Skyline Homes has resisted the trend toward consolidation, but this week it was announced that Fairmont Homes has now been bought up by the Avis of Manufactured Housing, mighty Cavco Industries. As to conflict, anyone who is in MH leadership is well aware of the media battle raging over big players in MH in specific, as a way of targeting (read, undermining) support in Congress for S 682 and previously HR 650.
Oxy Media is the latest in a series of what many objective readers would think of as a hit piece on MH. Please see the link and related commentary on their Trailer House Nation – The Eviction.
About a week has gone by since the Masthead featured these words…
“There is a war ranging – a genuine conflict – over MH and housing in general.”
…in this blog post…
http://mhpronews.com/blogs/tonykovach/the-war-over-mh-its-elementary/
This past weekend, readers tuned into this about the media and MH:
“When I ask a room filled with MH pros, “Do media accounts relating to our Industry impact your sales, notably on issues like tornado coverage?” Usually almost every hand go up. So we know the media impacts perceptions and thus our MH sales, for good or ill.
Yet many of those perceptions are skewed at best, or are agenda driven, etc.. While it pains some in journalism to admit that their profession has often been politicized and has become agenda driven, that is hard to argue against when you have the NYTimes, MSNBC and others on the left, Wall Street Journal, Fox News and others that tend more to the right.
Given a careful read of any given article or TV news report, and a you can often deduce the political or other spin of that journalist.
Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean that journalism is dead. There are good journalists out there. But when agendas are so obvious, doesn’t it make sense to engage in AM in a way that might positively influence the media conversation? Shouldn’t we in MH be as keen to share our facts as other special interest groups are to advocate for their interests?
The answer is obvious. Yes, we need MH AM that can intersect positively with the media…”
…as part of this blog post:
http://mhpronews.com/blogs/tonykovach/mhs-a-m-in-magnificent-may/
We either define ourselves, or others will define us. Consolidations happen in any Industry. The free enterprise system makes that a potentially good thing.
But the battle to define MH requires what a Steve Jobs would have dubbed in our industry, MH Evangelism. You and others must play a role, and be part of the solution.
The bad news is that failing to do so costs you and others money.
The good news is that successfully doing so can make those of us committed to the long term good of our customers and the MHIndustry more money than many could imagine.
“You can get everything out of life that you want, when you help enough other people get out of life what they want.” – Zig Ziglar. ##
