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. # #