the market and the competition and, and, and, and certainly the more layers you have to your point innately, most of it just requires repetition and experience because
Kevin
otherwise you just find yourself going through layers one through four and you're like, I got the answer, I'm done. And then I'm almost I'm almost done with this diatribe. You go and present. Let's say you feel really confident that you analyze those three or four layers well and you go into a meeting, you go up to your boss or the sales manager, like, here's what, And then they hit you with the one thing you didn't think of.
Kevin
And you're like, Oh, and you know, the Jenga pile just crumbles. I think I think there's just that aspect of and that's why we always talk about use humility with this stuff. It is not the data says X, therefore it must be X, It's hey, this is what it looks like. But is there something we're missing here? Is there something that we don't know but that's going on with this person personally or is there something with the land deal that requires us to be acting in this way because we have to perform in a certain, you know, Anyway, I just I love the fact that you brought that up.
Kevin
I think it's a whole other.
Andrew
That exactly what was fun was it's.
Kevin
Almost like you should talk about that at.
Andrew
The.
Kevin
Summit.
Andrew
And so like food. So let's talk about food. Beth So one thing we did different with this academy is usually it is Sarah and I, 95% of it. And then I add to Kevin's calendar like 6 hours before it starts, like, Hey, Kevin, I want you to talk about this. And Kevin hops on and does some inspirational talking like, Hey, what's the role of marketing?
Andrew
Like, No, no, no. And what's fun is no one gets that answer correct at the beginning. It's day one unless.
Kevin
They've heard it before.
Andrew
That is true. Unless they've heard it before it. The second day, I'm like, Oh, let's have a coach on. Julie, you're our next victim. And in November, by the way, get her some notice. Beth hopped on and she she did a very similar analogy, Kevin, where she talked about onions. And so, like if you're day one or we had some people that there like month three on the job, they can only go to the first layer in the onion.
Andrew
Meanwhile, we're over here kind of talking and then just like visualizing and thinking like we know there's like 12 layers to this thing. We also know there's old onions we need to think about and there's future. And we're like all excuse me, all over the place with it. So the Onion analogy, I'm like, Oh, that's good. There might be tears too, as you learn more and more Onion feels that has me like, Oh, I'm embarrassed.
Andrew
I didn't know that. Or like, I feel like an idiot. But over time, like you didn't.
Kevin
Realize that it's just more such a nerd. And then we just had a special guest pop on, which this is a.
Andrew
Surprise party.
Kevin
And you never need an invitation. Don't don't give away who yet, but as a kid, I remember watching Lawrence of Arabia, which is a way too long movie in an old theater. My parents made me go I think I was seven, the only scene from that. And I think it's three and a half hours long and has two different intermissions or whatever.
Kevin
There's one scene where Lawrence of Arabia puts out a candle with his fingertips and the guy looks at him and says, Holy cow, what's the trick to doing that? Because because it looks like there's a trick, because it doesn't cause him any pain. He doesn't like his fingers. He just pushes it and he goes, The trick is making it look like it doesn't hurt.
Kevin
And I just think like that's we've talked about this many of our ways, the confidence aspect. In fact, what do we say on I call it it's either it's either lack of confidence or lack of competence. So some good alliteration there. But it goes back to repetition, repetition, repetition. Hey, Carla, Welcome.
Julie
Hi, I'm.
Andrew
Friend.
Karla
Good. What are you doing?
Kevin
Oh, we're just recording a podcast. And Carlos, our creative director. And do you convert? For those of you who may be under a rock, she's taking names and changing lives all over the industry. What's what's the what's going on right now? Carla, What's. What do you. What are you doing? What's keeping you busy these days?
Karla
I'm busy all the time. I feel like the last time I was on here was back in January, so I decided to crash a party.
Andrew
It's been a while.
Karla
It has been a while. But I do slack, y'all. Y you're always recording. You can't talk. I'm recording. I'm like, Okay, well, um, I don't know. It's funny how there's always, like, these weird trends. At the beginning of the year, it was very heavy. Like, but everyone wanted to redo their collateral and refresh it. And then we went into like a signage program.
Kevin
Yeah, I was going to say signage would be my guess, the next one. And by the way, isn't it interesting that if you heard someone talk about like hearing these trends like we do on, on this podcast, you'd be like, does that really happen? Or and then you go do it yourself and you're like, There's something in the water or the air or like, there's this behind the scenes network of Let's all talk about signage.
Kevin
It comes in waves for sure.
Karla
It's really weird. And then the other last month had a bunch of, you know, probably like five different calls, different builders around the country, and they're all talking about like their sales office. And I'm like, what is going on? How is everyone wanting to now look into like their interior signage mission is bizarre. And then I was in book a book booklet land for a while, like maybe.
Kevin
Like real paper things.
Karla
Print I've done. So print booklets that took up my time for the.
Kevin
Like.
Karla
I don't.
Kevin
Mean like checks notes or checks calendar what year we live in, but, you know, Yeah.
Julie
Yeah, there's a lot of that. I didn't expect it like collateral you expect but like long booklets, 20 pages.
Kevin
Because you could or could not print the collateral. It's like how it's displayed. Yeah. Took them off, you know, printed. Yeah.
Karla
They want like hard copies. Interesting. So that doesn't sound cheap. It doesn't. It sounds like something else. It's not that sounds. But I am sort of buying the booklets.
Andrew
Yeah, that would be pricey.
Kevin
Is there something that you've been doing this now, like you said, for a little while? I mean, you've been doing it a long time, but doing it with with us. Is there a we were just talking about like the the trend of analysis being hard outside of what people are actually asking you to do. Is there something that you find yourself having to explain or re-explain or.
Karla
Yeah.
Kevin
Re-explain again, as a concept that you just want to kind of toss out again here?
Karla
Probably you have to think about, here's one, I'll talk about it because it's about collateral. And so usually when we start with that, I'm kind of like, give me everything that you have because you probably haven't touched it. And what typically happens, it comes off as a these ideas part from sales and marketing, and they get tagged onto the collateral package as these one off pieces.
Karla
So I'm like, Hey, let's go ahead and take a look at this is yet another foot view. And more often than not, they have a billion pieces. That's evergreen material. And I'm like, Why don't you think about making this a better experience instead of someone having a bunch of one pictures? So I would always say, take a step back, think about the experience, what you're giving these people.
Karla
Are you burying them in tons of copy and things they may not want to read? And is there a better way to display that? Should we make it into a book? Should we? That is even important. Do you want to cut some of this out? That's typically what we're talking about when we talk about like looking at all their stuff.
Kevin
Mm hmm.
Karla
It's very easy, I think, for people to just. Oh, this is a good idea. Element is I don't a piece of paper on a word document and they always don't think about how it looks or how it's saved or how much stuff people are gathering.
Kevin
Yeah, a quick, quick poll on material or files. Generally, I'm not going to answer until the end because. But don't you think that or do I already led the witness? Sorry. Shouldn't every document that could be potentially sent or accessed or shared have some general repository that is accessible? Like like nobody home didn't start out doing this, but they found that people were like, I have all these documents that I send people maybe post-purchase or pre-purchase.
Kevin
And there is no place on their website. They just how's everything even like you think about docs? So like, why is that hard to find for nonexistent on a builder site?
Karla
That would be nice to have.
Kevin
That's right.
Karla
Resource library.
Andrew
That'd be that'll be great. Especially HRA stuff is interesting. I mean at least our experiences, we changed each way. Management companies like four times before, it was like our control, but it was like with it was still with the builder. So we're like, Who's in charge here? Who's in charge as homeowners do you blame? I mean, everything is always the builders fault, like always.
Andrew
That's just made us, even though it's the way management company's fault, because you chose that terrible company, the builder, and so everything is the builder.
Kevin
So just make it easy for that saying I'm not suggesting it should be like front and center underneath our image or whatever it be for us. We just had a archway section, so we had it. We had a document library or a overall, I think we just called it Media Library and it had like any photo you might see on a community page would also be accessible in this Keystone Homes ish for those of us.
Kevin
Like, it's like all of our pictures are here is searchable by everything, but also they're on the individual pages that are relevant to them. Same with videos and documents. And so we didn't even have a link on the community page to the docs because that might be distracting or confusing. Yeah, but certainly any time someone would ask, can I get a copy of my HRA docs that then the online sales person or salesperson who would then train the customer.
Kevin
Actually, there's this library over here and you can access anything that we have or need need to get to and it's grouped and searchable and all the rest anyway. And just when you were talking about like how separated each piece kind of is, instead of thought of in a cohesive manner. Manner. Yeah, it made me think about.
Karla
The only thing I would say that I've experience with something like that. Well, it just comes up in collateral information in general. Is that I think some teams can be lazy because someone has to keep up with the information being up to date. And so if you take the time to like make sure you have a good organization in place, like a good file, good filing, and like, you know, what's more up to date.
Karla
Yeah, good nomenclature. You make sure everything is what it's supposed to say, then I think it's definitely doable. But I think people just sometimes just, you know, maybe not able to. Yeah, it's a big thing to kind.
Kevin
Of we got at that pushback all the time at Heartland and that was my that was my reason for wanting it to be out there in the wild is I just found that if it wasn't accessible by the customer, things never got updated or there were four copies going around. But once there was like, No, no, you know, some yeah, maybe someone has a document that's out of date.
Kevin
You have to make sure everything's dated and, and like last updated and the corner. But it was like, yeah, that document's incorrect, but I'd rather we know that and then we fix it versus having no visibility or people handing out something that's five years old that has four updates and they still have copies somewhere else saved locally, or just like, Nope, the truth is there for the customer.
Kevin
So that's the impetus to always make sure as it's correct, just like pricing.
Andrew
Yeah, it doesn't create a problem which exposes what was already there.
Kevin
Shines a light on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, Karla, thanks for hopping on. Yeah, Bye. Any time. I love. I love just the mean. Yeah, It's like you work here.
Karla
It is Like I want to keep it creative cave and create a cave.
Andrew
With your plan.
Karla
The next.
Kevin
Time. Bring some next time. Since this is now a video show as well. Next time, I want you to bring some like, show and tell us something.
Andrew
Yeah, there they go.
Kevin
By the way, if you don't follow girl on Instagram, you should, because that's when you get some additional exposure to like show and tell.
Karla
Oh, yes, I'm very quiet about it. Anyway, you'll have a good afternoon. Bye.
Kevin
This is episode 300. You made it.
Andrew
Yeah, 303.
Kevin
I'm like the biggest episode zero yet. Yeah.
Julie
That's the best. All right, y'all have a good one. This is fair to say, Julie.
Kevin
Story time.
Julie
So I am watching my mom shop for a car, and it's been very entertaining. And the last thing I heard her say was that she was annoyed because she wanted somebody to beg her to buy a car and they were not begging her. So what happened is she had reached out to somebody about a car and they had never emailed or called her back.
Julie
And I know we always feel or hear people saying, Oh, I don't want to bug people. Well, she's annoyed because she wants to feel like they're begging her to buy a car. And then the other thing that's been funny is she's gone out to a few lots and of course, there's not a lot of cars. You know, still, there's issues with like actually having cars there.
Julie
And she's not being super picky. She kind of knows what she want. She wants three rows and she wants a new car and there's only a brand or two that she doesn't like, but she's pretty open. But I think Kevin and I have had multiple conversations in the last week or two about the messaging of like, we have homes because there are people who are moving that need a home and we have finished inventory.
Julie
And those people need to know we have finished inventory. So it's again, it's the same thing with her. If there was a car dealership out there, you know, that would tell her, we have this many cars that you can choose from. Right now we have this many SUVs or whatever it is. Yeah, that's the messaging she needs. And she also needs the messaging of like, we want you here.
Julie
Like, she feels like people aren't trying to get her to come out and aren't calling her back. So it's just been a fun process to watch with with what we do.
Kevin
It's really interesting because my wife's birthday was on Tuesday and she likes Cheesecake Factory because there's all kinds of options and we were going to have my parents come as well. So there's a table of eight, and at least here, the Cheesecake Factory is still cool in central Ohio. So most time you got a long wait. And I think you're talking about cars, which typically is a reference point of like, why can't homebuilders do things like car dealers do historically, like be more responsive, but now they're changing.
Kevin
And my point is, whether it's Cheesecake Factory or Toyota. As a consumer, you are trained by all of your interactions with all the companies. You do what to expect or to assume. And so it's it's interesting how that dynamic does shift because typically it's like like my kids are like, you don't want to go to Cheesecake Factory. You got to wait for 2 hours and then it's going to take forever to cook because there's so many different options on the menu.
Kevin
But I really want to go there. So we pull it up and on the front page it's like make a reservation. Like we've never been able to make a reservation at Cheesecake Factory ever. And then it says Only up to table Party of six. And I'm like, up, see, they got us because we need eight. But then there's like, you could tell that it had been designed to say parties of six and under but then someone to just add a line of text that said but if you have a bigger party and it's on a non busy day or time, we'll try to work with you.
Kevin
And it's like, why did that have to be there? It's because the dynamics have shifted. And so there is this point in time where we stopped eating out altogether because it was just always a pain, always busy, always short staffed, and now they're like, Oh yeah, no problem. Come on in at 530, 6:00 on a Tuesday night.
Andrew
With a.
Kevin
Table of eight reserved. And so it's that training and that's why we've had these conversations. Julie, of, you know, that concern about having like six homes available in a community and not looking bad or desperate that that might not be true anymore. We don't know someone might look at that six available in a single community and be like oh thank God I can actually maybe get one of them.
Kevin
Is the use on market is still so difficult in most parts of the country.
Julie
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew
What's interesting, Julie, is that sounds like the most amazing car shopping experience ever. Them not hounding you like it's a dream for me and you want to be like, Mom, you're not trying to date this person. Like what? Despite you want that car right there. But if they don't call you, you're not going to buy it. Like, I don't feel like that.
Kevin
By saying beg in quotes. Like my dad had the same experience. He just shop for a car. He would go to a Lexus dealership and they'd be like, Oh, we don't you know, you couldn't even talk to a salesperson. You had to talk to the receptionist because they didn't want you to feel like you were busy. And then the guy would show up and he's like, Oh, sorry, I can't get any of the keys to test drive anything.
Kevin
It's locked in a safe. Can you come back some other day? And they never call. That's just like, Here's my card. You follow up with me when you want to come back out. Like it's. It's this complete lack of any customer experience.
Julie
Yeah, that's. She's like, it's one of those experiences where it's like, I want to give you money. Like I have money to give you to buy a car and nobody acts like they want to help me with this, you know? So I think it's just frustrating for her that nobody is taking her. And so if she comes out and she's like, This is what I'm looking for.
Julie
And they're just like, now, you know, I think it's just she doesn't feel like anybody is there to help her through the process and she's getting frustrated with it.
Andrew
Make you want to go Tesla and just like next next next next $500 deposit that shows up in a month done.
Kevin
Right.
Andrew
Yeah no people.
Kevin
Still well it is an argument for a really good self service but it always comes back to the complexity of the purchase, the fear of making a wrong decision, and the number of options that home builders have. Make self service, generally speaking, not the same experience. And I always go back to like, yeah, there's so many different apps that say design your own home with this fun, you know, architectural app and it's easy as one, two, three.
Kevin
You look at the and then you try to like design anything and it just keeps saying error error like why can't I put that window there? I don't know. It just won't let me. It's just not as intuitive still as an opening.
Julie
Especially for her. This would not work for her. She's over 70. I know some people over 70 would love it, but not her specifically.
Andrew
No.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andrew
I would love it.
Kevin
My story time is just about the first part anyway, is how difficult it is to create something. Andrew and I were talking about this too, because, you know, he's creating new content. He and Sarah are also making new content for the market proof of Academy. And I was asked by NAHB to do a webinar and around a topic that I wrote for Builder magazine about.
Kevin
So I like I have the content I know like it's my own story in a way of my experience with Hartland of navigating a downturn market and what we did and how we did. I wrote this 1100 word article already and yet to sit down and craft from a blank set of PowerPoint slides, which I don't even love, really using slides in the same way as most people anyway.
Kevin
But it was just I had this experience when I was done with it of am I getting it like I'm not too old for this, I'm not giving up. But there is is like for 10 minutes afterwards, I was just so mentally exhausted from putting in the effort of building what ended up being like a 38 page presentation from nothing that I was just like, I'm too old for this.
Kevin
Like, this is a young person's game making content and this is just hard. And that's, that's I think why people love the idea of I help and prompting and the rest. But anyway, I just shout out to anyone who ever makes anything. And Julie just wrote a book, but like creating something, especially when it's a combination of factual data and opinion and storytelling and, and, and who that's just tough.
Kevin
It's it's really, really tough. Now, the payoff was, was awesome because we ended up having I think over 450 people ended up registering put a link in the shots because they said, though as soon as it's posted on their website, we'll be able to put a link in for people to watch the replay as well. A lot of good questions, really good interactions, good time, but man is.
Kevin
But then there's the podcast, which is the opposite, and it's like this is the easiest thing ever. I look at the show notes 10 minutes before we hit record. We just talk time. We're swapping out articles last second or you know it. This is so effortless for me anyway. But creating that type of content is really hard. And so if.
Julie
You put 1000 hours in on the podcast, is part of it, you're comfortable really, you're just you've had enough reps of that. Also, I think the hard thing is, is that good content looks effortless. So we're watching other people's content and we're like, Man, why is that? Why does mine not look like that? Why does mine feel so hard?
Julie
And then what you don't know is that just because it looked easy doesn't mean it was easy. So almost my story time. So I'm going to do a story time Part two. So. Okay. I'm a purple though, in jujitsu, so I'm usually one of the higher belts, if not the highest in the morning class that I go to.
Julie
And there's a lot of white belt women there.
Andrew
For those who don't know, that means you can probably kick anyone's but at the summit.
Julie
Right? Well, lots of that out there. But so the professor, the coach there, sorry, this is making our story time really long. That's the coach there. Some mornings we'll say, okay, higher belts, you have to let the lower belt start wherever they want. So these white belt girls who are younger than me, probably stronger than me, can say, okay, I would like to start on your back with like about ready to choke you or I would like to start like on top of you.
Julie
And so then I have to work on my escapes and they get a chance to like, work on submissions and things. And so then when I get out, they're like, Man, that was so easy for you to get out. And I want to say, shut your mouth. It was not it was it was terrible. I was fighting for my life.
Julie
That's like you think that it looked easy, but it was terrible for me. Like I hated it. Yeah. You know, so sometimes we look at people's content that's good, and we're like, Oh, but that's so easy for them. They just created that and it looked great. But you don't know that they're kind of fighting for their lives or have done that.
Julie
Many reps are working so hard to make it look that easy. So I think the same to you. People probably saw your presentation. Oh well, this is easy for them, but they don't know what it took behind the scenes to make it look effortless. Right.
Kevin
And I, I think if you're a good presenter in any medium, you always are thinking about the audience experience and how they're absorbing it. And the podcast. I just feel like there's I mean, hopefully you're, you know, mowing the lawn, taking a walk, cooking dinner, like this is a great medium to do something else. At the same time.
Kevin
So it's like this and, and that's length and consistency mean that again, if you're sitting down on your couch with your popcorn and watching this, please don't tell me if you are, because I want to get you something special. I'll buy you popcorn for a year or something if that's actually what's happening. But there just seems like less pressure versus a straight for the same thing happens with the summit content.
Kevin
It is like you have to put time aside and it's not for me anyway. It's not repetition or practice of the content. It's the constant someone sitting in a seat that may or may not be comfortable after sitting in it for 4 hours. And I want to make sure that the visual payoff as much as possible of what I'm talking about connects or translates or adds something extra and isn't just like, anyway, I just yeah, it's hard.
Kevin
I think content is hard. And you write thousand out the 10,000. I mean, should I should do the math. But if you average six or 7 hours a day talking to people times almost ten years now, I guess talking is not the hard part for me.
Andrew
You know.
Kevin
All right, on to the news and we will try to keep those types of the episode doesn't go forever. MarketWatch dot com mortgage rates could hit 8% economists say, citing a worrying sign not seen since the Great Recession. The 30 year rate is at a critical stage. Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, told MarketWatch.
Kevin
This is confusing to a lot of people. I feel like we've talked about a couple of times, but just for clarity, the Federal Reserve changes short term rates, the rest of the bond market and Treasury market adjusts based upon supply and demand for different lengths of maturities. The most important one for mortgages is the ten year Treasury note, so that has its own pricing that is not directly impacted by the Fed.
Kevin
There's a there's a correlation, but it's not directly affected. And then there is a risk premium that people who give money for mortgages want. So the ten year is considered a very safe investment. Unless the US government ceases to exist, they pay their debt by making more money, which is a whole other topic out of thin air. But you're going to get your money from that ten year Treasury bond.
Kevin
So if people are default on a mortgage, there's a risk that that could occur, especially when the market in the future doesn't look as rosy. And so the the Delta between the ten year and what mortgage rates are at is known as a risk premium. That risk premium and the ten year are both expanding. And that's why even though rates haven't changed very much, they're still headed up and may go headed higher.
Kevin
So in some sense, before we get into really the the full article, it's it's kind of I would say it is really smart people who have a lot of money at risk saying I think in the near term there is maybe a slightly higher likelihood of people being foreclosed on or loans not being paid back. And so I want more profit basically from the loan to cover potential losses.
Kevin
So that's that's why that that spread is so important to watch and understand. Anything else in this article that that you all.
Julie
Know the I thought it was interesting that they were talking about don't expect the higher rates to hurt home prices. So some people may think, oh, because rates are going up and less people are going than your home prices are going to go down. They said that the that will only happen if the job market, if people are losing their jobs and then that would be when that would happen.
Julie
So I thought that was an interesting point.
Andrew
Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, you know, different local Facebook groups and there's still this weird like thought that like everything is going to crash and people are waiting to buy for this inevitable crash and maybe people want Why would you want that? Like, that's so psychotic. Like what I want the world to be like. They want like, a recession, Great Recession.
Andrew
I'm like, what is wrong with you? First of all? Like, it's not going to happen.
Kevin
Because it's going to affect everyone else. They'll be unaffected.
Andrew
They'll be unaffected. They'll still have their job perfect, and there'll be any change they could just scoop up a house half the price, what it is now. But so that's just it's interesting that I don't know. That's a common thought, but it definitely seems a somewhat common thinking. But just looking at this one part here, it's like he noted that monthly mortgage payment for a median priced home in 2019 was 1100.
Andrew
Today, at 8%, that payment would be over 2300.
Kevin
So that does not include taxes and interest, I believe.
Andrew
But then you need to go like, well, those people who didn't buy it either time, what is their rent? Right. It could be 2823 is better than 28. So I'm saying that like this seems very doom and gloom, but like knowing people in our lives that are younger, like, Oh, but in house. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, can I have some details?
Andrew
You know, like, I do stuff like, and every single person went down at least 2 to $300 renting to now owning a home. So my Oh, okay, cool. Now they are fortunate, like their career wise, they both had higher income established jobs, so they're both like they made 100 combined income, not not each, but like both. So they able to save up some money.
Andrew
And then both for Ira, both had down payment assistance from the county. Yeah. Which is more interesting. But prices were both met for hundreds for their homes.
Kevin
Beth Russell sharing screenshots of articles, talking about how housing has just become completely like it's I forget the exact headline, something about no one can afford to buy anymore. And what's interesting, I just replied back quickly like that also means people can't afford to sell. And so that, you know, if rates continue to go higher, I think there will be fewer sellers until, to Yoon's point, people have job losses.
Kevin
But until that point just means there's going to be fewer existing homes on the market and builders are always going to have something for sale.
Andrew
So more houses be perfect. Yeah. Builders, there's the supply.
Kevin
All right. Up next, this is a I really want to talk about this one, even if it's the last one we do. I don't care from geek it Slate.com don't discount the merits of a friction ful transaction. This is written by Drew Myers, the guy I've got to know over the last year and a half or so. Really good guy.
Kevin
Friction is good. Not bad. At least in the residential real estate context. And he goes on to cite all of these different tools, services, platforms that want to make moving it at the push of a button easy. And then he's like, should it be easy? Are you going to make a great decision? If purchasing a home is as easy as ordering light bulbs off Amazon?
Kevin
Should it should it should something that impacts your life so, so severely is a real benefit to having that be frictionless at point.
Julie
I don't think friction less should be the goal. I think figuring out where the friction should be and where the friction should be in places where we strategically want to slow the process down. So there should be parts of the process that we want to go quickly and easily and parts where we want that friction because we need people to slow down and not just to make the right decision.
Julie
But you also can't build a relationship with somebody which sometimes you need to know because, you know, if you want to do more personalization or you want to listen or you want to find out what they want, you're going to have to slow that part down or it's not going to happen. So I think it's just being more strategic about where it needs to go fast and where it needs to go slow and leave the friction in those places.
Julie
We need to slow it down.
Kevin
Right. I think his argument here is a somewhat moral, you know, he goes into credit cards are easy and there's lots of studies that show if you pay in cash versus a credit card, you're going to you're going to be making smarter financial choices overall. And so he's like over half a century of cognitive science. And studies have shown that people who do multitask or move quickly.
Kevin
And so then he's like, I promise buyer solutions to both with one seamless experience of here's the house for you. It's perfect in every way. Push the button. It's yours. And he's like, Should this desk be compressed to make it as easy to drop 200 grand or $2 million on a house? As easy as it is to drop a $5 bill on some other product or service.
Andrew
I would like.
Kevin
This is how he says. I don't buy the idea that people need or even want to buy houses with a single tap on their phone. Sequencing steps helps buyers minimize the chances of a poor investment decision with their hard earned dollars.
Andrew
I think this is my bias, or maybe this is what I think I don't. People are being polite by using the word frictionless by saying I think that transactional cost to sell and buy a home is absurd, right? Like if you were to sell.
Kevin
That is true. A lot of it is focused on like.
Andrew
Hodling, like realtors, then like, hey, is there a way to get rid of this percentage? Or maybe you should shift that money to like, Hey, the inspection needs more money behind it and we could have a better inspection for a used home and more emphasis on that versus this kind of general contractor bringing in different trades to get it done.
Andrew
And they're the ones making the most money on the transaction. I don't if that. So, Drew, if you're listening, maybe have a part two of transact, you know, what we should is the same.
Kevin
Thing or something and see if he wants to come on some time on, I guess, episode. But one example would be like inspections, housing inspections. Is it really in the buyer's interest to waive those or to let's say that there's a company that says we'll do an AI powered inspection utilizing large amounts of data and we'll just estimate a likely cost of repairs.
Kevin
Just so you have a sense of it. You can either push a button and get that for two bucks or you can wait 72 hours to have for a week to have an actual in-person inspection. Now, I'm not saying take away the optionality for the buyer because that's a negotiation tactic of I'm not going to require that. But all things being equal, just like, is it better to walk through physically the space that you're about to purchase or do it virtually, which is like and this goes like, we are really quick to give away the best option for just one that's better or good enough.
Kevin
And I think that's kind of what you're saying. Julie There's there's things where we should always be optimizing to just the best and maybe a good enough in some areas is okay. But I if, if my one of my four kids goes to buy a house that's 25 years old and like, Hey dad, we're going to waive inspections, I'd be like.
Andrew
No, you're not.
Julie
Well, And sometimes it takes a human to explain that, you know what I mean? Like the giving option just on an automated system is different than having a person telling you what the differences in those two choices are.
Kevin
Right? I've even had people tell me, like, I waved my it's like, no matter what happens with the inspection, I can't get out of the contract, so I'm not going to do an inspection and like, you're nuts. Why would you still not want to know?
Andrew
They still know.
Kevin
You may not be a reason to get out of the contract, but at least now you know for planning before you show up, you move in and try to take a bath in the tub, falls through the second floor. I think you would want to still know. I mean.
Andrew
Yeah, all the hurricane things are missed very commonly. Even a newbuilds like, right, Matt Then insurance like that. That sounds terrifying. Hurricane coming. You're like, I wish we got an inspection. Make sure the straps and all that stuff is done correctly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. I do both. All right, next your question.
Kevin
I mean, it's it's a good thought process and I and I agree that we should be going after the best which might have a little bit of friction but if it's if it's in everyone's best interest and that kind of goes back to like the whole e-commerce ification of our industry I think is a little bit overplayed, not not totally, but a little bit from Reuters.com.
Kevin
Evergrande Remember them files for us Bankruptcy protection as China economic fears mount. So this isn't just a story about Evergrande, which is your remember the place that had like was a 15 or nine towers imploded that were partially built.
Andrew
A billion.
Kevin
Ghost cities. We talked all about this a couple of years ago I think now well they're back the the whole real estate market and China's a mess. Trusts aren't paying out the funds that they're supposed to be. There's people protesting again. So that's interesting in and of itself that it's real estate that's having an issue there. But also just generally a lot of the global economies now are headed towards a recession or a severe decline in activity from where they have been.
Kevin
And China is typically a big economic engine. So even if you believe in the soft landing theory of what's going to happen to the U.S. market broadly, there's always a statement of, you know, in China, when China sneezes, the U.S. catches a cold, vice versa, like these two really big economies, there is this global impact. And so Europe's doing poorly, Japan's doing poorly, China is doing poorly.
Kevin
And a sense that even if things are great here, you're going into the end to the end of this year, early next year. Just kind of general economic activity in the world is not good. And that's quick aside, sorry I'm talking so much on this one, everyone. But I was having this conversation of someone was saying, Kevin, how do you feel about the housing market over the next 12 to, 24 months?
Kevin
And here's here's my main thing is I can't think of in the stock market language, they call it a catalyst like is the stock going to go up or down? There needs to be some new piece of information that is a catalyst for change. I can't think of very many positive catalysts except for the one we just mentioned of existing homes not being available, but they're already not really available in most markets.
Kevin
So it might get a little bit better if rates go higher and less are available for us. Maybe. But it's almost like all of the good catalysts have already happened or are in play like now. Homes are available. Pricing in a lot of cases have adjusted or come down. And so then there's like the market catalysts that I, I can't really foresee.
Kevin
But if you can think of any show it did you convert dot com or just reach out to us on social channels. We'd love to hear your thoughts. And then the second thing is from a marketing perspective, even if the market's not doing great as a marketer, if there is some new thing that we could all be working on that always of ups the energy level of like, okay, well we can't do this, this and this, or we can go do this thing that's new and different.
Kevin
And there is a little bit of that. And certainly the focus that Julie is helping with with her book on on content is a big piece of it. But again, in terms of a brand new kind of like we've all known we needed to do content well for a long, long time.
Andrew
Yeah.
Kevin
Julie's book is a great resource to help us do that better. People are budget, more money to it, but it's not like a completely brand new catalyst thought of this is really going to ignite something. So I think that's why I'm just generally I kind of like, enjoy what you got, why you got it. Keep getting better, keep your eye on the ball, work hard.
Kevin
All right. All the phrases from oh, yeah, something else.
Andrew
All the phrases, all the phrases there. Keep going.
Kevin
From Zillow.com. First home ownership surges. Half of all home buyers are making their first purchase. Half of all home buyers are purchasing their first home, the highest share that Zillow has ever recorded. And for Housing Trends Report finds that first time buyers now make up 50% of all home buyers, up from 45% last year, and a meaningful jump from 37% in 2021.
Kevin
That's really interesting to me.
Andrew
Yeah. Trump on the age group they had is that millennials, which are 29 to 43 year olds, that's not what we think of young people, right?
Kevin
Right. But they haven't been buying homes. Yeah. So these aren't large numbers until recently.
Andrew
Young people.
Kevin
Yes. I just think I find it ironic that when in an era of affordability being the main reason slash excuse that people say why homes aren't selling, people can't buy that. It's first time buyers that make up 50%. What do you think?
Julie
Well, it's it's also what you what you know, if you don't know if you're coming into this market and it's the first time you've bought. I just now Googled we bought our first little condo in 2001 and I just Googled. So I don't know how accurate this is. That said, the rate's average 7.24%. Like they were terrible. We didn't know any different.
Julie
It's different this time around because they were down to three and they came up to this. And so it's news. But also if they weren't already in a home with a 3% interest rate. So it is to just speaking to your audience and realizing that not every single person you're talking to is currently in a house with a 3% mortgage rate.
Julie
There's people paying cash. There's, you know, first time homebuyers, There's all these other people who are also in the market that we also need to speak to.
Kevin
That takes us back to where we keep talking about on all of our calls with our with our builder partners and on leadership calls is right now the market is being driven by the four D's death. Diamond's divorce and diapers like that's regardless of where affordability is to your point. Like those are the reasons that you're saying okay.
Kevin
We're going to buy a house or need a change in our in our situation. GREEN No. All right. Favorites.
Andrew
Favorites. So let's say what's not what's not my favorite way.
Kevin
We started this new last time. It doesn't have to be a favorite anymore. It could be just something that's really pissing you off.
Andrew
Oh, well, this is perfect, then. This boom stand is pissing me off. If you've seen me, me, myself. And because it keeps fun, it keeps falling down. So I have a new one that Amazon said. Your shipments arriving late or something. Supposed to be here this morning. I'm like, Oh, I arrive here at 7:11 a.m.. Perfect. It's one this one is like it's blue.
Andrew
The blue brand. I think they make a fake out. They make microphones and stuff. It's like a hundred bucks, but it's tension based. So it's like the weather affects it and humidity, for whatever reason is super annoyance. I just bought one that's like you just lock it in because it really doesn't move. I'm excited to replace it. This thing is super annoying.
Andrew
Don't buy it. It's awful. Well, it's.
Kevin
One of those things. It's not a buy once. Try once deal with Julie. I thought that would be sad that she bought her camera. But it is one of those things like arm. I had the same challenge, but there's a tension adjustment piece on it.
Andrew
Yeah, but.
Kevin
For the last year I have not bothered to mess with. I'm just like the things slowly would float up and it would annoy me and I'd push it back down and it would stay there for 5 minutes and then slowly float back up. Just having the right equipment is half the battle. It's worth it almost every time. And then the second is just taking the time again to take care of it like I talked about before.
Kevin
But yeah, that's.
Andrew
It's so someone wants to.
Julie
Mine are homework helpers this year for math he has homework helpers. We're basically has the same worksheet that he's working on that shows you what you're supposed to do without the answers on it. Thank goodness, because I was having to google everything. And it's not that it's like hard stuff. It just doesn't make any. It just I've never seen it laid out like that and I have no idea how to help them.
Julie
So thank goodness already we're like two weeks into school and I'm already having to like, go to the homework helpers and figure out what in the heck they're talking about. So I'm having homework so I.
Andrew
Learn rational numbers and irrational numbers whole. Yeah, I'm like, I don't.
Julie
Know, like, yes, I'm like, Wait, I don't know what they're asking. So that's been my go to this week.
Kevin
Let's see what I'm going to is going to pick some app on my phone that I think that I use that I think most people may not have. There's one called Sunshine Birthdays. You've all seen this before. That's Marissa mayer of former Yahoo Fame. That's her company. And what it does is it lets you log in and connect all of your different accounts and just create a single source of truth, people's birthdays.
Kevin
It also does the same thing for contacts. So it's kind of like an iCloud. That's not Apple only, but it'll go to all of your social networks, your Gmail, whatever, and your calendars already, and then it'll say, Hey, there's three different birthdays or three different profiles for Andrew. Pete, do you want to consolidate them? Is this the right day?
Kevin
It's one of those small little things that and then it reminds you, you can look at it easily a week in advance or a mother of and Sue's birthdays are coming up. They're their play, as you know. They make it really easy to order someone something if you want to through the app. But it's just one of those nice little things that you're like, this is just helpful to not not miss birthdays anymore.
Andrew
Does it go through like does it prefer Amazon as far as like it tries to sync it to Amazon, like get you to buy? The reason I'm saying the best purchases from you have this really cool experience and then they get like the affiliate money from pushing all these transactions from their app. So I'm like, Oh, that's genius.
Andrew
Like, let's make it easy for people to shop for birthdays. We make money by being affiliate with all these different e-commerce companies.
Kevin
I might have spoke too quickly there. I thought an option to send presents, but what I'm getting now is just ordering cards or cards.
Andrew
Oh, they go.
Kevin
It's probably just through their on experience.
Andrew
It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. It is a hard to remember.
Kevin
Something and it's called sunshine. It'll brighten your day.
Andrew
I think. Sunshine.
Kevin
All right, that'll do it for season one of marketing. Of marketing. Be sure to join us for the beginning of season two next week. We'll see you then.
Julie
See.

Market Proof Marketing · Sorting Through the Perceptions & Realities of Today’s Mismatched Market with Nick BoniakowskiIn this episode, Kevin Oakley is joined by Nicholas Boniakowski, Head of Agent Partnerships at Opendoor. Together, they discuss an article from Opendoor that sheds light on the current real estate market. Nick unpacks what a “mismatched market” means and the inconsistencies with what consumers are saying and what they are doing. They talk about the future of the economy and Opendoor’s dedication to making sure sellers know they have options in an uncertain market.

Kevin and Nick discuss:

• This article: https://www.opendoor.com/articles/todays-mismatched-market-real-estate-perceptions-vs-reality 
• The low inventory and how that is influencing the market.
• The buzz around the upcoming recession… that still hasn’t happened yet.
• How most homebuyers and sellers desire flexibility on the closing date.
• The new normal on buyer and seller concessions.

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] or call 404-369-2595 and we’ll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities in the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.

Subscribe on iTunes > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-itunesFollow on Spotify > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-spotifyListen On Stitcher > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-stitcher
A 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:
Kevin
And today we have Nick Boniakwoski, head of agent partnerships at Opendoor here to sit down and talk about some of the research that they've found in terms of a mismatched market perceptions versus reality. Some some really great insights and takeaways. And Nick, thanks for joining the program.
Nick
Thanks, Kevin. Thanks for having me.
Kevin
Now, your title, head of agent Partnerships at Opendoor. Give us a quick background of what it is that you do Opendoor, how you found yourself there, and kind of the background that that makes you the right person to be talking to today.
Nick
Sure. And up to. So I'm coming up on about almost two years at Opendoor now, but I've been in real estate in and around real estate for most of my professional career, which sadly not to date myself, goes back. Coming up on two decades, I've had about 15, 16 years in the real estate industry starting.
Kevin
Do you still have so much hair as if you've been around in real estate that long?
Nick
I've I. You can't see the back of my head. I'll just. I'll just say that. And I'm going to look forward on this camera for the rest of the time. But no, it's, you know, I so I can't say that I've seen a few cycles now and I'm sure we'll talk about later in this conversation kind of how this one is unprecedented.
Nick
But I did grow up in a third generation real estate office right about my grandparents. First job was organizing the filing cabinets that our deal folders went into. And I remember in that job when I was 14 or 15, you know, moving these folders up to the attic because it was a New Jersey law where I'm from. Yeah.
Nick
To maintain these files for seven years. I remember in those early days thinking, Man, I'm using my computer for everything. When is this part going to change? When is that going to change? So I've been fascinated with the industry and that intersection with technology, which has led me down a series of different jobs in in the industry, some some years at some other big real estate companies, including Redfin.
Nick
I actually worked at Realogy. Now anywhere brands for a little bit, but always kind of at that forefront that intersection of of marrying the old with the new, you know the brilliance of all the new technology in the world alongside the new local expertise that an agent can bring. So talking about, you know, how I'm in this, where I am at this role now as head of agent partnerships, it's really about meeting the consumer where they are.
Nick
And that's generally the theme of our our whole partnerships team at Opendoor, where, you know, we're trying to do a lot of interesting things to digitize the home buying and selling process, working with consumers, giving them other options to to move with the click of a button. On the partnership side, we also recognize that, you know, in 2023, while technology continues to improve the process, you know, customers are comfortable working in different ways.
Nick
And on agent partnerships, it's our recognition that, you know, many, many, many consumers have that trusted advisor in their local network. They want to work with that person. So my job is to basically reach out to the agent community, help agents and brokerages understand ways that they can partner with Opendoor to make Opendoor a solution for their customers that want the best of both worlds.
Nick
You know, the guidance from their their trusted advisor and access to open doors digital home selling or buying solution.
Kevin
So I think that's awesome. One, it's great to see always see people who have kind of that front line experience and so that background in the agent world of seeing transactions and being involved in transactions, definitely that's always one of the missing pieces when we start abstracting to other layers of technology and finance and operations. And it's like, have you done this?
Kevin
You know, you kind of if you sit in enough brainstorming sessions with people who haven't been involved to that degree in the real estate world, it's just almost it's just really hard to come out with what the consumer really does want. I think that's interesting. And then second, I think it's really interesting that part of the approach, it appears that Opendoor is, hey, we need to have great data and great insights to share with agents as well as consumers, as well as builders.
Kevin
And that's again, kind of brings us back to this article of of, you know, anything that can be used to inform, better inform kind of all of our mutual customers. It's it's it's good for everybody.
Nick
Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. I mean, and that's one of the enjoyable and exciting parts of my role actually. In addition to data, you know, we have access to hundreds of thousands of consumers. So, you know, with that access, I agree with you. And there's a sense of responsibility around, well, how can we pull conclusions not just keep them from ourselves, but really inform, you know, the broader population of the vendors, partners and the various folks that are going to be interacting with customers.
Nick
And that's truly been one of my favorite parts about working in the real estate industry in that like at its heart, it's very collaborative. You know, the nature of of buyers and sellers and representation on all sides and that people are generally trying to work together. And that's what we're doing with a lot of these surveys that we publish, you know, with that access to consumers, you know, we can collect some insights and hopefully share them with the industry so they can better position their products or for our for our agents, they can look to Opendoor and realize that, you know, we're here to inform and educate and make the process better for for everyone
Nick
out there along those lines and into the data, which, you know, I will walk through today, I have the privilege of talking to agents across the country in my in my role, whether they're partners or just new agents that are interested in hearing about us. And that may be at conferences or individual office visits. But we have a team at Opendoor.
Nick
Literally in the past 24 hours, I've talked to an independent broker in Charlotte, in North Carolina, and I had a meeting with, you know, one of the larger teams in in the Houston market of Texas. So we get an interesting perspective, which is a theme We'll talk about a bit today, I think, in what's going on with mismatched buyer and seller expectations.
Nick
But just this idea that, you know, real estate, we all know it's hyper local, but that's also true. And what the data shows us, that it can feel like a hot market in one area and it can feel extremely cold in another.
Kevin
So yeah, and we'll have a link to the article in the show notes and I'll show it here. For those of you watching on on video right now as well. But I mean, Mismatch market, I love how it opens of you know, everyone wants to try to summarize it down to a point of is it a buyer's market or a seller's market?
Kevin
And I think the the first thing of the article really points out is that buyers and sellers are both in agreement that it's a tough market, but maybe for different reasons depending on the side of it. You're on. But but no one thinks that the current market is a panacea for either side. It's a fair way to say it.
Nick
I think so. I mean, I think when you pay attention to headlines, people have realized that it's been what I would call a seller's market for for quite a few years, although that's that's shifted mostly because of the volatility. And I think whereas if you had to get someone to choose buyer or sellers, you're going to have more folks that are going to say, well, it's likely easier to be a seller, just given the fact that inventory is extremely low and interest rates are triple what they were a year ago.
Nick
That said, it is clearly a different seller's market or less so than it has been in some of these crazy years of the last few. So yeah, you're generally just getting a lot of confusion where I think people hesitate to answer that question specifically. And it's part of the reason why we went into this this research just to kind of to settle this.
Nick
And I think as we see in the data and reading this report, it still is a little bit inconclusive, although there is some alignment on buyers and sellers. And I think the reality is that however people feel about how easy it might be to sell your home right now, there's just general agreement that it's tough. I mean, it is a tough a tough place to be transacting.
Nick
And most of the people that we're seeing moving are doing so because of, you know, life events, reasons that they have to be dealing with. A lot of speculative buyers right now are looking to take advantage of some opportunity in the market. So.
Kevin
Yeah, and typically when you hear the terms buyer's market or seller's market, it's like everything on either side of the ledger is in favor of that audience. And that's that's what we're saying here, is that, yes, it's still more a seller's market than not, but it's not in past seller's markets. It's been like the seller can just state their terms and get what they want.
Kevin
There's there are going to need to be concessions. If you're going to talk a little bit more about at the end or expected concessions on either side and that's a little bit more nuanced. And of course, it all depends on the specific markets. But next in the article that I thought was really interesting, it says the top five housing market concerns all generations actually can agree on in the top three.
Kevin
So the question was, you know, what what are the things about the housing market that's concerning to you? 77% said interest rates, 72% said home affordability, which I think is interesting. And a weak economy was 60%. The next two were not over 50%, but still a good portion. Lack of homes for sale, 34% and high unemployment at 20%.
Kevin
Interest rates are an unavoidable reality. So that one, we could we could talk more about that, Nick, but I want to maybe just have a little more conversation on your perspective of the next two, which is affordability. This doesn't really seem to be slowing people down. In the article, it talks about the fact that kind of the velocity of of sales as a percentage of what's available, 3% I think is a weak roughly is higher than it was in 2019.
Kevin
So even though it's a concern, it doesn't seem to be something that's actually causing transactions to pause or I think again, in other markets kind of like that, that would be something that would be that would be reducing that speed of transaction. Yeah.
Nick
Yeah. I think it's a great, great call out and I think it's exactly, you know, one of the points here that illustrates the title of this whole whole survey, it kind of is mismatched expectations, mismatched market where it's not not really just mismatched expectations between buyers and sellers. It's mismatched kind of fact or what consumers are telling us and what they're actually doing.
Nick
So people are hoarding. They have concerns about affordability, obviously interest rates, yet they're still transacting. And I think more than anything that speaks to really one thing and it's inventory. The fact that we're dealing with inventory levels from from, you know, not seen since 2004, I think is is the year we mentioned here, just that in most markets you're dealing with lower demand.
Nick
You certainly have decreased buyer demand just because of interest rates. Some folks have simply been priced out of the market. Yeah, the only thing beating that decrease in demand is the decrease in inventory. So no matter how few buyers you have, they're still chasing fewer and fewer homes. So that that unfortunately, it creates a world where homeless portability can be a concern.
Nick
But doesn't change reality if if there's still two buyers chasing one seller. You know I loved when you when you opened you talked about what a what a true seller's market looks like where there was this idea where you could put your home on the market and just say everything you want. And actually used a similar phrase in a conversation last week where it was almost like a demand letter.
Nick
You would go to the market and you you'd publish your demand letter during your highest and best, and you say, These are the things I want. This is the closing date, this is the money down. This is the lender I want you to use. And this is exactly how you're going to close and what you're going to ask for in your inspections.
Nick
I've definitely seen a step back from that type. So I think we're kind of in this transition period where the sellers who used to be able to do that, or the agents who used to be able to guide their customers to say, publish your demand letter when we do your highest and best, you're not encouraging that kind of activity anymore.
Nick
Yet they are still going to market in most cases if they have, you know, well-priced home in relatively good condition, they still are expecting multiple bids. They're just aware that it's not going to be quite what it was. So we're still in this mode where people are expecting because there are so few of their neighbors on the market, that these buyers are going to have to overlook the concerns about the home affordability and the interest rates on their.
Nick
Is that.
Kevin
Good? I think what's interesting is it's like this captured thing because people who are choosing to transact now on either side, buyer or seller are probably doing it because there is a innate need or prompting of circumstance that that, you know, I was just reading on another article today about the fact that, you know, builders in my world, you know, their concession amounts have been higher.
Kevin
Someone just recently, one of the public builders just now said that like 9% on average are giving away 9% of their their prices on incentives. Well, if someone is choosing to sell their existing used home in this market, they're probably doing so because there is a reason. So like the arguments being made that builders find the market faster because they have to sell all the time no matter what and the used market doesn't have to.
Kevin
But the sellers in today's market are probably selling because there is something that makes it. I have to situation. It's not going to be all the time, but it's more so to me. The analogy is I love analogies Nick is if if I invited my wife to go out for a steak dinner knowing that she likes steak and I say the words, we are going to go get a nice steak dinner at a nice restaurant.
Kevin
And then we show up at the restaurant. You know, the date had been made were there. And I look at the menu and I'm like, Oh, dang, steak is twice what it used to be. At that point. I can be frustrated and I can express concern about the affordability of steak, but like, we're getting steak, it's not like we're going to say, Hey, let's let's just leave the restaurant and go get Italian.
Kevin
Like, let's go ahead Olive Garden. So I just think that that whole and it's important for for our audience as builders and developers understand that you are going to get questions and objections and concerns around affordability, and you do need to be ready to speak to those. But also you don't have to have kind of an initial response of, Oh my gosh, I must be overpriced or overcharging.
Kevin
Because again, kind of what you spoke to, a nuance there was demand might be low, but suppliers to lower in most cases. All right. Moving on to a weak economy, 60% of people worry about the weak economy. Is it weak? Is this just this is future projection, obviously, of the fact that it feels like things must get worse.
Kevin
But everyone's been talking about this is, you know, the recession that has been the most anticipated recession of all time. That still hasn't happened yet.
Nick
Yeah, you know, I myself am confused. I don't know if the recession happened is happening today or is happening tomorrow. All I know is that it's in every headline that I read. And I think that is basically what most Americans experience as well. Yeah. You know, Jay Powell a few weeks ago talking about, you know, bypassing a recession.
Nick
We have a bunch of different data points that would indicate that it is a healthy economy. Obviously, we see unemployment towards the bottom of this list. I don't think that's a coincidence given how relatively strong employment numbers have been. And I will say that in this subject in general, I always guide and counsel any real estate professionals or people in and around the industry that if you want to be successful in real estate and don't ever talk about politics, just look at approach on the sales side.
Nick
And I think that as you get into the economy, you know, these things become a bit political in that someone's always to blame for whatever the current economy is. So I think the reality is that we're going to we're in a media cycle where we're always going to be talking about the economy, how it could be better, what are the warning signs those kind of headlines get?
Kevin
I think the benefit is that generally people can be concerned. I think both home affordability and economy fall into the same place of I'm worried. I'm really worried about it in air quotes, but not in my own personal situation. Like, yeah, I feel like the economy must be getting worse or headed in that direction. But I just got a raise.
Kevin
I just got approved to work from home. I just, you know, it's like, but it's for everyone else to worry about. And at the end of the day, the people who are choosing to transact in this market, they have concerns about those things, but they also either feel like they may not apply. And that's just that's like human nature.
Nick
Yeah, I think that that that is right on. And I think the reality is that for people that have been looking for homes, given how difficult it's been to find a home over the last few years with inventory, you have a lot of buyers that have been at the search for quite a while. So they're prepared. They have gone through the process you have to go through with a lender.
Nick
Obviously, the borrowing requirements are a lot different than they were during the, you know, the years leading into the great financial crisis. So, you know, you have informed consumers, despite the increases in rates that feel some sense of security and they're getting educated on on what's required to actually buy a home. So I think what you said is, is mirrors a lot of what I'm hearing from agents and that the overall state of the economy, you know, whatever people may think about individual buyers, you know, they're going into these purchases despite the increase in interest rates with, you know, strong savings and a plan.
Nick
And they looked at 500 houses. So they generally have a sense of of where they think the value is. And there's a bit of confidence on that side.
Kevin
Yeah. And so like you said, even it's still a on the balance of seller's market. But even in this market, it seems like they still want the same three things that sellers have always wanted. And the research calls us out. 87% of sellers say the certainty of an offer not following through. So certainty, 74% of sellers want to sell as fast as possible.
Kevin
They want speed, and 58% of sellers say that receiving a cash offer is important to them. So certainty, speed in cash sounds like what sellers have always wanted and always will want it does.
Nick
I mean, also a bit of a plug for for opendoor. It's it's it's kind of the basis of what we try to do. But I mean, that's no coincidence, obviously, in that, you know, we're looking to deliver exactly what what consumers consumers want. I do think, you know, along those lines, one of the trends that we've we've mentioned in this article is that we have seen fall through rates increase, I think 18% currently sales are falling through and that's that's up to the second highest percentage since 2014, I believe.
Nick
So it's becoming an increasingly real, you know, problem in the industry. My wife's in the residential lending space and, you know, someone qualifying, you know, at a five and a half or 6% rate. And then when that rate goes 2 to 7% can be the difference between someone, you know, losing qualification. Different things can happen during deals. And, you know, we are seeing some of the hesitancy show up in the way people are acting during transactions.
Nick
So at the end of the day, you know, despite it feeling like it's it's a good seller's market for many sellers but in uncertainty in the world that we're seeing show up in the data here around concerns around interest rates and the economy and all that, it is showing up in people backing out of transactions and it is obviously in sellers mind.
Nick
So being able to deliver, you know, the certainty and the speed and cash that that open door can just to have it as an option on the table. I spend 99% of my my time with my team talking to agents about having this option. You know, sellers are going to consider a lot of different things. But knowing that in this kind of uncertain market, having having that cash offer, which is what we try to be for agents, you know, you have this cash buyer, at the end of the day who will execute the same as obviously, you know, I know you've had some of my colleagues on to talk about the homebuilding side, how and
Nick
how important that can be. You know, even in this market where inventory is low, having continued contingency, you know, to buy one of those homes obviously can be nearly impossible. So Right. Continues to be true, continues to be something that we really try to try to push. And, you know, I think this will become increasingly important as we continue to move towards, you know, this uncertain period of time.
Nick
I don't know what's going to happen in the future. Obviously, I think a lot of people have been has been wrong about where the real estate market is headed over the last few years. But you have to imagine, as this business tends to be cyclical, there will be some more movement, you know, to to reach some kind of equilibrium.
Nick
And during that time, I imagine these demand from seller is going to become more important.
Kevin
And then equilibrium is found by buyers and sellers making concessions, in fact, finding the market one one transaction at a time. Ultimately in the data here says that both prospective sellers, 76% and buyers 80% indicate a willingness to make concessions to expedite the process. So again, it's this idea of buyer sellers, market. We're going to have to make some concessions in order to make things move forward.
Kevin
So this is, again, where you're you're both your background and your current position really lets you talk in depth on this particular topic. So before we get to kind of the current data points, how have concessions evolved over the years? Would you say?
Nick
Yeah, and that's the real the real meat of this survey. You know, concessions don't always show up in the numbers, right? You know, the popular headline is always purchase price. People think about their real estate deal. The thing that stands out is what you pay for or concessions are are one of those things that kind of exists in the background where they're not always quantified on the settlement statement.
Nick
They don't always show up that the seller was willing to to leave a an old Volvo in the driveway to get a deal done has actually happened to the neighbor of mine. So they're kind of that unspoken in some ways. Part of the deal and a reason why we really wanted to survey our audience on this was because you don't always see it show up.
Nick
And I think that concessions when you start to see people do different things on concessions and get more active on the seller side, that is a tipping point that shows you moving from from one market to another. So as we discussed, we are by no means, you know, moving towards this this robust buyer's market. But as we move a bit from extreme seller to like moderate seller market, we're starting to see at least a willingness on the seller side and buyers and of course, to align on concessions.
Nick
So, you know, we mentioned, you know, what they are these are the components that basically get deals done. It is where, in my opinion, from working with real estate agents for four years, it is an area where I see the best experienced agents really outshine their competition in terms of creativity and really just general awareness on telling their customers, you know, what can actually happen here.
Nick
Because again, if you come into a transaction, you're thinking, well, I got to pay this amount and it's going to cost me this much money per month, and these are my taxes. But, you know, if you're in the industry and an expert in the industry, like many of the real estate agents I work with, you know, you are advising your client on all the different moving parts, whether it's a closing date or getting help with, you know, rate rain by downs and the different components, different ways that you can make concessions as a seller or as a buyer to really bring a deal together.
Nick
And I think that's what we're we're starting to see in the survey shows and you mentioned the 76% and 80% of buyers and sellers willing to incorporate some concessions shows a general alignment. And I think the thing that I hear the most, and this is more qualitative and quantitative, but it backs up that point is that 72% of sellers are buyers right now as well.
Nick
So you can have the best time ever selling, put your house in the market and get a ton of offers. But if you're going to buy the next home, you're going to deal with the same set of problems that every buyer is facing right now, including the 7% point mortgage rate. So I'm not going to sit here and say that sellers are deeply sympathetic or are ever going to feel bad about getting 50% more than they paid for their home five years ago or ten years ago.
Nick
When you're selling, you're probably going to get the best deal you can. But I will say that there's a general awareness around, wow, this young family is now dealing with a rate that was triple what they could before. I'm going to have to deal with that as well. When I want to move, I'm going to have to deal with all of the things that they're dealing with.
Nick
So it's kind of recognition of how tough it is. And that showed up at the top in our kind of alignment piece where where this is one thing that buyers and sellers agree on that even the sellers are saying, yeah, it's it's overpriced. Like I see it, it is a very overpriced mark.
Kevin
I think even the top the top one here on your list on flexibility and closing date makes complete sense. And my, my hunch would be that this has been at that top really ever since the COVID epidemic began, because everyone, you know, when it was a completely a seller's market for sure, this most likely would have gone away of like just figure it out.
Kevin
I don't care. But now that we're back in this more balanced market, that everyone understands that just making dates align is really, really tough. I also just anecdotally, my own experience and people I know, it seems like when you close and when you take possession are also often two different dates in today's world, a lot more flexibility of hey, you can you can remain in the home for a period of time after the closing occurs or rent back or, you know, a lot more flexibility on timing.
Nick
Yeah. The only difficult part about doing a chat with you, Kevin, is that you take a lot of take a lot of my my headlines that's exactly the point I was going to make that I think which which I appreciate you know you're you're an expert so it's nice to us to realize that, you know. Yes, that's exactly right.
Nick
Exactly where I was going to go. But again, for for agents that we talk to and for our consumers, there is a general awareness at that point. You know, it's usually like, well, I'm closing this date, the deal's funding. I better move in that day. But there's a ton of flexibility. And this is what we're seeing, you know, with many of the agents that I talk to, it is just detaching those two things.
Nick
The deal may close this day, but I may be getting, you know, three weeks of a lease back so I can stay in my home or, you know, I may be moving in early or there's all these different things I haven't heard of a really extreme example from a very fortunate real estate agent who is doing quite well and has a second home down down the beach and she was actually able to she she was representing buyers, but the seller wanted to stay on the property until they're closing date.
Nick
The buyer wanted to get into do work, so the seller had nowhere to go for another three weeks. But that agent was actually able to use her summer home to give it to the seller for free, to basically allow her buyers to start the work. So they closed up front. Seller had a place to stay, which wasn't their relative's house, but, you know, extreme an extreme example, a fortunate position to be in.
Nick
But I'm hearing people basically make deals like that. And I agree with you and I've covered this this kind of concession has become popular. And I think it's a good thing for just customers to be aware enough. I think overall in the concessions piece, another thing that I hear from agents a lot recently is, you know, you mentioned home builders and different things they're doing and that 9% figure.
Nick
The thing that I hear from agents with new construction being an increasingly large part of invisible available inventory inventory, is that on the resale on a used market, they're competing now with with those concessions. So whereas, you know, in the seller's markets of the past, you didn't have to go to market with a bunch of concessions, you didn't have to list on the MLS, you know, get a $5,000 closing cost credit.
Nick
I don't think we're at that point yet, but I'm hearing from agents that they're being a lot more proactive in advising their sellers to possibly play a role in a rate buy down. Now, obviously, that looks a lot different from from, you know, a new built where you can advertise that on the banner at the front door, the new sales office.
Nick
But we're hearing that a lot more that agents are trying to educate the sellers to be a little bit more proactive. And even if it means that they're going to net that same strong purchase price just as a way to get buyers more comfortable with, you know, getting that that rate down a quarter or an eighth of a point.
Nick
Anything they can do to kind of just create more goodwill on that transaction Because again, there's just a general sense of, yeah, it's tough to transact right now. And if you're doing so, it's like you said before, you're doing something because you need to.
Kevin
Yeah, well I think a couple of things there. One is your point is is really insightful that even a lot of shoppers and sellers don't understand how common this concession is in terms of flexibility. And so when you're dealing with an uncertain consumer on either side of the transaction, it's important somehow to to communicate this with. And that's obviously where the experts have to come in.
Kevin
And how do you communicate that without kind of starting out with desperation? Not at the beginning, but you can imagine hundreds of consumers saying no way, honey. We we got to make sure that the data lines up because think about all the stress in the and the domino of other things that have to be lined up and really know that that doesn't have to be.
Kevin
But unless you help them understand that that that possibility exists, that uncertainty is is really high. So like how how you kind of remove the veil on that is important for both buyers and sellers under understanding and and if they have representation that's communicated. But the other thing that I think is real interesting is as a seller, when you add the 18% cancellation rate of transactions and then you start talking about this, a lot of flexibility that you're offering to the buyer on timing, that does seem to be a little bit like you are adding risk to the equation.
Kevin
I'm I don't know if I'm saying this well, Nick, but and I'm trying to find out a way to make it not sound like a blatant advertisement for Opendoor. But my point would just be like knowing that 18% of transactions are falling through and then delaying and delaying and delaying a closing date for a buyer that might not close, It does seem like that's a riskier bet and something that certainly should be factored into.
Kevin
Do I should I take this offer from Opendoor that has, you know, certainty, speed and cash versus saying, hey, I'll take this this offer from from someone else, but I'll delay the closing for three months and then two months in and they say, sorry, we're not we're not doing it.
Nick
I mean, I, I can can disagree with you and I understand why I could feel like a bit of an advertisement. But, you know, that is one of the primary value props. And I think specifically and also for for a big chunk of your audience, obviously on the other side, that unique offering that we have for our homebuilder partners of of nine months of close of escrow and basically must say that.
Kevin
Again because I still I'm amazed by the number of people I interact with who are like they don't they have not heard this or it never registered to them.
Nick
Yeah. Just recognizing, you know, the partnerships and the the use case that we have on the homebuilder side. And this is not my world. This is a nod to my my, my colleagues on the home other side that I work very closely with. Obviously, many, many homebuilders are working with agents. So it's all it's all related. I don't want agents to know this, do that.
Nick
And then when I went off consumer selling to open door and buying from one of our homebuilder partners or any new construction made from a homebuilder, they are eligible for up to nine months for their tools. The best girl with basically unlimited flexibility on when they're going to pick that date and how often they need to move it, which obviously your audience doesn't doesn't need me to explain.
Nick
It is tremendously valuable in that whether it's a close date, getting pushed out for for a construction delay or whatever it may be, having that flexibility for the reasons that you just articulated around falling through, you know, you're under contract with a traditional buyer of your own home and their financing changes. You know, you're out of luck. On the other side there.
Nick
So that is a massive, massive value prop. You know, we recognize how necessary it is when you're in that situation and, you know, versions of that exists. Obviously, the flexibility around the closing date for for all consumers. So when we work as agents, I think it's one of the most difficult things for us to explain to our agent partners when they talk about a closing date.
Nick
We show them a calendar and a product and we say pick the date, you know, and they're dealing with a 60 day window, but they can pick Tuesday. They could change the next day to Wednesday. And having the ability to have this cash buyer of Opendoor who can execute the closing on the day that the seller needs to is tremendously valuable.
Nick
And also, you know, recognition that we're going to close. We don't have to, you know, go go borrow our money the way a traditional buyer what it's going to close. And we say it's going to close. And yeah, I think if I had the ability to convey what you just conveyed around the risk of fall through and how much that can cost, if we could do that succinctly upfront, I think everyone in the world may look at the opportunity in more favorably.
Nick
But but that's my mission to spread that word. And, you know, I recognize there's a lot of different ways to buy and sell on the world, but that is obviously a massive, massive benefit of working with Opendoor.
Kevin
All right. My last question is, do you feel like this openness towards concessions is the new normal that we're in for a while or you know, what? What are you hearing and seeing kind of on the front lines right now when it comes to buyer and seller concessions?
Nick
Yeah, You know, my my, my colleagues are starting to make fun of me for saying this because I reference it so often. But I got to get my my father, my my original mentor in real estate a shout just one of the earliest lines I've I've heard him say since probably the nineties when I started paying attention to what he was doing.
Nick
And I was a young kid then, but he'd always say, and this is going back to the nineties, my crystal ball is in the shop now. Now I'm a dad and I'm saying the same cheesy stuff, but it is the truth. You know, my crystal ball has been in the shop for as long as his had. It's very difficult to say, you know, where the world is headed.
Nick
I'm not an economist. Everyone I talk to in the industry now says these times are unprecedented. They haven't seen them before. And, you know, real estate folks, they love to say, oh, I've seen this before, but this one feels especially new when I can say being in the industry. I mentioned this earlier. The thing to me that separates the great agents, the that are always doing a ton of transactions and the same is true for sales associates.
Nick
And in the new construction offices I go to is that they are open to negotiating concessions are always a part of their business in good markets, down markets you know giving people how were the market is just mean if it's buyer or seller giving both counterparties a sense of many victories is just a really smart strategy and hire conducting your business.
Nick
So you know if the market continues to shift, if we get into a world where, you know, inventory starts to come back and we get a little more balance, you know, I see obviously where concessions appear in a transaction either upfront on the seller's MLS listing or on closing day. You know, that kind of shifts around a timeline of when they're used, either keep a deal together or attract new business.
Nick
Sellers are certainly calling the shots today, so that means concessions are happening, but happening further on down the process. And, you know, I just stay with that theme of not sure what's going to happen in the market, but smart folks are continuing to deploy them in every situation and and just making sure their customers are aware of all of these different moving parts that go beyond just the purchase price.
Kevin
I'm going to say something that sounds like it might be an extreme statement, but I really I don't know. I don't think it is. I think tip to me the fact that both sides are open to concessions. I don't know this has ever been plotted on a on a chart, but makes me feel like the market is more balanced than most people would think.
Kevin
It's another way of just saying what we've kind of said a couple of different ways on on today's show, Nick, But like, you know, a savagely unhealthy market and one extreme would be again, where we're one side is like, nope, I don't need to make concessions because it's a buyer's market or it's a seller's market. And so the the volume of transactions, especially in the agent world, feels highly unhealthy.
Kevin
But when I look at outside of the number of transactions as a as a data point, I think both sides are willing to make concessions then then it's maybe a more healthy market than a lot of people would say from the outside.
Nick
I think it's a reasonable conclusion. And I think that's why and I encourage all your listeners to check out this survey and the resulting blog and the research we've done around it. Just just going back to that point of we see a lot of headlines. We know, you know, the popular headline around price growth and going to being generally a seller's market.
Nick
But these concessions and the reason why we were so interested in it and the data here is exactly that point that but maybe it isn't exactly as it looks in the headlines, maybe there's stuff going on below the headline, but behind the scenes that shows that buyers and sellers are are getting together and compromising a little bit more than, you know, the headline would lead you to believe.
Nick
So yeah, I like the conclusion.
Kevin
So awesome. Well, Nick, thanks for coming on and thanks to the whole Opendoor team for, for doing research like this and sharing it openly. Always good to have more insights, especially from people who have both the number of transactions and consumers. The interaction with but but also just the general industry connections to to hear what's what's going on on the ground floor.
NickAwesome. Thanks for having us, Kevin.

 

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 299: One Stop Shop

In this episode, Kevin Oakly, Beth Russell and Julie Jarnagin marvel that they're only one episode away from episode 300! They discuss Zillows new "Super App" which promises to be the one-stop shop for everything by cutting out the middleman and how the one group that will struggle with the change is realtors. Together, they celebrate kids going back to school and discuss the difference between highlighting scarcity and creating artificial scarcity.

Story Time (04:45)

• Julie says she gave her son “bad parenting advice” by telling him he doesn’t need to do his best in school…other than math.Kevin helped a builder problem solve: 6 leads to 54 (18 walk-ins + 36 online leads) 
  
• Beth has another house update: their house is nearing completion and have a closing date of Sept. 5th!
• Kevin says AI is not going to solve your “people problem” or make them adapt to change.

News (21:38)

• Zillow Group to acquire Spruce, a tech-enabled title and escrow company, as a building block in the housing super app (https://www.zillowgroup.com/news/zillow-group-to-acquire-spruce/)
• Real estate agents grapple with cyberattack on Rapattoni (https://www.housingwire.com/articles/real-estate-agents-grapple-with-cyberattack-on-rapattoni/)
• Strained housing affordability is a ‘manufactured crisis’ created by bad zoning—just look at L.A. (https://fortune-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/fortune.com/2023/08/13/los-angeles-housing-affordability-manufactured-crisis-through-oning/amp/)
• Self-driving cars were supposed to take over the road. What happened? (https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/01/business/self-driving-industry-ctrp/index.html)
  

Favorites/Hates (55:03)

• Julie is propagating her house plants.
• Beth hates when one person can taint an organization, that one friend or family member who can taint a room.
• Kevin's favorite is his peek design wallet.

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] 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 Stitcher
A 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: 
KevinWelcome to episode 297. I'm Kevin Oakley. And with me today is Julie Jarnagin and Andrew Peek, because Beth Russell went full on Miley Cyrus with her voice today. I didn't know thats a thing.
Andrew
And?
Kevin
We were conversing this morning. And I was like, huh, You're talking about you've gone for Miley Cyrus and she's like, Sorry, that was a mom joke, which I didn't realize mom jokes were a thing. So I just was happy that we have equal opportunity bashing adult jokes.
Andrew
I, I support it. Yeah. Miley has a pretty low voice, little boy raspy. It's not that. Well.
Julie
Her kid has been sick and so apparently it got passed down.
Andrew
It's this is the beginning. Schools just started. So.
Julie
Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's going to hit all of us.
Andrew
It will only get worse.
Kevin
No one else in my family got an apology covered. That was shocking.
Julie
Good.
Andrew
Good.
Kevin
Totally. Totally in the clear. All right, story time. Who's going first?
Julie
I can go.
Andrew
Oh your first.
Julie
Mine is kind of. Kind of random. So just randomly in my email, I got an email, like a marketing email from Hidden Valley Ranch. I was like, How in the world did I end up on this list? Is it a really, really old list I was on from like, maybe I got a recipe or maybe they sold it.
Julie
Somebody? I don't know. I just thought it was funny that I got it because I was like, That's random. Then I woke up the next morning. I had two from them overnight, so that was my third. Then within the span of like less than 48 hours, I had six different marketing emails from Hidden Valley Ranch, and I would try to and I would try to unsubscribe and I would keep getting them.
Julie
And so finally I just had to hit the like, this is spam button in my email, you know, quit sending them to me because it's just a reminder, not that you're Hidden Valley Ranch, but don't if you have a list and you haven't sent any emails and you just start spamming, don't do that. You need to send emails consistently on some kind of normal basis so people are expecting them.
Julie
And don't just send six in a day about Hidden Valley Ranch because.
Andrew
It's like they're it's like a marketing automation just exploding.
Julie
Crazy.
Andrew
The more, you know, thank me. What could they even promote? Like, do you get like a 36 pack of of all these.
Kevin
Oh no they they cross promote using recipes like sour cream or something. Yeah. Like you know you can ads you can add a ranch packet to sour cream and make them.
Julie
It was a lot of recipes, I think. So I don't know how I ended up on it, but they were aggressive fun.
Kevin
Is there a preferred email cadence like as well? I got this email today from someone said, Hey, my onsite team doesn't ever want marketing to send emails because they said, We don't want to overwhelm our customers with too much communication when it comes to too from marketing, what do what do we think?
Julie
I personally, I say twice a month from from marketing, maybe once a month. If you can't do two good once a month, do one good one a month, and probably no more than two a month. That's me. You all may have a different.
Kevin
Number two is my cap from marketing.
Andrew
Like and I like that I gave props to Opendoor a while ago where they gave a lot of value in their email. They're like, your new offer. Your new offer. I think it's every three weeks and it's there's value in there. They probably see that I open it. And so that's why they're giving me maybe I have an accelerated cadence compared to someone else.
Andrew
Yeah, I think twice. And then maybe some type of like trigger that helps you slow down that cadence. Like, okay, now they're a purchased let's not give them all of the marketing emails, maybe they switch different list whatever maybe. But I think we all agree lean on less versus more from marketing.
Julie
Well, less as long as it's not non or randomly have a new just when we think that everybody needs some, I feel like it needs some kind of plan and strategy around it instead of when we get to it, because that usually means never until we're panicking. And then people get it and they're like, Wait, who is this?
Julie
What is this? If you do have a cadence, they at least are used to seeing you pop up in their inbox and it's not so insulting. I don't know if it's things are awkward, but with Hidden Valley Ranch Spammy.
Andrew
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah. It's one of those areas that as an industry we still don't use data properly, I think, to clearly find like, you know, from the time something becomes a lead to the time they decide to go on an appointment, I would argue that you you could if you to your point, if you had the great content, Julie, if you had, let's say, 15 amazing in-depth articles, slash blogs with photo galleries and or videos or virtual walkthroughs, about 15 different stories of customers who chose your homes and love them.
Kevin
I think you could send one of those a month if they're good enough or sorry, one of those a week if they're good enough over 15 weeks. But the signal of once they once you go to an appointment, you're kind of transitioned to another phase. And while it might still be interesting to get those, you might then have to do the work of saying where are the best three that they haven't already seen and spacing them out more because there's now it's it's still going to be interesting just like people love watching issue TV even though they already know where they're going to move or you know, they just bought something.
Kevin
They still want to, but they don't need to be deluged with it in the same way. And of course, all those ideally would have the signal of go here in view more if you want, let the customer binge them, but then know not to send them because they've already seen them in an ideal world.
Andrew
So maybe.
Kevin
I'll write. Mine comes from a call early this week because I feel like this is happening a lot, not just with the builders that we work with, but but around the country where traffic is still high. In fact, the aggregate data set from homebuilder data, it's about the same as where it was in February, March in terms of traffic to homebuilder websites, lead volume depending on the price point an area some some places are down.
Kevin
But if you look at year over year, most people are still up tens. And so you're talking about a struggling neighborhood. And this last month in June, they had six leads in there. So this particular better uses lasso. When you use lasso and you're analyzing lead volume, a reminder that you typically have to go look in two places.
Kevin
You have to go look into the individual community project. And that's going to let you see all of the online leads that have transitioned to on site through an appointment as well as walk in traffic. And then you're going have to go to the online sales bucket project and look at the leads that have come in just for that neighbor.
Kevin
Then you have to add the two together. So we started out looking in the project folder. First thing was that no one on the call immediately kind of already had their finger on the pulse of what the lead volume was for the community, which is marketers. We should always, especially the ones that are high focus, like this is a neighborhood that I taken over the call from Jacqui, the Penske issue on maternity leave, but they're like, Oh yeah, we talk about this one like every time.
Kevin
So cool, so many leads that we have. Last month. It's okay. Like, you know, they didn't know it, but we looked it up and they had 38 leads in the onsite project. And I was like, okay, cool. Well, we looked at where the lead sources were coming from, both in terms of like just phone call form submission as well as actual marketing source.
Kevin
And then we go to June and there were six. It's like, Wow, that's a statistically significant difference. Like something changed what happened? And we go through the list and you want to guess what changed? Actually, I'm going to make a guess. You probably don't want to because you're like, I don't know, but.
Andrew
What's the number.
Kevin
Of 6 to 38 leads just in the onsite project? What do you think.
Andrew
Six up to 38.
Julie
MM Oh, they increased more finished quick movements listed or I.
Kevin
Guess.
Andrew
I think they just added them. They were there before that at everybody their close like they register them like, like they're like this. They had the same number. Maybe the number didn't change but they just decided like, well everyone's looking at me, I'm in the hot seat. I better add something in here.
Kevin
Which. Okay, so that's your final clue. For those of you playing at home, when leads start being put in the system by onsite agents, after there has been five or six months of intense scrutiny of said onsite agents, what's happened is there is a new one. There is a new onsite agent who doesn't know the game to be played and silly, silly salesperson.
Kevin
You're putting all of your walk in leads in the system. They don't know better. It's like I always go back to when I first started playing golf. It was the best golf I've ever played in my life, in my life, because I was just playing. I wasn't overthinking it. And then you start overthinking it. You start doing all these adjustments that are wrong.
Kevin
Typically when you're new, you start playing worse, you get in your head. And so new salesperson now in the online bucket, we went back and there were 36 online leads for July for this neighborhood. And and so then we went back to the onsite project and just ran only the walk ins and there was eight of them. And then I'm really bad at Mass.
Kevin
It took me about 45 seconds to figure out that the total lead count for this struggling neighborhood was 54 in a 30 day period.
Julie
Wow. Well.
Kevin
The one thing I always like to remind everyone is the way that we approach marketing and advertising and do you convert means that we don't have to consider at all unless our builder partner has chosen to do something that we don't recommend. We never have to wonder to ourselves. I wonder if those 54 people are interested or qualified in any sense of the word.
Kevin
Why don't we have to do that? And again, this is a really big deal because every ad we ever run talks about the location, price point and type of products that you are selling. So when those leads come across, they're not just like, you know, trying to collect a $50 scratch off ticket by entering in their contact information or entering to win a car or whatever the like.
Kevin
So to bring it all back down to the now that I've told you that journey, it was just like, wow, we don't have a struggling community from an advertising problem. We don't have a struggling community from a lead problem. What we have is an appointment to sale conversion challenge and with 54 people in a 30 day period, someone needs to give the sales team permission to screw it up.
Kevin
And what I mean by that is just start getting sales. You know, they were like, Well, this is a hiring neighborhood. And we always get the feedback that a lot of customers are concerned about selling their existing home. I go make up and make up an existing home sale package incentive. Hey, no problem. What will we'll create? What is that?
Kevin
Make it up. Just say, Well, will partner with three agents that we know are great agents and they're they've promised to do an enhanced listing package on any referral that we send over so you can pick any of those three agents. And then as the builder, you might have to pay an extra couple hundred bucks to them to make sure you get the best photographer that they typically would use an on site or do a little bit more advertising, whatever it is.
Kevin
But just say, yeah, we're just putting together the finishing touches of our list. Your home VIP experience. Let's just sign contingent upon using the details of that program and feeling comfortable selling your house or whatever. But something there's too much like, yeah, it's price. Yeah, but it and I think I talked about this last time so I'm not going to go into it but that builder that had a 6% performance sell ratio really changed some things around and got to a 20% that 11 sales to 51 sales.
Andrew
That's a lot of.
Kevin
New cumulative leads for that incentive for people that are already in their system. And I was on a call with Jesse Suggs, online sales coach for another builder this morning. She did analysis for a builder and something like 80% of their sales were to people who had been in the system for over three months. All of the friction that's preventing sales is coming from the middle and the bottom of the funnel right now.
Kevin
And that's likely to continue through the end of the year. And so just wake up, smell the coffee smell and then start adjusting accordingly because you're not. I have not. Maybe one of you two have. I haven't seen any promotion that anyone has done. 80 different builders, almost every state in the country over the last three months. That has significantly increased their lead volume.
Kevin
And again, the only aspects there would be qualified leads, not just leads that are from performance max campaigns and mostly spam.
Andrew
Don't do that.
Kevin
You're not you're not going to convince anyone that today is the first day that they should start thinking about buying a house or moving.
Andrew
No. And we'll we definitely have some news lined up to really support that.
Kevin
Let's just jump into that one. Oh, we got it. So from a Business insider, over 80% of Americans think it's a bad time to buy a house, which coincidentally also means that the majority of Americans also think it's a bad time to sell a house. So sellers are also buyers and so they don't want to sell if they think it's a bad time to buy because most of them are going to have to buy.
Kevin
So 82% think it's a bad time to buy a new home. Affordability has plunged. So unless there is a reason to move, like even this goes back to I mean, you're someone text me this right now and I'm just I'm overdoing this point because it is so important. For the second half of this year, someone said, hey, what's your thoughts about success and failures around special inventory events, i.e. showcase of homes, liquidation event, year end sales, event, everything must go, etc. It's like, well, let's not call it everything must go or liquidation sale.
Kevin
But even in a good market, doing that consistently once a year and then at Heartland, we just that was the only incentive we did all year. Everything else was adjusting pricing to market. But every year we did basically a December to remember sales event. It was the only sales event of the year and that trick will work once.
Kevin
So I was just saying, you know, maybe end of summer and fall is a better time to get your stuff sold before the end of the year when everyone else is panicking. I kind of I don't mind that, but I said, Hey, just remember 70% of the buyers are probably already in the system. So it's communicating to those people you already know.
Kevin
And they said back, we were thinking of doing this event for 75 to 90 days. What's your reaction to that?
Andrew
I I'm trying to figure out what I want to say out loud, but it feels like it's not a real event. Then it's garbage. Like it like I'm I view it negatively. Like it's not a real deal. It's just a fake promotion.
Kevin
It's too long. I feel like it's too long, especially knowing that the majority of people who will take advantage of that opportunity will be people they already know. So I said, Hey, probably doesn't need to be that long, you know, just heads up and said, Well, I think we're going to have to do longer because we don't do well.
Kevin
Fostering leads long term too, which I just wanted to say that's, that's an unacceptable.
Andrew
That I misunderstand that they need it longer because they're not good at fostering leads.
Kevin
Because they think that, yeah, they're not good at nurturing leads longer term.
Andrew
Okay?
Kevin
And so they feel like the salesman has to go for 90 days so that new leads can come in, have time to absorb the opportunity.
Andrew
Etc.. So they lose people after that when they're all leads aren't useful anymore, right? And you're like, No, no, no, that's your mortgage sitting there. You have your revenue.
Kevin
Ever been right now?
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
Kevin
Yeah. Back to the article. I kind of like merging story time. Article time.
Andrew
Yeah, that's one's perfect. Unplanned. So that's fun.
Kevin
The average 30 year fixed mortgage rate has risen from under 5% to nearly 7%, according to Freddie Mac. With the Federal Reserve's most aggressive interest rate hiking campaign since the 1980s. I was born in 81, so the it's been a while and everyone's still kind of pessimistic now. But that doesn't mean that but that does mean by default the people who have to are more urgent.
Andrew
Right?
Julie
Yeah, they have to. And I think it's such a good opportunity to just agree with them. But yeah, it is a terrible time to buy an existing house like. Yes, absolutely. You are completely right. It is a terrible time to buy an existing house. It's a great time to buy a new house because look at this great thing.
Julie
We can do to help you and look how our how they hold their value. And it just is a good opener to a conversation to talk through these things. So I don't think you're ever going to convince all these people that, oh, 80% of people are wrong. You know, everybody because they.
Kevin
Think about the think about the psychology here of you think it's a bad time to buy and you see an ad that a builder runs that says 50, 75 grand off if you buy by the other month. I think I think your negativity bias is like, see, I told you it's bad time to buy. You don't think you're so much money.
Andrew
Yeah, I.
Kevin
Wasn't going to buy, but now I can save 75 grant like again. It doesn't mean it doesn't work, but it doesn't work for the reason we tell ourselves. It works. When someone buys something that's on sale, that's because that's what they believe it's actually worth. Or they believe that there's some that like it's not the savings we justify that we tell our spouse, Hey, don't get mad at me.
Kevin
I just saved us $100. But in our minds, we knew that that's not what we did.
Andrew
Yeah, that's what it should be paid. I can see that reaction being like, oh, desperation. It's still overpriced. This as far as like if you're being kind of indoctrinated with like these articles like this where like 80% say it's bad time to buy, your reaction is to be correct with the rest of society. And so you're like, Well, I'll go along with that.
Andrew
I feel like they'll make me look smart. And like you said, Julie, like, well, the builders are the ones offering like these great incentives 5.25, five and a half, 4%, whatever. Like that's different than 7%, significantly different. So.
Kevin
Well, and the other thing that's interesting about interest rates. Barbara Corcoran, you all know her from Shark Tank. Well, she's kind of got a thing that's going viral around the the U.S home industry right now because she's like everyone. You've got to buy a house now that rates are at 7% because when rates go down, the prices are going to go up.
Kevin
So what she's correlating to and it's not a crazy thought at all, is when rates were at four and a half and they went down to three. It took it took too long for most builders to figure this out. But builders are like, wait a minute, I can you know, I still remember people were like, how much should we raise prices by Kevin?
Kevin
I mean, they just keep selling. What should we raise? And so I go, Just do the math of exactly what is the same payment and you can go there. Now it's the affordability around payment. You can just go to that price. You have to look at your cost, just go to that price. And so her argument is if you buy now and take that pain, you'll be better off because the rates go down, the prices of everything will go higher.
Kevin
That's not a guarantee, by the way, because if rates go down, it still means that there's bad things going on in the economy and the job market. It's earned.
Andrew
But it's, I think to say kind of rudely my brain like that's like privilege problems, right? Like she's like I have X amount a bank account like I'm I'll deal with this and two years I'm out of the situation. But if you're stuck at 7% forever, you can't refi. Your financial situation doesn't change or drastically go up. Then you're kind of you could be stuck.
Andrew
So for normal people, maybe not. But I, I definitely understand what she's what she's saying there. What's interesting is do we know anyone This is going way back. Remember Daw d0r the.
Kevin
York tracking the infrared tracking tool?
Andrew
Yeah, I remember. They weren't that expensive to implement. And then, like, as we kind of got used to that and I'm not sure if there's any builders still using it, but there's a recommendation like put it, don't put it at the front door. But like in the primary bathroom or something or whatever, it'd be like, okay, real people and the model home will definitely go here versus someone going in and out, in and out deliveries, mail, etc., etc..
Andrew
Interesting. Having that data to kind of normalize like the salesperson. This is back to the first part of your story. Like leads went up. Now it's just a new you'll see a new sales agent on site. It's like, well, we've had 300 people come in, 200 people, a hundred people, whatever it is, that person has six, six. So that just kind of like normalize the data.
Andrew
Be interesting. So my little story is just like maybe it's it'll make you feel comfortable. J4 is still quirky. I don't, I don't like it. I don't get it. I was just on a call about an hour and a half ago. Really intelligent guy is like, Hey, we're seeing this like what is happening? And I'm sitting there like, Man, I wish I could be super smart right now and have the answer to this.
Andrew
I'm like, I have no idea. Like, let me just rebuild that report for you and maybe that will fix it. Like, I do not know, like essentially it was only charting one campaign, but the other campaigns were down here. The numbers were making sense. The ad and like, you know, everyone has the delay of the data. It seems like 24, 36, 48 hours.
Andrew
There seems to be a little bit longer than that. It's a lot of fun and they have a lot of data. So it's not like we've seen some where like at the sampling a smaller is could be goofy, but it just seems to be inconsistent all over the place and it's not much fun. Thank you. Google it's not fun at all.
Kevin
Yeah it's well and the inconsistencies fortunately are not. It'd be one thing if it was just Google but it's implementation still up for on some web environments that you know it's yeah and that's where you can't I mean you will because you're human you'll get mad at the web developer but it's it's multiple web developers that are having this issue it's not just one.
Kevin
And sometimes it's for a bit of code that really should have nothing to do with causing any interference with GFR. So I feel like I use this a lot. But you know, WordPress is a great format for a blog, but trying to build a website with WordPress, in fact, again, just this morning talked with a large organization, multistate organization that still uses WordPress for their and we were talking about they are having a spam issue.
Kevin
And I said, well, a lot of times WordPress is something that doesn't help that and they're like, Oh really? Why go? Because you don't often update WordPress as often as you should when you've got 20 different plug ins that are connected to that. Yeah. So then we'll potentially break when you update it. Like, yeah, we're on a really old version.
Kevin
I go, Yeah, you're going to get spammed.
Andrew
It's been hacked.
Kevin
So it's that same kind of issue though that WordPress has where you're using the same website you always have go for said, Hey, no big deal, just put in this line of code and put it here exactly where we tell you and everything will be fine. But there's interaction with other lines of code that really shouldn't be affecting it, that that are for some people, thankfully, it's only about 5% that are still working through that issue.
Kevin
And also, thankfully, I just saw an article posted yesterday like for 90% of people, UK is still alive and kicking and I.
Andrew
Didn't see it. I'm like, I want to use it. But then I. Principal Mike, I don't think I could be the one that says I.
Kevin
Finally converted all of my little stars on Google Analytics over to Jay for accounts versus UK. But it is terrible.
Julie
I have to say I've gotten more use to die for than I thought because the other day I was in there and I was like, Oh shoot, I'm using you. Like just because it looked familiar to me. And I was like, Oh, I'm not. I'm just used to this now. So that's good. And Andrew, the most frustrating thing is when a piece of data is showing up in one place, like randomly, but it's showing up in the place it needs to show up.
Julie
You're like, I know it's there, it exists, I just can't make it. So that was where it needs to show.
Andrew
I think that was Tuesday. Julie and I were troubleshooting Google Tag Manager and J4 and like everything was correct, it just wouldn't show up in both places. For certain events. We're setting up to support conversion tracking. Yeah, there's no certainty. Which by the way, I look above my head. The site added. You look right, that perfect.
Julie
Will.
Andrew
Color my room. It's stuff that's that's all my story is but I get the 5% of of all of it so like 90% of my world is it's it's broken J for I'm like are you kidding?
Kevin
Andrew is our level five tech support. Yeah.
Andrew
So it all rolls sideways and uphill and diagonally to me. It's great.
Kevin
We don't have a perfect tracker here to fixing everything, but we are, I think, nearly perfect on identifying the cause. Like if it's something that we can't touch, like a website or a server issue or whatever. But we can, we can usually help sometimes.
Julie
I'm actually happy when Andrew can't fix it out, so I feel like it was a dumb question. It was like, This might be stupid. Andrew And then when you can't and I'm like, Yes, it's a real.
Andrew
Problem and sometimes that's enough is like, okay, cool. I'm not going crazy anymore. Like we all agree this is just weird and quirky. We're not going to worry about it for a little bit. And then sure enough, I'll just fix itself on its own.
Kevin
Next up, I guess we'll link to my tweet. We still call it that. I don't know. But Zillow is hiring over 100 photographers around the country like to continue to enhance their enhanced listings product. And so what's really cool about this is Zillow. If you've missed somewhere, been under a rock over the last six months or so, showing shown time plus which they purchased, which is like the centralized scheduling platform and then they've kind of built around that enhanced listing features, 3D tours, photos, basically everything you need to get your listing to look better.
Kevin
You get a better layer on the actual map as well. They're going all in on this and I think it's the right call for any syndication company to do so because, you know, Julie wrote a book and that's great, but content's still hard for builders, harder than it maybe should be. A lot of times it's just because they are still doing something really stupid, like connected TV advertising or billboards or whatever.
Kevin
Like you have the money to solve this problem, but you're using it for for less efficient purposes. But I, I have a feeling this is going to be huge when they start to roll it out. And I have no idea when they'll be doing this. But the moment the builders can just say are already advertising on Zillow and it's like, yeah, for X amount more or I don't know if they're going to include it, but you want to just come take pictures of this house, like really good pictures and it's also a good box out move for home XCOM, which is trying to come in and disrupt.
Kevin
Although I read an article that basically they even know they're not going to be Zillow, it's like where our goal is to be a really good number two and keep Zillow honest. But we're not going to we're not going to take over.
Andrew
I mean, there's there's being ads to Google ads. So there's always the number two. I wonder if they'll even have the photographers edit, Which would be.
Kevin
I think so. I mean, basic basic edits. Yeah, basic cleanup.
Andrew
And that's like, imagine that.
Kevin
Be really smart about this from a strategic perspective. And homes while Costar Homes parent company started this on the commercial side they can take these pictures and again I haven't seen any paperwork so I have no clue how this will work. But my hunch is it will work similar to Costar. And that Costar lets the commercial agents use the imagery that they shoot for anything except to send to other commercial real estate syndication portals.
Kevin
So this whole concept Inman Connect in Vegas has gone on this week, and one of the panels with Robert Rifkin, the CEO of Compass and someone from Redfin and the CEO of Next Next Home, I think is the name of the company. They're all talking about how like pocket listings or like listings that are unique to to a company are just so incredibly important right now because there's not enough of them.
Kevin
And that's why we talked about Howard Hanna's move in the Cleveland area to be like, Nope, we're not sharing our listings with other offices in the same way we have been. This is just like, again, it's in the technology world. They call it like getting closer to the bare metal. You're talking about taking pictures of listings, You're getting closer to boxing out competitors in like the most bare metal approach, like here, like it's where the rubber meets the road.
Kevin
Like you don't have pictures. Great. So you're listing on homes that com says that the house is 2000 square feet but it has no pictures.
Andrew
Yeah, it's pretty simple.
Kevin
No one's going to care, Alison.
Andrew
Especially the beat, I'm sure. Great pictures to like. They'll be standardized and like, that would be the look for real estate photography. Whatever Zillow decides, if they end up being like they set the mood, they set the tempo of it. So that's, that's pretty cool. Good for them.
Kevin
Yeah. I just think what good for everyone if it's done right and we don't know if it will be done right, but anything that helps a builder solve a problem at a reasonable price and help Zillow like that's doesn't happen often again. But win win wins are really good.
Andrew
Yeah, I like it again.
Kevin
All right. Back to bad news that we're we're going. I think so.
Andrew
It's like bad news I think it's bad.
Kevin
From from Redfin dot com housing market Update The typical U.S. homebuyers monthly payment is up nearly 20% from a year ago as prices rise.
Andrew
That's a big 20%.
Kevin
The average price of a home is only up 3.2%, but the average payment is up 20. Thank you. Interest rates?
Andrew
Yeah. Interest rates, do you think? Obviously lower down payments, I would assume so. That's affecting it. Yes. Is it my mind on this goes to everything outside of housing like this does affect housing, but I'm like, so I'm in Florida right here by the water 5 minutes away. I'm thinking like, oh, like a lot of people on a boat.
Andrew
You got a boat show. You do not see a price. You see a monthly payment on every boat. And you're like, yeah, boats 229 a month bring a boat warranty and include seats. So all this stuff here, like I'll be looking at Lindsay 229 month, like we just don't have to go to Chick-Fil-A six times. Like that's not bad.
Andrew
Let's sacrifice that. We could get a boat, bring boat. But as things like this go up, I'm like, Oh, that's not an option anymore. Let's not do that. And now the person that's selling the boat, they have less commission now they're making less money. That's kind of like a cascading effect of like if you're what's the phrase like house house for like eventually I feel like that long term, I don't have the data on this and not on The Economist info on this like you eventually that affects other industries and it's this full circle of like, that's not good.
Andrew
I'm sure there's like a perfect number to be at, right? That I don't know. Maybe there isn't where if it's too high, then it affects you spend less in other places. If it's too low, then there should be more spend and housing. You could afford more as that keeps prices lower, keeps demand lower, if that makes any sense in my head.
Andrew
This makes perfect sense.
Kevin
I think it makes it just like, I don't know, 2000 people who work for the Fed, who are trying to figure out like answer that question extremely complicated. That's why rates are moving around and I'm just I got a little bit distracted because I'm looking at this chart, which is on the video version on on YouTube. For those of you watching or on do, you can become yeah, home listings are down 21% year over year look at so 2022 the red line this is when everyone's like see I told you so the world is going to end because listing listings started reappearing and then June, July they fell off and they I mean, the yellow
Kevin
line for 2023 is just I mean, it's it's in the range, let's just say, of 2020 COVID lows, like April, May, number of new homes that hit the market was at an all time low for April May. But we've kind of been hanging around there all of 20, 23. It's just incredible, like the amount of pain on the used home side of the world for these folks who don't have the number of transactions is crazy.
Kevin
And I am hearing again, we got to get an agent or a broker on the program to talk about this because I'm getting more emails and texts as well from builders who are like, what is going on with real estate agents? They are losing their their mind. Every deal is like a huge there. I mean, some of the words they use to describe the behavior, I don't know if I can say on air, but.
Andrew
You need a little sensor.
Kevin
But they're like, please tell us that you have something happen at the summit in September talking about how to handle agents and what to do because it's just it's but I mean, you have to understand the pain that a lot of them are going through here. It's not it might be irrational behavior, but it's irrational behavior caused by irrational source, if that makes.
Julie
Sense. That's why I just had a conversation with a builder that I'm like, Why? What did you do? Why are your walk ins so much higher? And it's somebody who they have never wanted to bother with realtors. They never needed realtors. They were just a pain in their side. And she was like, What? Honestly, we've been Dylan more with realtors and open to working with them now just because they need they need listings and we've got the listings.
Julie
So we're like, okay, so what's kind of even changing how some people are open to working with realtor.
Andrew
Realtors.
Julie
I'm sure.
Andrew
Pursuing.
Julie
It's going to make things more crazy for them for sure.
Kevin
Yeah. Interesting. All right. I don't think there's anything else really that I want to talk about from the news. It's more like we know that stuff. Elon Musk is trying to win back advertisers with brand safety technology. I mean, I'm I don't even want to think.
Andrew
About it for. That's my thought. I'm then I have this for this this new or old news I don't know.
Kevin
First of all the whole the whole thing, I mean, maybe it settles down and in some ways it has because thread thread who like, what's that thing? All the users that I and the community is alive and well they're most of the people I interact with are not have not gone away or stopped actually on. Okay but like advertisers are so fact I do want to read this I pulled up another thing that we can't share the link to because it's a subscription to Digiday plus they called me in to like a $200 subscription for the year because I really wanted to read get you again a point for like great content wins.
Kevin
But advertisers are so fickle and right now they're such pressure to perform that experimentation on a platform that's been there, done that, and not much has changed. It's like now we all tried. Remember, everyone was going to boycott Instagram and Facebook and never used them again and they were going to go on LinkedIn and Twitter and Pinterest and all these other places.
Kevin
Well, guess what? They're back because they need things that actually deliver qualified people in revenue. So this article is here's what ad and media execs really mean when they commented on their queue to earnings. This is hilarious to me. So and so far so good. I'll try to use different voices just for entertainment value. So these are all things that that high level executives said on their earnings call.
Kevin
The is Doug Horn, the CFO at Gannett. For those of you who are born in the last 35 years, that's a newspaper company who tries to do digital media as well. But here's what he said. Despite secular headwinds, the decrease in print advertising revenue was limited to 8.9% year over marking the smallest decline observed in the past year.
Kevin
And then here's what he actually meant. That quarter could have been a lot worse, except for the fact that our print advertising sucked less than expected. I think people are still dumb enough to buy print ads. Spence Newman, the CFO at Netflix, said. Our overall ad arm subscription plus ads continue to be higher than basic ad free globally, same as the statement on standard Bore.
Kevin
Here's what he meant. Advertising is not a major moneymaker for Netflix, yet we made all of our money by just not letting people share subscriptions. I'm not even going to say what they actually said, just what they meant, because it's it's to me, it's just a really good insight into the chaos that is the traditional advertising world. Zaslav Warner Brothers CEO said.
Kevin
Who needs a massive subscriber base When you can focus on a handful of loyal customers and make millions, am I right? So basically it's like we're not even going to try to grow the number of subscribers we have there. Just charge them a heck of a lot of money for not a lot of content, and it's working just fine.
Kevin
Michael CAVANAUGH Comcast president. There are too many moving parts that would need to align for a deal of the magnitude to come together of being sold or swapping business units. See, I think there's one other one in here that was really interesting. Bob Bakish, CEO of Paramount Global, talking about the whole writers strike and labor dispute. Basically, whoever has the goal tends to make the rules and we've got the gold.
Kevin
And they also by the way, it's been interesting just hearing all of the AI generative AI discussions around like, could you pick a worse time to have a strike over something that.
Andrew
So yeah.
Kevin
It just is really interesting. So I mean, Mark Zuckerberg, this is pretty good. Rails plays exceeded 200 billion per day across Facebook and Instagram. We're seeing good progress on real monetization as well with the annual revenue run rate across our apps now exceeding $10 billion up from 3 billion last fall. What he actually meant is we're about to make a whole crap ton of money from short form videos.
Kevin
Very soon.
Andrew
Yeah.
Kevin
But like people in the print industry, I mean, even TV again, I've hinted at a couple of times, but connected TV advertising sounds awesome. And like Disney Plus right now is pivoting their last call. Iger just said, You know what? We don't want people like we're going to up the price of Disney Plus because we will make way more money.
Kevin
If we can sell ads, then if we make people pay what they're willing to pay for the platform. So their goal is actually to grow the ad supported subscriptions more than anything else. And if if they and others convince more people to do that and you can start affordably, that's the key. Affordably targeting households with TV advertising on streaming services, that would be great for right now.
Kevin
It's the only way that people like Disney can make money. They can sell the that because the concept of it is so good in an actual performance it it's not worth the expense being paid except for those people who are making money from the ads being being bought.
Andrew
Yeah, I mean, essentially it is Go ahead.
Julie
Does it it feel weird that we're like subscriptions? No more ads. And then the pendulum is swinging other way, right? It's like our kids aren't going to understand. No, no, we're just going back to cable. Like, we already had this, and then we didn't have this, and now we have this again. It's just the way things cycle through is interesting to me.
Kevin
Well, I think it's a cat and mouse game of we as advertisers. We want this ability to target at the household level. What screen streaming accounts allow that cable accounts didn't I used to do cable TV advertising at Heartland and you could pick a zip code. That was it like you could you can say target all of the Time Warner or Comcast subscribers in the zip code.
Kevin
That was the most you could target. Now that you can target accounts and you know who those accounts are, and that data gets blended with other data sources, it's the right thing that advertisers want. Whether consumers will put up with it is another thing, because it's it's hard to go back to like we use YouTube TV. Big brother is out.
Kevin
My wife loves Big brother. That's usually I get her the subscription to like the all access thing for Big Brother for her birthday. We missed the first two episodes, so we have to go back and watch YouTube, TV records, everything. But you have to. If you don't put it in your own DVR tool, you have to watch it with ads.
Kevin
And I kid you not like every ad break is 8/32 commercials and they ad and like double it's like punitive. It's like you missed it haha we got you.
Andrew
You want it.
Kevin
And it's just painful to watch that stuff.
Andrew
Painful. I mean, at the end of the day, it's revenue per user, right? Just like you look at Facebook when they deliver their quarterlies, you read the PDFs and you're like, okay, okay. Like, all right, a average U.S. user is worth $23.54 per quarter. So you're like, Oh, well, I'll just pay $15 a month. I have no ads on my Facebook for them.
Andrew
You know, they're not making that choice to do that. But that's what it is. That's at least that's why I interpret it like, right, we could go this way or this way. Revenue per user and then revenue at the end. But then they get into like, well, we need longevity, we need retention of these users. We can have attrition and dying off.
Andrew
So they have to factor in all those things. But a fun, fun analysis for billions of dollars and and revenue to do. And like, here's what I'm presenting shaking your hands like I'm nervous to tell this to someone.
Kevin
But okay favorites.
Andrew
Oh man. Oh man.
Kevin
Yeah. Andrews. Andrews again filling in for Beth last second. Let's see I think.
Andrew
Favorite.
Kevin
And you can skip if you need to.
Andrew
Actually you.
Kevin
Got everything.
Julie
I got one. So my son just turned 15. He's starting high school, so for his birthday, he wanted us to take him shopping at the backpacker, which is like a it's more expensive than we're like usually for school clothes we would do like Target and all Navy because it's very everybody knows that I'm thrifty like that, so it's more expensive.
Julie
But they had the they got the coolest school backpacks there to him out of the loop but they're there have an insulated pocket in the front for their lunches. So you know, you're 15 at high school. You don't want to carry a lunch bell. You must have like, built into the cool little backpack. So watch me cringe. Like it.
Julie
Yes. Made me cringe a little bit when we.
Andrew
Yeah, these are up there. I'm looking at them.
Julie
What we paid for all his clothes there. But, you know, he's getting older. He wanted the the cooler clothes.
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin
I'll just I'm wondering, I think your favorite should be the kids are back in school.
Andrew
That is. That is my favorite. Yeah, that's great. It's my favorite. That's that. You want to do it this year. But yeah, I started This will be our next so like two weeks ago they started I time this is out I think or a week ago, whatever it may be. But yeah, I'm excited for that. But the fun challenge though is record 330 Eastern day at home.
Andrew
Like right now I want at 4:00 but I want to start is when they get home. So I'm like mute, unmute, mute because I have to walk through the door, which is, you know, 15 feet that way with my door shut and all that stuff is fine. But yeah, that was fun shopping for them. We have three so that you have to but you went to the backpacker, which Looks like a super sweet spot to go to.
Julie
For a few things not have.
Andrew
You think about.
Julie
Everything.
Andrew
But it's yeah, our kids are in uniforms which is great, but you still like they got to get the dry fit ones otherwise, like the collared shirts shrink and then so they don't last long time. But yeah, so it's expensive starting back up school but I'm glad they're gone. It's quite the power bill will definitely go down because Fortnite and the Ps5, the Xbox and desktop are not running upstairs all day.
Andrew
Right. I'll take that. Forgot about that.
Kevin
But I am. I'm late to the game here. I feel like food shown up in boxes has come and gone for most people. They're like, Yeah, I tried Blue Apron, all that stuff. This is factor 75. I don't know if you've heard of this, but their refrigerated meals, they're all fully, fully prepared.
Andrew
Okay.
Kevin
And the quality of the meat in particular is incredible. Like it is. It's like going to Cardinals, which is the premier butcher here in town. If you're going to make ribs or steak for special occasion, you're going to craft onions. All the meat is really, really good. It's not I guess some people use it for like dieting or whatever, but there's four or five categories like keto or like low calorie vegetarian, vegan or whatever.
Kevin
It's all really good. There is a pork chop thing that my wife had because she did it first and I was like, What are we doing? This is dumb. And I tried it. I thought it was filet mignon covered with like a cheese sauce. It was some pork chop thing. And I was like, okay, I'm sold. They can make pork chop tastes like filet mignon.
Kevin
I'm in. I don't I'm sure it's expensive. But here's the thing. Everyone's going to school for the first time. No more home schooling for the Oakley's. And that means there's not lunches that are going to be downstairs and I won't eat anything. Like, I'll just eat a a a protein bar for lunch.
Andrew
Kevin.
Kevin
And it's way better for my body if I just eat actual meal.
Andrew
It does a good and it's, yeah, we do some meal meal prep like this as well. It's definitely worth it. It's still cheaper than going to cheaper as in, if I do leave the office, I go pick up Chick-Fil-A, then I wait in line and then I drive back and then I sit at it like there's 45 minutes right there.
Andrew
Even though chick flies 10 minutes and this is maybe a dollar two because.
Kevin
It's all refrigerated, there's really no prep time for every single one of these entrees is 2 minutes.
Andrew
Yes. And it's real food. Like, it's not like the ingredients are like chicken.
Kevin
In the bath. It does take up a little bit of fridge space. But yeah, that's some surprisingly because this is not really my thing.
Andrew
Second fridge, I'm thinking that's well. Oh, have you had their blueberry buttermilk pancakes or.
Kevin
It's not done any breakfast. It's just purely a lunch thing. So Melanie doesn't have to mess with extra groceries for lunch for either of us. We just. And the portion sizes. I'm not. I'm not hungry.
Andrew
With a smoky bacon and cheddar egg bites. Four of them looks pretty good.
Kevin
For those of you who may not be familiar, Andrews to all of the sessions are food and clothes.
Andrew
Shorts, shopping for short.
Kevin
Or shopping for shirts.
Julie
Specifically shorts.
Andrew
It's hot. It's hot and miserable. Yeah. I'll just move to like, not unlike the cold either. I'm stuck here.
Kevin
All right, That'll do it for this week. Thanks again for tuning in and joining us every week. We've got some fantastic guest episodes coming out shortly, one including Julie, talking a little bit more in-depth about her book. For those of you who haven't order in yet, you get a little bit of a preview. So check that out. We'll see you next time.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 298: Building Certainty For The Uncertain Builders with Julie Jarnagin

In this episode, Kevin Oakley is joined by our very own Julie Jarnagin to talk about her new book Building Certainty! Julie gives us an inside look into what she believes to be the most valuable takeaways as well as her reasons for writing this book in the first place. Content can be a source of pain for builders, but Julie has simplified the process and created a guide to make it that much easier!

Kevin and Julie discuss:

• Her NEW book "Building Certainty" which you can buy here!
• What chapters Julie thinks will benefit builders the most.
• Kevin appreciates in chapter two there is a list of things to “talk about” which kills the excuse that builders usually have when it comes to creating content.
• The value of the table of contents, why it’s helpful and how it works like an index.
• Building certainty with your brand for your customers. It’s not about you, it’s about whether or not your customers feel that you can take care of them.

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] or call 404-369-2595 and we’ll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities in the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.

Subscribe on iTunes > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-itunesFollow on Spotify > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-spotifyListen On Stitcher > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-stitcher
A 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: 
KevinAll right. She thought we had already talked about it. And we did. Everyone knows now the building certainty by Julie has been written, but I was like, No, the people need a full interview of just you. There's not an audio book currently, right?

Julie
No, not an audio book.
Kevin
So for those of of those people in the audience who are more like my kids, prepping for school by listening to their books are supposed to read over the summer, I don't know how I feel about that, but some people might need some more like insight in an audio format in order to encourage them to do something that apparently no one does anymore, which is actually read a book.
Julie
I love it. Well, this is fun. I've never done it from this side. I mean, obviously I'm on the podcast pretty regularly, but never in this seat before where you're interviewing, I guess me. So this is.
Kevin
First of all, we have to celebrate and I think we did this a couple times on social media, but people are buying your book. Yes. They read it and implement it. You know, fingers crossed. Hopefully you do good for your business and good for your career. But people are buying the book. It's already it's already fantastically successful, number one, in Amazon under real estate for new releases.
Kevin
I think for long. So who knows? Yeah, I like the fact that you get equally nervous discussing such things as I do.
Julie
Yeah, I know, I know. Well, it's a world like, I don't know. Some people know I used to write fiction, so I have fiction books out, but this is the still different. So this has been fun and it's been fun seeing people say, Oh, I bought multiple copies for my team. It's just it's been fun and the support has been great.
Kevin
Yeah. All right. Well, let the hot seat begin. The pleasantries are over.
Julie
Okay, I'm ready.
Kevin
And my main question for you is there are nine, ten, ten chapters in the book. Are there a couple of chapters where you feel like not not the ones that are your favorite to write or you learn the most when you're researching or looking into something, but that you feel like people need. Like a lot of times a little more context.
Kevin
When you work with 80 different homebuilders around the country, people are always like, How do you know what to talk about or insight? Because we just you can tell what people need. This was definitely something that people needed. But what are there particular chapters that you think people need more than more than others? When you look at what what folks are doing in today's landscape?
Julie
Sure. One is that probably the shortest chapter. Well, except for the last one, just kind of worksheet. But chapter five is all about like, what do we prioritize? I think what we see with a lot of builders that we're like, Hey, how's content going in the room? Because it encompasses so much and then they just don't know which of those many things that are out there should I actually be working on.
Julie
So it's about how to assess what you're currently doing, look at the needs of the company, look at what's out there in the future and how to actually figure out like, okay, what do we actually need to focus on right now and what do we need to start putting into place for the future? So that's kind of a short, quick chapter, but it's also helping them focus in on out of all these things we've talked about in the book, what what do I do first?
Kevin
Yeah, I think if you focus on those things that are most important, then you can start building momentum. And a lot of times people just get stuck. And like I talked to someone yesterday, well, we we partner with a company right now to help us create content. I talk to them for a half hour and then four or five weeks later they'll give me something in writing about what we talked about that she's just like, it just feels so slow and hard and it doesn't seem like this is the right, right way to be going about it.
Kevin
So I think we need to send them a copy of the book and I'll be helpful. But I agree. I think people don't. They're often disillusioned by response to content out of the gate. Mm hmm. I go I always go back to the podcast regularly. Now it gets 500 listeners per episode or so, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
Kevin
I think the first like six month, well, first two months. Anyway, that we did the podcast, there was like 30 to 50 people and you're like, Is all this worth it? All this prep and getting the technology in place and all the rest. So if you focus on what's most important and the reason why is most important, hopefully it gives you momentum to keep going.
Kevin
So I love that one. Is there another one that you like? Yeah.
Julie
I think just the beginning of the book that kind of lays out what is content, why do we need it and just kind of a foundation, because it is a word that people throw around. And so some people, when they think of content, they think of social media and some people think of content and they're just thinking renderings and photos on my site.
Julie
But it's all of those things and more and I think I'm a very analytical person. I like a list. So in a way, a lot of the beginning of the book was just breaking things down into pieces where even if some of these things you just know from being in your role, it also is seeing it all in a structure of what topics are we going to cover, what mediums are we going to use, you know, photos, videos, whatever.
Julie
How are we going to distribute it then? How are we going to analyze it? It just kind of lays it down in a framework that you can start wrapping your arms around because it's just large.
Kevin
Yeah, I think chapter two could have been its own like book in a way as well, which is just what topics should we cover? Which I thought you might say that one, but here's, here's my answer anyway. Why? Number two is extremely important and useful, but I wouldn't have picked it either, is the answer really is stop thinking that everything around you is boring or mundane and just relent to the fact that you need to talk about it all.
Kevin
You need to have content related to everything. So in chapter two starts on page 22, ends on page 46, and has all I mean, the table of contents anyway, alone. There's two and a half pages of things you can talk about. So that's, that's like excuse wiped away. There is no excuse of, well we don't have anything to talk about.
Kevin
We're just a fill in the blank. We're just a first time home builder and all these people say this to us. Well, I only build 20 luxury homes a year. Well, I only build on your lot. And that's like, stop saying only. It's all interesting to to a certain audience.
Julie
And the reason I included all of those two is because I think we get stuck in one thing, like, Oh, I've done a million walkthroughs of my house and I've done a million testimonials. It's like there's other you can take the same things and take a different angle at them. I think the real magic that comes in all of these topics is when you start combining more than one topic.
Julie
So if you want to feature a floor plan, well how about also grab, you know, people who've lived with that floor plan and you're mixing the people, the homeowners and the floor plan. So a lot of it is just like kind of walling all those topics out on the table. So then you can start mixing and matching and instead of having to use your mental capacity to think of those topics, you can start using that creativity to then put together new and unique things to solve your problems and engage customers and all those good things.
Kevin
And I think the fact that people go down that habitual path is a clue to actually the right answer with some with some nudging to get out of a rut is like I remember your former employer. There is this period of time where like every I don't know, I seem like every couple of days or once a week there was a Matterport walkthrough with an audio example and you went through a whole bunch of that, that library because you developed a process and a framework and the strategy and a why.
Kevin
And once that momentum got going, it was relatively easy to keep it going. And I think that's what I really enjoy about the book, is it kind of unlocks that, Yeah, just do that. But on a on a different tangent from a different perspective or for a different purpose, again, like the same piece of content, the same advertising channel can be used for multiple reasons.
Kevin
And I go to my generally least one of my least favorite forms of media in billboards of a billboard can be a complete brand message, or it can be a turn right here. Message the neighborhoods right around the corner. It's the same. It's the same platform, but used for a different purpose. And that changes everything about how you're thinking about it.
Kevin
Same thing when it comes to content. Am I trying to educate someone? Am I trying to motivate someone? Am I trying to just not be boring? Because this is a complex subject and I need to break it into pieces that people want to absorb. I think it's just a fantastic, fantastic resource. Now, I can't remember I asked you this on the podcast or not, but it's worth asking again, when you wrote this, did you envision people going through it from beginning to end first and then using it as a resource to kind of get back around where you need it?
Kevin
Because it is I would say it's very snackable in that sense of like, again, you're like, I don't have time to read 130 pages.
Julie
Yeah, I really have two ways I think about it being is, number one, somebody who's been in their role for a long time, they know what content is, but they just need that little bit of like inspiration and, you know, to get them on stock, like you said. And that way it would be very good to just grab the pieces you need and flipping through it as you're, you know, you're stuck on something to possibly spark something.
Julie
That's one reason I left the whole when somebody was helping me with the formatting, they put that whole huge table of contents in and at first I was going to remove it and then I was like, You know what? It's actually going to be really helpful for somebody because it almost works like an index. It's like an index that the first of the book, because if they are struggling with maybe some storytelling content and they're wanting to get ideas for that, they can go straight to that part to talk more about their people in their company and their culture and all of those things.
Julie
Then on the other hand, it's also going to be a good resource for somebody comes in new to your department from another industry, and you just need to get them up and running like you're our new social media person. But I've never been in homebuilding. I feel like it also will give those people just a good foundation to read it cover, to cover and just, you know, have a beginning place of this is this is the basics of content and where to start and where to start looking.
Julie
And it just gets them up and going faster. So I think it does more than one thing.
Kevin
Yeah, I would agree with that. I as you, as you were just talking, I was remembering the dummies books, the series.
Julie
Yeah.
Kevin
For Dummies.
Julie
Oh. And it's yellow.
Kevin
And it's yellow. So I was like, you know what? This is almost like content marketing for dummies. Not not in, like, the condescending sense of the word, But there were certain topics where I would buy those books. For those of you who, like the other day, someone didn't know the song Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. So I am constantly reminded of how old I am.
Kevin
The dummies series was on every topic known to man, and it was kind of like in textbook format, but it tried to be entertaining as much as possible around every subject matter. But there were. There were some of those I would buy like Calculus for Dummies in college that was clearly just like, I need I need a supplemental.
Kevin
Look at that topic. Go read it. Okay, I'm good. It was a reference piece for me. And then there were others where you just from cover to cover. You're like, I just need to start at the beginning and be led all the way through. And the same book could be used either way. So I think that's important. Okay.
Kevin
Why the name building certainty?
Julie
Well, I totally ripped that off from Kevin Oakley.
Kevin
He was giving you a given.
Julie
Yeah, he. He promised he wouldn't sue me for that. So I think it was Summit's a couple of years ago.
Kevin
You're 29.
Julie
And part of your message was what is marketing? It's building certainty through content. So we were looking at content and marketing from that, from that viewpoint. So then when I start working on a book and started working on title, I just took that for you. And I think right now it is always what content should do. But right now, more than ever in the markets that we've been in is that's what we have to use it for.
Julie
Yeah, it's the basics of like, what do we build, Where do we build it? What does it cost? That's, that's number one. You need to have that. Your website needs to have the basics. That's number one to content. If you don't.
Kevin
Think it's worth, it's worth repeating slightly differently for everyone. Is pricing on your website is content that build certainty in one direction or another. And so even something as mundane as some companies have every price and then a909 for like even that there there needs to be thought put into it. I used to joke with people all the time, you know, when you just when every price change or adjustment this is in 2008 2000 and 2010 and we would publicly change pricing to match market versus promotions like you can't just every price change can't be ten grand or five grand or 15 because well, that clearly communicates to someone paying attention forever, subconsciously as someone
Kevin
is when, you know, sticks their finger up in the air. I think 10,000 less like why is it always around number round numbers are too convenient in something as complicated as what we do. It's just one. One small example of everything is content that can build certainty.
Julie
Yeah, all the basic stuff. And then just building certainty with with the rest of it. The story building, you know, telling your story, talking about your brand. All of that in the end isn't just to talk about yourself because nobody cares. Nobody cares about your brand and your what they care about is that, you know, you're going to take care of them and that you're going to solve their problems.
Julie
So it's looking at all your content from that different angle. Then it's just, you know, I'm going to slap something up there about us. It has to be about the home buyer.
Kevin
Absolutely. I think like the other day, my brother in law was in town from Sweden and he's he's watching all the cruise ship documentary things on the on Smithsonian Channel. And I saw ads for the first time in a while on television. And it was just every time there was commercial break extra, extra, extra, which if you don't know what extra is, it's just an office chair and it's from all accounts, like I love the chair that I have.
Kevin
It's fantastic. I have no desire for additional chair. But they talk about this chair in words and in depth that my brother in law was just like, You see this chair? This chair is like the best chair in the world. I go, I mean, it looks like it's cheap materials with a massage and heat function to me and it's chart and they're charging like triple what they should.
Kevin
But it just goes back to that. The care like that is a lot of times what people are thinking of what they want. Marketing to do is to increase absorption, increase the sales volume of a company. But there are a lot of people listening where your company is not really in that game. Your company's in the business of maximizing revenue per unit sold or margin.
Kevin
It's a higher end product. And so if you're talking about like if you're can you imagine buying something from what's like the cheapest furniture IKEA. Yeah like well yes an IKEA is unique in that they've really overindexed in the amount of content to help people understand what it is they're getting in a digital format. In particular, they're one of the first to have like air show this thing in your house.
Kevin
But we can still use IKEA if you are going to buy a sofa from IKEA or a sofa from Pottery Barn or I don't know, Henry Don Like if the amount of written content and imagery and the quality of such is on par, you would never buy it. You know, it's only the the overall and I think that's the other word that I think if I want to suggest book number two is in the series of content is something around the idea of curation because that's I just I think that more and more of that is that's what five chapter five is really about.
Kevin
It's like, why, why this and not that? And so it's it's both breadth and depth, but also curating it for an intended audience with that intended purpose.
Julie
Yeah, I mean, I think the book is proof that there's plenty of plenty of things to talk about, plenty of ways to do it. It's then taking a step back and looking at what's most important for your home buyer and what's most important for the home builder, for whatever where you are in the in the market. So I think that's what I see with builders.
Julie
Sometimes they're jumping out in front of things, trying to do content before just pausing it. Does that have to be a big, huge thing? Pausing, thinking through messaging, thinking through the final goal. Look at the what is the goal of this content and then working backwards through creating it.
Kevin
And I think one of the final like master level things to uncover and understand that sometimes you're creating content as a marketing team that's not for you at all. Meaning it's not for the website, really. It and everything should be there. But I would say a good portion of the content I created in my career prior to coming over to do Convert was creating content specifically for the use of of others in a 1 to 1 interaction framework here.
Kevin
Here is content that helps a salesperson overcome a specific objection as a proof source, as a packaged, curated solution to an objection that they need some help overcoming. It's not, it's not it's almost usually not the broadest possible audience that you can you can reach because it's hard to do that really, really well. And this is where I'm thinking about people like Tilson who have done such a good job, really going narrow and deep in their subject matter to create a really loyal and and devoted audience and what they do.
Julie
I mean, kind of on that, on that same realm, what I also see is people who create a great piece of content and then it goes out in one specific place for one specific moment. And it's like, why? Like I see this, this is great. Did you send it out in an email? Did you give it to your sales team?
Julie
Is it somewhere on your website? You know, it's just using those great things. You guys create in more places so more people get eyes on them.
Kevin
Yeah, the number of times we still hear Where is this on your website? Oh, it's not. It's just on our YouTube channel or just on on Instagram. And we're like, Huh, What? Yeah, And strange. Still still some challenges to overcome. Awesome. All right. Well, we look forward to giving a copy of this to everyone who's coming to the summit.
Kevin
350 additional copies there. Julie will be around to sign and engage. And you're going to talk a little bit more about the book as well. So, yeah, this is this is a big one. I I've had now seven people, I think just that I didn't even know that they were buying it. They just send me a picture. Is there a contest going on that I don't know?
Kevin
Why are people sending me pictures of them holding your book? Then maybe they maybe they need your number. So they're like, Look, I got it. This is awesome. Like, great. Tell you.
Julie
They're excited.
Kevin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fantastic. All right, well, thank you from the industry for for spend all the time and energy to put this together We need it.
Julie
Yeah. Thank you. And most of all, as I was writing it, really, the only goal was to add some value for it to be something that you guys could use and be homebuilder specific. I've read a ton of marketing books and content books. It's like, Well, that's cool, but doesn't really fit. So really, that's all it's for is just for, for you all to get some, get some good ideas out of it.
Kevin
Yeah. So we can't wait to see all the stuff that people make. Hmm. Yes. Friendly kick in the tush. Mm hmm. On the ball.
Julie
No excuse.
Kevin
All right, Awesome. Go get your copy and link in the show notes. Tell us how you're using it as well. We can share that with others and give them ideas of of how you're using. I have heard of book clubs and and the like, and there's some other term there that I'm missing. But people are doing it in little groups, too, which is fun to see.
Kevin
All right. Thanks, Julie.
Julie
All right. This is fun. Thank you.
Kevin
Thanks for joining us. On another episode of Market Proof Marketing can't wait for the next one or looking to connect with other new home marketers. Become a member of our private community, the UIC all access, which is 100% free and always will be, get exclusive content not shared anywhere else. Access to private events and the ability to join a marketing impact group with other marketers like you around the country.Visit our link in the show notes or members. Do you convert dotcom to join? All opinions expressed by me Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski and our cast mates are solely our own opinions. Now get to work and make sure your company is market us.

 

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 297: Less is More

In this episode, Kevin Oakly, Andrew Peek and Julie Jarnagin discuss the lack of data being used by large corporations in regards to their marketing strategies as well as their frustrating experience with GA4 so far. They muse on the cascading effect on the economy of monthly mortgage payments being 20% higher than they were a year ago and how the low used homes inventory is causing realtors in a frenzy to reach out to builders for their listings.

Story Time (04:41)

• Julie is being spammed by Hidden Valley Ranch emails.
• Kevin helped a builder problem solve: 6 leads to 54 (18 walk-ins + 36 online leads) 
• Andrew finds that GA4 is still pretty clunky and has odds and ends to work out.

News (31:10)

• Housing Market Update: The Typical U.S. Homebuyer’s Monthly Payment Is Up Nearly 20% From a Year Ago As Prices Rise (https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-monthly-mortgage-payments-near-record-high/) 
• Mortgage demand drops again after FHA loan interest rate hits 21-year high (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/09/mortgage-demand-drops-again-after-fha-loan-interest-rate-hits-21-year-high.html) 
• Over 80% of Americans think it's a bad time to buy a house (https://www.businessinsider.com/house-price-outlook-homes-real-estate-investing-fannie-mae-survey-2023-8)
• Elon Musk’s X aims to win back advertisers with new brand safety technology deal (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/08/elon-musks-x-aims-to-win-back-advertisers-signs-deal-with-ias.html)

Favorites (48:45)

• Andrew's favorite is the kids are back to school
• Kevin: Is loving his new refrigerated meals and especially is impressed with the quality of the meat.
• Julie loves the new backpack she got for her son to go back to school with that has an insulated pocket in the front for lunch.

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] 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.

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A 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: 
KevinWelcome to episode 297. I'm Kevin Oakley. And with me today is Julie Jarnagin and Andrew Peek, because Beth Russell went full on Miley Cyrus with her voice today. I didn't know thats a thing.
Andrew
And?
Kevin
We were conversing this morning. And I was like, huh, You're talking about you've gone for Miley Cyrus and she's like, Sorry, that was a mom joke, which I didn't realize mom jokes were a thing. So I just was happy that we have equal opportunity bashing adult jokes.
Andrew
I, I support it. Yeah. Miley has a pretty low voice, little boy raspy. It's not that. Well.
Julie
Her kid has been sick and so apparently it got passed down.
Andrew
It's this is the beginning. Schools just started. So.
Julie
Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's going to hit all of us.
Andrew
It will only get worse.
Kevin
No one else in my family got an apology covered. That was shocking.
Julie
Good.
Andrew
Good.
Kevin
Totally. Totally in the clear. All right, story time. Who's going first?
Julie
I can go.
Andrew
Oh your first.
Julie
Mine is kind of. Kind of random. So just randomly in my email, I got an email, like a marketing email from Hidden Valley Ranch. I was like, How in the world did I end up on this list? Is it a really, really old list I was on from like, maybe I got a recipe or maybe they sold it.
Julie
Somebody? I don't know. I just thought it was funny that I got it because I was like, That's random. Then I woke up the next morning. I had two from them overnight, so that was my third. Then within the span of like less than 48 hours, I had six different marketing emails from Hidden Valley Ranch, and I would try to and I would try to unsubscribe and I would keep getting them.
Julie
And so finally I just had to hit the like, this is spam button in my email, you know, quit sending them to me because it's just a reminder, not that you're Hidden Valley Ranch, but don't if you have a list and you haven't sent any emails and you just start spamming, don't do that. You need to send emails consistently on some kind of normal basis so people are expecting them.
Julie
And don't just send six in a day about Hidden Valley Ranch because.
Andrew
It's like they're it's like a marketing automation just exploding.
Julie
Crazy.
Andrew
The more, you know, thank me. What could they even promote? Like, do you get like a 36 pack of of all these.
Kevin
Oh no they they cross promote using recipes like sour cream or something. Yeah. Like you know you can ads you can add a ranch packet to sour cream and make them.
Julie
It was a lot of recipes, I think. So I don't know how I ended up on it, but they were aggressive fun.
Kevin
Is there a preferred email cadence like as well? I got this email today from someone said, Hey, my onsite team doesn't ever want marketing to send emails because they said, We don't want to overwhelm our customers with too much communication when it comes to too from marketing, what do what do we think?
Julie
I personally, I say twice a month from from marketing, maybe once a month. If you can't do two good once a month, do one good one a month, and probably no more than two a month. That's me. You all may have a different.
Kevin
Number two is my cap from marketing.
Andrew
Like and I like that I gave props to Opendoor a while ago where they gave a lot of value in their email. They're like, your new offer. Your new offer. I think it's every three weeks and it's there's value in there. They probably see that I open it. And so that's why they're giving me maybe I have an accelerated cadence compared to someone else.
Andrew
Yeah, I think twice. And then maybe some type of like trigger that helps you slow down that cadence. Like, okay, now they're a purchased let's not give them all of the marketing emails, maybe they switch different list whatever maybe. But I think we all agree lean on less versus more from marketing.
Julie
Well, less as long as it's not non or randomly have a new just when we think that everybody needs some, I feel like it needs some kind of plan and strategy around it instead of when we get to it, because that usually means never until we're panicking. And then people get it and they're like, Wait, who is this?
Julie
What is this? If you do have a cadence, they at least are used to seeing you pop up in their inbox and it's not so insulting. I don't know if it's things are awkward, but with Hidden Valley Ranch Spammy.
Andrew
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah. It's one of those areas that as an industry we still don't use data properly, I think, to clearly find like, you know, from the time something becomes a lead to the time they decide to go on an appointment, I would argue that you you could if you to your point, if you had the great content, Julie, if you had, let's say, 15 amazing in-depth articles, slash blogs with photo galleries and or videos or virtual walkthroughs, about 15 different stories of customers who chose your homes and love them.
Kevin
I think you could send one of those a month if they're good enough or sorry, one of those a week if they're good enough over 15 weeks. But the signal of once they once you go to an appointment, you're kind of transitioned to another phase. And while it might still be interesting to get those, you might then have to do the work of saying where are the best three that they haven't already seen and spacing them out more because there's now it's it's still going to be interesting just like people love watching issue TV even though they already know where they're going to move or you know, they just bought something.
Kevin
They still want to, but they don't need to be deluged with it in the same way. And of course, all those ideally would have the signal of go here in view more if you want, let the customer binge them, but then know not to send them because they've already seen them in an ideal world.
Andrew
So maybe.
Kevin
I'll write. Mine comes from a call early this week because I feel like this is happening a lot, not just with the builders that we work with, but but around the country where traffic is still high. In fact, the aggregate data set from homebuilder data, it's about the same as where it was in February, March in terms of traffic to homebuilder websites, lead volume depending on the price point an area some some places are down.
Kevin
But if you look at year over year, most people are still up tens. And so you're talking about a struggling neighborhood. And this last month in June, they had six leads in there. So this particular better uses lasso. When you use lasso and you're analyzing lead volume, a reminder that you typically have to go look in two places.
Kevin
You have to go look into the individual community project. And that's going to let you see all of the online leads that have transitioned to on site through an appointment as well as walk in traffic. And then you're going have to go to the online sales bucket project and look at the leads that have come in just for that neighbor.
Kevin
Then you have to add the two together. So we started out looking in the project folder. First thing was that no one on the call immediately kind of already had their finger on the pulse of what the lead volume was for the community, which is marketers. We should always, especially the ones that are high focus, like this is a neighborhood that I taken over the call from Jacqui, the Penske issue on maternity leave, but they're like, Oh yeah, we talk about this one like every time.
Kevin
So cool, so many leads that we have. Last month. It's okay. Like, you know, they didn't know it, but we looked it up and they had 38 leads in the onsite project. And I was like, okay, cool. Well, we looked at where the lead sources were coming from, both in terms of like just phone call form submission as well as actual marketing source.
Kevin
And then we go to June and there were six. It's like, Wow, that's a statistically significant difference. Like something changed what happened? And we go through the list and you want to guess what changed? Actually, I'm going to make a guess. You probably don't want to because you're like, I don't know, but.
Andrew
What's the number.
Kevin
Of 6 to 38 leads just in the onsite project? What do you think.
Andrew
Six up to 38.
Julie
MM Oh, they increased more finished quick movements listed or I.
Kevin
Guess.
Andrew
I think they just added them. They were there before that at everybody their close like they register them like, like they're like this. They had the same number. Maybe the number didn't change but they just decided like, well everyone's looking at me, I'm in the hot seat. I better add something in here.
Kevin
Which. Okay, so that's your final clue. For those of you playing at home, when leads start being put in the system by onsite agents, after there has been five or six months of intense scrutiny of said onsite agents, what's happened is there is a new one. There is a new onsite agent who doesn't know the game to be played and silly, silly salesperson.
Kevin
You're putting all of your walk in leads in the system. They don't know better. It's like I always go back to when I first started playing golf. It was the best golf I've ever played in my life, in my life, because I was just playing. I wasn't overthinking it. And then you start overthinking it. You start doing all these adjustments that are wrong.
Kevin
Typically when you're new, you start playing worse, you get in your head. And so new salesperson now in the online bucket, we went back and there were 36 online leads for July for this neighborhood. And and so then we went back to the onsite project and just ran only the walk ins and there was eight of them. And then I'm really bad at Mass.
Kevin
It took me about 45 seconds to figure out that the total lead count for this struggling neighborhood was 54 in a 30 day period.
Julie
Wow. Well.
Kevin
The one thing I always like to remind everyone is the way that we approach marketing and advertising and do you convert means that we don't have to consider at all unless our builder partner has chosen to do something that we don't recommend. We never have to wonder to ourselves. I wonder if those 54 people are interested or qualified in any sense of the word.
Kevin
Why don't we have to do that? And again, this is a really big deal because every ad we ever run talks about the location, price point and type of products that you are selling. So when those leads come across, they're not just like, you know, trying to collect a $50 scratch off ticket by entering in their contact information or entering to win a car or whatever the like.
Kevin
So to bring it all back down to the now that I've told you that journey, it was just like, wow, we don't have a struggling community from an advertising problem. We don't have a struggling community from a lead problem. What we have is an appointment to sale conversion challenge and with 54 people in a 30 day period, someone needs to give the sales team permission to screw it up.
Kevin
And what I mean by that is just start getting sales. You know, they were like, Well, this is a hiring neighborhood. And we always get the feedback that a lot of customers are concerned about selling their existing home. I go make up and make up an existing home sale package incentive. Hey, no problem. What will we'll create? What is that?
Kevin
Make it up. Just say, Well, will partner with three agents that we know are great agents and they're they've promised to do an enhanced listing package on any referral that we send over so you can pick any of those three agents. And then as the builder, you might have to pay an extra couple hundred bucks to them to make sure you get the best photographer that they typically would use an on site or do a little bit more advertising, whatever it is.
Kevin
But just say, yeah, we're just putting together the finishing touches of our list. Your home VIP experience. Let's just sign contingent upon using the details of that program and feeling comfortable selling your house or whatever. But something there's too much like, yeah, it's price. Yeah, but it and I think I talked about this last time so I'm not going to go into it but that builder that had a 6% performance sell ratio really changed some things around and got to a 20% that 11 sales to 51 sales.
Andrew
That's a lot of.
Kevin
New cumulative leads for that incentive for people that are already in their system. And I was on a call with Jesse Suggs, online sales coach for another builder this morning. She did analysis for a builder and something like 80% of their sales were to people who had been in the system for over three months. All of the friction that's preventing sales is coming from the middle and the bottom of the funnel right now.
Kevin
And that's likely to continue through the end of the year. And so just wake up, smell the coffee smell and then start adjusting accordingly because you're not. I have not. Maybe one of you two have. I haven't seen any promotion that anyone has done. 80 different builders, almost every state in the country over the last three months. That has significantly increased their lead volume.
Kevin
And again, the only aspects there would be qualified leads, not just leads that are from performance max campaigns and mostly spam.
Andrew
Don't do that.
Kevin
You're not you're not going to convince anyone that today is the first day that they should start thinking about buying a house or moving.
Andrew
No. And we'll we definitely have some news lined up to really support that.
Kevin
Let's just jump into that one. Oh, we got it. So from a Business insider, over 80% of Americans think it's a bad time to buy a house, which coincidentally also means that the majority of Americans also think it's a bad time to sell a house. So sellers are also buyers and so they don't want to sell if they think it's a bad time to buy because most of them are going to have to buy.
Kevin
So 82% think it's a bad time to buy a new home. Affordability has plunged. So unless there is a reason to move, like even this goes back to I mean, you're someone text me this right now and I'm just I'm overdoing this point because it is so important. For the second half of this year, someone said, hey, what's your thoughts about success and failures around special inventory events, i.e. showcase of homes, liquidation event, year end sales, event, everything must go, etc. It's like, well, let's not call it everything must go or liquidation sale.
Kevin
But even in a good market, doing that consistently once a year and then at Heartland, we just that was the only incentive we did all year. Everything else was adjusting pricing to market. But every year we did basically a December to remember sales event. It was the only sales event of the year and that trick will work once.
Kevin
So I was just saying, you know, maybe end of summer and fall is a better time to get your stuff sold before the end of the year when everyone else is panicking. I kind of I don't mind that, but I said, Hey, just remember 70% of the buyers are probably already in the system. So it's communicating to those people you already know.
Kevin
And they said back, we were thinking of doing this event for 75 to 90 days. What's your reaction to that?
Andrew
I I'm trying to figure out what I want to say out loud, but it feels like it's not a real event. Then it's garbage. Like it like I'm I view it negatively. Like it's not a real deal. It's just a fake promotion.
Kevin
It's too long. I feel like it's too long, especially knowing that the majority of people who will take advantage of that opportunity will be people they already know. So I said, Hey, probably doesn't need to be that long, you know, just heads up and said, Well, I think we're going to have to do longer because we don't do well.
Kevin
Fostering leads long term too, which I just wanted to say that's, that's an unacceptable.
Andrew
That I misunderstand that they need it longer because they're not good at fostering leads.
Kevin
Because they think that, yeah, they're not good at nurturing leads longer term.
Andrew
Okay?
Kevin
And so they feel like the salesman has to go for 90 days so that new leads can come in, have time to absorb the opportunity.
Andrew
Etc.. So they lose people after that when they're all leads aren't useful anymore, right? And you're like, No, no, no, that's your mortgage sitting there. You have your revenue.
Kevin
Ever been right now?
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
Kevin
Yeah. Back to the article. I kind of like merging story time. Article time.
Andrew
Yeah, that's one's perfect. Unplanned. So that's fun.
Kevin
The average 30 year fixed mortgage rate has risen from under 5% to nearly 7%, according to Freddie Mac. With the Federal Reserve's most aggressive interest rate hiking campaign since the 1980s. I was born in 81, so the it's been a while and everyone's still kind of pessimistic now. But that doesn't mean that but that does mean by default the people who have to are more urgent.
Andrew
Right?
Julie
Yeah, they have to. And I think it's such a good opportunity to just agree with them. But yeah, it is a terrible time to buy an existing house like. Yes, absolutely. You are completely right. It is a terrible time to buy an existing house. It's a great time to buy a new house because look at this great thing.
Julie
We can do to help you and look how our how they hold their value. And it just is a good opener to a conversation to talk through these things. So I don't think you're ever going to convince all these people that, oh, 80% of people are wrong. You know, everybody because they.
Kevin
Think about the think about the psychology here of you think it's a bad time to buy and you see an ad that a builder runs that says 50, 75 grand off if you buy by the other month. I think I think your negativity bias is like, see, I told you it's bad time to buy. You don't think you're so much money.
Andrew
Yeah, I.
Kevin
Wasn't going to buy, but now I can save 75 grant like again. It doesn't mean it doesn't work, but it doesn't work for the reason we tell ourselves. It works. When someone buys something that's on sale, that's because that's what they believe it's actually worth. Or they believe that there's some that like it's not the savings we justify that we tell our spouse, Hey, don't get mad at me.
Kevin
I just saved us $100. But in our minds, we knew that that's not what we did.
Andrew
Yeah, that's what it should be paid. I can see that reaction being like, oh, desperation. It's still overpriced. This as far as like if you're being kind of indoctrinated with like these articles like this where like 80% say it's bad time to buy, your reaction is to be correct with the rest of society. And so you're like, Well, I'll go along with that.
Andrew
I feel like they'll make me look smart. And like you said, Julie, like, well, the builders are the ones offering like these great incentives 5.25, five and a half, 4%, whatever. Like that's different than 7%, significantly different. So.
Kevin
Well, and the other thing that's interesting about interest rates. Barbara Corcoran, you all know her from Shark Tank. Well, she's kind of got a thing that's going viral around the the U.S home industry right now because she's like everyone. You've got to buy a house now that rates are at 7% because when rates go down, the prices are going to go up.
Kevin
So what she's correlating to and it's not a crazy thought at all, is when rates were at four and a half and they went down to three. It took it took too long for most builders to figure this out. But builders are like, wait a minute, I can you know, I still remember people were like, how much should we raise prices by Kevin?
Kevin
I mean, they just keep selling. What should we raise? And so I go, Just do the math of exactly what is the same payment and you can go there. Now it's the affordability around payment. You can just go to that price. You have to look at your cost, just go to that price. And so her argument is if you buy now and take that pain, you'll be better off because the rates go down, the prices of everything will go higher.
Kevin
That's not a guarantee, by the way, because if rates go down, it still means that there's bad things going on in the economy and the job market. It's earned.
Andrew
But it's, I think to say kind of rudely my brain like that's like privilege problems, right? Like she's like I have X amount a bank account like I'm I'll deal with this and two years I'm out of the situation. But if you're stuck at 7% forever, you can't refi. Your financial situation doesn't change or drastically go up. Then you're kind of you could be stuck.
Andrew
So for normal people, maybe not. But I, I definitely understand what she's what she's saying there. What's interesting is do we know anyone This is going way back. Remember Daw d0r the.
Kevin
York tracking the infrared tracking tool?
Andrew
Yeah, I remember. They weren't that expensive to implement. And then, like, as we kind of got used to that and I'm not sure if there's any builders still using it, but there's a recommendation like put it, don't put it at the front door. But like in the primary bathroom or something or whatever, it'd be like, okay, real people and the model home will definitely go here versus someone going in and out, in and out deliveries, mail, etc., etc..
Andrew
Interesting. Having that data to kind of normalize like the salesperson. This is back to the first part of your story. Like leads went up. Now it's just a new you'll see a new sales agent on site. It's like, well, we've had 300 people come in, 200 people, a hundred people, whatever it is, that person has six, six. So that just kind of like normalize the data.
Andrew
Be interesting. So my little story is just like maybe it's it'll make you feel comfortable. J4 is still quirky. I don't, I don't like it. I don't get it. I was just on a call about an hour and a half ago. Really intelligent guy is like, Hey, we're seeing this like what is happening? And I'm sitting there like, Man, I wish I could be super smart right now and have the answer to this.
Andrew
I'm like, I have no idea. Like, let me just rebuild that report for you and maybe that will fix it. Like, I do not know, like essentially it was only charting one campaign, but the other campaigns were down here. The numbers were making sense. The ad and like, you know, everyone has the delay of the data. It seems like 24, 36, 48 hours.
Andrew
There seems to be a little bit longer than that. It's a lot of fun and they have a lot of data. So it's not like we've seen some where like at the sampling a smaller is could be goofy, but it just seems to be inconsistent all over the place and it's not much fun. Thank you. Google it's not fun at all.
Kevin
Yeah it's well and the inconsistencies fortunately are not. It'd be one thing if it was just Google but it's implementation still up for on some web environments that you know it's yeah and that's where you can't I mean you will because you're human you'll get mad at the web developer but it's it's multiple web developers that are having this issue it's not just one.
Kevin
And sometimes it's for a bit of code that really should have nothing to do with causing any interference with GFR. So I feel like I use this a lot. But you know, WordPress is a great format for a blog, but trying to build a website with WordPress, in fact, again, just this morning talked with a large organization, multistate organization that still uses WordPress for their and we were talking about they are having a spam issue.
Kevin
And I said, well, a lot of times WordPress is something that doesn't help that and they're like, Oh really? Why go? Because you don't often update WordPress as often as you should when you've got 20 different plug ins that are connected to that. Yeah. So then we'll potentially break when you update it. Like, yeah, we're on a really old version.
Kevin
I go, Yeah, you're going to get spammed.
Andrew
It's been hacked.
Kevin
So it's that same kind of issue though that WordPress has where you're using the same website you always have go for said, Hey, no big deal, just put in this line of code and put it here exactly where we tell you and everything will be fine. But there's interaction with other lines of code that really shouldn't be affecting it, that that are for some people, thankfully, it's only about 5% that are still working through that issue.
Kevin
And also, thankfully, I just saw an article posted yesterday like for 90% of people, UK is still alive and kicking and I.
Andrew
Didn't see it. I'm like, I want to use it. But then I. Principal Mike, I don't think I could be the one that says I.
Kevin
Finally converted all of my little stars on Google Analytics over to Jay for accounts versus UK. But it is terrible.
Julie
I have to say I've gotten more use to die for than I thought because the other day I was in there and I was like, Oh shoot, I'm using you. Like just because it looked familiar to me. And I was like, Oh, I'm not. I'm just used to this now. So that's good. And Andrew, the most frustrating thing is when a piece of data is showing up in one place, like randomly, but it's showing up in the place it needs to show up.
Julie
You're like, I know it's there, it exists, I just can't make it. So that was where it needs to show.
Andrew
I think that was Tuesday. Julie and I were troubleshooting Google Tag Manager and J4 and like everything was correct, it just wouldn't show up in both places. For certain events. We're setting up to support conversion tracking. Yeah, there's no certainty. Which by the way, I look above my head. The site added. You look right, that perfect.
Julie
Will.
Andrew
Color my room. It's stuff that's that's all my story is but I get the 5% of of all of it so like 90% of my world is it's it's broken J for I'm like are you kidding?
Kevin
Andrew is our level five tech support. Yeah.
Andrew
So it all rolls sideways and uphill and diagonally to me. It's great.
Kevin
We don't have a perfect tracker here to fixing everything, but we are, I think, nearly perfect on identifying the cause. Like if it's something that we can't touch, like a website or a server issue or whatever. But we can, we can usually help sometimes.
Julie
I'm actually happy when Andrew can't fix it out, so I feel like it was a dumb question. It was like, This might be stupid. Andrew And then when you can't and I'm like, Yes, it's a real.
Andrew
Problem and sometimes that's enough is like, okay, cool. I'm not going crazy anymore. Like we all agree this is just weird and quirky. We're not going to worry about it for a little bit. And then sure enough, I'll just fix itself on its own.
Kevin
Next up, I guess we'll link to my tweet. We still call it that. I don't know. But Zillow is hiring over 100 photographers around the country like to continue to enhance their enhanced listings product. And so what's really cool about this is Zillow. If you've missed somewhere, been under a rock over the last six months or so, showing shown time plus which they purchased, which is like the centralized scheduling platform and then they've kind of built around that enhanced listing features, 3D tours, photos, basically everything you need to get your listing to look better.
Kevin
You get a better layer on the actual map as well. They're going all in on this and I think it's the right call for any syndication company to do so because, you know, Julie wrote a book and that's great, but content's still hard for builders, harder than it maybe should be. A lot of times it's just because they are still doing something really stupid, like connected TV advertising or billboards or whatever.
Kevin
Like you have the money to solve this problem, but you're using it for for less efficient purposes. But I, I have a feeling this is going to be huge when they start to roll it out. And I have no idea when they'll be doing this. But the moment the builders can just say are already advertising on Zillow and it's like, yeah, for X amount more or I don't know if they're going to include it, but you want to just come take pictures of this house, like really good pictures and it's also a good box out move for home XCOM, which is trying to come in and disrupt.
Kevin
Although I read an article that basically they even know they're not going to be Zillow, it's like where our goal is to be a really good number two and keep Zillow honest. But we're not going to we're not going to take over.
Andrew
I mean, there's there's being ads to Google ads. So there's always the number two. I wonder if they'll even have the photographers edit, Which would be.
Kevin
I think so. I mean, basic basic edits. Yeah, basic cleanup.
Andrew
And that's like, imagine that.
Kevin
Be really smart about this from a strategic perspective. And homes while Costar Homes parent company started this on the commercial side they can take these pictures and again I haven't seen any paperwork so I have no clue how this will work. But my hunch is it will work similar to Costar. And that Costar lets the commercial agents use the imagery that they shoot for anything except to send to other commercial real estate syndication portals.
Kevin
So this whole concept Inman Connect in Vegas has gone on this week, and one of the panels with Robert Rifkin, the CEO of Compass and someone from Redfin and the CEO of Next Next Home, I think is the name of the company. They're all talking about how like pocket listings or like listings that are unique to to a company are just so incredibly important right now because there's not enough of them.
Kevin
And that's why we talked about Howard Hanna's move in the Cleveland area to be like, Nope, we're not sharing our listings with other offices in the same way we have been. This is just like, again, it's in the technology world. They call it like getting closer to the bare metal. You're talking about taking pictures of listings, You're getting closer to boxing out competitors in like the most bare metal approach, like here, like it's where the rubber meets the road.
Kevin
Like you don't have pictures. Great. So you're listing on homes that com says that the house is 2000 square feet but it has no pictures.
Andrew
Yeah, it's pretty simple.
Kevin
No one's going to care, Alison.
Andrew
Especially the beat, I'm sure. Great pictures to like. They'll be standardized and like, that would be the look for real estate photography. Whatever Zillow decides, if they end up being like they set the mood, they set the tempo of it. So that's, that's pretty cool. Good for them.
Kevin
Yeah. I just think what good for everyone if it's done right and we don't know if it will be done right, but anything that helps a builder solve a problem at a reasonable price and help Zillow like that's doesn't happen often again. But win win wins are really good.
Andrew
Yeah, I like it again.
Kevin
All right. Back to bad news that we're we're going. I think so.
Andrew
It's like bad news I think it's bad.
Kevin
From from Redfin dot com housing market Update The typical U.S. homebuyers monthly payment is up nearly 20% from a year ago as prices rise.
Andrew
That's a big 20%.
Kevin
The average price of a home is only up 3.2%, but the average payment is up 20. Thank you. Interest rates?
Andrew
Yeah. Interest rates, do you think? Obviously lower down payments, I would assume so. That's affecting it. Yes. Is it my mind on this goes to everything outside of housing like this does affect housing, but I'm like, so I'm in Florida right here by the water 5 minutes away. I'm thinking like, oh, like a lot of people on a boat.
Andrew
You got a boat show. You do not see a price. You see a monthly payment on every boat. And you're like, yeah, boats 229 a month bring a boat warranty and include seats. So all this stuff here, like I'll be looking at Lindsay 229 month, like we just don't have to go to Chick-Fil-A six times. Like that's not bad.
Andrew
Let's sacrifice that. We could get a boat, bring boat. But as things like this go up, I'm like, Oh, that's not an option anymore. Let's not do that. And now the person that's selling the boat, they have less commission now they're making less money. That's kind of like a cascading effect of like if you're what's the phrase like house house for like eventually I feel like that long term, I don't have the data on this and not on The Economist info on this like you eventually that affects other industries and it's this full circle of like, that's not good.
Andrew
I'm sure there's like a perfect number to be at, right? That I don't know. Maybe there isn't where if it's too high, then it affects you spend less in other places. If it's too low, then there should be more spend and housing. You could afford more as that keeps prices lower, keeps demand lower, if that makes any sense in my head.
Andrew
This makes perfect sense.
Kevin
I think it makes it just like, I don't know, 2000 people who work for the Fed, who are trying to figure out like answer that question extremely complicated. That's why rates are moving around and I'm just I got a little bit distracted because I'm looking at this chart, which is on the video version on on YouTube. For those of you watching or on do, you can become yeah, home listings are down 21% year over year look at so 2022 the red line this is when everyone's like see I told you so the world is going to end because listing listings started reappearing and then June, July they fell off and they I mean, the yellow
Kevin
line for 2023 is just I mean, it's it's in the range, let's just say, of 2020 COVID lows, like April, May, number of new homes that hit the market was at an all time low for April May. But we've kind of been hanging around there all of 20, 23. It's just incredible, like the amount of pain on the used home side of the world for these folks who don't have the number of transactions is crazy.
Kevin
And I am hearing again, we got to get an agent or a broker on the program to talk about this because I'm getting more emails and texts as well from builders who are like, what is going on with real estate agents? They are losing their their mind. Every deal is like a huge there. I mean, some of the words they use to describe the behavior, I don't know if I can say on air, but.
Andrew
You need a little sensor.
Kevin
But they're like, please tell us that you have something happen at the summit in September talking about how to handle agents and what to do because it's just it's but I mean, you have to understand the pain that a lot of them are going through here. It's not it might be irrational behavior, but it's irrational behavior caused by irrational source, if that makes.
Julie
Sense. That's why I just had a conversation with a builder that I'm like, Why? What did you do? Why are your walk ins so much higher? And it's somebody who they have never wanted to bother with realtors. They never needed realtors. They were just a pain in their side. And she was like, What? Honestly, we've been Dylan more with realtors and open to working with them now just because they need they need listings and we've got the listings.
Julie
So we're like, okay, so what's kind of even changing how some people are open to working with realtor.
Andrew
Realtors.
Julie
I'm sure.
Andrew
Pursuing.
Julie
It's going to make things more crazy for them for sure.
Kevin
Yeah. Interesting. All right. I don't think there's anything else really that I want to talk about from the news. It's more like we know that stuff. Elon Musk is trying to win back advertisers with brand safety technology. I mean, I'm I don't even want to think.
Andrew
About it for. That's my thought. I'm then I have this for this this new or old news I don't know.
Kevin
First of all the whole the whole thing, I mean, maybe it settles down and in some ways it has because thread thread who like, what's that thing? All the users that I and the community is alive and well they're most of the people I interact with are not have not gone away or stopped actually on. Okay but like advertisers are so fact I do want to read this I pulled up another thing that we can't share the link to because it's a subscription to Digiday plus they called me in to like a $200 subscription for the year because I really wanted to read get you again a point for like great content wins.
Kevin
But advertisers are so fickle and right now they're such pressure to perform that experimentation on a platform that's been there, done that, and not much has changed. It's like now we all tried. Remember, everyone was going to boycott Instagram and Facebook and never used them again and they were going to go on LinkedIn and Twitter and Pinterest and all these other places.
Kevin
Well, guess what? They're back because they need things that actually deliver qualified people in revenue. So this article is here's what ad and media execs really mean when they commented on their queue to earnings. This is hilarious to me. So and so far so good. I'll try to use different voices just for entertainment value. So these are all things that that high level executives said on their earnings call.
Kevin
The is Doug Horn, the CFO at Gannett. For those of you who are born in the last 35 years, that's a newspaper company who tries to do digital media as well. But here's what he said. Despite secular headwinds, the decrease in print advertising revenue was limited to 8.9% year over marking the smallest decline observed in the past year.
Kevin
And then here's what he actually meant. That quarter could have been a lot worse, except for the fact that our print advertising sucked less than expected. I think people are still dumb enough to buy print ads. Spence Newman, the CFO at Netflix, said. Our overall ad arm subscription plus ads continue to be higher than basic ad free globally, same as the statement on standard Bore.
Kevin
Here's what he meant. Advertising is not a major moneymaker for Netflix, yet we made all of our money by just not letting people share subscriptions. I'm not even going to say what they actually said, just what they meant, because it's it's to me, it's just a really good insight into the chaos that is the traditional advertising world. Zaslav Warner Brothers CEO said.
Kevin
Who needs a massive subscriber base When you can focus on a handful of loyal customers and make millions, am I right? So basically it's like we're not even going to try to grow the number of subscribers we have there. Just charge them a heck of a lot of money for not a lot of content, and it's working just fine.
Kevin
Michael CAVANAUGH Comcast president. There are too many moving parts that would need to align for a deal of the magnitude to come together of being sold or swapping business units. See, I think there's one other one in here that was really interesting. Bob Bakish, CEO of Paramount Global, talking about the whole writers strike and labor dispute. Basically, whoever has the goal tends to make the rules and we've got the gold.
Kevin
And they also by the way, it's been interesting just hearing all of the AI generative AI discussions around like, could you pick a worse time to have a strike over something that.
Andrew
So yeah.
Kevin
It just is really interesting. So I mean, Mark Zuckerberg, this is pretty good. Rails plays exceeded 200 billion per day across Facebook and Instagram. We're seeing good progress on real monetization as well with the annual revenue run rate across our apps now exceeding $10 billion up from 3 billion last fall. What he actually meant is we're about to make a whole crap ton of money from short form videos.
Kevin
Very soon.
Andrew
Yeah.
Kevin
But like people in the print industry, I mean, even TV again, I've hinted at a couple of times, but connected TV advertising sounds awesome. And like Disney Plus right now is pivoting their last call. Iger just said, You know what? We don't want people like we're going to up the price of Disney Plus because we will make way more money.
Kevin
If we can sell ads, then if we make people pay what they're willing to pay for the platform. So their goal is actually to grow the ad supported subscriptions more than anything else. And if if they and others convince more people to do that and you can start affordably, that's the key. Affordably targeting households with TV advertising on streaming services, that would be great for right now.
Kevin
It's the only way that people like Disney can make money. They can sell the that because the concept of it is so good in an actual performance it it's not worth the expense being paid except for those people who are making money from the ads being being bought.
Andrew
Yeah, I mean, essentially it is Go ahead.
Julie
Does it it feel weird that we're like subscriptions? No more ads. And then the pendulum is swinging other way, right? It's like our kids aren't going to understand. No, no, we're just going back to cable. Like, we already had this, and then we didn't have this, and now we have this again. It's just the way things cycle through is interesting to me.
Kevin
Well, I think it's a cat and mouse game of we as advertisers. We want this ability to target at the household level. What screen streaming accounts allow that cable accounts didn't I used to do cable TV advertising at Heartland and you could pick a zip code. That was it like you could you can say target all of the Time Warner or Comcast subscribers in the zip code.
Kevin
That was the most you could target. Now that you can target accounts and you know who those accounts are, and that data gets blended with other data sources, it's the right thing that advertisers want. Whether consumers will put up with it is another thing, because it's it's hard to go back to like we use YouTube TV. Big brother is out.
Kevin
My wife loves Big brother. That's usually I get her the subscription to like the all access thing for Big Brother for her birthday. We missed the first two episodes, so we have to go back and watch YouTube, TV records, everything. But you have to. If you don't put it in your own DVR tool, you have to watch it with ads.
Kevin
And I kid you not like every ad break is 8/32 commercials and they ad and like double it's like punitive. It's like you missed it haha we got you.
Andrew
You want it.
Kevin
And it's just painful to watch that stuff.
Andrew
Painful. I mean, at the end of the day, it's revenue per user, right? Just like you look at Facebook when they deliver their quarterlies, you read the PDFs and you're like, okay, okay. Like, all right, a average U.S. user is worth $23.54 per quarter. So you're like, Oh, well, I'll just pay $15 a month. I have no ads on my Facebook for them.
Andrew
You know, they're not making that choice to do that. But that's what it is. That's at least that's why I interpret it like, right, we could go this way or this way. Revenue per user and then revenue at the end. But then they get into like, well, we need longevity, we need retention of these users. We can have attrition and dying off.
Andrew
So they have to factor in all those things. But a fun, fun analysis for billions of dollars and and revenue to do. And like, here's what I'm presenting shaking your hands like I'm nervous to tell this to someone.
Kevin
But okay favorites.
Andrew
Oh man. Oh man.
Kevin
Yeah. Andrews. Andrews again filling in for Beth last second. Let's see I think.
Andrew
Favorite.
Kevin
And you can skip if you need to.
Andrew
Actually you.
Kevin
Got everything.
Julie
I got one. So my son just turned 15. He's starting high school, so for his birthday, he wanted us to take him shopping at the backpacker, which is like a it's more expensive than we're like usually for school clothes we would do like Target and all Navy because it's very everybody knows that I'm thrifty like that, so it's more expensive.
Julie
But they had the they got the coolest school backpacks there to him out of the loop but they're there have an insulated pocket in the front for their lunches. So you know, you're 15 at high school. You don't want to carry a lunch bell. You must have like, built into the cool little backpack. So watch me cringe. Like it.
Julie
Yes. Made me cringe a little bit when we.
Andrew
Yeah, these are up there. I'm looking at them.
Julie
What we paid for all his clothes there. But, you know, he's getting older. He wanted the the cooler clothes.
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin
I'll just I'm wondering, I think your favorite should be the kids are back in school.
Andrew
That is. That is my favorite. Yeah, that's great. It's my favorite. That's that. You want to do it this year. But yeah, I started This will be our next so like two weeks ago they started I time this is out I think or a week ago, whatever it may be. But yeah, I'm excited for that. But the fun challenge though is record 330 Eastern day at home.
Andrew
Like right now I want at 4:00 but I want to start is when they get home. So I'm like mute, unmute, mute because I have to walk through the door, which is, you know, 15 feet that way with my door shut and all that stuff is fine. But yeah, that was fun shopping for them. We have three so that you have to but you went to the backpacker, which Looks like a super sweet spot to go to.
Julie
For a few things not have.
Andrew
You think about.
Julie
Everything.
Andrew
But it's yeah, our kids are in uniforms which is great, but you still like they got to get the dry fit ones otherwise, like the collared shirts shrink and then so they don't last long time. But yeah, so it's expensive starting back up school but I'm glad they're gone. It's quite the power bill will definitely go down because Fortnite and the Ps5, the Xbox and desktop are not running upstairs all day.
Andrew
Right. I'll take that. Forgot about that.
Kevin
But I am. I'm late to the game here. I feel like food shown up in boxes has come and gone for most people. They're like, Yeah, I tried Blue Apron, all that stuff. This is factor 75. I don't know if you've heard of this, but their refrigerated meals, they're all fully, fully prepared.
Andrew
Okay.
Kevin
And the quality of the meat in particular is incredible. Like it is. It's like going to Cardinals, which is the premier butcher here in town. If you're going to make ribs or steak for special occasion, you're going to craft onions. All the meat is really, really good. It's not I guess some people use it for like dieting or whatever, but there's four or five categories like keto or like low calorie vegetarian, vegan or whatever.
Kevin
It's all really good. There is a pork chop thing that my wife had because she did it first and I was like, What are we doing? This is dumb. And I tried it. I thought it was filet mignon covered with like a cheese sauce. It was some pork chop thing. And I was like, okay, I'm sold. They can make pork chop tastes like filet mignon.
Kevin
I'm in. I don't I'm sure it's expensive. But here's the thing. Everyone's going to school for the first time. No more home schooling for the Oakley's. And that means there's not lunches that are going to be downstairs and I won't eat anything. Like, I'll just eat a a a protein bar for lunch.
Andrew
Kevin.
Kevin
And it's way better for my body if I just eat actual meal.
Andrew
It does a good and it's, yeah, we do some meal meal prep like this as well. It's definitely worth it. It's still cheaper than going to cheaper as in, if I do leave the office, I go pick up Chick-Fil-A, then I wait in line and then I drive back and then I sit at it like there's 45 minutes right there.
Andrew
Even though chick flies 10 minutes and this is maybe a dollar two because.
Kevin
It's all refrigerated, there's really no prep time for every single one of these entrees is 2 minutes.
Andrew
Yes. And it's real food. Like, it's not like the ingredients are like chicken.
Kevin
In the bath. It does take up a little bit of fridge space. But yeah, that's some surprisingly because this is not really my thing.
Andrew
Second fridge, I'm thinking that's well. Oh, have you had their blueberry buttermilk pancakes or.
Kevin
It's not done any breakfast. It's just purely a lunch thing. So Melanie doesn't have to mess with extra groceries for lunch for either of us. We just. And the portion sizes. I'm not. I'm not hungry.
Andrew
With a smoky bacon and cheddar egg bites. Four of them looks pretty good.
Kevin
For those of you who may not be familiar, Andrews to all of the sessions are food and clothes.
Andrew
Shorts, shopping for short.
Kevin
Or shopping for shirts.
Julie
Specifically shorts.
Andrew
It's hot. It's hot and miserable. Yeah. I'll just move to like, not unlike the cold either. I'm stuck here.
Kevin
All right, That'll do it for this week. Thanks again for tuning in and joining us every week. We've got some fantastic guest episodes coming out shortly, one including Julie, talking a little bit more in-depth about her book. For those of you who haven't order in yet, you get a little bit of a preview. So check that out. We'll see you next time.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 296: Be Curious, Be Attentive

In this episode, Kevin Oakly, Andrew Peek and Jen Barkan discuss the reasons why it is so vital to be passionate, ready to learn, curious and attentive about the world around you. They go over an article on personal brand rules for employees, pointing out what they would add and emphasizing rules they agree are effective. Together, they discuss their thoughts and fears on the looming mass inventory of used homes that will inevitably affect home builders who are raising their specs.

Story Time (05:54)

• Jen’s son is interning as a summer sales intern and loves it which made Jen realize how refreshing it is to have someone who might not have a lot of experience but is passionate, ready to learn and excited.
• Andrew has been getting up and working early in the morning and loves the extra time with no distractions.
• Kevin went to Nepal and loved people watching and taking in a whole different culture. He urges us to be insanely curious and attentive.
  

News (29:42)

• An Employee’s Guide to Building a Personal Brand (https://sparktoro.com/blog/an-employees-guide-to-building-a-personal-brand/) 
• New-Home Sales Dip 2.5% In June (https://www.builderonline.com/data-analysis/new-home-sales-dip-2-5-in-june_o?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=Article&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BP_080123&&oly_enc_id=9807D1461978C8T)
• Spec Strategy Drive Record Q2 Homes Closings and Revenue for Meritage Homes (https://www.builderonline.com/money/spec-strategy-drives-record-q2-home-closings-and-revenue-for-meritage-homes_o?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=Article&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BP_080123&&oly_enc_id=9807D1461978C8T)
• ‘The everything app’: why Elon Musk wants X to be a WeChat for the west (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jul/29/elon-musk-wechat-twitter-rebranding-everything-app-for-west)
• Zillow and Redfin announce partnership to help buyers and home builders connect (https://zillow.mediaroom.com/2023-08-01-Zillow-and-Redfin-announce-partnership-to-help-buyers-and-home-builders-connect#assets_28775_137891-135)
  

Favorites (51:54)

• Jen’s favorite are her new Hoka walking shoes
• Andrew still loves his espresso machine 
• Kevin is really loving his Kuhl and Howitzer athletic shirts.

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] 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 Stitcher
A 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: 
Jen
I was going to tell you about my permanent eyebrow.
Andrew
Motorcycle gang. There's so much going on here. What is happening? Let me get my cup of coffee and some popcorn.
Kevin
And I'm highly uncomfortable. I have COVID. I don't know how long I can hang in on this episode, so continue.
Andrew
But you have a special strain of COVID.
Jen
Let's get this going. Don't talk too much. Done.
Andrew
Some good news to go over.
Jen
Yeah. So update on Andrew and I, we climbed to the top of the motorcycle gang ladder again.
Kevin
You're amongst people already? Yeah. Your husband, Andrew.
Jen
Oh, yes, yes, yes. Sorry. Andrew.
Andrew
The other team who just released her book, her husband is Kevin, so it's really confusing.
Jen
Oh, okay. Let me let me clarify. My husband, Andrew and I.
Andrew
Mr. Barkan?
Jen
Yes. Mr. Barkan climbed to the top of the motorcycle club rankings.
Kevin
Have to whack someone.
Jen
With that happen? How do you. I can't. I can't. Well, I guess I could discuss it now that I'm no longer in the club.
Andrew
You're in finance for the FBI?
Kevin
Yeah, sure.
Jen
We both ended up becoming presidents of our respective clubs.
Andrew
It sounds like you said yes to everything.
Jen
And like,  it was a whole election. We were voted in. Was like that was a whole thing.
Andrew
No fraud.
Jen
You know, But both being super competitive, you know, once you reach the top, it's like, all right, you know, what's next? And, you know, it was just becoming, was just becoming a lot. And there was contrary to what a lot of people might think, there was some drama and some stuff that, you know, we just like to relax. There's too much drama.
Jen
Yeah, We were just like, you know, we'd rather go, like, play golf and do a bowling league on Wednesday night. So that's what we have decided to do. So we have left.
Andrew
I support that.
Jen
We did not get what's it called, You know, we weren't kicked out. We weren't we weren't stomach punch. Clearly not your stomach punch.
Kevin
Yeah.
Jen
Senator Punched. Senator punched is you know, if you if you're put out bad.
Kevin
But it's called.
Andrew
So.
Jen
We were not put out that we, we gracefully left and yeah we're just having a good time now I'll have to worry about.
Kevin
It. Cut.
Andrew
Cut. Any. Not saying it was the negative thing but yeah I'm all for like if that's not bringing you anything positive.
Jen
It wasn't bringing too much joy, right? It was because even people that sounds.
Andrew
Yeah, but like.
Jen
Yeah it was.
Andrew
Up I have come time.
Jen
So now I'm I'm doing a golf league.
Andrew
That might sound bowling's more frustrating to me golfing.
Jen
Well, you know, I definitely have to talk to myself like, you know, this is just practice. Although I am on a team and we do have a leaderboard and, you know, I'm challenging myself to get better every week.
Andrew
Prediction in 2024 is that might be gone. Golfing is just frustrating. So hard Sport is hard.
Kevin
Is the international show in Vegas again next year? I think it is.
Andrew
It to make us All.
Kevin
Right we'll um whatever day is the lightest we'll just go on the wind course.
Jen
But still.
Kevin
Have a.
Andrew
Sister Three holes. That's plenty.
Kevin
Now, you got to do it. At least.
Jen
Not well.
Andrew
We could do.
Jen
Kevin. Are you good? Do you golf?
Kevin
Of course I do. I, I, I used to be good ish. I mean, if you get under 100 and you don't play very often, that's.
Jen
Yeah, that's.
Andrew
Good. 100 for the first four. The first nine.
Kevin
Yeah. No I, me. Yeah. My old, my old boss was really big on golfing and my rule was, I mean, golf is both expensive and time consuming. So when you're in your early thirties and you have four kids, so like, I'm only golfing when I can do it for work during work hours. So now that no one that I work with basically is like, Hey, Kevin, let's go golfing.
Kevin
I don't golf. I do top golf now.
Andrew
Topgolf sounds.
Jen
Better. I love Topgolf Yeah.
Andrew
I just never got into golfing, but it might have been that. Like, I just very quickly realized to be good at this, I need X amount of swings per week at like each, you know, whatever. But they putting mid range whatever the heck the thing is short game.
Jen
Kevin I'm gonna hold you to this or they're doing.
Kevin
Golf. Yeah no, we should get them. Get yes. I don't know what eight.
Andrew
I'll click on the.
Kevin
Six eight foursomes and we'll, we'll just do a little thing. Yeah.
Andrew
Thursday. What is his speaking schedule. But Yeah. Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon.
Kevin
Hour. Yeah.
Andrew
Okay. As long as it doesn't, it's.
Kevin
A, it's a, it's a nice little course. There they have.
Jen
Oh yeah. I'm sure I seen.
Andrew
From like the window, you know, bunch of players up like oh it looks nice out.
Jen
There. It'll do, it'll do.
Andrew
They'll do it Will do.
Kevin
Yeah. All right.
Andrew
What a life.
Jen
We have too. We were talking about new home stuff now.
Kevin
Yeah, Yeah, I want to, I want to talk a little bit about Nepal, but that's what that's what story time is for, I guess. All right, let's go. Welcome to episode 296. I'm Kevin Oakley. And with me today is Andrew Peek and Jen Barkin. Yeah, Jen finally stopped standing us up. It's been, what, three months since you've been?
Kevin
No, sir. I was getting hate mail. Like, what's going on? Where's Jen?
Jen
It hasn't been that long ago.
Andrew
Two months.
Kevin
I think. Jessie on my list. Yeah. Someone. Fact check. Jen has not been back.
Jen
I was traveling some.
Kevin
You've been busy, Michael Austin. And, you know, traveling and speaking.
Jen
And I think I was visiting a client.
Kevin
Yeah, we don't have those.
Jen
So that's a part. Your partner. You're working? Oh, I was visiting a partner. You're working?
Kevin
Oh, I love it. All right, story time. Let's go. And Jen.
Jen
Oh, I get to go first.
Kevin
Yes.
Jen
Oh, I love this story time because So my son, Sam, you guys, I.
Kevin
Saw this before.
Jen
Yes. So he came to me in the spring, actually, and was like, I think I'm interested in real estate. So really, he'll like, yeah, you know, I really am interested in this. And I said, okay like easy.
Kevin
Money industry I everyone.
Jen
Oh, he's like, you know.
Andrew
He's like, real.
Jen
Yeah, he's like I said, like selling like, like what are million dollar listing? Like what's, what part of it is in.
Andrew
News on Netflix. Yeah.
Jen
Yeah. He's like, I don't know, just all of it. And I said, Okay. So a couple months went by. He came home from college and he was like, came to me again and said, You know, I am really interested in. And I said, okay, well, let's see if there's any builders in our area that are doing any sort of summer internship.
Jen
I don't know. Let's just check and see. Called some friends said, Hey, what's going on? And I said, Yeah. And so I said, okay, Sam, I'm stepping out this is all on you. I'm making the introduction. Now don't embarrass me. Yeah, you know. Yeah. And I even said that to our partner, You know, I was like, Hey, you know, this this is, this is on you and him, and you figure it out.
Jen
Anyway, fast forward. He's been doing this now for a couple of months. He loves it. He comes home and is like talking about he's like, Oh man, this is awesome. Like, I could totally do this. He's like, memorize the stuff on the website. He's memorized the plans. He's talking about pricing. He's like, Hey, these this one couple came and they were just lovely and they wanted this home and I, I got them to get the larger home because why not go for the larger home?
Jen
And he's like talking all this stuff and I'm just like, man, that is so refreshing. I mean, he is like, he came in my office the other day and sat down is like, Let's talk about lasso CRM. Like, what.
Andrew
Did I create happened here?
Jen
I'm like, okay, tell me. And then he's like, you know, let's call the online sales appointments and, you know, and it's just it just reminded me one, like, I'll take any day, I'll take somebody who is an experience but is passionate, is excited, is hungry to learn. You know that energy is I mean, that's that's just that's what it's all about.
Jen
That's what it's all about. And so, you know, they're paying them whatever this internship pay is, Right? Is nothing. But he is just he's just so excited. He's just there to learn. And, you know, as we see saying about us, because we're doing we're helping a lot of our partners hire right now. And the question is always like, do I look for this experienced person that's out there that's been in real estate or and I'm like, No, like, you don't need that.
Jen
We can teach them how to be an online sales specialist and teach them how to be a salesperson. You can teach them all those things, but you can't teach that, you know, that excitement and hunger and drive and that you have when you're brand new. So, you know, I've always, you know, Kevin and I have talked about this.
Jen
I've always been a big advocate of, hey, look at college, you know, college and intern, you know, get a college intern, right? Bring them up, mold them, you know, get them in and teach them and bring them.
Kevin
You don't have to be like the nice internship company like you. You can you can pay them and you can just pay them, you know? You know, they're I'm sorry. And they come out right again. I do have covered folks, so bear with me. I'm also way more excited to be here than my voice sounds. But there are folks who craft internships and like my my niece has been in some where you hear what she's done and she didn't really do anything.
Kevin
Like they almost crafted like an internship experience, like a Disney made an internship and you're like, okay, but there is no skill learned or like work done. It was just like, Yeah, us. We have an intern. Yay! Intern. They like our company. Yeah, you don't you don't have to have that pressure again. I always go back to one internship.
Kevin
I had for the summer. All I my job was to scan in slides of pictures that have been taken all over the world and categorize them. That's all I did.
Andrew
That's science.
Kevin
And technology back then sucked so badly that you'd hit the button and it would not scan in five slides at a time. And it took almost an hour. And so I would hit the button once an hour and then read a John Grisham book and then plug in, you know, everything that was in in each picture so they could have a searchable archive of all these images.
Kevin
It was not like that experience isn't going on TikTok or Instagram reels. Mm hmm. But it's it's a job that needed to be done. So I just think a lot of people don't create an internship position because you're like, I don't think I have something cool enough from the work on or some special big project like just tell them to go sweep out the houses under construction if you want to.
Jen
Right?
Andrew
Right. I had the right my internship was opposite. It was for the American Red Cross in Tallahassee where I'm with the school. And they were setting up their I forgot their command center for when hurricanes came. They had this massive grant from something like 100 something computers. And I worked alongside the guy who actually knew what he was doing.
Andrew
I didn't know. So we set up a hundred stations we like, I don't know the word is, but deployed each desktop from like a server, like all this cool stuff. And then it taught me I hated that type of job. So I was like, This is done with cool. It looks good on a resume, but on my own, right?
Jen
But it's yeah, it's a good way for you to figure out what you like and what you don't like, right?
Andrew
Sam had sales experience before That didn't work at Footlocker, right?
Jen
Oh, Footlocker.
Andrew
Man, did you lean on that? I'm sure. Especially now that and during his because it's really.
Jen
The course needed.
Andrew
Sales and sales or just selling something different.
Jen
Yes it is.
Kevin
You should sell the coolest thing possible, which is a house like I think that's probably like you can you can geek out about details of a shoe, I'm sure. But I mean, the average individual you're trying to sell to probably only wants to hear about three of the 72 things you think are cool. Whereas if like if he likes differential demonstration and like the like if he like, sells, I don't know, like, why would you not want to sell a house?
Andrew
Would be better.
Jen
Hey, he told me.
Andrew
That are drugs.
Jen
He told me last week that.
Kevin
You don't have to sell drugs.
Andrew
Just pharmaceutical.
Jen
Last week, that this feels very natural to him and he's.
Kevin
Cool.
Jen
He's just super excited. So, yeah, mean, I'm really happy for him.
Kevin
That's great. Mm hmm.
Andrew
Andrew Yeah, mine's a quick one, so summer's almost over, actually, when you listen to this. Yeah. Be around the first day of school for our kiddos. We have a middle schooler this year. Why in the world, like, I feel like.
Jen
Hold on to your mom.
Andrew
Like, Oh, I'm so old now. I got, like, you'll see me at the summit. Like, you're like me. And what's this gray stuff coming into Andrew's beard.
Jen
Looking like what happened to Mike.
Andrew
Love? Yeah, Looking like mini Mike over there.
Kevin
Where has he been? Doing his hair for a long time then, or what? What's that.
Jen
About? No.
Kevin
Suddenly stopped dying.
Jen
Teenagers, teenagers. And then it just style goes gray. Okay, so just crazy.
Kevin
There's this one Thanksgiving. I remember my my mom to stop diner hair and she went from like, I didn't know she was dying, her hair. And then all these.
Jen
You were like.
Kevin
Wow. It's like, Whoa.
Andrew
Mom, my mom's not listening. That would be her. My mother did.
Jen
She pointed out like mom with the help.
Kevin
Yeah. I mean, I'm her son, so I can say whatever I want, right? I'm just like, Mom.
Jen
Oh, my gosh.
Kevin
I did. It wasn't a bad look. It was just shocking. It was like, Mom, what happened? And she's like, so silly.
Jen
Mom, that was me. During COVID, are you going to do.
Kevin
With.
00:14:08:16 - 00:14:11:04AndrewWhat's happening here? Here's the employee handbook.
Kevin
It looks distinguished. I've always wondered why people dye their hair like that, but I mean, yeah.
Jen
Oh, man, I don't think I could go through the growing out stage. That would be.
Kevin
Yes. Okay. Anytime we start talking about anything related to fashion, I become highly uncomfortable. So let's move on.
Andrew
So back to this. So kids start school next week. So summer's been, you know, summer is is a blessing. Get to see the kids face more often. But it's also like, oh, my goodness, can you working from home like, can you, like, be consistent with your schedule me talking to the kids because like, hey, it's it's breakfast time.
Andrew
Can you help me out my kiddos it's 1;30. Like, what are you talking about? Like, what day is almost over? It's happening then. So I'm like, okay. CUOMO Adjustment schedules. So this week I've flopped around my schedule. Usually get up in the morning. There's a point to the story and like I go straight to the gym since my birthday was April.
Andrew
So I'm like, I'm just not feeling that like getting up and going there and like, oh my goodness, like not fun. But I do like just wake up at that time naturally, like without alarm, like 435. I'm just, I'm awake. So this week I'm like, I'm a try. Just working for a couple of hours until like what would be seven or seven when I would have to next week get the kids ready.
Andrew
It's been nice. My I forget how nice those times are where like, no one can talk to me even though I can at times ignore or like delay a response, an email or slack if it's not emergency or if it's something that isn't bottlenecking someone else. Like, okay, I could get to that at like 430 or 440.
Kevin
Five.
Jen
Minutes from June.
Andrew
Six from Jen when she's asking weird questions, how to help spot and other stuff like that.
Kevin
You got to get around. To fact.
Andrew
I could all get that, get that later. But it's been so I'm kind of like gaining 2 hours of work time, which is amazing. And then, you know, kids leave earlier because my oldest is in middle school, so they're out of the house by 740. I'm like, This is great. So it's like 40 minutes to get them ready.
Andrew
So I'm like, I'm gaining almost like two and a half hours of time with this new schedule that have It's nice, it's beautiful. I love it. So I don't again, working from.
Kevin
Home or I there's a couple of things. They're like. Andrew One is.
Andrew
Like, I think be more productive.
Kevin
Shifting your schedules, even if it's the same amount of time. In this case, you're gaining some time, but even if it's the same amount of time, a shift is helpful in lots of ways. It just gets you out of a rut.
Andrew
Oh, for sure.
Kevin
You know, it can potentially change or create the opportunity for change of many things just by making that change in any schedule. The second thing I love is the chaos that it creates for everyone else in your life. Trying to figure out what your new schedule is. It's like a fun little extra game within the game. Like my old when I was actually working for real companies.
Kevin
Oh, that's a joke. It's a joke. We always are. Like, I was like, I guess we're a real company now.
Andrew
At 20 so.
Kevin
Much I would always tell different people, different days that I was getting back from vacation, like my boss knew the real day, but I would always tell three different dates. No one really knew when I was coming back and it was just awesome because you're back for like a full 24 hours before the whole company would realize you're back and you could catch up.
Kevin
But just changing your schedule means that other people have to become aware that your schedule has changed and that gives you it's the same advantage of people who live on the West Coast have like they send us, who live on the East Coast, things to do, and we're always behind. Like they leave the office and are like and 5:00 their time, they're like, there you go.
Kevin
And we wake up and we've got this thing to do, you know? So it's it's kind of just there is an advantage to getting up earlier. So because you are always ahead.
Andrew
Yeah, yeah. Agreed. And what I needed it for is like one not not of right but just as far as like when you work from home I see the same. There's my window, there's like if I don't leave the house like that. So to get is that like it's. I feel like I'm going crazy. So you need a change of environment.
Andrew
So this changes that up for me. Like, oh, it's dark outside. Cool. This feels this feels different enough for me. And now I could shift like, all right, here's these must do's are in the morning now versus later. Prior to this, I'm like, okay, we'll get to that. Next thing you know, it's 4:00. I have to do these other things that are build a partner.
Andrew
Work has to get done. So this is like, okay, cool, those things will have to get done anyways. Like I'm not stop a monday until they're done. But here's this other set of things that really have to be done but can kind of be kicked out. Is this.
Kevin
You mean you're going to become no longer a night person or wait, there's worse because I remember some.
Jen
Of morning never been a night.
Kevin
That's right. Yeah, that's right. I just.
Andrew
Remember just like adjusting my morning until your.
Kevin
Phrase. Yeah, well, you're one of the first people I ever worked with who said something like. Like I just go to bed. When I go to bed, like, I can't stay up and keep working, but I'll wear I'll wake up as early as I need to, and it's no big deal.
Andrew
I get up at three.
Kevin
To.
Andrew
Do it, whereas.
Jen
I'm like, I'll work till like.
Kevin
I'll just not sleep.
Jen
Yeah, Yeah.
Andrew
Because in my mind, like, ardern's be done it. Let's say there's something crazy as far as schedule. Like either stay up late until one to do it and it's due the next day at 8 a.m. or just get up at three and you have from 3 to 8. Like it's kind of the same thing.
Jen
What's your natural wake up time given.
Kevin
Natural probably is 6:45. Okay.
Jen
See? Yeah. So like weekend, like if you don't have to get up, you're so waking up and getting up.
Kevin
It's like still waking up around then. And then I usually unsuccessfully try to tell myself to go back to sleep on the weekend. Yeah. Yeah.
Jen
But you don't.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andrew
We are. We were on our vacation like a couple weeks ago. We had a couple of crazy nights. We're out to like two or three in the morning because, like, why not? Even then, I'd wake up at, like, 7:30.
Jen
How did you do that?
Andrew
Well, of course, that day I, like, took a nap later. They. But I'm like, I'm awake. Like when the world like, let's get some breakfast, Let's go. That's crazy. What do you got?
Kevin
My story time. So I went to Nepal last week and that's a nine hour and 45 minute time change. Well, you can. Wow. I have to look up on Wikipedia. Why? It's 45 minutes and not a full hour. Something about the the meridian of every country determines which time zone is supposed to be in. The meridian is the exact center of the country.
Kevin
And then that put too many of the population in a like, you know, I have two time zones in a country as small as Nepal. Anyway so the exact other half of the world. And yeah, what I really wanted to talk about today is just the absolute fun. It is as a curious individual who loves how human psychology works to be dropped in a new culture that you have no exposure to a language you have no hope of understanding.
Kevin
Like when we when we go to Guatemala and I don't speak Spanish, great. But, you know, I know how to say good morning. I know how to say where it's bathroom, like 50 common phrases and I kind of authenticator.
Jen
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin
You're like your mouth moves in, like similar motions.
Jen
Yeah.
Kevin
And so I'm like, I'm going to I want to like, in Nepali, I want to learn how to say like, Hi, how are you doing? And it's like, so da da da. I can't. I give up. I can't. I just tried to use Google Translate. We had translators with us, but like people watching is always a fun thing.
Kevin
People watching in that culture you have no connection to at all is wild and in it like just sensory overload. It was so much fun to try to orient yourself to that, and I think it was just a really good exercise of what marketers should always be doing in relationship to our customers of you can't just make assumptions, you can't not be curious, not be interested, you can't ever think, you know, But in this case, it was all like whether you wanted to pretend that you were comfortable and understood, you didn't.
Kevin
You were. You were starting out at zero. But I was with a couple other folks all week, and they never they never call it like they were there for a whole week. And they're still like, What did he say? Like our translator who's speaking English, They're still just like, What? I can't understand what he's saying or what is happening.
Kevin
And I found myself, I think just because that natural curiosity and body language and and context of for whatever reason, by like Wednesday, I'm like, I know what's going on. I don't I don't really know what's going on. But like, like this one, this one.
Jen
Lady comfortable with the uncomfortable like you were, you started to get like okay with the.
Kevin
Well, you're just you're I think it's also just learning which is my favorite thing in the world to do is to learn. So I'm I'm just constantly absorbing and and trying to translate that and how does it all, how do all the pieces fit together. And so this one example is we were in a remote village and this woman, there's a gentleman there and this wasn't what we did all the time, but find out that the guy is depressed and the wife and all the families there and the wife just starts going off like like my wife would, which helps.
Kevin
So, so she just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And she's making hand motions and I'm like, she's really mad at her husband because she wants to talk and be expressive. And he holds everything in and she doesn't understand why he can't just talk and be like and connect with her. I understood nothing of what she was saying, but I was like, I recognize that.
Kevin
And so what I'm the things I tell people is going to Nepal taught me to look at someone's eyes. His eyes are the same everywhere. And I think that's the other thing anyway. Anyway, I don't even know what the context of all this is, other than the insanely serious.
Jen
Yeah.
Kevin
And attentive. I think that's the other thing. Like in art school, when I would take studio classes, the first thing they teach you to do in drawing class is your connecting your eye with your hand. Most people don't look to see the actual thing we're abstracting. We're like, Oh, that's a bird. And you don't actually look at all the intricate details of the bird.
Kevin
You're just like, this is a bird. My brain says that birds are shaped like this, so let's draw this thing like no, just as your eye moves, move your hand. It's that same kind of connection that it's just especially refreshing when you do not get in a rut, but you start to over assume or you think you've got something down.
Kevin
You start paying attention and that's when you miss the market shifts or the consumer shifts for each. And we have the advantage of what we do. It is an advantage. We don't try to hide it working with so many different companies in so many different places, we're kind of always in this mode of like we're having to take what the builder is bringing to the call or what the data says, and we're abstracted away from it because we don't live in Iowa or California or wherever.
Kevin
So we can pick up those same cues. And it was just a really cool experience and maybe made me realize that like we have to keep being curious and attentive all the time.
Jen
Oh my gosh.
Kevin
Excel.
Jen
I love what you're saying. I love what you're saying because, you know, I take that and I think about it for online sales and I talk to them all the time about like, how do you active listen, you have to be curious and ask questions like if you're doing all the talking, you're not learning anything about them. Like if you were there in Nepal, like.
Kevin
Yeah.
Jen
You were observing, you were active listening, you were not.
Kevin
In a rush. I didn't have a choice. I couldn't talk. So that's all I could do was but like, take it in, right?
Jen
You know, you know, in online channels. I tell them all the time, like, ask questions, repeat back to people when they tell you something that helps you learn and connect with them more. Right. Don't interrupt. I love that And that.
Kevin
And then the the really like final connection piece of was interesting is how they use Tik tok there. Tik Tok in Nepal is not a performance art or even a storytelling art the way it is here. It's so prevalent and used by everyone for everything that everyone would want selfies or group pictures with us because we look strange to them, right?
Kevin
And so they're like, Hey, let's get a picture. It's get a picture. And someone would take a couple of pictures and then someone would be holding up the phone like this. John And they would they would just turn this and we're like, Hi, my girl. She's she's an every day. Every day is are you going to take the picture?
Kevin
They're just recording a Tik tok with no sound, no nothing. It's just going to get posted as here is this group of people standing, which I mean, maybe that stuff gets made and it just doesn't hit the algorithm in the U.S.. Tik Tok. But it was just like saying, yeah, it was. It was different. And so it was a blast.
Kevin
I would always get out of your comfort zone.
Jen
I loved your pictures.
Kevin
I mean.
Jen
Your pictures, you know, like just came into life. You know, as I was looking at images, they're just awesome.
Andrew
Did you did you bring for pictures?
Kevin
What equipment? Yeah. Are we talking nerd talk? Okay, So just like.
Andrew
Okay. Oh, no. All right.
Jen
I got to go now.
Kevin
Okay.
Andrew
Not this kind of work. I got to.
Jen
Go. Oh, I got to guess.
Kevin
No, no, this is it. Because we are an auto show.
Andrew
Like, I knew it had to be simple as far as insta go.
Kevin
Three. Okay, so it looks like a GoPro. It does here. And there. But the thing is, the camera pops out and so you can use a screen still see what you're recording, but I could inconspicuously it comes with a magnetic chest mount. So like Iron Man, that is so I could just record up to 45 minutes with it just stuck right here.
Kevin
No one even really looked at it. It it's.
Andrew
Completely it doesn't look like a camera.
Kevin
And it's and it's magnetic. So you can also just stick it on any metal object you find. So you're riding a tutu. Can you want to get a cool camera angle you just put in? It sucks on the side of the vehicle and you're driving down the Nepali highway at 40 kilometers an hour with bikes. And you know, it's just well, it's a.
Jen
It's the most interesting thing. You ate.
Kevin
Oh, wow. So. TOLLEY Well, yeah, by yoga, they really love their yogurt. So they like fermented yogurt with they grow mangoes there. That was interesting.
Andrew
Mangoes. So they're like almost tropical weather. But then there was a.
Kevin
Hot.
Andrew
Nepal is wherever it is, right? That's right.
Kevin
Yes. I so I'm going to add to my LinkedIn profile that, you know, climbed on it. I climbed Mount Everest because we were in the foothills of Mount Everest. I never saw it when I was on the ground. I didn't see it from the air that was really cool. But wow, even though I was right in front of it, it's so tall and there's other tall mountains in front of it.
Kevin
You can't see it. Yeah. So there is lots of cameras, lots of gear. Maybe that's a separate blog post.
Jen
But very cool.
Kevin
Yeah. All right, on to the news first up from Spark, TerraCom. This one's called An Employee's Guide to building a personal brand. And an article, of course, is great. That's why we pick it. But I'm just going to skip down to the personal brand rules for employees. Yeah, that's Prince's. This is really interesting. So if you're feeling stuck, consider these guardrails.
Kevin
Everyone, please. Like the number of times that these guardrails have been avoided by people in this industry, or just people generally that that we all know. Like, please don't do that.
Andrew
I can I can name those. I'm not naming names.
Kevin
Don't name names, but be mindful of your role within your company. You might not be the company spokesperson. You're your own spokesperson. Don't say or do anything. You wouldn't do it. Work. Give yourself topic guardrails. That's interesting in that yes, similar to what I think we mentioned before, Mark Davidson had to say and will say at the summit is, you know, you can't have a brand unless you are restrictive like this concept.
Kevin
I'm going to be my full self. Your full self is too complex to be a brand. And that's why personal branding is tough in that if you if you decide you're going to talk a little bit of everything, fewer people will connect with that with your personal brand because you're just all over the place. And those are people who know you and just like you.
Kevin
For you, that's fine by giving yourself topic, guardrails will improve your audience growth and and your sanity. And then when in doubt, stick with what you know. Hmm.
Andrew
Great. I like it. I wish I could add another one because someone on our team. I don't want to. I'd want to. I won't say the full story, but, like, she's like, look at this garbage. And it was a salesperson posting. They made their own graphic using the brand's logo, the company's logo now. And it was just terrible.
Andrew
It was just awful. The fans were wrong, like, but they put it look like the brand made it. And so then that should be another one. And they're like proper use of branding guidelines, which is of course nerdier. But like, I mean, the person there, I think they're not being incentivized, but they're being encouraged to like use their own social media to like get referrals and sales and whatnot.
Andrew
But like, oh my goodness, like it'd be better if they just took an iPhone photo, honestly, without any branding because then they throw the logo on there. It's like, Oh, what is this garbage? Then it looks like the brand is like kind of messy. Oh, that's an idea.
Jen
That's really a great article.
Kevin
It is.
Andrew
There's so much and it's written by an employee at Spark. Toro I believe 90% sure. So I'm like, This is even better.
Kevin
Yes. Well, I really like this is a good piece lifted from the article. Don't don't say I want to focus on my personal brand because that's crunchy and icky. Just saying it out loud. Instead, try saying I want to create leverage for myself. I want to make it easier to network with other people, and I want my ideas to serve as a magnet for the people and opportunities I want to attract.
Kevin
And I think that's what, you know, people are naturally connectors for and and go proactively networking. Or if you want to have a good network, you have to find reasons to draw people to you. And I like that definition a lot better of a great, you know, the algorithms do the work for you and that's why the topics do really matter what you decide you want to talk about.
Kevin
If you're going to talk about gardening one day and sales the next, unless gardening was an analogy for sales, it's confusing even to the algorithms to know who should see this content. And and once all the gardeners start interacting with your content, you might get de-emphasize to people who are interested in sales related content. So that's another way to I don't think it's covered in the article, but just also think that you're trying to make sure that the algorithms understand what your personal brand is as well.
Kevin
And air quotes. Great.
Jen
That makes sense.
Andrew
Yeah, I think set in other ways they hyperfocus.
Jen
Yeah you're yeah.
Andrew
Yeah I think that was I forgot his name on Instagram. He is like here's how the algorithm works and it's all what we assume. If people engage with your content, they'll see it more often. If they don't engage with your content by engage, it isn't just like a comment. If they're watching it and their screen time, they'll see your stories more often.
Andrew
If it's a story. So if you're all over the place, then the outdoor algorithm would be like, I don't know who to show this to. Now, the 50 people that really liked it don't like you anymore. Maybe the next batch of people will. Who knows?
Kevin
Yeah, well, everyone famously. You know, you're not supposed to put. If you want better reach on LinkedIn. Do not put the link in. Your post has to be a link in the comments. Why? Because like all social networks, LinkedIn doesn't want people leaving. They want people staying. And so this is again, some where friction should exist between sales and marketing.
Kevin
When salespeople come up with bad ideas or have bad habits, you know, it's no different than when social media first came around. Everyone was like, Well, you got to put their phone number and our hours on the post. Like, I don't know if you remember that, like early Facebook, like.
Jen
Yeah.
Kevin
How are people going to know what to do if you don't give them your phone number, give them more hours and put the physical address of the location and say, come see us today when no one wants to interact with that garbage content again we're having. You have to negotiate with the algorithms. And the algorithms have their own motives and their own things are trying to achieve.
Kevin
They don't want people leaving. And so how weird does it feel to post a piece of content or a clip of a piece of content and not say, Click here to go see the whole thing, or click here to learn more. Every sales person in the world would be like these Marketers don't know what they're doing. The marketers are like, If you want the biggest reach possible, we can't do that thing that you really want to do.
Kevin
You've got to be patient. Yeah, well, that's that's hard. Kevin It is. It's hard for marketers to.
Jen
Who in the organization responsible for like if you see sales doing something that is against this person's operating guidelines.
Kevin
Their online sales coach, and that's that's who's in charge. Jen That's how much a conversation.
Andrew
As Jen.
Kevin
That's good. That's a that's a that's really mean.
Andrew
Who should be in charge of that.
Jen
Serious like.
Kevin
Well.
Andrew
Because it needs to be someone you can't say no to in my opinion. Like you cannot go against that person.
Jen
That marketing leadership. Is it sales leadership?
Kevin
Listen to me. This is one of the rules. I mean, if you're we're going to big companies then and this isn't a hard question because let's be honest, the larger your company gets, people generally are more okay with being jerks to each other when necessary. Right? You're just like, hey, you're you're doing this wrong. Stop it. I've seen 40 other people on this email, right?
Kevin
That that's what you do in a big company in a in a medium or small size company. It shouldn't matter who the person is or the title. Right. And I think the bigger thing is the technique of saying, what are you trying to accomplish? And that's that's that's how you always get people to be great teammates, is you don't say, stop doing that.
Kevin
I can't believe you used our logo inappropriately, you know, Don't you understand? We have brand standards. Look at this demerits for you. You just say, what do you what are you trying to do? How can we help?
Jen
Yeah, let me help you. I was going to say, that's.
00:37:20:23 - 00:37:31:00KevinThat's. Can we help you? Yeah. Agreed. Oh, you want people to engage with your content over time? Okay, then.
Jen
Not like to.
Kevin
Comment. We're not going to say, well.
Andrew
Today I want them to call today.
Kevin
Okay. That that's actually a great role play. So you want them to call you John, right? Let's do this. Yeah. Yeah, I'll call you. Okay. So no one wants to call someone they don't know and aren't sure yet if they even are interested in what you have to offer. And the little slice we're giving them doesn't have enough context.
Kevin
So what we have to do is go a couple steps before the call. What would be the thing that in the consumer's mind you think would happen before they choose to call you? What else would you like them to do if they're not going to call you today? What's the thing that would lead them to calling you that you'd like them to do?
Jen
I'd like them to look at my website and get some information.
Kevin
There we go. So, yeah, you're just you're helping them understand that we can get to where you want to go.
Jen
I just wanna recall me.
Kevin
We can't skip those steps.
Jen
No, it seems to be. I say that, you know, I'm not trying to be, but. But this is. This is what happens, right? Is just put my number on there. Just, you know, I want to talk to, you know, and.
Kevin
And and honestly, I think a lot of this goes back on marketers not looking far enough into the future. Again, we all can time travel just pull out a calendar and you can transport yourself into the end of next month. Right. Like so if the salesperson is is crying on the phone saying, I just want him to call me because they only have one cell in on a sales goal of three and they've only had four appointments the entire month.
Kevin
That's shame on shame on everyone. Managers, marketers, operations folks who's been monitoring the data, knowing this person has no chance in hell of hitting their sales goal. And why do we let them just, you know, like like look around like a a lost a lost fish in a fishbowl until the day before. And in a moment of panic, say, I just need people to call me buy a house today.
Kevin
Today. All right. Next up from Zillow's media room, Zillow and Redfin announce a partnership to help buyers and homebuilders connect. This is a this is a big win win win all around for everyone. I think So. Basically, the the content for new construction will come from Zillow's content library. They'll be syndicating the content through to Redfin and in particular because Redfin's had new construction content on it for a while, it's going to be adding the community pages and some of the additional product features that Zillow has created for the new construction product over the last several years.
Kevin
So Redfin gets better content to display to all of Redfin's users that they don't have to worry about building and maintaining. That comes through through Zillow. Zillow gets additional exposure for new construction listings on Redfin, which short story short, when another syndication site kind of similarly imploded a while ago. I'm going to get hate mail just for mentioning that.
Kevin
But, you know, something happened out there in the world and several builders that we work with just said choosing not to work with a syndication partner anymore. But they were feeding data to Redfin and they were they were not concerned about kind of the core product. They were concerned about my homes won't show up on Redfin the way I want.
Kevin
So Redfin has always been surprising. It's a great website, it's a great user experience. But even folks who aren't in typical Redfin markets really covet the Redfin audience. And so that so it's a win for Zillow and for Redfin and a win for marketers who use Zillow to to promote those listings. So there's not it's not very often where you see an announcement.
Kevin
You're like kind of like who won? Who lost in this announcement? I don't think anyone lost anything on Wednesday.
Andrew
No, no one losing on this call.
Kevin
Next up from builder online dot com came okay new do they not own builder magazine dot com is there a different URL? Am I the only one who wonders this? Come on builder. Anyway, new home sales dipped 2.5% in June. Sales slid slightly month over month, but are up 23.8% year over year according to the census. So down new home sales volume down 2.5% June compared to May, but year over year up 23%.
Kevin
Isn't that.
Andrew
Interesting? If they were to say new home sales up 23.8% would be like one. The world's happening as far as like the buyer perception on that versus demand. They're like, oh, the sky is falling, Prices will be super low soon, but you said opposite people like, oh my goodness, I better get some urgency, like it's getting more expensive out there or whatever, maybe.
Jen
But while even just like looking at.
Andrew
The story, you want.
Jen
Numbers, you know, like it's in line with that. Like our our builder partners, like I'm just looking at averages and what we saw an increase in appointment to the sale and the been Q2 and looking at 2022 sales averages and 2023 sales averages it's up.
Kevin
Yeah. And July for most people, you know the first week with the holiday and lots of people traveling slower but the me in the back half of July who it's cranking the number of people who are just like we hit half of our sales goal in the last four days of the month and really continuing into August and rates taking higher.
Kevin
Are higher rates starting to become like a a good thing for new construction? You could argue like they have been, but I wonder if it's even more so making it better because builders have these I mean, there's more value like 5% as a bought down interest rate is kind of like like I'm I'm desensitized to it. I mean the average consumer isn't.
Jen
It seems that.
Kevin
Stuff up but.
Andrew
I thought I saw someone with a 3.9 the other day.
Kevin
Yeah. These are 30 year fixed mortgage.
Andrew
So I was thinking.
Jen
Well, we'll pay for your refinancing, too.
Kevin
Mm hmm.
Jen
So, like, so know, this.
Kevin
Is from Ali Wolf, the chief economist is on to both. Supply and demand are down for housing. Given higher interest rates, today's housing market is all about finding the right buyer for the right home at the right price. And that's a challenge compared to the resale market, though new home builders are doing a better job working with consumers and are gaining market share.
Andrew
Yeah, we had that Kevin article. He sent a few of us.
Kevin
Mm hmm.
Andrew
Builders have to build, Builders build. That's what they do. So they have to sell compared to resale. It's. It's realtors. Realtors gonna sell now. Realtors will sell when they have the opportunity with a listing to sell. But, you know, builders are making the market. I don't if that makes any sense. What I just said the realtors there between the transaction but no one's forcing a seller a homeowner me to list the home.
Andrew
But builders are like, we have to sell. We have a company we have revenue to. Great. And so we'll make it work. And that's where that's where I take the higher interest rates are pushing more people to builders.
Kevin
What's the.
Jen
I mean, the home buyers that are out there have to move and.
Kevin
Move.
Jen
New home builders are getting this getting those buyers because there's nothing else on the market. So.
Kevin
Yeah, is it is it Kesha who sings the song that has the lyrics like Don't Stop.
Andrew
That's for sure. Kesha Yeah.
Jen
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very good.
Kevin
Kevin Good job. Here's the only thing that makes me nervous. This is our next article is also from Builder Online Spec Strategy Drives Record due to Home closings and revenue for Meritage Homes. Listen, there's Really only two options for builders right now. If you want to maintain velocity, the number of units that you are selling in a year, you are building more specs and that strategy works until it doesn't.
Kevin
But I feel like the whole industry is singing this song of of just please don't stop market because if you get caught and whenever this happens and it always does happen, it's going to be a double whammy because at the same time, all of these specs will need to be urgently sold by builders. The the used market will return at that exact same moment.
Kevin
And I someone I don't have it for this this show but we'll try to get it for next week. Someone just did a survey that found that like one out of every four or five homeowners plans to sell their home they live in in the next like three years.
Jen
So that makes total sense to me because.
Kevin
Terrifying.
Jen
I know, but.
Kevin
I wouldn't live through. Okay.
Jen
I know. But I just think that maybe I misunderstood what you're saying, but I just think that there was a lot of people who bought during the pandemic, like as a, you know, and didn't really buy what they wanted. Just bought some.
Kevin
Sell.
Andrew
Because of lack of supply. Like, I need a home.
Jen
Like, yeah, like I don't care or you know, there was just limited and whatever and I think there's going to be a lot of people that are like, I want to move now like I don't this isn't my forever home. I just needed something. I bought it and.
Kevin
I think it was a zonder data report that I saw. Zonda owns Builder magazine as well that showed that I think it was Indianapolis Market and they showed the the START data for spec spec of the inventory in Indianapolis and it had come way down from the peak in January, February of this year, I think. And the question was like, are builders going to replace that?
Kevin
And the top ten builders who are building inventory, pedal the metal like Meritage on our as famously said, we're just going to keep building. D.R. Horton, of course, is going to keep building. And so they are going to gain market share as long as as long as they have that strategy, because a lot of the smaller private builders are like, I mean, we'll keep doing some inventory, but we're not going to go as extreme as we have been because we're concerned about the fourth quarter or where things might go.
Kevin
So don't stop, let it rock. What's the D.J. play that song tonight? What? I don't know. The lyrics, that song.
Jen
Well, let's just forget it.
Andrew
Oh, I have an interruption. Maybe this won't replace Thanks article, but it's random. There's a community that built a spec so this is they built spec townhomes. They did not presale.
Kevin
And that's what I'm saying. It's very common now. Everyone's like, we don't need to be.
Andrew
Location.
Kevin
To build specs.
Andrew
Like I'm like, why would they not pre-sell like am I brand? I'm like, they would have the whole thing would been sold because.
Kevin
They want to maximize their costs and profit margin. I want to know to the penny what so they can maximize and.
Jen
They're creating certainty.
Kevin
They are creating certainty. They're truly building certainty and in profit margin and their theory, which is currently correct, is that every month they don't sell it, it will become worth more. Yeah, right. Right now, values are going up again. Interesting. But that's my point.
Andrew
Another marketing. That's terrible. So like there's there's maybe that seems much more intelligent but the market I'm like, oh my gosh.
Kevin
Like no, I mean, it all makes sense. There's reasons why, but I'm just telling you that, that some projects like that are financed with debt, that it's on a razor's edge like they have to get those units sold within like 45 days of them being done or the whole thing will go under the bank, will repossess it, turn it around, sell off the parts.
Kevin
And most likely that won't happen. But at some point it will for.
Jen
Sounds very scary.
Kevin
I'm not trying to be scary. I mean, looks like we're probably in on it. Like we're going to be selling more or less. I think just.
Jen
More like to create certainty for the builder, but it also creates certainty for the buyer because you know sometimes the pre sell, right? Then it's like, well it's hard to envision what that will be, what will be going on.
Kevin
Right.
Andrew
To you know we went for Kesha we'll go to Billy Joel. Honesty is such a lonely word. So that's all Kevin's doing. He's been the most honest. Here we go. But his name.
Kevin
Sometimes it's things you don't want to know, by the way, here, Like, you know, like sometimes owners are like, You don't need to tell us all that. Like, just let us live in our.
Andrew
Live our life.
Kevin
All right, Last article for the week from The Guardian, the Everything app, Why Elon Musk wants X to be a WeChat for the West. So we chat is not WhatsApp. First of all, I've had several conversations. People like I use WeChat all the time and I'm like, What do you do on WeChat thinking they're going to talk about these other things that the Super app can do and they're like, I text people from other countries.
Kevin
I'm like, That's WhatsApp. That's a different.
Andrew
Facebook.
Kevin
They're an app also green color. But this idea of a super app and Zillow wants to be a super app for real estate, what does that mean that that means they want multiple use cases for the Zillow operate. Now what do you do? You Zillow on the Zillow app, you make a connection and then a lot of that stuff after that connection goes offline or on other websites that they own, like dot loop, they want to bring everything within one app.
Kevin
So imagine if like and I don't think this is what they've said and probably is a terrible idea, but imagine you're in the process of buying or selling a home and at some point you're using the Zillow up so much that just says like, hey, for $50 during the entire course of you buying or selling, you could do everything here.
Kevin
It would keep track of everything for you, all the paperwork here, all the pictures, all the comments, all the discussions, everything is contained in this one app and this archived experience for 50 bucks. Like I would do that and sign me up. Yeah, just.
Andrew
I mean, it's only 30 bucks.
Kevin
But I'm evens try and so Twitter is dead or we're moving on to x but he wants x to be like WeChat meaning get ready for I mean people were immediately asking like, okay, if Twitter is not Twitter, is it still called a tweet? You still retweet? Do you X? What do you what is what's all the lingo?
Kevin
And he's basically saying, look, Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech. That's a question mark. I feel like I have to say that even though I think generally he is trying to do that as an accelerator for X, the Everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing.
Kevin
Twitter made sense when was this hundred 40 characters going back and forth? But he wants you to be able to buy, sell, play games, do whatever you want to do is basically well, WeChat, for those of you who are familiar with WeChat and other countries like it is, it is the Internet. It's like 80, 85% of all Web traffic in some Southeast Asian countries goes through WeChat.
Andrew
Wouldn't that be.
Kevin
It's Facebook combined with Spotify.
Andrew
Kind of like government policy, really influences that.
Jen
I don't know their use.
Andrew
I mean, this is like now we're outside of scope of what I know like, like China, right?
Kevin
Like, yeah, but WeChat is also used, I believe in like Brazil and I mean, so it's it's not a communist plot is like, like we want to see.
Andrew
We're going there that we're going to have to talk about next week. Let's do that.
Jen
Oh, can I come back?
Kevin
Maybe there's a comment. I don't know.
Andrew
I don't know. I'm just thinking like is it's popular and what seems to be more restricted or I've never been to other countries culturally, but like people like, oh, this country is amazing. Like, their culture is so much different than our culture. Like, we are.
Kevin
Like, well, I think like the underdog there is still like to try to keep to try to keep Jen from falling asleep on us.
Jen
Now I am I'm thinking about this. I don't.
Kevin
Know. Do you use Snapchat at all with your kids? So I.
Jen
I have, but I'm not on there regularly. No, I'm not in the habit.
Kevin
I used to be. If you use Snapchat I think is has one of the worst UI like user interfaces. Intentionally so. Intentionally so to make it hard for old people to catch on rap crappy.
Jen
Really.
Kevin
So if you know you know think about how again matter rolled out threads you want to get on threads you got to know how to type and you click this weird ticket thing and the thing spins around. You get access right. It was a this is intentionally like strange or difficult to get to. You can use Snapchat for years like I did and not know that there is some core functionality that every all the kids are using.
Kevin
Yeah, once you know it's there and you're like, Oh, of course you just click this over here and now you can see where all your friends are and you can do this thing and that thing. I think WeChat, it just, it's like this never ending spiral of like catching. All my friends are here, I'm all connected. If I want to play a game or order food or watch a movie or like, it's just all in all in one one spot and it's to my bank account and my credit card.
Jen
And and I guess the the old lady in me does have like I would be hesitant to add everything connected I guess is what I'm saying.
Kevin
Like what? Yeah, well.
Jen
I don't know if I would.
Kevin
Want. That's why I think you want. So what does the island have going for him? Yes. Tesla. If X becomes the way to gain access to or control your Tesla and he's like, forget the Tesla app, it's now part of X. You want to get access to your car, you're going to X. Oh, and by the way, you can also communicate with people and follow Ashton Kutcher and, you know, do this and do that.
Kevin
All in the same place. Yeah, but the history of the US has generally been that things don't. What's the word I'm looking for? Converge? Things generally don't converge the way we expect them to where like like you could back in the eighties or the early nineties you could get a really nice boom box I android you know what a boom boxes.
Kevin
Yeah Have you seen that movie say anything?
Andrew
Oh I don't if I'd seen a movie but I definitely had a.
Jen
Oh my gosh.
Andrew
So anything that was probably Gen might have graduated high school when I came out I was 49.
Kevin
You know you've got you've got the Boombox, which has a tape player, has the radio, it has.
Andrew
Like standing with it.
Kevin
A lot of things on one. Yeah. But rack systems were the deal. Like if you were really into audio you had a rack system because each component was exponentially better or higher quality or whatever. And so the idea is you're going to converge. And we do have convergence in the phone for a lot of things in our life, but almost everything else that we tend to go towards specialized tasks for an object, even though it could like go in your kitchen.
Kevin
Alton Brown I got I got this thing from when I saw him in person autograph. I mean, I love it, but one of his rules is like nothing in my kitchen can only do one thing. Everything. My kitchen has to have three purposes. I mean, for I don't like you could you could have a bazillion gadgets that all do one thing.
Kevin
True.
Jen
Because then you have less and it's more efficient is what you're saying.
Kevin
Yeah, but that's not generally where, like, our stuff obsessed culture goes. We're like.
Andrew
We were like premium.
Kevin
The we'll get the doodad that does the one thing like super amazing I use it twice and then throw it away.
Andrew
I feel like this only will work if there's either acquisition of like Venmo or Cash app or they partnered together. Somehow we're then it's like enough people that fit the right of.
Jen
Five didn't say Spotify.
Kevin
So yeah, I don't know if anyone cares that we're still talking about this really, But like, where did he on come from? PayPal.
Jen
We lost everybody, everybody on space.
Kevin
Ellen Ellen came from PayPal, so it's not it would not be weird to be like, Hey, PayPal's struggling excuse me, PayPal is struggling as a corporation. Let's just acquire them. Let's roll them into X. Hey, let's grab a Spotify now. I've got music I made. You know, Spotify has as much video content on it. Now. There's no no.
Kevin
Like, if you if you want to try to control your you want to try to control your eight year old screen time when you're thinking, well, but he likes listening to his kids music on Spotify now. Now there's like entire playlists that are just YouTube videos on Spotify for you to watch.
Andrew
Yeah, sounds sounds like someone got their iPad taken away after that.
Kevin
Yeah, they did. Yeah.
Andrew
I'm sure that's like a sounds like our house.
Kevin
Oh, goodness. All right, let's go to favorites and get the heck out of here. Do we have favorites? I can go first if you're if you need a second.
Jen
You my favorite thing right now is are my new Hoka walking shoes.
Kevin
Oh, interesting.
Jen
Do you guys have. Yes, it is. Yeah, It's okay. They're super kind of like clumsy looking.
Andrew
I mean, I ask Olivia on her team if they're okay to wear or not.
Jen
She's hot. I think Olivia would have.
Andrew
This.
Jen
Detector. I think Olivia would approve.
Kevin
We did ask everyone on the marketing team today who owns Crocs. There are only two people who raise their hand, so they own crocs for themselves. They're back, And I think they're also good style.
Andrew
People ask us out, Does Sam have crocs?
Jen
Absolutely.
Andrew
And I see where socks with them.
Jen
Absolutely.
Kevin
Absolutely is. It's Dr. Seuss socks with Crocs.
Andrew
He prefers Nike socks with.
Kevin
Locks.
Andrew
Nike other like that, like there.
Kevin
Are. All right, cool. So you got shoes, Andrew what about you?
Andrew
Meaning favorites. I've had a because my new schedule so I wake up, I drink coffee in the morning which coffee would be hit or miss? But most of the we get our coffee. I still love my Nespresso machine. Oh, but here's the thing. I'm like, What is this on the counter? I thought I was making a mess on the counter.
Andrew
I think it's broken like something's leaking out of the bottom. It's just like, Oh, I'm like, I.
Jen
And then it's like a little thin thing, like.
Andrew
Kevin Well, the spin thing called different, different budget category, but I think they might be a longer I'm.
Jen
Over here in the kitchen.
Kevin
My PR Oh, when you have to buy those pod things for you.
Andrew
That's what I made this. This was like a dollar 20. I think the spent thing might actually in six months like pay for it.
Kevin
The spend does use more coffee in the process. I think because it so it seems to consume whole being coffee at a faster rate than you would expect per cup.
Andrew
So I have to do my I'll throw it in Excel but it's good analysis. So what happens.
Kevin
Oh I'm going to go with closing clothing to Jen, which is a shocker for Kevin. Yes, but cool. Q hl I think is how you pronounce company. And then there's another one called Howitzer. I think it's like a monkey. But their shirts that I got going to Nepal because it's 120 degrees in the sun, 105 in the shade.
Kevin
And so it's these shirts that are made out of essentially bathing suit material. And I'm wearing one now and it feels great and like, you can sweat like a pig. And then five.
Jen
Minutes later, a fever, covered fever. Yes.
KevinNo, I love it.
AndrewI'll take it.
KevinThey they don't wrinkle. They're just like a perfect shirt for summer, which is almost over. Sadly. Very cool. All right.
AndrewWell, the favorites.
KevinThat'll do it for this week. We'll see you next time, everyone.
JenThanks, guys.
KevinYeah, Bye bye.

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 295: Utilizing Meaningful Information to Create Impactful Content with Barbara Wray

In this episode, Kevin Oakley sits down with Barbara Wray, the Senior Vice President of Strategic Growth at Wick Marketing. Barbara shares an inside look at their nationwide study of new home buyers and shares the process that led them to inspect the attitudes, aspirations and motivations instead of just looking at the demographic. They discuss the results from the survey and share their thoughts on both the positive and negative outcomes as well as the results that builders should pay the most attention to.

Kevin and Barbara discuss:

• Wick Marketing’s investment in a nationwide study to learn more about the attitudes, aspirations and motivations of today’s new home buyers. You can play with the results here: https://wickmarketing.com/research/ 
• Foregoing the typical demographic method and finding a more meaningful approach to get at the heart of people buying homes.
• The trust gap towards builders and ways they can work to reverse that.
• Mapping out the buying process and getting it into the buyers hands early as well as making sure they’re educated and understand financing.
• Make sure your customer has access to the resources they need to make the best decisions for them.

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] or call 404-369-2595 and we’ll address them on the next episode. More insights, discussions, and opportunities in the Market Proof Marketing Facebook group.

Subscribe on iTunes > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-itunesFollow on Spotify > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-spotifyListen On Stitcher > https://now.doyouconvert.com/mpm-stitcher
A 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!

 

Market Proof Marketing · Ep 294: Marketing Is Like An Onion

In this episode, Andrew Peek, Beth Russell and Julie Jarnagin discuss the blend of being both coach and strategist but that it’s okay to choose one path and go for it: don’t be someone you’re not, be the best version of you! Beth shares that her favorite marketing phrase is “marketing is like an onion" meaning there are layers and layers to be pulled back and discovered.  At the end of the day, they agree that the unpredictability of the market may just be the new normal.

Story Time (08:01)

• The wrong tile was installed in Beth’s house but luckily was credited back the cost. Her second story is that people forget sales priorities are different from marketing priorities and if leadership doesn’t recognize that, it leads to chaos.
  
• Julie has been taking over some builders while Jackie is out and is having to flip mindsets from coach to strategist.
• Andrew finds he has more patience for the technical work in the morning and the more personable work in the afternoon.

News (22:02)

• Have Seasonal Housing Market Trends Returned? (https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/data-seasonal-trends)
• Pending home sales rose 0.3% in June, the first increase in 3 months (https://www.housingwire.com/articles/pending-home-sales-rose-0-3-in-june-the-first-increase-in-3-months/)
• Business Genius Elon Musk Says He's Changing Twitter's Name (https://futurism.com/elon-musk-changing-twitter-name)
• New HBI Report Shines Spotlight on Labor Shortages (https://www.nahb.org/blog/2023/07/hbi-construction-labor-market-report-spring-2023)
  

Favorites (41:25)

• Julie has a laser printer that aided her in sending out her many book copies!
• Beth’s favorite is Julie's book! And also Farmhaus Burger.
• Andrew loves Key West and has just returned from vacationing there.

Questions? Comments? Email [email protected] 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 Stitcher
A 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!