But instead, we get news stories like the one referenced in this Daily Business News brief linked here. The full original story by the Salt Lake Tribune carries the typical slants we have sadly come to expect. While there is a nod by the Tribune towards ‘balance,’ in fact, by ending and focusing more on the sour notes, the story makes community owners and our industry look bad. For example, the Trib article referenced a 9 year old AARP report at the end of their article. The thrust or the article is to make residents of manufactured home communities appear oppressed and abused by management.
Repeated examples of “news” like this harms us with consumers, politicos and public officials.
This is part of what reflects how all too often our industry has been cornered.
MH-ADL?
We as industry professionals must realize that we will never escape such “news coverage” until we start doing a robust job of promoting ourselves in every major market in the country. The Anti-Defamation League fights anti-antisemitism. Where is our equivalent?
We must also be keenly aware that creating happy consumers is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do in terms of building our industry’s image. When hearings are held by a small group of anti-industry protestors, where are our happy homeowners to counter those voices?
Whenever we stand up for our industry, we are arguably also protecting the self-image of our home owners and also protecting the value of their homes.
Common Sense Promotion
There are promotional activities that don’t require millions of dollars – as nice as that would be – to do a GoRVing style campaign. I admire and respect what the RV industry has done with that effort. Our industry repeatedly passed on that opportunity, and I’ll bet there are those who look back and say to themselves “what was I thinking?” But let’s not get stuck in the past, rather, let’s look to the present and future to identify what we need to do to improve our professional performance.
Promotion requires is engaged professionals at the state or market level.
This is ideally association based work, but it could also be done by a group of forward-looking professionals in a market if an association can’t or doesn’t want to get involved.
A committee of volunteers among owners and managers – composed of professionals who can cogently formulate a reply to the media – ought to be the members of such a committee. Among the benefits of doing so is that those who volunteer would likely gain over time an enhanced reputation in their market.
Such a media committee would look at the kind of negative news that has come out in recent years in their or other markets. They would come up with sound replies. They ought to rehearse and drill once a month with the facts on how they would ‘reply’ to a news reporter. Whenever a negative story comes out, they would step forward, contact the outlet involved, and offer to become “professional resources” for the local media when stories involving our industry arrise.
That would be a prudent beginning.
Beyond such a media committee:
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Every state should pay a few grand to create a website that would be a consumer/media/public officials resource.
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That website should be maintained with routine local ‘good news’ updates. Get happy resident and happy home owner testimonials on video, along with written stories and photos. Get the picture?
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Every association member – or media committee member, etc.- ought to have links from that website and every member gets to proudly display a sign saying they are members of that group.
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Such an online resource would boost sales, plus give associations that create such a tool a strong method for attracting and maintains membership. Such association’s mantra would be“We protect and promote your business!”
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Most associations already have a code of conduct and it must be so for all, because when we have happy customers, that is crucial in the modern internet era where a bad news story could go viral and create harm.
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When a business has truly done wrong, that should be acknowledged and ought not to be defended. As one wise association exec said last year, ‘our job is not to protect those who do wrong.’
On the local, state and national level, our industry has allowed itself to get cornered. We didn’t have the wisdom back in the late 90s to do what was necessary then, and we see ourselves get battered and bruised by issues like the SAFE Act, Dodd-Frank and local/state legislation such as the story linked above. That Salt Lake Tribune stories is symptomatic of similar such ‘news stories’ in states from coast to coast. Industry image clearly ties in with this, and a lack of proper media engagement fuels it too.
Coming out of the corner, swinging
Will we tap into the opportunities caused by:
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Resale home inventories are down.
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New home construction is rising.
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Rents are rising.
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Incomes are down.
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10,000 boomers a day are retiring.
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All of these facts plus the need for some 20,000,000 new housing units by 2030
are strong motivators that promise big potentials for record profits for factory builders, retailers, communities and others involved in our industry.
But until we step out of the corner, we will continue to be third choice, or last resort housing for millions of Americans instead of being respected for the amazing phenomenon we truly are.
Factory built homes ought to be the future in America! That will become reality as soon as you and enough other professionals stop talking about it and say, here is the line. We are going to stop “taking it” and start promoting it.
We either define ourselves, or others will define us
When we are defined by others, we get cornered and harmed. That sad fact is that tens of millions of Americans get harmed right along with us in the process.
Change often doesn’t happen until people are forced to change. So in an paradoxical way, the good news is that we are cornered. We have hit that point where we must change – we must evolve – or we will get more marginalized and eventually fade away.
The fact that some companies do a good job proves that others can too, and that collectively we could do better and move from survive to thrive as a result.
Write and email or pick up the phone and get your association engaged in this issue. Don’t take the ‘oh, we tried that years ago’ nonsense as an answer. That is slow suicide for professionals.
Are you willing to come out from the corner? Are you willing to help a small group of others start a movement in your state to do the same? Please feel free to contact us here at MHProNews.com as a resource in starting any such effort. ##
