Sell More Homes

Hello new home builders! Sorry for the delay but it’s been a super busy couple of months! My plans is to spend the next couple of weeks catching up for lost time, and I’d like to get started by addressing another item on my list of 10 Things Every Builder Should Know.

Let’s get right to business, before spending lots of money on fancy tools for online marketing and analysis, start with what’s free. Thankfully, there’s quite a bit of free stuff out there, most of it coming from Google.

Here’s a quick run down of 5 tools that are both powerful and free that I can’t live without (and you shouldn’t either!).

1.) Google Analytics

2.) Google Webmaster Tools

3.) Google Reader

4.) Google Alerts

5.) Google Apps

So that’s a quick run-down. Let’s talk about each in a little more detail.

1.) Google Analytics – If you aren’t using some sort of analytics tools to analyze your website traffic, you need to get on this right away. Not only is Google Analytics free, it’s easy to set-up (takes just a few minutes for a webmaster), easy to use and extremely powerful for new home builders of all sizes. Doing so allows you to answer some of the following questions: How many people visit my website for any certain period of time; How long are these people staying on my site; How many are “bouncing” from my site; What are the most popular keywords driving traffic to my site; What websites are referring traffic to my site (if any) and how many visitors are they referring. These are just a few of the many metrics you can answer via Google Analytics, and I recommend you figure out which metrics make the most sense for you and your home building company and that you start to track these metrics on a weekly basis. Doing so will allow you to see how your doing over time. In addition, if and when you make major changes to your website, you can see how these changes affect your site metrics moving forward. Site analytics is a very important topic, so indeed a more elaborate post is in order dedicated specifically to this topic. Until then, however, get your Google Analytics up and running asap!

2.) Google Webmaster Tools – Not only is Google Webmaster Tools a key element to any builder’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts, its also a decision making tool for managers within a home builder. Want to know how many inbound links you have coming to your website, or which searches your website most often shows up in? Well if so Google Webmaster Tools is for you. Like the Analytics tool listed above, it’s simple and easy to set-up for any Webmaster and should take only a minute or two to get in place. Once it is in place, it again is one of those tools you should use on a weekly basis to track key performance metrics such as number of inbound links, number of indexed URLs, etc. So get this up and running and we’ll chat a bit more in another post about how you can use this tool to really boost your home builder SEO efforts.

3.) Google Reader – Okay, so I hope I didn’t scare too many people away with talk of tools that require just a slight amount of code work. Do not fear, the Google Reader tool requires absolutely no code whatsoever. In fact, getting it set up is as easy as copying and pasting the URLs to websites you frequent the most. If you rely on more than one website for news, information, etc., be it a blog or a news organization, this website is for you. Rather than having to navigate to each site separately to view the latest posts or read the latest news entry, Google Reader allows you to consolidate these many news sources into a single location. Talk about a time-saver! I love this tool because I have over 20 different sites I regularly visit for staying up to date on the latest news, events and going ons. While I use to go to each site separately, now I simply log into Google Reader to see everything in one place. It’s a great tool, easy to use and I highly recommend it.

4.) Google Alerts – Ever want to know when your home building company gets some press or PR love? Before Google Alerts most people were forced to do periodic Google searches to see about any new company-related press or news. This method was a huge time-suck depending on how often you did these searches and how far into the results you were willing to look. Thanks to Google Alerts, this method now  seems about as archaic as using a dial-up modem to connect to the Internet. Simply type in the search term (i.e. your builder name, a competitors name, etc.) and a few other pieces of information and Google will send you e-mails each time these terms appear online (assuming the page has been indexed by Google). You can set up the frequency of e-mails, such as once a day or once a week so you’re never inundated with e-mail blasts from Google, so do what makes most sense for you. Either way though, this is a great way to stay on top of your company and any related and/or relevant mentions online (not to mention alerts about your competition…).

5.) Google Apps – This involves a bit more set-up, but for the frugal, and ROI-minded home builder looking to stretch every dollar as far as possible, Google Apps is probably one of the best ways to organize your company’s e-mail, calendar and even documents to some extent. Most small companies probably rely on a POP/IMAP account with a GoDaddy, Network Solutions or some other hosting provider. Most of these charge a fee for each mailbox you use, and if you are using the web-based webmail interface, most leave a lot to be desired. Google Apps provides a free way to manage all of this. I like to save as much money every place possible (focusing those saved dollars on places with greater ROI opportunities), so Google Apps is a great place to start. It’s also a great step to take in laying the overall mindset of your company: since e-mail, document sharing, etc. is the back-end infrastructure of any organization, leveraging a free tool such as Google Apps is a way to signal to your organization that efficient capital allocation is a top priority within your organization. (For medium to larger home builders, Google offers a Premier addition for $50/user  which is significantly cheaper than purchasing Microsoft servers for large-scale e-mail infrastructure and sync/distribution.)

There are a handful of other tools out there that are great as well. These 5 are just meant to get the ball rolling, and 5 that I use on a daily basis.

What are your favorite free online tools? How would you rank your Top 5? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Item #2 on the list of ten things every builder should know: before you jump in, have a game plan. This is a big one.

As a builder, you would never build a new home without first having a proper floor plan. If it’s the first time you’ve put the floor plan into production, chances are you’ve spent countless hours in design, cost estimating and more. And even after the floor plan goes into production, you’re probably continuing to tweak the layout, adding a feature here or taking one away there, depending on the specific needs of the customer and/or the specific requirements of the build, be it zoning restrictions, setback requirements, etc. etc. My point is this: before you build a new home, you have a game plan (your floor plan!); a game plan that’s the product of weeks or even months of detailed thought and analysis; a game plan that is constantly being tweaked and refined as you move forward as a new home builder. This up front investment should pay your company handsome returns into the future; if not, perhaps you pull the floor plan from production. Most companies and builders alike apply this thoughtful, ROI-based approach to business decisions making on a daily basis. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to harnessing the vast power of the Internet to propel your company forward, most businesses and home builders who do make the leap (and not all do) jump right in, with no strategy at all.

This might not seem like a big deal at first glance. After all, how hard could it be, for instance, to manage a social media tool consisting of simple 140 character updates (more popularly known as “tweets”)? Or to manage a Facebook page? Pretty straight forward stuff, right? I mean if your kids can do it, you should be able to as well. Unfortunately, the Internet is an entirely different animal for businesses. You have a brand to manage. You have a specific set of customers you are trying to target. You might have a specific message you want to convey. And like any smart business, you’ll want to track your successes; more importantly, you’ll want to quickly identify any any potential failures so you can quickly fix them if and when they arise. Without a game plan, none of this is possible. Without a game plan, what once started as an effort to leverage the Internet quickly devolves into a disjointed, piecemeal effort that lacks cohesion and purpose: one that could damage your brand and significantly damage your reputation in the minds of your home buying customers.

So, where do you start? Well, before jumping in and creating that Twitter or Facebook account, get cozy, grab a warm cup of coffee or tea (for me, Four Barrel!), do some thinking and reflection and answer the following (*important*) questions: (1) what are my goals; (2) how do I get there; and (3) how do I measure my success?

Let’s start with question #1.

1.) What are my goals? Every home builder looking to leverage the Internet should absolutely start by asking themselves this very question. After all, if you don’t have a clearly defined vision for what you want to achieve, not only do you lack a framework for moving forward, you have no basis for tracking your performance once you do begin to move forward. Imagine, for instance, building a new home with no floor plan: not only would you not know what materials to order pre-build (and in what quantities), you would have no idea whether or not the finished product conformed to your original specs – because there were none! So start by asking yourself exactly what it is you want to achieve. Perhaps list a few goals. But don’t overreach in the beginning, and don’t muddle down these goals with vagaries and generalities. Be specific. Goals like “I want to have a social media presence” are vague and weak and don’t offer much help. More specific and concrete goals like “I want to use a Facebook account to increase my overall referral traffic by at least 5%, and I want this referral traffic to have a bounce rate of less than 35%” not only offer a clear vision for what you want to achieve online, but also a basis for judging your performance going forward.

2.) How do I get there? Put another way: given my goals and where I want to go in the future, what steps should I begin to take to get there? I’ll offer my suggestions here, but thankfully, by answering question #1 we at least have a basis for answering this question. But before getting too excited and thinking this is the easy question out of the three, you must first assess exactly where you are as a company? Sure, you want to increase your referral traffic by 5% and maintain a bounce rate of less than 35% for this referral traffic, but do you even have a website? It’s imperative to assess as honestly as possible where you are presently before you can determine what steps you need to take moving forward. Maybe you do have a website, but do you have tracking code installed so you can perform the necessary analytics to gauge changes in metrics such as referral traffic and bounce rates? Only by first fully understanding your present situation (point A), and by clearly defining your future goals (point B), can you begin to intelligently roadmap how to get most efficiently from point A to point B.

3.) How do I measure my success? (And don’t forget the more important corollary: how do I know whether to change direction sometime down the road?) Luckily for us, by answering questions #1 and #2, it should be pretty clear how to measure your success and to know if/when to change your approach. If you’ve chosen more qualitative goals that don’t lend themselves as nicely to easily trackable quantitative metrics, you might have to get more creative in gauging your success. For instance, maybe you wanted to create a social media presence to promote a brand message to a particular demographic segment. In this instance, surveys and questionnaires might work best. Or maybe your goal is to create a company website so that you rank in the top 10 organic results for a specified set of 50 keywords. In this case, you might want to track your weighted average search engine results page (SERP) on a weekly basis. Plot it on a graph and easily see how you’re progressing. For every goal, for every road map to get there, metrics exist for gauging your performance. Some are better than others, some contain more “noise” than others, but as long as you understand the inherent limitations for any given metric, you can leverage it to your advantage and add it to your toolbox of tools for tracking your performance. Just remember the old adage: garbage in, garbage out.

Hopefully these 3 questions get you going in the right direction. Remember, not everyone has to have the same exact game plan, just like not all builders have to share identical floor plans. But it is imperative to have some sort of formalized game plan: a clearly defined set of goals; a clear path for getting there; and a clear and transparent system for measuring your progress. Only then should you begin to think about creating that Facebook page or Twitter account.

Thoughts? Questions? Let me know in the comments!

In my last post I stated that the first thing every home builder needed to know was that just because the Internet is a big place, it doesn’t have to be a scary place. Let me explain…

For many builders out there, the Internet is fairly new. While AOL and (yes) dial-up connections were a normal part of my life growing up, to my father and great-grandfather – both long-time builders – the computer was nothing more than an oversized piece of plastic that made noise and took up too much space in the dining room. And like them, while more and more of the world was coming online in the mid-to-late 90’s, most builders were spending their time in the field building new homes. Unfortunately, for many builders, the growing gap between the breadth and depth of information accessible on the Internet (not to mention the increased capabilities brought about by newer technologies and faster Internet connections) and their ability to understand and digest that information quickly made the Internet one big, scary place. Like most scary places, the Internet quickly became a place that most builders avoided.

While today more and more builders now realize the importance of the Internet as part of their overall sales and marketing platform (as for why, I’ll go into some of those reasons in another post; for now you can read this or this…), most rely on internal teams and/or outside advertising agencies to parse through endless amounts of information and data online and to report back to them with actionable insights. This is natural, and in most cases optimal, but still too many builders are scared of the Internet and don’t understand a few of the basics. Primarily this is because the gap between what’s out there and what they know is still overwhelming, preventing builders from leveraging the most powerful (and arguably the least expensive) tool that’s out there, so let me try to demystify it a bit for all the beginners out there, even if you rely on internal teams and/or advertising agencies to make sense of the Internet for you.

Before we being, I’m going to assume, correctly or incorrectly, that not everyone reading this will have come to this blog post on their own. Perhaps a friend or colleague dragged you to their desk and is forcing you to read this (hopefully not but who knows, after all this place can be scary!), so I’m going to start from the very beginning.

1.) In order to access the Internet, there are a few things you absolutely must need, and if you’re able to read this you’ve probably already got them. First, a functioning computer (or smartphone) with Internet connection and an Internet browser. You know what a computer is, and the Internet connection simply enables you to connect to the Internet through your Internet Service Provider, or ISP, typically your local phone or cable company.

While the idea of a computer and Internet connection is fairly straight-forward, you’d be surprised how many people still aren’t really quite sure what an Internet browser is. Don’t worry, you are NOT the only one. If you want a detailed explanation, you should read this. Otherwise, an Internet browser does exactly what it says: it enables you to browse (i.e. “surf”) the web. It enables you to view all those websites that are out there, including your own. Many browsers are on the market, the most popular of which is Internet Explorer, simply known as IE, primarily because it’s pre-installed in Windows OS, which has the biggest market share out there in terms of computer operating systems – the stuff that enables your computer (i.e. your hardware) to run programs (i.e. the software), such as an Internet browser. Other browsers abound, many considered superior to Internet Explorer, such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. In addition to multiple browsers, there are even multiple versions of the same browser, which can make things even more confusing. For instance, the most recent version of Internet Explorer is IE 8.0 even though IE 6.0 still accounts for 20+% of the browser market despite being 2 versions and 8+ years old (for corporate users the market share of IE 6.0 is even higher).

Simply put though, to use the Internet, you need a few basic tools to do so: a working computer, an Internet connection and a browser to “surf” the Internet, or web. We could go into more details like what the Internet actually is and how it works, but we’ll save that for another time. If you have specific questions, just leave a comment and I’ll be sure to respond. Now that you have the basics down, it’s time to use them to be a more productive, more knowledgeable decision maker. Moving on!

2.) Now that you have your’re able to get online, let me introduce you to some tools to help you become the more efficient, more knowledgeable decision-maker we all strive to be. For starters, if there’s anything you have a question about, there’s an answer for it online. Obviously, question the source, but Wikipedia is by far one of the most used information sources online for general questions and knowledge. Want to know what the Krebs Cycle is? How about Page Rank? You can easily find out on Wikipedia. You have questions, Wikipedia has answers. Use it. If the information is questionable, there is generally a warning at the top. Sources are always provided at the bottom of each article so you are easily able to check the facts. (Note: Ever wonder why it always seems to rank so high organically in Google search results? It’s because so many people are linking back to the articles!) Using Wikipedia might seem overwhelming at first, but just navigate to the search box on the left hand side of the screen and type in whatever subject/topic it is that you’re looking to research.

Okay – Wikipedia is there to help you with general question, but you’re a builder, so general knowledge side, you need to be staying on top of relevant housing news, data and statistics. Your local home builder association website is a great place to start, as well as the National Association of Home Builders website. Both can be great sources of information. My personal favorites are Census.gov and the Congressional Budget Office, both of which provide lots of information, all of it free (in fact, much of this free data is the input for many paid reports out there). The Census.gov website is an amazing source for information like new residential sales or information on housing starts, building permits and more. The Congressional Budget Office, which generally publishes reports on the state of the housing industry, often just recently put out a gem like this which can be used for long-term forecasting. The point of the matter is this: if you’re willing to invest the time to figure out where to go (and hopefully I’m giving you a nudge in the right direction!), there’s lot of information that’s out there free of charge and easily accessible with just a few clicks of the mouse. Anything you can’t find for free is generally available for sale from reputable organizations such as the National Association of Home Builders. (How should you use all that data? Perfect topic for a follow-up post!)

OK – so I know what you’re thinking. That’s all well and good for data and statistics from a macro-level, but real estate and home building is local and in real-time so what about news? Great point! As far as news goes online, you should obviously familiarize yourself with your local news sites to stay in touch with what’s going on nearby. Of course, you can always read the local printed versions as well, the choice is yours. For national news, try Google Business News which does a good job aggregating news content (note: they are currently renegotiating their contract with the Associated Press (AP) so those articles aren’t currently running). You’ll always want to try out Google Alerts and Google Reader, two amazing tools to help you stay organized and stay efficient. With Google Alerts you simply enter a “Search Term,” say “housing,” set the “Type” to “News” (or keep it more broad if you’d like) and set your frequency, e-mail length and delivery preferences. Whala! Google will automatically send you “alerts” to the relevant news articles pertaining to your subject. Use Google Reader to aggregate all your trusted news and blog sources into one central place. Once you’ve found all your sources you want to keep up with on a regular basis, plug them into Google Reader. Now, instead of having to go to each individual website on a daily basis, you can go to one place to read everything. It’s a really great tool for staying on top of your reading and saving time by not having to navigate to each individual website. I generally spend an hour before I start work in the morning or before I go to bed in the evening staying up-to-date and you probably should as well – after all between meetings at the office and being on-site in the field, there’s usually no time during the day!

To sum all of this up, once you’re online and understand a few of the basics, you need to efficiently locate the information and data sources that will empower you to make intelligent decisions, as well as the places to go when you’re stuck and need help. There are a lot of great information sources out there, many that are free. There are also several tools to help you efficiently digest this information, which is just as important. While the Internet is a huge place indeed, the truth of the matter is that most people frequent less than 10 websites on a regular basis. So figure out what works for you, get organized, and use the Internet to arm yourself with information and data that’s relevant to your business – information and data that will help you to make smarter, more profitable decisions. And ones that make the big bad web a little less scary.

Missing anything? Something in particular you have a question about? Thoughts? Leave a comment and let’s continue the discussion!

Hello World!

Okay, so here we go: new year, new blog, a good start to 2010! I’ve been thinking a lot about the best way to start off this blog and figured that for at least this first one I should do more typing and less thinking to get the ball rolling (after all, over-analyzation can be a bad thing if and when it leads to inaction). So I’d like to use this first blog post to introduce myself and to quickly outline what my goals are for this blog. Last but not least, I’ll wrap things up with some helpful thoughts for the home builders out there – a launching pad of sorts for future blog posts. (Note: If you’re in a rush and want to get down to business, skip to the end to view my list of tips for home builders.)

Okay, so a little about me… While I feel oh so very old (and growing older by the minute!), by most standards I am fairly young. Aside from my time spent in Philadelphia going to college and a year and a half working in New York City, however, my life has revolved entirely around the real estate and home building industries. From digging perimeter footers and framing houses with my father and great-grandfather as a child growing up, to building financial models for land deals for potential housing developments as an adult, throughout my life I’ve been hands on in the real estate and home building industries – both in the field on the production side as well as back in the office on the finance and marketing sides. Even while in school at the University of Pennsylvania and while working in NYC  as a investment banker at least a few hours of each day were spent working on housing and real estate-related matters. What I’ve always enjoyed the most about these industries, however, and what has inevitably led me to today and to this very first blog post are some of the very same feelings that bring back some of my greatest memories as a child growing up – the feelings that arise from viewing a newly finished home and from watching the newly finished communities in which these new homes are built slowly but surely transform from raw pieces of land into vibrant communities budding with friends, families and neighbors.

In 2009 I founded a company called Discover Home Network, Inc. to help home builders sell more homes. Over time it has become more than just a livelihood and has indeed become my life’s work – a culmination of everything I learned up until then (home building, finance, marketing, sales), and borne out of a singular desire to watch the industry flourish even in spite of challenging economic and financial times. Over my course of building this company, I have come in contact with numerous builders, large and small. Over this course of time I have also spent extensive amounts of time sharing ideas and interacting with dozens of professionals, business owners and consumers with thoughts and insights relevant and applicable to the real estate and home building industries. It is my simple and humble goal to use this blog as a forum to share with you as many of these insights as I can. My immediate hope is that with each post you will learn something new. My long-term hope is that over time, and with enough posts, your accumulated knowledge will translate into you selling more homes. Because as I know first hand, on the other side of each new home sale are real people; real people whose lives you touch in a very profound way. So let’s sell more homes!

Okay – so I’ve told you a little bit about me and what my goals are for this blog. Let’s get right down to it. Following are 10 quick tips pertaining to the Internet, technology and selling more homes that every builder should know (after all, the intersection of those 3 areas is my specialty). This isn’t a complete list of *every* tip, just a launching pad to get us started. Over time, we’ll dive into each and every point in more detail. Until then, here’s some food for thought…

10 Things Every Builder Should Know:

1.) The Internet is big, but it doesn’t have to be scary

2.) Before you jump in, have a game plan (otherwise you’re just wasting time)

3.) Before you spend money, start with what’s free

4.) Understand the role of your website; understand the role of others

5.) Good analytics make for good decision makers (don’t worry, we’ll get into how to set up free analytics accounts)

6.) Be wary of who you trust online

7.) Never pay for SEO (what’s SEO? We’ll get to that too!)

8.) Talk to your customers

9.) Talk to your employees

10.) Don’t lose sight of the big picture and the specific role of the Internet within the greater context of your organization

_________________________

Thoughts? Opinions? We’ll try to drill down these keywords and catch phrases and get into some good solid substance on the follow-up posts that elaborate on each point, but this list should get us going. Again, this is not by any means an exhaustive list, but it’s one to get us started!

Till next time,

@Sell_More_Homes