Okay, it isn’t football season (yet…the pre-season is not far off…). Rather than talk about presidential politics, the economy, what it means to you that more people are moving to the country or a plethora of possible topics, we’ll talk about the wisdom of growing manufactured housing. Specifically, how your firm can sustainably expand your marketing reach and profit during these still challenging times, while others grow too.
Let’s look at moving the ball down the field for manufactured housing at your location, market(s) and state(s).
Just Imagine…
You are in a meeting room. The speaker asks a group of industry pros this question. Have you ever had the experience of walking someone – not necessarily a home shopper – enter the living room and kitchen of a nicely decorated modern manufactured home (MH) for the first time?
How many of you have had that person ‘new’ to today’s MH say words to the effect, “I didn’t know that manufactured homes could be so nice!”
If you’ve been in the industry a while, as I have, odds are good you had that gratifying experience a number of times. When I ask rooms with MHPros that question, almost every hand shoots up.
What does that tell us? Simple. Getting people to see, touch and experience MH is a key step to advancing our industry’s causes, including the cause of selling more homes to future happy home owners.
The Canceled Sale
Let’s ask the reverse question. Do you – or someone you know – on the front lines of MH sales that have experienced a would-be home buyer, who has applied and been approved, only to cancel the sale shortly after the approval?
If you’ve been in the industry even a few months and are or know those in front line MH sales, you know that experience too. The reasons they cancel? It often amounts to stigma, stereotypes or dated (or flat wrong) information, that might have been true 38+ years ago, but is no longer valid today. But the fact that someone got them to change their minds – ‘My mom (dad, fiance, boy friend, girl friend, co-worker, cousin, or _____________ fill in the blank) told me that I should get a regular house, because (_____________fill in the blank on maybe once applicable MH stereotypes).’
Happy Birthday, HUD Code Manufactured Housing!
We are fast approaching the 39th birthday of the HUD Code for manufactured housing taking effect, which occurred on June 15, 1976. How will YOU celebrate that date? What will your association, or company do to celebrate or mark that occasion?
Let’s suggest that manufactured housing must grow again to be more than a boutique or niche industry. Among the reasons home lenders aren’t coming into MH, is that we are too small to attract their attention. If we were 3 times our roughly 65,000 annual new home shipments size and growing, you’d see lenders starting to sit up, take notice and jump in lending on our homes.
The answer to:
- political
- zoning
- finance
- marketing
- sales
- image
are all remarkably similar. Its education. That education can come from story telling. Those stories must come from MH Pros, from the millions of MH Home Owners who like and love their home, from those outside our industry proper but who know us well and respect MH.
Video Story telling to the Rescue!
Some who would NEVER listen to ‘a sales pitch,’ will listen to a video that tells a story. People who would NEVER watch a commercial, will watch an interview.
Example links for our info-tainment image/education campaign links…
http://manufacturedhomelivingnews.com/the-tidmore-home-exclusive-video-for-inside-mh/
Is this working? We Provide, You Decide. © Some facts.
April 2015 on MHLivingNews.com enjoyed record page views month; Then May doubled April in page views! At the current pace, there will be over a million annual visits; and growing. We are just getting started! Clearly, those who are coming, like what they see.
More bottom line focused?
- We have locations saying they are directly benefiting from the videos on the site; including firms who are not direct participants.
- Some who haven’t sold a high dollar new home in their MHC in years are now doing so.
- Sales are rising for those who invest in marketing, education and sales training with us.
Growing MH sales grows everything the industry touches. Remember, our mantra and experience is that the site built customer must be won over in stages. They have cash or good credit because they take their time and think things through.
We’ll cover this more in the days ahead. Until then, you may want to see what Sunshine Home’s CEO John Bostick had to say about the on-the-record, which reflects the thoughts of others who are ‘in’ but not yet shouting it from the rooftops.
MH Image and Education Campaign – Open Letter to the Manufactured and Modular Home Industry
Anyone can link up a video. Videos and articles like the above on MHLivingnews can be posted on your Facebook page, or those links can be part of a blog post. Giant UMH has RSS feed links to MHLivingNews.com on their home page, as do other companies and associations.
One person pulling a heavy load may not budget it much. Two, better, four, easier still and so on. The more we have that pull at this load directly or indirectly, the more rapidly we can get MH Image – and sales – up. The more Americans who discover our incredible value, the more of their friends will buy too. ##
