A quick Google search on what is being said about BP after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill a few years ago revealed web-news headlines like the ones that follow.
Notice the above isn’t a bad headline, if you are BP. What the Huffington Post is saying is that the environment has improved, while BP has improved (financially) even more. Then there is this headline…
BP routinely runs TV and cable ads, touting how much they are doing and have done since the Gulf oil spill. Do you ever stop and buy gas at a BP station? Have you noticed how clean and modern and ‘green’ they look?
BP and the Gulf disaster – Lessons for MH?
We don’t need a disaster like BP’s to be facing a routine drum beat of negative media.
In the prior Masthead, we talked about the three options the industry has for dealing with bad news that pops up in the mainstream media. Hey, we are pro-Industry. That means we also have to be pro-consumer. I hear often that “most of the bad guys are gone from our industry now.” What I can say from first hand experience is that we routinely deal with good people who want to do justice to home buyers, MHC residents and others. The folks we work with want to ‘do it right.’
So if we have so many good guys out there, why do we still see such a routine string of head ache and heart ache headlines? The answer is suggested in the link above.
By contrast, BP turned lemons into lemonade. They turned huge fines into a marketing campaign. They spent billions, and touted every cent of it, so that the public would essentially pay the way for a chunk of the Gulf recovery – BP just happened to be the conduit.
When you good, good people admit it. Right? Good people have a habit of trying to fix things when something goes wrong. Good people in MH must learn from the experiences we’ve had for too many years, as well as from the turn-around-the-image stories such as BP’s.
40 Years of the Wrong Approach?
When tornado season stared to approach, Jen Hall the Executive Director of the MMHA, got ahead of the ball. Hall engaged weather pros and the media. Jen correctly made the issue one of proper installation.
The result was far more favorable coverage. That was smart. Will we learn from that example?
Here is an example below of how doing a ‘correction’ article with the right strategy landed us immediately under the Daily Yonder’s flawed column on MH and MH lending.
So there are these and other examples of doing things a better way in MH. But we have all too many examples of pros who want to let whatever the bad news story is ‘blow over,’ and hopefully get forgotten.
While we have grown new home sales for 5 years, new home shipments levels at under 70,000 a year should tell us that ‘ignore the bad news’ approach isn’t working.
Tiny Houses
Not all Tiny Houses are on wheels and a frame, but many shown on Tiny House Nation are. Many of those Tiny Houses are as much or more dollars per square foot as a new conventional construction is. They have zoning issues, as Jon Stossel reported on his show. Tiny Houses are difficult or nearly impossible to finance. They are far less secure than even a pre-HUD Code mobile home that is 38+ years old.
So why do Tiny Houses get so much media love? Why doesn’t MH get that love too?
We define ourselves or others will define us
As an industry, we have to lift each other up. In the video interview with Chet Murphree and James McGee from Deer Valley Homebuilders, notice how Chet praises other builders? It is a mistake to do otherwise. Sure, you want to showcase what makes YOU good! But there is no need to undercut a competitor. We are still too small an industry to do so.
That doesn’t mean you have to build up the lone wolf who behaves like one. With your clients, prospects or the general public, you say nothing if there is truly no good to be said. If pressed, you run your business your way, they run theirs as they decided to do.
But even the bad news that hits someone else, can be an opportunity for them and all, if it is properly approached.
But the first and most fundamental issue is this. If there is something wrong, it has to be addressed. Don’t duck it. Don’t hide it. Fix it. Make it a learning experience to improve.
Hey, we strive to practice what we preach. When we goof, we want to learn and fix from there too.
HR 650 Vote
My congressman was contacted when HR 650 first came up, and he is on board. How about yours?
Special interest groups that may love MH, but who:
-
don’t understand
-
or have an agenda about our home-only lending,
are using the media any way they can to derail HR 650.
Those groups want to parade a handful of unhappy souls out, instead of focusing on the millions who the industry has served well. We can talk about those who lost their houses for whatever reason, but what about the far greater number who have them, paid them off, and love their homes? Would millions have had their homes without that personal property lending???
We are saddened when astronauts died in their efforts to advance space travel. But we didn’t stop the space program because of those loses. We look at the overall good, right?
Help us, help you help the millions negatively impacted by Dodd-Frank. Please turn to MHLivingNews at the link below.
Please, pass that link on.
Then, pass on the stories of happy home owners of MH. Let’s learn the lesson of BP. Let’s learn that even tragedy, like in the space program, doesn’t mean we stop doing something good and worth while.
America needs what we have. Improved image with improved performance will yield ever greater success for our customers and for us as professionals. That’s my story, and we are sticking with it. Join or help accelerate the effort. ##
