Rob's Blog

Estridge Companies have just introduced Myestridgehome.com where you can view hundreds of photos of beautiful Estridge homes. The website is designed to give Estridge homeowners a platform to photograph and share their new home with friends and family during and after constuction. 

What makes this website unique is that it is designed to share customer created content. The homeowners can contribut to the website with pictures of their homes. The website also gives Estridge the platform to showcase more of the beautiful homes they have built over the years.

An ever growing organic creation

Myestridgehome.com is going to always be growing. Stop there often to see what new pictures the homeowners have loaded to share with the world.

Earlier this week I wrote a quick post about reconnecting with old acquaintances. I wrote about Jon Guy. Jon is a new home builder and re-modeler. He is the President of GuyCo Custom Home and Remodeling. I failed to mention that Jon has also been successfully consulting with new home builders in over five states. Jon has taken his expertise in building quality custom homes and is using his skills to help other builders.

In our current economic environment it is great to see a new home builder who is actually growing his business. Jon has always had the highest commitment to complete customer satisfaction. Regardless if the customer is building a  new home or consulting on growing their custom home business.

"Passion-Centric Marketing" - ?

Type "define passion-centric marketing" into your Google browser and in .36 of a second (at least at the time of this writing) you will receive 226 pieces of nothing. Not one definitive word or sentence about what passion-centric marketing means. There are white papers, blog postings, mishmashes of the words passion, centric, and marketing but no real definition.

As I can't find this definition, I will just have to make up my own.

Passion-Centric Marketing - "The act of finding like minded individuals who have a evangelical response  to an idea or product and giving them a tool to connect with other like minded individuals and share their passion with the rest of the world." - Rob Wagoner, Sept. 2008

Now the question becomes, what is the proper tool to harness the passion?

In our current economic enviroment we all need to tap into our passions. It wil be what gets us through. It will be what sets you apart. Harness the power!

Over the last two years, I have been in the process of building a new business.  Over this time our marketing plan has evolved with the business. We went from need centered, to me centered, to customer centered marketing.

The thought behind need centered marketing is simple. I need money now. Who can I target to give me money now. It works when you are bootstrapping a company start up, but is not a good plan for sustaining growth.

Me centered marketing is what a lot of businesses never grow out of. You get to me centered marketing because you have spent a lot of time creating a product that you believe is the best product ever. You believe it is priced fairly, or as some like to say, " a great value."  Just in case you were not paying close attention, I put the word you in bold letters to emphasize who the message became centered around, you, I, or me. The draw back is that that my customers are not as concerned about me as I am.

The next evolution of the marketing plan came when I realized the hard fact that me centered marketing was not the most effective way to grow a business. I went back to the old stand by of looking at my marketing plan from the end users stand point. As one of my old bosses used to say, "Always answer the question your customers are asking themselves. What's in it for me?"

When every part of my marketing plan focused around answering that simple question, more doors began to open.  Now the challenge is to turn my customers into marketers. I am calling that passion-centric marketing. To learn what I mean by passion-centric marketing stop back tomorrow for my next post.

"Instant... But I wanted it now." - Homer J Simpson

I have never met Homer Simpson, and yet I consider him a friend of URBaCS. Yes I realize Homer is a fictional caricature on the FOX  television show The Simpsons,  but he helps me solve so many of life's little questions. Here are a couple of examples.

Last week President Bush  made an address to the nation reassuring us that we would get through the current credit crisis. Up until his speech I didn't realize that we were in any kind of credit trouble. Each week Chase and the "Whats in your wallet?" company send me a couple of pre-approved credit cards. I figured as long as I was getting those, we had plenty of credit to go around. Then President Bush spelled out the problems for me. Here is the short version of what it sounded like to me;

President Bush - "Hank, we've got a credit crisis. Fix it!"

Hank Paulson  - "No Problem. All I need is 700 Billion and I can fix it instantly." 

President Bush - "Cool."

Congress - "Instant, but we want it fixed now! (And we want someone to blame...)"

Hmmm.

Last week a writer for the IBJ  wrote in his blog Property Lines  a small post about the housing market and mentioned a couple of local builders, C.P. Morgan  and Estridge.  His post consisted of information about the proposed bailout, a quote from Paul Estridge Jr., a graphic from C.P. Morgan, and the question what do you think. Less than 35 words in all and it drew quited a bit of negative comments about the builders. 

It looks as though the public is acting a little like congress. 

Government - "We have a problem in the housing sector."

Markets - "We are working through the problem. It will be better soon. 

People - "Soon, but we want it now... And who can we blame?" (Translate - Instant, but I want it now!)

Saturday Night Live, back when it was still funny, had a caricature played by Gilda Radner called Rosann Rosannadana.  At the end of a long rambling rant she would sum it all up with her tag line - "Well Jane it just goes to show you. It's always something!"

That pretty much sums it up.

Jon Guy of GuyCo is this weeks friend of URBaCS.

As my company grows we are coming into contact with some new friends and getting reaquainted with some old friends.

Jon is the owner and driving force of a custom home building and remodeling company called Guyco.   Jon's company is based out of Avon IN. Guyco builds new homes all over the state of Indiana.

I first met Jon while I was working at Dura Builders, which later was purchased by KB Homes. Jon was the head of construction for Dura builders and managed all aspects of construction of the 500 + homes built each year in Indianapolis by Dura. Jon has been active in the building industry for over 22 years. He founded GuyCo in 2003. The same year that Jon was nominated for Builder of the Year by the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis.

One of the things that impressed me most about Jon was the efficient use of systems he created for building new homes. Most system oriented people use their systems to remove flexibility. Jon was able to use his systems to enhance his flexibility to deliver new homes when and how we needed.  On one occasion, when I one of our customers desperately needed it, Jon was able to deliver a home from contract to finish in less than 60 days. The home was completed on time without sacrificing quality.

Another reason Jon has always impressed me is his unwavering commitment to building the best quality new home possible. Jon has always had a strong commitment to complete customer satisfaction. You will see this by the high standards he sets for the materials used in all his homes and the professionalism he demands from his contractors.

If I were to build a new home for my family. I would unquestionably trust Jon Guy and GuyCo to build my custom home. That is why Jon Guy is a friend of URBaCS.

Running a business is hard

It seems that there are always more things to do than hours in a day. When you are the CEO, CFO, Sales Team, Receptionist, and Janitor, you need to be efficient. My business partner Jayson Manship talked about some of the new technology in a post he wrote today. Everyone always says that if I were only half as smart as Jayson we would be twice as productive. No chance of that happening now, so I rely on these useful goodies.

Rob's Top 5

SalesForce - SalesForce is our on-line CRM tool. It helps me keep track of prospects, calender, pipeline, income forecasts etc.

Backpack - From 37 signals. I work from multiple locations. Everything I need is kept in my online backpack. Great for collaboration.

Yugma - Hey gas is expensive. Have that meeting on line free. This is one of our best cost saving devices.

Grand Central - One phone number that calls me wherever I am. Away from the office. No problem.  GC will call you at home or on your cell.

Jott - My brain works at odd times. When that idea hits me I can speed dial jott and it will take my message and email it to me later.

Most all of these applications are low or no cost. In the current enviroment we all need to be as productive and control cost.

Sometimes you come across something and it just takes you back to acting like a little kid. For some of us this is a very short ride.  Mike Jones wrote a post on these great signs for your blog. I went to imagechef followed Mikes directions and now I want to try it out. Here goes.

But you said...

Three of the worst words you will ever hear coming out of your customers mouth. But you said... (fill in the complaint) In new home sales it is not uncommon to start with an enthusiastic customer at paperwork signing, and end with a bitter disgruntled customer at closing. How and why does this happen?

How? - It is because we as sales people have not lived up to our customers expectations.

Why? - Because we did not help our customer to set expectations we can meet or exceed.

This sounds simple, but most of the time difficult to execute. When sales are down we become timid and scared. So desperate to make a sale, our self confidence is down. We are afraid to give our customers any reason to not want to buy from us. So we try to build ourselves and our company up as much as possible. This may work in the short run to get a few extra sales, but in the long run your customer needs more attention because you are spending your time convincing them that they made the right decision. You may miss out on other opportunities by spending your time with an unhappy customer, and your prospects of getting a referral are next to nil.

An oldie but a goodie

One of my last sales managers, a man by the name of Jose Martinez, was so good at making difficult ideas simple. He had a time tested method for managing peoples expectations. He would always say "Remember to under promise and over deliver."

Stick to the plan

If you can follow that simple rule;

1. You will spend less time keeping your customers happy.

2. You will have more time to make more sales.

3  You will receive more referrals from satisfied customers

4. You will make more money

Help me

Today I am asking you for your thoughts and opinions. Over the weekend I listened to speakers talk about building traffic and awareness of your website through blogging. I was already aware the blogging can help you  with your google ranking. They also talked of a concept that I found intriguing and unusual.  I am still rolling it over in my mind and this is what I want your thoughts on. 

Concept

Have a lot of blogs. Each blog should focus on different topics built around related keywords. Post some of the same post on many blogs and tie them all together with keywords and cross linking. All the blogs should have links back to your primary web-page and the about sections should all be consistent.

Here is an example;

In the above paragraph I mentioned, building traffic, blogging, and increasing search ranking. These are keywords. If I have three different blogs that focus mainly on topics built around each keyword, I can post almost the same post on all three blogs at different times. Each blog is cross linked with each other and linked to my main web-page. The purpose is to drive you higher organically with your search rankings.

Here are my questions

Have you experimented with a strategic blog plan like this?

Does it work?

Is it ethical?

Are there any other downsides?

Do you have a success story?

I am interested to hear what you think about this.