“Please, oh, please just leave me alone to my little corner of the world. I just want to be able to sell a few houses and try to keep my park full, that’s all.” So said one community owner at an MH industry meeting, as he emotionally spoke about the impact of regulations on his business. A successful MH retailer recently said, “Not only us, but most other retailers I know are gun shy now. We had our guts kicked out of us in 2008-2009 and haven’t recovered. Yes, we are doing better year-over-year the past few years, but we are still a shadow of where we were a decade ago.”
When you probe on comments by industry pros like those shared above, they often amount to lowered expectations.
Some yearn for a return to the good old days of the roaring 1990s. To those in the MH rank and file who never knew boom times, they may think it is okay to sell a house a month, or every-other-month. Those 2 or maybe 3 HUDs in a month may be a big deal to them! Those MH professionals who have only known the shadow of our industry’s greatest may look at you funny when you tell them that there are those who have – and still do – 50 or 60 or 70 manufactured home sales a year, or more.
Have you met MH sales pros who have and can do 100 new homes in a year?
I have.
As you look at the graphic below, remember ignorance is not a dirty word. It means there is something a person ‘doesn’t know’ about a topic. We are all ignorant about something, but the cure for ignorance is insight and information that inspires positive action.
MH Inspirational Dissatisfaction 2015
Inspirational dissatisfaction is a concept taught to me by a PPGA in the insurance field. Joe P told me that if you are not happy with something – such as your results – you use that dissatisfaction to inspire you to strive for better results and more profits.
When you know something has been done before, those who might be weak in faith may have an eye-opening ‘aha’ moment. When you know what your market potential is, you may decide to strive for more instead of ‘settling for’ the crumbs left on your plate. We have a potential feast around us, the articles linked below point to a potentially sumptuous buffet, not a soup kitchen line.
I can tell you dozens of reasons why anyone who needs a recharge should be going to the 2015 Louisville Manufactured Housing Show. But let me focus on the following handful of reasons why this is a good time and place to gain or get the vision for just how great manufactured housing sales ought to be in 2015 and beyond.
- Is home owning now twice as affordable as renting? Quentin Fottrell says Yes – The article’s facts and free downloads from this page are a fact-packed rallying cry for manufactured housing pros on just how big our market potential could be.
- Do Home Resale Slides reported by Realtors ® signal opportunities for factory built home professionals?
- In a trillion-dollar-a-year U.S. housing market, why should manufactured housing be producing a puny sub- 69,000 new home shipments in a year? We used to average 250,000 a year for 2 decades!
- At the Louisville Show, you get the energy of the industry. You see anew – or maybe for the first time – the amazing value of our new home products and services.
- You get the free educational opportunities that yield the information, inspiration and insights needed to grow your results.
What if you are pumped on the biz, but your associate (partner, team member, manager…) is not? You come, and bring them too.
If you aren’t already set to come to the big show, make or change your plans. Get on a jet or jump in your wheels and ride!
While most pros come from within a day’s drive of the show, I know industry members who attend from coast to coast. Some made the trek last year, or the year before that, and they see value, so they come back. That speaks volumes.
One good idea can make it worth while
I’ve had owners, managers and executives tell me that one good idea alone can make a trip like this worth while. Let me assure you, only the blind won’t see more than one good take away from this year’s show.
- More attendees are already signed up to attend than any year since 2010.
- More new home manufacturers in 2015 – perhaps the most in 8 to 10 years.
- More exhibitors with their finance, insurance, products and services, all under one roof for easy comparison shopping.
- Business Building Seminars and Speakers. – Please note the programing change in the first session, reported in the second bullet below.
Every year since 2010, the attendance at the Louisville Show increases
and the crowds at our business building seminars grow.
Perhaps 2,500 industry professionals will be on hand this year. Will you be one of them? If so, please swing by our booth #115, come by the seminars on Wednesday and Thursday morning. If you come, odds are excellent you’ll be pleased. If you come with an open mind, odds are you’ll get that one gem of an idea and more to go with it. The videos shown are so you can see that it isn’t just me saying this. Those who know, go and grow.
Come and gain or recapture the vision of our industry’s true potential. Listen to what a struggling MH retailer did to grow his business in just 90 days.
That retailer isn’t isn’t alone. MHCommunities and MHRetailers here and there are discovering or re-learning that ‘yes, we can’ do more. Need some vision and get-up-and-grow juice? Then please come to the 2015 Louisville Show, for your sake and that of your colleagues. Some are discovering that these can be and are, ‘the good old days.’
If you do what it takes to come, don’t be shy, kindly come by and say hi. ##
