Location, Location, Location . . . version 2013

During my years with Mr. (Dick) Moore, we have had numerous discussions concerning the ‘ingredients’ for a successful sales center. Throughout those many talks, a factor repeatedly mentioned is, as they say in the retail game, “Location, Location, Location.” The value of an attractive sales center with good-looking homes to tour cannot be understated. It is as important today as 25+ years ago, possibly even more so.

“Location” in the world of 2013 can have an entirely different meaning than in the 80’s and 90’s.

Our two sales centers in the Memphis/Mid-South region feature road frontage on major thoroughfares, with high traffic counts every day. But our most important ‘road frontage’ in this day’s operations has to be our display/sales center on the Information Superhighway!

We have all heard about the increasing importance of the Internet in selling our homes. Just how important that digital presence might be can be under-estimated by someone not familiar with today’s online shoppers.

Please allow me to share a tale of two houses “A Tale of Two Houses” with you. As you may know, Tunica MS is very near Memphis. At this year’s show, we bought one of the display houses (with all the Tunica Show décor) from one of our manufacturers. The house is beautiful! We brought it to our Millington sales center and set it up, dressed to the nines with the show décor.

The company that handles our web-site activity for us came and took pictures and video of the home. On April 29, while we were in Davenport, IA attending a meeting, we posted the house “live” with full streaming video to our website.

We have implemented a policy of full pricing on the site for our homes. There are a lot of opinions about that concept, and I’m not going to get into that discussion here. BUT, if I may continue with my Tale….

At approximately 10.30 am on Monday, April 29, the Tunica Show house went live on our site. Wednesday morning, May 1, as we were driving back toward Memphis, I got a call from my sales center manager Michelle Chessor, who began the call with “Bob, remember how you say it’s easier to ask forgiveness than get permission?” With bated breath, I said, “Yes, Why?”

Michelle proceeded to tell me about the previous 24 hours of texts and emails concerning the Tunica Show house! Seems that a couple were looking at that posting on our site on Monday, the 29^th, and the wife called Michelle on Tuesday to say “I’ll take it at the price you have shown.” Wow!

Tuesday, April 30, was full of texts and emails between our prospect and Michelle, until around 8.30 pm that evening. Michelle left the e-conversation with the prospect confirming that she would send her daughter over to our center (about 45 miles away) on Wednesday morning with a check to take the house off the market. At that point, Michelle told me she still thought that it was a ‘maybe.’

So why was the forgiveness needed? Wednesday morning, May 1, the daughter didn’t show up – the entire family came in to look at the home! During the in-person tour, the husband decided that the living room in the Tunica Show house wasn’t as big as he wanted.

But what’s the forgiveness for? Michelle switched the prospect from the new house to another (older) lot model that the husband really liked, and also spec’d out a RSO unit to the same people! One house advertised on the web, two houses sold off it within 48 hours!

We are pleased to see that the results of the web-site advertising seem to be sustaining. Since May 1, 10 of the 13 new-house deals closed have originated from the web! And here’s the kicker: The invoice of every one of these houses has been more than the average sales price of the previous 12 months!

We have experienced 10-minute cash sales from the web, customers coming in with their first question “Where is the house that I saw on your website?” and even a contact from Virginia Beach inquiring about a buy-for house for the parents, who live in north Mississippi. That one hasn’t gelled yet, but we do have an email reply stating intent for the daughter and her brother to fly down in the near future to meet with our sales center manager.

BTW, all of our web-site efforts are an out-growth of the seminar that Tony Kovach and his associate Bob put on in Louisville in 2011.  Our web advertising firm was just getting up and running on our gig about then, and I invited them to come to Louisville to hear that presentation.

Does this mean that we will continue like this? Who knows? But we’re going to do every thing we can to keep our ‘road frontage’ as pretty and shiny as possible! I would recommend that all retailers seriously consider doing the same. ##

Submitted by:
R.E. Crawford, President
Dick Moore, Inc.,
Millington TN