1.
The International Networking Roundtable
Jeff Mishken, Marcus & Millchap. Susan McCarty, Community-Investor.com. George F. Allen, Community-Investor.com. Randy Rowe, Greene Courte Partners. Dick Ernst, Finmark. Thayer Long, MHI. Spencer Roane, Pentagon Properties. Paul Bradley, ROC USA. L. A. ‘Tony’ Kovach, Manufactured Home Marketing Sales Management. Don Westphal, Donald C. Westphal and Associates. Joe Adams, The Housing Marketplace. Dr. David Funk, Cornell University. Evelyn Bryant. Ken Rishel, Precision Capital Funding. These are the known names already on the billing for The 19th Annual International Networking Roundtable at the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort in Phoenix AZ, Sept 15-17th, 2010.
If you want this type of presentation power and insights, please call George Allen to reserve your space at 877-633-4764, or 317-346-7156. George tells me that 200 is the max, and he has dozens of sign ups, and more coming in daily.
From Randy Rowe’s planned State of the Manufactured Housing Industry report, to Thayer Long’s ‘Inside the Beltway’ update to some 15 other presentations by experts named above including post-brochure printing additions, this promises to be a focused and insightful event indeed.
Regarding the printed agenda, my sources tell me that at this point in time, MHARR has not scheduled someone to attend this function, but perhaps that could change between now and then. MHARR has a heavy agenda they are working on for the Industry in Washington, DC, is their reason, I am told. Allen has a replacement for that time slot in mind.
Given the time, MHMSM.com plans to invite some of the presenters to share thoughts about this upcoming event in Phoenix on our pages. But the ideal is simply to be there! Speaking for myself, I know that I wish I could split in two or clone for a few hours so I could hear both presentations during various break out sessions. For example, Don Westphal will be presenting during the same time slot I will be presenting. I personally would love to have an update on the Community Series Homes: One Year Later, and Don is certainly aces on the subject as he is on so many that regarding communities, development, redevelopment, zoning and related design issues. So for those who come and skip me to see Don, no hard feelings! I’d be in Don’s session if I could, and he is deserving of a packed room!
Let me provide this thought regarding the topic I was asked to present on, marketing.
There are a few challenges that almost everyone would agree on are keys to Industry growth. Financing is one, and you will find Dick Ernst and Ken Rishel are among those presenting on finance related topics.
Industry image and marketing are another key challenge for industry growth. Joe Adams will provide a keynote on “Effective Marketing in Tough Times!” I will be doing a break out session on a marketing related topic, “How to Generate 150 Calls weekly per Location!”
The industry needs more financing options! The Industry also needs more effective marketing and image making! Let’s see how these two topics dovetail.
Let’s say you have a land lease community with 30 vacancies, and your average site fee is $250 monthly. That’s $90,000 a year in additional revenue when you fill those sites. Let us further say that you cleared a modest $5,000 per home (a much lower net than the client I am working with) after commissions and expenses. That’s another $150,000. Finally, if you are doing captive finance, ala the meets the regulations style that Ken Rishel and company teach, you could add another $250,000+ a year by year 5 to your revenue stream. Please confirm those numbers with their respective instructors, as they may be low…
…in other words, it is all about the bottom line results.
I recall an article in Joanne Stevens’ newsletter about three years ago. The gent being interviewed stated, he has never worked so hard at the communities business as he was then doing. Since he had decades of experience in the business, that was saying something. But he also said that he was making more money than he ever had! The hard work, the extra effort, was paying off for his business.
That is what I believe our industry has an opportunity to do. Make more money than ever before.
Not necessarily easy stuff, but doable. Using proven processes and sound principles. Processes that could take our Industry from 89% reported occupancy among the major LLCs, to capacity. Processes that could take smaller ‘mom and pop’ type operations from vacancy rates that in some cases may hover around 50% occupancy, and reverse the trend back to capacity. As more individual community operators or REITs learn and apply those processes, they too can earn more than ever before. As more operators order more homes, factories begin to add to production, instead of cutting back or consolidating.
Learning and growing go hand in glove.
If you want a preview of some of the speakers and the content, including some marketing ‘secrets,’ please check out the new book, The Manufactured Housing Revolution! Yes, no surprise that many of the presenters planned for INR are also authors of key topics in The Manufactured Housing Revolution too. See why Industry leaders and public officials in Washington DC last July walked away with copies and are impressed! Over 500 years of experience shouldn’t be ignored, and that is what you find in the book and here at MHMSM.com with each new issue, on any given day!
So the 19th Annual International Networking Roundtable will provide attendees great insights plus networking and deal making opportunities. See new home product on display from Champion and Cavco. Invest a little time and money, come away with insights that can be worth a small fortune and increased revenues for years to come.
I look forward to seeing many of you in Phoenix, to listening and learning from other presenters, and to share the concepts that can bring 150 callers to your community or location weekly, until your location reaches capacity!
2.
Manufactured Housing and Media, ‘Regret the Errors’
For those who follow this blog, you have likely noticed the belief that information without context has little meaning. You’ve noticed the pattern of sharing examples and analogies as ways of communicating a point. This part of the post will stay faithful to that pattern.
In the last month, we have had some typos and glitches that are all regretted. All have been corrected, sometimes within an hour of it ‘going live,’ that is one of the advantages of digital media, you can simply make the adjustment, and move on. So some or most of our readers may never have noticed the mistake in the first place.
Erin Patla Factory Built Housing Industry News at Noon Podcaster
Nevertheless, in a perfect world, no mistakes would be made. MHMSM.com strives to bring you more feature articles, more depth, more quality, more news than any other single Industry news and views resource. We are the only platform that is routinely bringing you online digital articles and news, along with podcasts of feature articles, podcasts of daily Factory Built Housing Industry News at Noon, along with informational or inspirational videos too.
We are the only media in our industry I am aware of that has a designated journalist, our Industry In Focus Reporter Eric Miller, who is bringing you in depth stories that can help you sell more homes, inform and train your team, and bringing you Industry Market Reports every business day on our News at Noon podcasts, except holidays.
Quality as well as Variety might be keywords for our approach. So when a glitch occurs for us, it smarts. We appreciate our readers pointing out those glitches, so we can make it right!
In fact, we appreciate feedback period.
We get notes and calls of encouragement, and sometimes those messages are – “did you realize you have an important typo in x story or y blog post?”
We thank you for all the tips, kudos and feedback.
That said, we are not alone. The mainstream media has their glitches and down right errors in reporting too. Some recent examples include CNN’s referring to Washington DC at the “District of Colombia“ (sp) in print.
An even bigger glitch, which caused their network quite a media flap, occurred as Fox News host Greta Van Susteren apologized for “a doozy of a mistake” made on her show Monday when a picture of Shirley Sherrod was used to illustrate a segment on Congressional Representative Maxine Waters.
Waters, a California Democrat, has been charged by the House with ethics violations, while Sherrod was fired from the USDA for incorrectly being cast as a racist. What the two visually have in common is that they’re both black women.
An example of coverage on that media mixup is at:
But this isn’t a recent or one time mistake. Whole websites are devoted to the issue of media errors in reporting. Our current president, Barack Obama, prior to his election had suffered from some very interesting media miscues:
From this page:
http://www.regrettheerror.com/2007/12/11/crunks-07-the-year-in-media-errors-and-corrections/
You’ll find the following excerpt shared below:
Obama Errors
“Barack Obama appears to be a magnet for press errors.
He was mistaken for “Osama” in two (1,2) news reports by CNN, and in one by the New York Post. Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle once referred to him as a Republican, and the Hartford Courant has misspelled his first name on six different occasions dating back to 2004, with two of those instances occurring this year.
There was also an unfortunate typo in the New York Times that may have led some readers to think the Obamas have a rocky marriage.”
I share these not to excuse our own errors, but simply to put it into its context. We have only a tiny fraction of the resources of these major media outlets. We have had a long, long run of relatively error free coverage. Taken in their properly light, mistakes can become opportunities in disguise for improvement and growth.
Our recent – and rapidly corrected – miscues revealed something very important to us. Namely, that a number of key people in this great industry are on our pages reading us routinely. That is encouraging to know. How do we know this? When presidents, CEOs and executives write or call in, that’s how! Those leaders are not alone, as during the month of July 30,300 visitors – 977 readers daily! – were on our pages.
I should also note that we get far more notes and calls thanking us for our work and coverage, which we naturally appreciate.
About 10 months ago, George F. Allen wrote me to say that publishing is not for the faint of heart. How true! We’ve seen many fine publishers fall, the venerable Manufactured Home Merchandiser Magazine, MHI’s Modern Homes, The Grissim Report late this past spring among the more recent ones. Others are said to be wavering, which is regrettable if true. I certainly hope that those serious publishers which remain will move to ever more solid footing, rather than see any more losses.
I share this context to say that we plan to be here for the long haul. We want to live up to what Ken Rishel said, “I would consider it (MHMSM.com) the single most important free general interest source of information in our country for the manufactured housing Industry. I have, and will continue to recommend to anyone in our Industry that they set aside time regularly to read the information on this website. I now make this same recommendation to you.”
Thank you. Please be a part of our ongoing effort to provide
Innovation – Information – Inspiration for Industry Professionals
In today’s blog post, GFA indicates the importance of media for our Industry. I couldn’t agree more. For those who are closely following, our plan at MHMSM.com includes influencing public officials and the media by BEING media, by REPORTING news. Catherine Frenzel, Eric Miller and Erin Patla’s daily handiwork – along with our Bob Stovall’s Production and IT Manager magic – are all part of a plan to not only inform and inspire individuals in our Industry, but also to influence those outside who are looking in.
As we continue to grow in readership and build our staff – as we plan to announce our advertising sales associate in the near term – to serve you, we want to thank you for your feedback, encouragement and support. We love this Industry! We are believers. We are here to serve you and your associates. # #
L. A. ‘Tony’ Kovach
Manufactured Home Marketing Sales Management or MHMSM.com
847-730-3692 or tony@mhmsm.com
