OutThink

New Year – New Front Door!

October 2, 2024
By Jim Sorgatz

“There’s a new front door, and it’s online.” This quote from new home sales expert Kerry Mulcrone of Kerry and Co., on changes in the buying process, sums up how much the world has evolved in less than a year. The significant shift to online new home sales was the main topic of discussion at home builder marketer Meredith Oliver’s January Builder Town Hall. For a growing number of buyers, the journey to a new home doesn’t even include a sales center trip. And that is why having a well-designed website with engaging, interactive platforms is critical. As noted by Meredith, Interactive Floor Plans, quality renderings, and virtual tours are no longer luxuries; they are cost-of-entry items for home builder websites.

Door set on computer keyboard, opening, with Interactive Floor Plan in background — *Open your front door to online new home sales*.

With the housing market booming across the U.S., now is the time to review your online marketing strategy and website and make the changes needed to swing your front door wide open. A recent audit of the Outhouse website by digital marketing firm Blue Tangerine is leading us to invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We are also revamping our home page to showcase our products better “above the fold.” Updates of demos and product samples are on the agenda as well. Styles change and technology changes, so it is critical for us to spotlight our newest and most innovative virtual tours, visualizers, interactive platforms, and print materials.

Many builders rebuild their website every two years! That’s how rapidly styles and technologies change.

A builder panel featuring Ashley DeYoung from DeYoung Properties, Michelle Smallwood from Holiday Builders, and Chris Hartley from K. Hovnanian Homes at our November Home Builder Digital Marketing Summit discussed the importance of fresh website content and staying relevant with the latest technology. One surprising fact that came up is many builders rebuild their website EVERY TWO YEARS! Wow! That is how rapidly styles and technologies change.

Colored Interactive Site Plan with pop up showing home renderings — *Click on the Site Plan to see how engaging it is, integrating with Interactive Floor Plans, Renderings and Hotspots.*

Where will you start with online marketing and website upgrades to open your front door to homebuyers? Perhaps hiring an experienced Online Sales Counselor if you don’t already have one is at the top of the list. Then consider something as simple as a home page refresh to increase functionality and showcase your homes to their fullest. Adding Interactive Floor Plans to engage homebuyers and capture leads from their saved plans is a must. How about taking it to the next level and creating WOW with Visualizers and Virtual Tours? Invest the time today reviewing and considering all the options. Then implement those that make sense. By doing so, you will stay ahead of the competition and lead buyers through the front door to your new homes.

Growing Sales with Bitmojis – a Lesson for Home Builders from Ralph Lauren

October 2, 2024
By Jim Sorgatz

How resilience, agility, and focusing on what matters most lead to success in both retail and in home building.

Ralph Lauren Bitmojis on Smapchat

Who knew Ralph Lauren had their own Bitmojis? In a recent webinar featuring Matthew Shay, President & CEO of the National Retail Federation, and Patrice Louvet, President & CEO of Ralph Lauren, the two men discuss the importance of resilience and agility in 2020. Hired in 2017, Patrice is a brand guy and was brought on board to, “write the next great chapter of the iconic brand.” How the company interacts and engages with consumers is where Patrice centers his attention. And that is why, when the pandemic hit, this rather traditional brand stepped outside the box and designed their own Bitmojis for Snapchat. Launched in August, there have already been more than 3 million downloads. Building amazing partnerships with social media in recent years is one of the company’s greatest strengths.

An “opportunity in crisis,” the shift to digital moved light-years ahead in 2020.

Heavily focused on what the digital age wants, Patrice believes digital will become like electricity – we won’t notice it, but it will be everywhere, and it will power everything. An “opportunity in crisis,” the shift to digital moved light-years ahead in 2020.

What was most interesting about this webinar is how retail and home building share many of the same challenges and goals. To move the company forward in the Twenties, Patrice has 5 primary areas Ralph Lauren is targeting:

Elevate and energize the brand – bring in a new generation of consumers.
Shift to direct-to-consumer. Stores will continue to play an important role, but online sales are growing.
Digital
International expansion
Develop high-potential, under-represented categories

A tech-savvy generation of home buyers has accelerated the digital revolution.

In the homebuilding industry, the pandemic along with a tech-savvy generation of home buyers has accelerated the digital revolution. Sales centers will still play an integral role, but much of the interaction between builders and buyers will take place virtually. International barriers are being toppled as builders crisscross “the pond.” Landsea Homes and Sekisui House (Woodside Homes) are just a couple of examples. And, builders are constantly working to develop under-represented categories – affordable housing for one.

Also needing attention are four areas affected by Covid that Patrice believes are here to stay:

Health and safety have become a huge factor in human behavior and will continue to be for quite some time, if not indefinitely.
The move to connectivity – people are not going to quit using apps and having home deliveries. Mom and grandpa just learned how to do all that!
Consumers are looking for a personalized experience.
Importance of values and purpose, “What difference will we make?” Consumer response to companies focusing on these has been amazing. Authenticity is a core Ralph Lauren brand value.

With the world staying home, resilience, agility, and focusing on what matters most have become critical to the success of every business.

Three valuable lessons Patrice learned from Covid:

Focus on what matters most
Resilience
Agility

Companies who quickly learned these lessons and adapted have survived and even done well.

This insightful webinar brings home the importance of your brand, company culture, and marketing. As home builders, our industry tends to not be on the cutting edge. We have been building and selling homes the same way for 100+ years. Builders have been making strides forward, but nothing prepared us for the events of this year. With the world staying home, resilience, agility, and focusing on what matters most have become critical to the success of every business. Engaging with consumers online is key. This is where Zoom, Online Sales Counselors, CRMs like TopBuilder and Lasso, chatbots like those powered by AtlasRTX, and online marketing tools including Interactive Floor Plans, Virtual Tours, Matterport Tours, and Visualizers play an integral role. Focusing on what the digital age wants, and thinking outside the box (Snapchat Bitmojis anyone?) to write the next great chapter of your iconic brand are keys to success.

Drive engagement on your website with the Outhouse Interactive Floor Plan.

On a final note, Patrice talks about citizenship and sustainability. Companies like Ralph Lauren cannot be successful if they don’t take the lead. Consumers and partners expect it. “People will remember you for what you did and the way you behaved.” These words hold true for home builders as well.

Mentoring & Nurturing

October 2, 2024
By Jim Sorgatz

How mentoring kids enhances a career in nurturing client success

My "Little" and I on top of South Mountain at cancer hike in 2014 — On cancer hike with my Little in 2014

One of the accomplishments I am most proud of in life is mentoring two boys through the Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) program. With no kids of my own, I felt a calling to volunteer with this tremendous organization as I realized how growing up in a relatively stable family helped prepare my brothers and me for adulthood. There are so many kids whose lives are in constant flux or would simply benefit from a little extra adult encouragement and support. BBBS is comprised of Bigs (adult volunteers) and Littles (the kids) who are matched one on one, based on common interests. Although most activities are on your own, each match is supervised by a BBBS specialist. The minimum time commitment for a Big is 2-4 outings a month for one year, but there are many matches that evolve into lifelong friendships.

My "Little", who is no as tall as me, and I on top of South Mountain at cancer hike in 2018. — My “Little” (2nd from right) and I on cancer hike in 2018

The need for volunteers is great, especially for men as the organization seems to have an easier time recruiting Big Sisters. If you are looking to help others in a role that is both challenging and rewarding, this is the perfect opportunity. Does everything go smoothly – NO! Things can and do go wrong. My current Little is now 19 and comes with all the drama and emotions most 19-year-olds experience. Although no longer in the program we still see each other regularly. As I write this, he is staying at my home due to challenges getting along with his roommate and his mom at the same time. So, lucky me, I get the brooding young man! The bottom line is, we have grown very close during our 10+ years together and I want to do everything I can to help him find his way in the world as an adult. Bigs are also not immune to the challenges parents face. Like the title of that famous song “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” (or in today’s world – Rap!), Bigs often have to address these issues as Littles navigate their teenage years. There was a point earlier this year where things had gone so awry, I was questioning whether my efforts made a difference at all.

And that is when, out of the blue, my first Little (now 26) sent me a chat via Messenger. Together in the program for 5 or 6 years, our match was terminated by BBBS due to a change in circumstances at his home; and this meant no further contact. Remembering a painfully shy and quiet teenager, I was not prepared for the chatterbox I encountered when we met for dinner. Confident, self-sufficient, incredibly happy, and overly-talkative, he was working as an assistant manager at Fry’s but decided to take a detour as an Uber/Lyft driver as he wanted more freedom. That evening made me realize, without a doubt, the time and energy dedicated to mentoring these young men was worth it.

What I learned while volunteering with BBBS is I am passionate about mentoring, nurturing, and helping people solve problems and overcome challenges. These interests have played an integral role in my career as well.

As former VP of member services at the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona, I helped builders and trades connect with one another through business development events and programming.

Here at Outhouse, rolling out new products (did someone say Visualizer?!) and educating clients on the full range of benefits offered by our interactive tools are two key roles. There is often much more than meets the eye. While builders actively use front-facing tools like the furniture planner, structural options selector, and pricing calculator on our Interactive Floor Plans, they sometimes forget about the lead generation, and analytics available through the back end. Outhouse may not be the largest provider of online marketing tools, but we have always taken pride in being the best. Working with clients to be sure they effectively use these tools to guide successful marketing strategies and close sales is part of that mission.

Nurturing and mentoring play an integral role in both business and our personal lives. There is so much we can learn from one another, and a great deal we can share to help others realize dreams and achieve goals. To learn more about Outhouse, or being a Big, give me a jingle at jims@outhouse.net. There is a great need for volunteers to help guide kids and teens in the right direction. It’s not easy, but I believe you will find the experience rewarding.

Musings from Home Builder, Author & NAHB Speaker Alan Trellis

October 2, 2024
By Outhouse Partner

“The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.”
— Dennis Gabor

Randomness and circumstance combine to create the daily environment in which we must live, and hopefully thrive. But to believe that these alone determine our destiny is to incorrectly account for our own decisions and actions. Our future is as much about what we do with the hand we are dealt as the hand itself. It is up to each of us to be the best that we can be – to do the most that we can do. Poor circumstances can make this harder, and at any given instant guarantee that our best will be unacceptable, and the most we can do be insufficient. But if we consistently address both the good times and the bad with courage, determination, and thoughtful creativity, we can always impact the outcome of our lives and our decisions. We can always, to some degree, invent our own futures.

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”
— Reid Hoffman

This quote relates directly to an article I wrote entitled “When Truisms Collide”. In that article, I discussed how two conflicting quotes, generally considered as truisms, could be in direct conflict and yet both be true. The answer to this inconsistency is relatively simple – which truism is correct depends entirely on the circumstances and environment of any given situation. Mr Hoffman is entirely accurate in his assessment if there is huge pressure to get to market and grab market share before a competitor beats you to it. This would be particularly true in the case of new technology-driven products, where obtaining a foothold is the highest priority.

For a homebuilder, particularly one with an excellent reputation, I would argue that it is equally important that while our new product need not be perfect, it should not be embarrassing. The cost of reputational damage must always be weighed against the advantages of being first to market. History is filled with unsuccessful product pioneers, whose market share was stolen by the second round of better designed, better performing, and better priced alternatives.

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”.
— Dr. Suess

Many great quotes are similar in that they are variations on a core theme. The fundamental message contained here is “Be Positive”. “Every cloud has a silver lining” and ”Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism leads to strength” are just 2 other examples of this pro-positive theme. Yet here, Dr. Suess has expanded the base message of positive versus negative to one of appreciation versus lament, with the added message that everyone get’s to decide the outcome of this contest through their individual perspective. To quote another quote, we each get to determine if, in our mind, the glass is half full or half empty. The amount of water in the glass doesn’t change- how we chose to see it is what changes.

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way”
— Napolean Hill

Most of us dream, at some time, of doing great things. Yet true satisfaction and long term success come from hard work, commitment, and attention to detail. Big things consist of myriad small things, and getting these right is the foundation on which big ideas, big plans, and big business success are built. As builders, we should understand, better than most, the importance of a solid foundation, and strive to do the nagging, every day small things we must deal with in a great way. Only then, will you be capable of accomplishing great things

Submitted by

Alan Trellis, Author, NAHB Speaker, and co-founder of Home Builders Network.

With 40 years of experience as a custom home builder and consultant for the home building industry, Al is co-founder of Home Builders Network, which provides management consulting, marketing, residential design, and land planning for home builders throughout North America. Collectively, their clients build 3,000 homes per year, for a sales value of $1.2 billion. Al is the author of many books on residential construction; has served as chairman of the NAHB Custom Builder, Education, and Business Management committees; and is a leading speaker at the NAHB International Builders Show (IBS).

Growing Sales With OpenHouse.ai – a Case Study with Trico Homes

March 28, 2025
By Outhouse Partner

What Does OpenHouse.ai Offer?

At OpenHouse.ai, we believe that it is essential for growth and success within the homebuilding industry to understand a homebuyer’s stage of life, motivation, and needs. Therefore, we offer homebuilders a data-driven marketing solution to connect with homebuyers and maximize the opportunity for sales.

Graph showing OpenHouse.ai rate for online visitors to lead conversion across all clients growing from 0.85% to 1.24% from February 2020 to August 2020.

Our platform uses data science and artificial intelligence to offer both an insights dashboard and an engagement platform. The engagement platform tracks a customer’s real-time behavioral patterns to predict the likelihood of purchase, and amenity, location, and price preferences. With this understanding, our system updates inventory search results and creates recommendations for each unique website visitor in real time. This allows homebuilders to put their best foot—or maybe we should say floorplan—forward, for each customer. Our platform also offers a comprehensive analytic insight dashboard, which provides a birds-eye view of homebuilder’s customers and operations. We pair the real-time behavioral data gathered from the engagement platform with changing market trends, to provide the most up to date and relevant insights into a homebuilder’s customers and communities. Builders can leverage our platform to optimize marketing spend, increase lead conversion, improve operational planning and promote data-driven sales and marketing procedures.

Trico Homes – A Lead Nurturing Case Study

Beautiful white kitchen with island n Trico Home.

BACKGROUND

In 1992, Wayne Chiu founded Trico Homes in Calgary, Alberta with the commitment of being a different kind of homebuilding company; one with an extra degree of care to create the best place to live for every individual at every life stage. Trico’s communities have now expanded into Cochrane, Airdrie, Chestermere and Okotoks bringing their quality designs, craftsmanship and customer care to each and every project. Trico Homes continues to show the utmost commitment to improving the homebuilding industry, the city of Calgary, and the homebuying experience.

CHALLENGE

Trico Homes was in search of a solution to further improve the homebuyer’s web experience, while simultaneously bringing in more potential customers to Trico’s show homes. As 51% of people buy homes they found online, it is essential for Trico, and other homebuilders, to optimize the online experience. Trico in particular needed a new tactic to educate and nurture customers earlier in the homebuying process.

Homebuilders alike also face the challenge of making high impact decisions on a daily basis, from floor plan selection to land development, solely based on intuition. Trico wanted to ensure confident decision making through the use of data and needed a technological platform that empowers data-driven decisions within homebuilding.

SOLUTION

Trico Homes embraced OpenHouse.ai’s data-driven approach of using adaptable experiences, nudges and a host of other tools to help homebuyers find what they want, faster. OpenHouse.ai’s platform provides the capability of directing prospective buyers to the most relevant products in real time. The user-friendly dashboard uses descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytics, ultimately helping Trico better understand their homebuyers and provide a scalable customer experience.

Accurately target buyers through improved segmentation using advanced analytics
Produce community specific campaigns to increase conversions
Select the optimal product and floor plan designs for each segment based on geographic, demographic and community data
Focus on nurturing leads and, overtime converting these prospects to leads
Utilize OpenHouse.ai’s dashboards as the hub for all data analytics to provide powerful insights to understand customers needs and the changing market
Create an optimized and personalized website experience for online shoppers

RESULTS

45% increase in organic search traffic
41% increase in direct search
Increase of over 4 additional homes sold
41% reduction in marketing spend
Contact to conversion rate increased by 29% with no additional training to sales staff
18% reduction in cost/lead
18% increase in foot traffic

CLOSING THOUGHTS

OpenHouse.ai’s marketing platform ultimately empowered Trico Homes to utilize data and technology to drive high impact decision-making within homebuilding. OpenHouse.ai’s technology enabled Trico to provide a personalized experience from website to sales center; as Trico’s website now learns and grows with every interaction, ultimately narrowing down homebuyers search to homes in the price range, style and community they want. Through utilizing AI-technology, Trico is able to better nurture and educate their leads and offer them a superior home shopping experience in the digital space.

Trico’s improved lead nurturing is also recognized in the acceleration of their sales process. As the integration of OpenHouse.ai’s technology drives more qualified buyers and a higher volume of foot-traffic to their show homes, Trico has seen an additional 4 homes sold per month compared to their previous monthly forecasts.

The adoption of OpenHouse.ai’s technology has ultimately improved the homebuying experience, shortened the sale cycle and enabled data-driven decision-making. OpenHouse.ai’s platform provides robust dashboards that serve as the hub for all of Trico’s data, providing powerful and meaningful insights to drive these informed business decisions. OpenHouse.ai’s technology delivers dynamic analytics and detailed demographics to ensure Trico and their marketing team are effectively and accurately understanding their customer segment and market. The integration of OpenHouse.ai’s technology has created lasting value for Trico Homes, ultimately advancing their marketing function and driving sales while simultaneously improving the homebuying experience for each of their valued clients.