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The Sum of All Fears and Manufactured Housing
“The Sum of All Fears” is a 2002 movie based on a Tom Clancy political/action/thriller novel that used the same title. In the movie, a neo-Nazi group plots to get Russia and the United States to destroy each other. This was to be done by the hidden swastika-brandishing group staging a spectacular incident, and making it look like one nation planned to attack and destroy the other. Without giving away the story for those who may not have seen it, the two powers have to learn to trust each other – during intense conditions – just enough to avoid disaster, and defeat the real and somewhat hidden enemy who hatched the plot.
Movies and books can often have ‘morals’ or lessons they can teach us. Beyond the action, the movie suggests that sometimes rivals have good reasons – or life-and-death motivations – to set aside their differences, and strive to trust each other enough to get a critical job done.
From time to time, the word or wish goes out that the Manufactured Housing Industry needs to speak with ‘one voice.’ Without denying the inherent value and potential power of unity, there must also be a realistic approach to the dynamics of competing groups and voices. Competing viewpoints arise for specific reasons. History, personalities and unique interests can entrench positions.
But those sorts of realities do not mean that the professional rivals are unable to cooperate when conditions warrant it.
During a critical phase of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan popularized the phrase, “Trust, but verify.” Professional negotiators or mediators learn the art of finding the areas of mutual interest, and crafting agreements that yield benefits to the various parties that still respect their key interests. This is precisely what needs to happen in the Manufactured Housing Industry today.
This message should not be viewed as some sort of veiled reference to parties active in Washington DC, because this scenario is likely as close as your own business and market area. This potentially valuable lesson of working with people or parties – even those whom we may have doubts or real concerns – is an important one for our Industry at this time.
Mutual victories are possible. Industry progress can be achieved. But this is best accomplished when a healthy respect for the other’s capabilities and interests are in place.
When we doubt – or worse, decry or demean – a potential resource, who or what can be an ally (even if for only a short term) can be lost. The costs for failing to bridge the gap for a business, group or Industry can be high. The win-lose mentality can, in fact, lead to a loss for all concerned.
Every need a professional, company or an MH Industry segment has today can be met. Not someday, but almost immediately. How is it done?
Mutual respect. Sincere understanding.
Listening with keen attention to not just your own goals, but the interests and needs of other stakeholders.
Learning to work together with people or groups that we may not be used to (or want to?!) work with, and yet do so with the goal of mutual rewards.
Think about these facts:
– American incomes are down.
– U.S. households continue to form.
– We sell quality, affordable homes.
– Manufactured home communities have vacancies.
– Retailers want more sales.
– Homeowners need economic security in a home they can enjoy and the ability to sell when needed or desired.
– Manufacturers and suppliers want orders and business.
– Government officials and associations need to find ways to serve the public and business.
– Lenders and investors desire security and a reasonable return on their investment.
– Professionals and companies need each other and should respect and build up each other.
This sketch above is not a plan, but an outline that may point the way to business growth and mutual success.
Consider “The Sum of All Fears” and its lesson as a metaphor for the Manufactured Housing Industry, its professionals and businesses. What do YOU need? Who or what can help you or your interest group? Who or what can you reach out to help?
Learn to work with others who may seem like rivals, but who offer you something that you need! By respectfully working towards sincere mutual victories, the results can be professional, business and Industry success. ##
The True Cost of Training
A Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) article cited a 2004 statistic that the average annual training cost per employee was $955. But what is the true cost of training? What is the value achieved? What are the lost opportunity costs? What does turnover cost because a potentially good employee is lost who was first hired because of their perceived potential?
I’ve listened to the audio files of live calls from real prospects responding to ads for manufactured homes. I’ve listened while employees:
– rattled off a statement that made an upscale manufactured home community sound like a flashback to Lucy and Desi in the movie The Long, Long Trailer. The employee routinely began by saying: “We have paved streets, city water and sewer…” – this was in a major metropolitan area! Did anyone ever think about ‘first impressions?’ Who did this ‘sales pro’ think was calling? Did this employee think the caller was looking for a comparison to a campsite in a wilderness area, or for a modern manufactured home residential community?
– a self-identified (and clearly educated, motivated, capable) cash buyer was dissuaded from coming to visit an upscale property, due to a series of questions geared around their qualifications for financing, some of which may have violated Fair Housing guidelines as well as good common business sense.
– a flyer promoting a church group (…the church of the community manager…) was passed out to every resident at a large manufactured home community, and was placed on the front desk. Recruiting for that church was routinely done by the CM and sales person (a husband and wife team) in a manner that was capable of drawing huge fines from HUD for Fair Housing guideline violations….
Without going into more examples, the point is that your employees and associates can cost you money, or make you money.
Good training, good people, does not ‘cost’ as much as it can pay! But improperly trained and poorly motivated people can cost you a fortune, $100,000s annually.
Let’s take a simple example:
– 1 sales person closes 1less sale every other week;
– Let’s say each sale is worth $7000 net after all expenses;
– That’s $182,000 per year in lost opportunities;
– Then think about the cost of floor planning on unsold inventory, and all the other costs that result from the lost sales…
Good training and soft skills development pays.
Failure to properly train your associates is what really costs your business.
Let’s look again at the example above of lost sales due to poor training, having improperly motivated or the wrong people on staff.
Imagine if every retail center in the U.S. diminished their performance by 23 new homes a year. Let’s take an average sales price per new home of $50,000 each. Let’s consider only the 3500 ‘retail sales centers’ (a.k.a. ‘street dealers,’ not manufactured home communities). What’s the total?
That’s $4,025,000,000 annually in lost gross sales to American HUD Code manufactured home retailers. That’s 80,500 lost new home sales a year to HUD Code manufactured housing builders, at a time when total new home shipments have hovered around 50,000± for two years. That’s insurance policies that are never sold, homes never delivered or installed, products and services never provided, because of sales that never closed.
To improve your team’s performance, go to MH Speaker Resource.
To recruit your ideal team members, post a job at MHMSM.com’s Jobs page.
If companies won’t train their people, why don’t:
– insurance companies
– manufacturers
– lenders
– and others who sell through retail distribution, team up to make this potential wave of sales happen?
Fellow manufactured housing industry professionals, these costs estimates are low. The true costs of failing to train are much, much higher.
The true cost of training? It is far more than the billions in lost business to our industry when companies fail to continuously train. It is the countless lost opportunities to millions of potential manufactured home customers. Dreams are lost when business is lost.
Good, consistent training pays. # #
The Power of One Is Us
The Power of One has been around as a catch phrase for some years. Perhaps we became more aware of it in 1989 through Bryce Courtenay’s novel by the same name, later made into a movie in which Daniel Craig (later known as Bond. James Bond.) made his film debut. A second book applied this concept to business, The Power of One: One Person, One Rule, One Month by John C. Maxwell. Numerous YouTube videos employ gorgeous visuals and stirring music to communicate this message. For instance, the popular:
Of course, there are many variations of this theme, applied to everything from grocery bags to flu shots. For example: “Making your life better one bag at a time.” “Making the community healthier one flu shot at a time.” Perhaps you recognize the companies and organizations that use phrases such as: one dress at a time, one tree at a time, one deposit at a time, one child at a time, one wish at a time, one step at a time. These phrases are usually prefaced with “Making your life – or the world – better….” Truly, the power of one!
How about one phone call, one follow-up, one client, one network, one reader, one new subscriber, one retailer, one manufacturer, one lender, one home, one sale, one team, one company, one community, one association, one trade show, one mentor, one guest speaker/trainer, one website, one contribution, one shout out (“I’m madder than hell…”) … ONE ANYONE or ANYTHING that makes a positive difference in the status quo and moves YOUR participation in the Manufactured Housing Industry forward. Remember, 2011 can be The Great Industry Turn-Around! For YOU. For US. And when enough do this, the Industry turns around, too!
No passing the buck. No waiting for the other guy to do it. No lone giants. There is a difference between knowing and changing. Between deciding and doing.
To paraphrase the friendly, philosophical Pogo: We have seen the Power of One and it is YOU, it is US.
Inspired by Lizz Frenzel, VNA of Porter County, IN # #
INspirations post by Associate Editor Catherine Frenzel
Teamwork Proverbs and Quotation
It is amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn’t matter who gets the credit.
There is no “I” in “TEAMWORK”.
Teamwork: is less me and more we.
TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
~ ~
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” ~ Andrew Carnegie
Submitted by Soheyla Kovach
KYP: Secrets to Manufactured Housing Growth
KYP
Know Your Product
Know Your Prospect
Know Your Presentation
Know Your Process
Know Your Persona
To paraphrase Sun Tzu
Know Your P……. A thousand encounters, numerous mutual victories.
A Creed to Live By
Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others,
It is because we are different that each of us is special.
Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important,
Only you know what is best for you.
Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart
Cling to that as you would your life, for without them life is meaningless.
Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or the future.
By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.
Don’t give up when you still have something to give
Nothing is really over … until the moment you stop trying.
Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect,
It is the fragile thread that binds us to each other.
Don’t be afraid to encounter risks,
It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible to find.
The quickest way to receive love is to give love.
The fastest way to lose love is to hold on too tightly,
And the best way to keep love is to give it wings.
Don’t dismiss your Dreams. To be without dreams is to be without hope.
To be without hope is to be without purpose.
Don’t run through life so fast that you forget where you’ve been,
But also know where you’re going.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored every step of the way.
~ Author Unknown
Luck and Discipline
“One half of life is luck; the other half is discipline – and that’s the important half, for without discipline you wouldn’t know what to do with luck.”
~ Carl Zuckmeyer 1896-1977, Writer and Playwright
Submitted by Matthew Silver
Moving the Pile – A Manufactured Housing Success Secret
From football, we learn the phrase, ‘moving the pile.’ In the first video, we get an example of a running back who through his extra effort, moves the pile for a few extra yards.
In the second video, see an example of how the wedge is executed on the kickoff.
Now think of the running back in the first video as a great manufactured housing professional. His hard running effort gets extra yards. But no score, at least, not on this play.
Then contrast that with the second video. The wedge are your ‘industry allies,’ your manufactured housing associations and trade media platforms like this one. The combination of hitting the opposition in an organized fashion results in the breakthrough and the score!
If you are not in an association, or are not active in one, consider the benefits of how ‘the wedge’ of other association members, working with you on industry issues, can advance you and your business for more scores. # #
Working Together – A Teamwork Puzzle
Every industry depends on its various elements – its pieces of the puzzle – in order to prosper. Separate one or more elements or pieces from its whole, and all will suffer.
Imagine that each of the four characters below represents those who hold a piece of our Industry’s puzzle:
- The red person represents home retailers, manufactured housing communities and developers.
- The gold represents financing.
- The green represents manufacturers.
- The blue represents suppliers of various types.
- The circle formed by the puzzle is the Information and cohesiveness supplied by trade associations as well as engaged, pro-Industry trade media and publishers. These trade media are magazines or ezines such as MHMSM.com.
While it may be human nature to think that your piece of the puzzle is ‘the most important,’ in fact all of the pieces are important.
Analogies like this can be helpful, but they also have their limits. The puzzle itself, what should the picture that is on it be? Let’s consider the answer to that as the public’s view of our Industry. Do they see us as being a modern, green, clean, appealing and affordable option? Do they see us as being able to provide everything from entry level HUD Code homes to residential style (conventional looking) homes, to sprawling modular mansions? If not, why not? This is the ‘missing person’ of image building and marketing. This is why the picture is a hodge-podge of color instead of the image of an appealing, quality and affordable solution to the American Dream of home ownership.
When an industry associate of yours knows that something – some piece – is missing, point them to this puzzle and those who hold it together. Then ask them what is missing, and ask them how they can work with others to be a part of the solution. # #