A weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We’re here to help you – not to sell you!
Kevin
Jen do you know who you want to trade?
Jen
Well, I tried to pull one over on Jackie Lipinski and tried to get Justin Jefferson from her, as if she didn't know who that was. But I did. I did try to offer her a couple of really good legit players, but she denied me.
Kevin
Oh.
Jen
Yes, I have not.
Kevin
You're a fantasy football professional, so can you talk right now who's like, if you had to call it right now, who has the best team? Do you think?
Jen
Um, I mean, Jackie has a pretty good team. Mike has a pretty good team. I have a pretty decent team. I mean, I'm really not a professional. I just like to pretend that I know what you want.
Kevin
Right. You won that unicorn trophy.
Andrew
It's great.
Jen
Yeah, I won.
Andrew
It's gold.
Jen
I won once. Yes, but it's really just. It's really just luck. Plus, the way that we do it, guys, is this auto draft. So it's not even like you, you just, just auto automatically picks your players. You don't really have any say in what's.
Andrew
Going to have the winners decided with the auto draft.
Jen
Sort of yeah.
Andrew
Well if you don't like such a.
Jen
Lineup it says projected standings with Mike Ryan and first place.
Andrew
So happens every year somehow.
Jen
Trying to.
Kevin
RAZ Even though he's the commissioner right? Yeah.
Jen
Yeah. Like Jalen hurts or your quarterback.
Kevin
Let's see. Here's here's what makes me mad is I had to make myself like math again. Like I failed the honors pre-calculus. And I took it twice. And then I never had to take math again. And I was like, I'm never. I chose a different like, I was like, I'm going to go Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science because I'm not taking anything close to math.
Kevin
And then I had to make myself like math when I became a marketer, became important. Yeah. So it drives me nuts. Like I'm going up against Lipinski and it says projected score of 124 and a half for me, this is 122 and a half for her. Okay. How is it possible that what's going to happen is going to happen?
Kevin
I'm going to get 65 and she's going to have 172. I mean, that's just gambling. That's just randomness.
Jen
They're just taking average projections. But what happens is somebody could get hurt. They might not even play. Hey, I mean, like, you never know.
Kevin
I just think if we have, you know, I that can take us to Mars and back. Can it give us better projections at this? Like, come on, ESPN, get some GPUs fired up And.
Jen
Then but there is.
Kevin
Machine learning.
Andrew
Human.
Jen
To human factor.
Andrew
Are reliable, unreliable.
Jen
Human factor.
Kevin
But they're all being paid off to like take a fall and stuff anyway. Right. Like it's it's all statistically for sure. Oh, it's all over.
Andrew
If there is no drama in the game, no.
Jen
One wants to think.
Andrew
It's like people think all the housewife shows are real. Like if there's no drama, there'd be no show. It's all manufactured.
Kevin
I just think it should show around. You should be like, Here's. Here's that. Every year I am like, okay, I'll give Fantasy another shot. And then after the first two or three weeks of the same thing happening every time, or it's like I should have 180 points and I get 30.
Jen
Like, there's no no, you just have to make sure that your players don't have a bye.
Kevin
I don't. I do believe that never happens the first two or three weeks before I get.
Jen
Okay.
Kevin
So that's why I was wondering, besides you and Mike, who is most likely to win so I can just trade them my best players now.
Jen
But now you're playing that game we're not in. Oh, man.
Andrew
I just opted out this year because now we have enough people. I do convert, you know, I don't feel like I'm like.
Jen
No pressure.
Andrew
No pressure because I was not adding to it. I would I would set my thing, but I was just like, Oh, there's another person playing. I don't watch football. I watched some college football, but professional. But they said on.
Jen
Usually guys, I went to the Virginia Tech Old Dominion game this past weekend. It was freaking electric. I was pretty sure Old Dominion was going to get pummeled, but they played pretty good. You know, that's my alma mater.
Andrew
Since that's where you went.
Jen
That's where I went to school, right? I'm a die hard fan. I go, Every time you have a home game, I'm there. But when they started playing Enter Sandman at the beginning, I mean, it was like it. In fact, they when everybody's jumping like that, it registers on the text size. Yeah, my grandma, I don't know what the type, but I registers as an earthquake.
Jen
It was crazy. Like, I was like, almost. I was so overcome with emotion. I was, I was like, it's not even I mean, look, I pay Virginia Tech a lot of money because my child goes there. So I like either way, whoever won it was fine. But I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, I brought me back to Meredith Oliver's fanatical selling and like, we have to our customers need to be fans of, you know, our our business and our brand and our company.
Jen
And yeah, I mean, it was it was a thing, man. I was like, I'm all in on these Hokies.
Andrew
So you can't replace you cannot replace humans, I guess is what it is.
Kevin
Yeah. It's not human to happening this year, but sometimes soon I'm going to have to get my kids to the summit just for like the first 30 minutes and then tell them to leave, because I think that's the only atmosphere that work. And I understand like, Oh, okay, Dad, you do you do real work outside of just talking to your computer upstairs.
Andrew
Or they might be like, wait, So you go on stage and talk for like a couple of minutes and all these people give you give you money, they listen to you. I don't know. That sounds like a scam. I feel like that's what you promise.
Kevin
No more sports talk for the rest of the podcast.
Andrew
No more sports.
Kevin
Let's start. Walk on to marketers marketing the podcast from the industry leaders. How do you convert where we talk about the current and future state of marketing and online sales for builders and developers across the globe? We're not here to sell you. We're here to help you and to try and elevate the conversation. Is there a topic you'd like us to cover or a question you'd like us to answer?
Kevin
We'll do it. Simply send an email to show at. Do you convert? Dot com. Welcome to episode 302. I'm Kevin. Okay. And with me today is Andrew Peek and Jen Barkin.
Andrew
We're here. It's so exciting.
Kevin
It's a chat. Are we allowed to announce what's happening?
Jen
Oh, my gosh. What's happening?
Kevin
See, the thing that you're doing?
Jen
Am I doing.
Kevin
Fast with the ends with podcast? Oh, are you kidding me? Talking about that? And we're not talking.
Jen
About that yet.
Kevin
Okay, we'll talk about it.
Andrew
I think you just talked about it like it's like, what do you know?
Kevin
We didn't.
Jen
We are pretty sure you didn't mind people talking.
Kevin
Oh, all right. Well, that's funny. What do you got?
Andrew
Oh, what I got This is a fun question. And I talked about yesterday and this morning, so my. Oh, this could be open discussion. Maybe we make it a parallel to the online sales world. But at the same time, how do you measure a successful ad or how do you measure a successful phone call if it doesn't end up with a lead or an appointment?
Andrew
Can it still be successful? It's kind of like a gay like principle or like theory. Question This is like the long essay question at the end of an SAT. I don't know if they still do that or not. It's been quite a few years, so sort of open ended discussion. So let's talk about this with Beth, a coach convert and Bryce, a marketing strategist.
Andrew
And it really went down to this rabbit hole of like, oh, you kind of need to be rooted in some type of principles before you decide what is success or not success, because it could be like, Hey, it's really efficient. Was that successful or not? We need every single click out there. Like maybe that's actually the opposite. It's unsuccessful or maybe a very, very limited budget.
Andrew
So having a really low or very efficient cost per click is success. Or maybe it's a coming soon community. You need as many leads as you can and you just need to spend as much as can. It doesn't matter what the cost per lead is because the urgency of more leads is significantly more important than trying to save some of the marketing budget.
Andrew
So I kind of just gave the answer. It really depends. It really depends. There's no there's no good.
Jen
Answer, but the right answer as to your.
Kevin
Question, it's a hard question. Salespeople leads.
Andrew
Well, that's it's online sales. People talk.
Jen
And I was going to say I was going to say I don't know what the right answer is, but I would think it would be a good ad, would get leads and appointments and sales.
Andrew
Yeah, sounds good to me.
Kevin
You know. Yeah.
Jen
If it's a it's.
Kevin
It's you know, I other maybe maybe land I don't know of a longer purchase cycle for most people to deal with and then homes.
Andrew
Yeah.
Kevin
Maybe mega yachts or airplanes I mean but like if you're shopping for an airplane, is that comparable to shopping for a car? I don't know. Like.
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boats, boats and car boats and there's lots of personalized ocean.
Kevin
Like I've seen lots of visualization tools for customizing your own private jet. Being advertised is like the new way to sell expensive stuff to people.
Jen
I mean, ads are the need though just that really any.
Kevin
Well right but I mean is like the number of decisions and trade offs to consider and you know but at that that's just what makes it all more complicated and.
Andrew
Very complicated. It's a hard question. Like it's well, it's I think it's.
Kevin
It's it's the question in advertising. But for us, it's important. Remember that there are multiple parts of the funnel. Different ads serve different purposes for different customers in different stages. You know, you can't I think about this way if you think about a pie pizza and everyone inside of that pie, it doesn't matter if you spend $2 million or $2,000 a month on search, if it's only within that pie, there is always a tradeoff of like if you spend all $2 million and the pie doesn't expand and it's not really pie, it's Rubik's Cube because it's like seven dimensional.
Kevin
But you you can't have any one tactic that you can just never max out.
Jen
Now.
Kevin
Not just in terms of I guess what I'm trying to convey is it's not just that the ads will get more expensive, but it will not raise the number of people that it reaches if it's defined by a certain radius or shape or audience already and so can't.
Andrew
Yeah, we can't really create a market sort of.
Kevin
Well, yes, but I guess my point is each channel is by definition we don't think about this way. It's own market. Like only the people who are searching can be reached by search marketing. It makes sense. Yeah. If people who aren't searching or they're not searching at every moment of their decision making process. Right.
Jen
And so if they're searching, we want to capture them with your.
Kevin
Yeah, if they are search, you want to capture them. But you also have to realize that every every line goes back to Steve Schumacher's joke, which you repeat all the time, is if you've got five different things that are viable reasons why someone ends up being a purchaser or they have a realtor, they're referred by a friend, they saw you on a social ad, they did a search, they went on an event and then they purchase who gets credit.
Kevin
But it's just the acknowledgment that you have to have that every customer becomes a member of multiple channels, advertising channels all the time. And so, like there is this well-rounded ness that I don't think I understood early in my career that now that everyone's I mean, it's everyone's I'm data driven, dated or data driven, and it's like that curve that we get a name Dunning, Kruger data or whatever.
Andrew
Greater than.
Kevin
Feeling data over.
Andrew
That data.
Kevin
Yeah, but I would say to your point, what's the word you used to start with a piece that we need.
Andrew
People we.
Kevin
Know we need. Well, anyway, it's a good ad we need. We need what?
Andrew
Before to me is as context we need I don't even know. I don't know where it's just come out my mouth is what usually happens.
Jen
It's a struggle and.
Andrew
Eventually it forms a sentence that makes sense.
Kevin
Yeah, but anyway, the whole world has gone so over onto the data side that for sure there is a serious lack of around principles of thinking principle.
Andrew
That we have principles.
Kevin
Here that we will.
Andrew
Live by principles. That's what we need and building principles come from.
Kevin
This is the LinkedIn post that I made a little while ago. The principles come from having an ultra deep understanding of what your consumer's experiencing and doing and thinking That's not defined by just asking them, What are you doing? What are you thinking? Because they can't, they can't articulate. They do what's called preference falsification, where they just say what they feel like they're supposed to say to appear good.
Kevin
And so you have to have that deep understanding. Just know like, well, of course they're doing these other things. And I don't actually I need data to continually prove to me that they're doing that because I'm constantly watching consumers do what they do and interacting with them and talking to them anyway.
Andrew
Yeah, it's a loaded question. Yeah, we talked about it probably like an hour and a half until yesterday and today. Beth and Bryce. Well, not that single question, but it was a series of question. Yeah, from a very intelligent builder partner of ours. And it was like, Oh, this is actually like, this gets deep. Like you can't that's not a surface level question.
Andrew
It's not like, Hey, just check on that. Click the rate, the CPC and conversion rate, and it is your answer because you could have amazing conversion rate.
Kevin
And I think.
Andrew
I just asked.
Kevin
My sister, here's our episode and she doesn't listen anyway, but she's a CMO now at a at a university, I guess. I mean, sorry, Kristen, but, you know, remember all those bad things she did to me when I was a kid? There's no payback. She she read like a Harvard Business Review magazine article and then, you know, reached out to me and was like, how do I get my team to do this?
Kevin
Like, I read this in an article and it's like, I mean, okay. But I think that's where our prints were. The principles come from Your principles either come from just things you like, observed from afar, or someone else just told you that's a terrible way to develop or principle you can shortcut by getting a coach right? Jenn My coaches help you shortcut to the best principles, but if you're going to your coach and you're like, Hey, I think maybe we should do, you know, squats this way.
Kevin
Andrew Instead of this other way. Why I someone on TikTok said so you're like, Well, I've been in a couple competition. Like, that's, that's not good, right? So I think that's, that's where the friction comes from, is people who have strong principles without strong experience of testing those principles. They just decided it were good principles. Like that's and I it's just important for me to articulate, I guess, to everyone else.
Kevin
And our principles don't come from our feelings. Back to your T-shirt. Andrew Yeah, the principles come from the data, but the data combined with experience and observation, not just data on its own. Yeah.
Andrew
And then kind of testing against those principles reinforces the.
Jen
Principle, the direction this conversation was going about ads, successful ads.
Kevin
There. Again.
Andrew
I think moving it towards online sales world is like a principle on a phone call. Here's the intent of this.
Jen
So this this kind of plays into yeah, let's just just well, it just plays into the whole coaching and being coachable and wanting to do things the right way and the like. You said, the experience that like our coaching team, do you convert as like thousands upon thousands of hours in the seat. But, but then also coaching and training, I mean, just thousands.
Jen
I don't even know what that might be.
Kevin
Hundreds of years. I think if you add up the whole. Yes.
Jen
Yeah, hundreds of years. And so it's like when we are speaking from like experience and relevance in the market because we work with, you know, over a couple of hundred online sales specials a month. So we know like what's happening in real time. It's a few, it's like this is yeah, like this is we're not this is not just, are we?
Jen
We're not is like pulling this out of thin air. What we think like this is what we know, you know, because of what we see on a daily basis. So and you got to be coachable. You got to be open to listening and learning. And I was actually on a podcast yesterday with the homes for Hope program. Yeah, it's awesome.
Jen
Derek And he asked me something came up about coach ability and I was like, Yeah, you know, as a coach you can, you can be like, we're totally invested in that online sales specialist, right? But they have to be invested back in us. We can train, we can coach, we can lead them to the water. We can't make them drink.
Jen
It can't make them do that. They got to be invested back. And so, yeah.
Kevin
That's well, and I'm going to get I mean, you use a spice emoji so I'm, I don't know if you've chilled out since then, but I'm going to bring some spice back. So I feel, I think it's not the right word. I don't want use that word. There are absolutely managers and senior leaders out there who have zero desire to unpack why things work are working, and that it seems to be my hunch would be my hunch would be managers told me my wife, that I should never use that word.
Kevin
Do people not use the word hunch anymore?
Jen
I just know. Yeah, I use that hunch.
Kevin
Okay. She's like, when you use that word, stop it.
Andrew
Is it like, quote, a word? I don't know if like that. That phrase.
Jen
Like moist.
Kevin
You know, my hunch is that they are insecure in their own ability with whatever it is that would be unpacked.
Jen
Absolutely.
Kevin
And that leads them to be like, nope, don't want to like results are good, don't care about. And I'll give you the tangible example here. There is a builder we were speaking with who it looked like the online salesperson was averaging like 30 to 40 leads a month for the last six months. Okay. And we were on a quarterly leadership call and our online sales coach, working with that person has been talking about things a certain way based upon an understanding that that lead volume, by the way, that lead volume is given by the LSC in the reporting that we use, it comes from the CRM, but he's always have the availability to make sure
Kevin
the numbers are accurate and consistent. So our leadership and the leadership sales manager, VP of Sales Marketing is like, Oh no, no, no. That only gets like way more than that. We're talking like a hundred plus more leads a month than what that is showing. But it's in this other system that doesn't talk to our CRM and, and I was like, well, that's why for about an issue, I don't know, two years we've recommended to stop using that thing and sorry the answer came back was but it's working really well for us.
Kevin
Like how do you know?
Jen
Do you know.
Kevin
Because you're your online salesperson doesn't know. Apparently because they don't, they don't count those things. There's no tracking of of how those people are followed up with. And what it boils down to is it's just someone who's highly uncomfortable with the use of technology themselves, someone somewhere told them or whatever, like this is a good thing to use and things are going fine enough, but that's just a that's a huge blind spot that is going to cause massive panic at some point that could be avoided if you just.
Jen
Hear.
Kevin
More about how you how you got to that end result.
Jen
There is definitely a.
Kevin
Know.
Jen
You know, listen online sales contribution is so high. I mean, 45 to 50%.
Kevin
Of.
Jen
Sales are coming from this program. But there's still this disconnect of the resources, the support, the time spent understanding, learning the tools, the systems, the reporting.
Kevin
For this role.
Jen
And so there's a lot of like just wild, Wild West happening out there with some of the online sales specialist because there's management is not is not getting in there and taking the time to understand it's it's like you said, Kevin, maybe a lack of understanding or technology but there's also bandwidth issues to feel like everybody is spread so thin and when push comes to shove, we need sales to keep everything running, right?
Jen
So I'm going to take my efforts and focus on the the sale, the end of the funnel here. But really, we're not going to get sales unless we have a point difference. And if we don't have a point, we got to manage it. So it's really the shift perspective that needs to happen. And I was talking with somebody earlier today that there's still there's still broken parts of the CRM, there's still broken parts of how the leads are managed and things like that.
Jen
And it's like, Hey, we've been talking about this for like a year that's still broken.
Kevin
Like, isn't that funny? Like serums As a broader topic, I feel like, you know, there was a time where it was like, are you using Outlook Express or Outlook or like, what's your email client? I haven't heard maybe once in the last two years someone talk about email or questions are around email and how to write their own email client, right?
Kevin
Mm hmm. Why the heck aren't serums the same way? It's 2023.
Andrew
2023. That would stress me out like I won Lead, lost or won. Lee That you lose. I'm like, that could be X amount of profit from one sale of the home that they just ignore that to someone else.
Kevin
Again.
Andrew
And that just like.
Kevin
All this.
Andrew
That makes me feel.
Kevin
Older. We're on the call and I'm looking through their CRM system and there were months at a time where not a single prospect was ever entered into the CRM by the onsite sales team. That's like millions more months in a row, not a single lead.
Andrew
My that could have been like, that's like, I get weird. I'm like, we could it's like they could have just like, paid someone to pay the whole company notification.
Jen
I mean.
Andrew
Anywhere.
Kevin
They were always the lost revenue or. Ms..
Jen
Ms. Yeah. Or, you know, just looking at even when we could go on and on about this. I mean, you just looking at like, you know, average appointment to sale number right now is 21%. That's a, that's, that's strong 21%. Right. The average walk in traffic conversion is historically like 10 to 12%. Right. So we go, okay, we're still 21%, like one out of five keep appointments are going to write a contract, but we're still not focusing on that.
Jen
During the handoff or making sure that this connection with on site and online is at the forefront of our training and our our discussions. I had some math this episode is all about now. I did some math on Friday where they're right, right now they're at 11% conversion of appointment to sale. And I'm like, if you did these four steps and you were able to increase your conversion to 21%, that's an additional $19 million of revenue.
Jen
Yeah, sales revenue, 19 million, 50 million, which equated to like an additional because we did this math in front of the sales team, that's an additional 400 and something thousand dollars in commission or whatever. That's like being left on the table as like when you put it in that perspective, like, well, oh, you know, like just, you know, like these.
Jen
And again, this goes back to what we were just talking about, Like we're not just coming up with like, yeah, we think you should do it this way. Like, we know this works. We have the data to support it. We have the conversion metrics to show that this is what the averages are.
Kevin
Okay, What do you think.
Jen
These four things.
Kevin
One more thing. Let's just say just for fun.
Andrew
Okay, fancy.
Kevin
Because no one else is listening. Right? Lower left lead to employment ratio. Yeah. Is currently.
Andrew
Can brighten 18.
Kevin
Percent and our and our average benchmark currently is.
Jen
40.
Kevin
40. Okay lead to of women.
Jen
Will get to women. Yeah.
Kevin
My favorite is when the person who has an 18% lead to appointment currently is again the one suggesting that they have found a better way something comes out. I mean and this is where this is where our approaches differ because we're all different humans that do convert, as I'm kind of like I mean, I'm going to explain to you why there's that.
Kevin
That's a bad idea. But you don't I would say to everyone, like, you don't pay me enough to make your decision for you. So, I mean, try it for a week or two, but not longer because you can't afford to go to five. Like 18 is bad enough. Let's get you to 35 with these proven things right first.
Kevin
Oh, yeah.
Jen
Yeah. Now, I just say that.
Kevin
John, about that school application, I.
Jen
Oh, man, I feel like I you go back to school just by now. You know, I did apply to vet school and I if you guys knew that I did at one time want to be a veterinarian.
Andrew
Sent a telegram I.
Kevin
Think like, yes.
Jen
I didn't get in. There's only 30 vet schools in the world.
Kevin
Ohio State is one of the best I hear like, yes, there goes a.
Andrew
Lot of things.
Jen
My daughter is in her senior year, Virginia Tech, and is going through the vet school application process right now. She's applying and like I think 15 schools out of the 30. Oh oh yeah.
Kevin
Is she going to live here or something?
Jen
I so I said if you if you get into Ohio State you can go to Kevin's for dinner. So you know he'll take care of things every sale, you know, they'll feed you, make sure you're okay. But as she's going through this, you know, she's super stressed out. She's having to, like, go back through the last ten years of her life and basically and think about all these things and these prompts.
Jen
It's like, what's the defining moment of when you wanted to be a veterinarian, Right? So she's having to go through this. And I said.
Andrew
These questions are terrible.
Jen
Well, and listen, the vet schools, they only accept it's like the hardest one of the hardest things to get into. They only accept like a 100 out of thousands and thousands of applications. Wow. So I'm like, you've got to do something in this essay to make like to stand out. Like the first sentence has got to be some catchy thing, you know?
Jen
But it made me think about a couple a different think it's a one. If you are thinking about applying to the Nationals, you should because it's a great way to go through and like you go back into the archives, you just document all of this awesome stuff that you've done in your career and put it on paper. And if you're thinking about doing it, you should go for it.
Jen
But also make sure you tell this, tell a story that is what is going to help you stand out All in all of those applications that come in. So tell a story, be specific how you overcame something or whatever. But also maybe think about like when we're communicating with our customers and we're sending follow up and we're sending and we're leaving phone messages and we're communicating like you got a you got to spice it up a little bit.
Jen
Like you got to be personal. You got to you got to put something in the subject line that's going to break through the clutter. It's going to make you stand out instead of touching base, checking in. How's it going? Because people's inboxes are inundated, like and they just get so many, you know, especially if if they're looking at your builder, they're looking at ten other builders that are all sending emails that are all sitting to these letters of.
Kevin
We are.
Jen
All doing all the things.
Kevin
We have.
Jen
We hope. We think, who knows? But you've got us. We've got to break through the digital pollution, right, and cut through the clutter. So that's good luck to Mia. Little Mia.
Kevin
She's like, Our.
Jen
Locations are due September 18th.
Andrew
So 15 of them, But I'd be paying someone to do that, I think.
Jen
Yeah, Yeah. That's what I would like to donate to the MIA application fund. But you've got to, like, pay like zillion dollars for all these different applications. So I'm really excited for. So put out some deposit invites.
Andrew
To the universe.
Jen
Yes.
Kevin
To see what's her favorite animal is a dogs.
Jen
Yes. She's actually doing the research study on cows right now. So she gets to go hang out with cows and draw blood and do little like feeds. She had to, like, pile up on a big, like, green machine and, like, feed them. And I don't know, she's she likes horses, too. She's done some stuff with the horses, but mainly small animals.
Kevin
Not a horse fan. Human kryptonite, those things.
Jen
You're not a horse.
Kevin
They can be really good. Yeah. It's not safe. Yeah, that'll.
Jen
Oh, they're so beautiful too.
Andrew
About, like, the miniature horses. Those are fun.
Kevin
Little tiny, maybe. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew
Was just to see.
Kevin
What would you rather be? Fight one giant hundred foot horse or 101 foot tiny horses?
Andrew
It's like running around a little baby horses.
Kevin
Sorry, everyone. I'm in some kind of strange, strange minute here. On to the news multiverse.
Andrew
This is Earth four.
Jen
Hey, online sales specialist, your D convert, Coach Jen Barkin here. Are you looking for guidance, structure and proven methods to help you set more appointments and create more sales? Then join online sales coach Jesse Suggs and myself. We are offering an intense two day virtual training experience, followed by eight weeks of training and coaching through our online sales academy.
Jen
This fall. Jesse and I have been in your shoes and we teach from our direct experience and years of coaching online sales specialists. Just like you. This will be hands on and real world no theory here. If you're interested, don't miss this incredible opportunity to reserve your spot today by visiting. Do you convert dot.com.
Kevin
Man first up from D and Y use as I stand for, I need to know the news. The news. It's like.
Andrew
Okay, so two syllables that has generated.
Kevin
This one wasn't me.
Andrew
How about this?
Kevin
So we're we're using the link and its first monopoly trial of modern Internet era. The US sets its sights on Google. So for those of you old enough to remember, I think the last big Monopoly trial breakup that happened was AT&T. That was then split up into seven different regional companies in 1984, the article says. But effectively, the United States government is saying that Google is preventing any new opportunity for search to occur.
Kevin
Google basically does what Facebook did back in the day. It was like any popular social app. We'll just go out and buy them. I mean, if you guys spend $1,000,000,000, going to spend $1,000,000,000 to Instagram, but it just prevents anyone from getting to the point where they could be a rival. And the charge here is that they're doing that with search and what's going to be so one, it's a big deal.
Kevin
The other thing is it's hard for monopolies. Monopolies are not illegal monopolies that harm consumers are illegal. And Android Android is was one really smart move by Google of saying we're going to make an operating system that's basically free. I mean, the catch is it has Google search built in as the default option, but it's hard to prove monopoly like consumers don't pay for ads on Google.
Kevin
Consumers don't pay for Google sheets for Google Docs. They don't pay for it. I guess you're getting a lot of, you know, in quotes, free as are straight resources.
Jen
Yeah.
Kevin
You're getting a lot of resources as a consumer that you don't directly pay for. But they're going after it. And I think it's it's not I don't want to say this, it's just a distraction, but it's a really big distraction because this is like a very low percentage chance. But if it does like you, you just imagine working at Google in the senior leadership and you're like, we should be working on AI and we should be making this better and this better and YouTube and oh crap, we are.
Andrew
There like we have Mitch McConnell reason out over here telling us what or how to run the business. I agree.
Kevin
It seems like Google is a monopoly.
Andrew
I think their monopoly in that they own their own search. Like you Google something, it's the verb, it's what you do versus what you do. I think they're trying to prove, right. Did they do things that were like the competitive nature? Of course they did. They wanted to get rid of the competition. So there's times where I'm like, I don't make any sense this.
Andrew
I can't stand this type of thing. But then I'm like, we kind of need more regulation over here and like zero regulation and stuff like this. So I feel like, you know, like there's contradictions there with government involvement in business and stuff like that. But this is like, come on, like, this is so dumb. Like everyone that.
Jen
Like it.
Andrew
On this thing against Google uses Google likely for their search engine and they're not on asked Jeeves or or Amazon.com or Bain. They're using Google to do it so and there's a reason it's still the better product. And they kind of prove that if even if they did all these, I think that's where the cases is. Probably even if we did not do these things, people would still use Google.
Andrew
They're not using Bing. They're not switching to another search platform at all.
Jen
They're going all use being anymore.
Kevin
Yeah, they don't.
Andrew
Even have points. You can get the search stuff.
Kevin
On pay, please. Bing.
Andrew
They try to pay you. Yeah. You give pretty.
Kevin
Little coupons or. Yeah. I mean, this is just one line builder here in Texas as an example. But year to date, they have 330,000 unique sessions from Google Search, and they have 13,000 from Bing, 4000 from Yahoo! 2000 from DuckDuckGo Technical.
Andrew
And those are the people, the tin foil hats, but the DuckDuckGo. So yeah, like the conversions, they're like, well, those are the crazy ones, so you don't want those people.
Kevin
So next from Google itself, new sustainability tools help businesses and cities map environmental information. This is again interesting one to me because Zillow's kind of led the charge of adding all this additional information around property. You know, like safety scores. And I think they also they do have it was started by Brad, Adam and I forget the name of the company where they give like a climate score rating.
Kevin
But now this is being built into Google Maps platform. They're going to let you see solar energy potential. So it'll identify roofs and talk about the amount of information that likelihood that it will produce a certain amount of power, air quality information and common allergens. That's and so everyone who has a Google map built into their site, you wouldn't, in essence, if you thought that this was important enough to be able to opt for offer a toggle on your own site or experience with access to this same information.
Andrew
Like it's pretty cool. The solar one is a little bit interesting because our you know, our electricity rates here expensive. We have a moderately large our home 3300 feet so we and I'm home all day so there's no saving of power during the day by turn AC down and we run the AC 23 to 60 days of the year for the most part.
Andrew
So we've considered solar. So Project sunroof in our home is newer. Like for some reason, like our house is not in there yet, which is really bizarre. Sort of imagine even like a brand new home. It's obviously not going to be in there, but being that we have no trees because they tore everything down to make it easier and more efficient to develop.
Andrew
We have some trees growing, but I'm like, man, solar is like ripe for most new home builds, especially in the South. Like, I think we did do a private survey with our property at one point and like the amount of power we can produce is insane. So I think that's like, oh, that could be that could be a really cool selling tool to go new home construction.
Andrew
It's more efficient. Oh, and then now you have solar, the ROI on that. The payback is extremely quick because like you, the efficiency of it for a new home compared to an existing home, an older established neighborhood would be there. So be nice if they I would imagine as it gets use more often the how it refreshes the map and how that would be a little bit quicker.
Andrew
Yeah, just fast for like two, three, five years from now. Pretty cool. All the tools we have.
Kevin
I don't have the exact number, but whoever originally shared this article in my social network also included a stat that I, if I remember it was either close to 50% or like 60% of people who were surveyed had considered at least one environmental factor as part of their search for a home. I imagine both of you living near water in Virginia Beach and near Tampa, that like that's a but even in Ohio, like you can't build homes in a certain level of a floodplain.
Kevin
Let's say 100 year flood, I think is you just can't build in here. So it's kind of surprising in one sense that that number sounded like a good number to use as a stat because I would think like 100% of people are considering like possession of the sun and amount of shade. Yeah, it seems like people who, you know, still quote like, did you know that 94.9% of people use the Internet to shop for a house?
Kevin
And like we stop talking about this, it's everyone is like everyone.
Andrew
Just remember that.
Kevin
Are we doing this? Yeah. Well, like, of course, the environment's a big like, that's what location is. It's all those things wrapped up together. But I mean, do you remember doing, like, a specific thing that you were?
Andrew
I'm a for me, definitely with hurricane evacuate like we just had a hurricane one week ago that passed by us. So we still had, you know, work zones. I think it's part of the same records and it's like ABCD and then X non evacuate or like a is like you're on the beach or you're a mobile home. The trailer home, manufactured home, no such a wind, wind and water and then B and then we're C, we're actually like B and a half.
Andrew
Like our kitchen is a B, the rest of the house is a C for whatever reason. So we, we stick with C, we're like, okay, if that gets wet over there, it's fine. We're staying like we're 13. You're yeah, you're gone. You're thinking.
Jen
I'm underwater.
Andrew
You're under water. So we're like 13 feet above sea level. You're below sea, you're like a bowl. You're like, you know.
Jen
Traffic is is.
Andrew
You have tunnels.
Kevin
Sinking. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Jen
So you're saying bought a house in the flood zone. And I knew that. So this I'm not a good candidate.
Kevin
It's gone. But you still porous. I mean, if it was bad, it's.
Jen
Okay to tension Lake. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew
If you need insurance, if you don't like, that's a huge factor.
Jen
Flood insurance required.
Kevin
It's just a good thing that it's me. It goes in the category of if this place your advantage, you should be talking about it. If you're a builder in Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Southern California or the center of California, and you have now the ability availability to show the potential of solar usage on a on a home like you should be.
Kevin
You should be talking about that. Definitely. Yeah. All right. Next up from CNBC dot com, we're going to start with the scary and then get to someone trying to offer a solution. Mortgage demand drops to a 27 year low as interest rates pull back the average contract interest rate for 30 year fixed mortgages was $726,000 or less, decreased to 7.2% from 7.3%.
Kevin
Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home fell 2% or 28% lower than the same week. One year ago. So affordability matters, huh? Who would have thought who.
Andrew
Would have thought of that? You were going to think there's some really smart builders that are offering some bite out of mortgages and I think the show 5.45 or any number less than seven is really attractive.
Kevin
Yeah, rates are I mean, again, I think it's catching people off guard. And I don't want to go into an economics lesson, but what's happening right now is that the government has to sell so many more treasuries to fund the government that investors are demanding a higher rate of return. And so, again, people just keep getting confused. It's worth at this point, it's it's kind of like, again, it's September of 20, 23.
Kevin
Interest rates have been kind of a big deal for a while now. So if when I say interest rate, Treasury bonds, Treasury bills, tenure and you're like, whatever, just shut up and move on to the next topic, you should go watch a couple YouTube videos. Well, I'll give yeah, something like this. You know, it's a bit like you have at some point you have to be like, Huh, I guess this is big deal.
Kevin
You you don't have to understand it to solve it. You again, you can't empathize with your customers, say can't communicate, you can't educate, you cannot build trust. If you're not making any content about this at all because you're scared of it. Like just, you know, so people are like, I don't understand. We didn't raise interest rates or interest rates only went up by X when the Fed.
Kevin
Well, the Fed's not the only factor here. You know, and and so rates are still sliding higher and the government's going to need more money for a while.
Andrew
So I mean I think you would say. Kevin and to end interest rates is the I'm trying to think of the right word to phrase it at principal. That's a strong word. I think we all can feel that word. What it means like interest rates, that is the single biggest factor right now, above all everything else, like you could have a purple house with backwards doors and windows upside down, sideways, all this stuff.
Andrew
And the interest rate is right on that single home. Somehow, who cares? Nothing is selling, right? Yeah. Like it overrides the most amazing campaign, the most amazing website, the most amazing content. Yeah. Location. All that stuff is the rate right now. Shoot, we had a home just list in our neighborhood, and it's one that's like, closest to our our size home and like, Oh, what's something listed for?
Andrew
It's like seven something. And then I see that's not the Zestimate, the Zillow's I've heard the call their, their mortgage calculator. I'm like, Oh gosh. I'm like, that's a whole different type of person income job life wise compared to, say myself.
Kevin
I mean.
Andrew
When we got it and at this house now we're at two points, you know, like that's a whole different ballgame as far.
Kevin
As ask your parents for money. I don't know if you saw that Barbara Corcoran video. So. Barbara Corcoran, she's had a couple of these viral comments. I don't know if she just doesn't have anything going on with her real life.
Andrew
CPR form.
Kevin
Statements that are compelling. But the first one was, of course, like if rates go, go down, prices will go up. So you better buy now. It's like, okay, we just want to look at one way and that could happen. It also could be their rates go down because the economy is terrible and people that have to sell their house and then there's more supply, then demand, and then prices go down.
Kevin
So either one could happen, but now she's come out and she just her it was one of these like dude bro podcast about like how to get rich quick. She's like, you just got to get into real estate and like if you can't afford it, no big deal. Just ask your parents for the money. Like the boomers have money, just get their money.
Kevin
And so then she's just getting trolled. Get the boom so hard by people who are screenshotted that and they're like, you know, in their clearly not rich surroundings. And these are like teenagers even. They're like, yeah, thanks, Barbara. I'll definitely just ask my parents for, you know, a couple million to buy that apartment in Manhattan. And I'm like.
Andrew
I can imagine the reactions on that would be hilarious.
Jen
Well, you know, just despite the Straits, it's not like, you know, you can easily slip into this, like, dude, I'm like, oh, my gosh, this sucks, right? But when we look at I mean, I just talked to a builders like we had our best month. August was our best month than ever, you know, at their best, Like it was.
Kevin
The best.
Jen
Month ever, ever. And, you know, conversion rates are still really strong, even more so than they were first quarter. Like.
Kevin
Yeah.
Jen
So it's like, yes, it's there and it's harder, but there's still a lot of positives happening justifying.
Kevin
Way more there. There are actually way more positives than the negatives. I'm telling you I would rather have rates where they are or higher than I would like to have the same number of existing homes available on the market today as there were in 2018. If that happens, I'm telling you it's not that that is bad. I will find it.
Kevin
A whole bunch of other things. More fire will take an extra couple million homes, you're saying?
Jen
Because you're saying because the existing inventory is so low. That's yes, it's so good for us. Yeah.
Kevin
The only common factor, not not the only the main common factor that unites individual markets that are struggling right now are builders are not hitting or exceeding their goals is where existing home supply get This has returned to like normal normal. And it's not like poems are sitting around forever, but they're like this is the same month supply that was like considered healthy is violently unhealthy now because.
Kevin
Because why? Because if you get the same healthy supply as is normal and demand is still down here, that's not good like you. Yeah. And so anything that reduces supply and this is why people get into housing experiences of like builders don't want to build that. People truly think this is hilarious. They think home builders are like Louis Vuitton and they're thinking of like, you know what?
Kevin
We'll do here's we'll do Jen. We'll just build homes a little bit slower or we'll make them a little less available just to protect the prices of our homes. Right. They've never met D.R. Horton. They've never met else, you know, Century Jimmy, like some of these builders that just focus on volume like that. It's hilarious. But your point is again, Andrew, 100% correct.
Kevin
We would not be in this House now when rates went down to three and a half and then kept going lower. I was like, Melanie, I mean, we own this property since 2015 that we built on and we had a loan and still the we were paying off on the land. But the loan on land was like seven and a half percent.
Kevin
Your land aside, you realize that if we build a that's basically the same size as the house we're in now on the seven acres versus a three quarter acre, we all have a lower payment than what we are paying right now, paying the land and.
Jen
The spray money. Basically.
Andrew
She was like, Shut the front door. Kevin, are you serious? This real interest rate, principally.
Kevin
What she said like, well, then why.
Jen
Are not doing that will ever see is that low.
Andrew
Yeah. I don't I don't ever want to see that low.
Kevin
But that's.
Andrew
That's.
Kevin
Conspiracy. That's what I wish more people would just honestly talk about if it went back to that guess what would happen like there's there is my friend Rob John says that you know there's just that these are the five these are four days and we added a fifth I think. But deaths, diamonds, diapers, divorce, divorce and displacement like physical, those are the reasons people move.
Kevin
Yeah, those reasons haven't stopped.
Jen
Right.
Kevin
What has stopped is the availability to easily move around.
Jen
Right.
Kevin
And transact. And so that means that I think it's very likely that when rates do go down, there's going to be a whole bunch of people just like the the race was on and people realized that there are still going to make money During the factors. Half of the world was shut down. The race was on to buy things and do things and get things.
Kevin
I think there's a whole bunch of people who the minute rates get below 500 are like, Oh, this is our chance. We got we've got to say this. Yes, we made the dumbest decision ever to move to Nowhere Vermont and work remotely and try to raise yak wool on the side. We need to get back home to Chicago.
Kevin
Yeah, You know, put their house up 400%. Yeah. And that is. I'm just telling you, whatever keeps inventory low as what I'm in favor of for our industry now as a human being and wanting people to be able to have access to housing, I think it's terrible. Absolutely terrible. Yeah. But it it is it makes the market work right now.
Andrew
I think there's a lot of people that regret not doing something with the massive amount of equity they have. So they're like this. This might be like, who knows what's going to happen? Like, this is our chance. We have half million or whatever, number two, three, 400,000 inequity. I want to do something with it. I want to move.
Andrew
So there's there's a lot of reasons, I guess.
Kevin
Yeah. Now, you can't really touch that equity because there's.
Jen
A lot of people.
Andrew
Look expensive.
Jen
Websites and looking and lots of traffic to get you know people are looking.
Andrew
People love new.
Jen
Homes. It's just waiting.
Kevin
But it's to the rescue, maybe.
Andrew
Rescue.
Kevin
To the rescue, maybe.
Andrew
Like a rocket is.
Kevin
Is one. Plus buy rocket mortgage, a 1% down payment option. Andrew, you found this?
Andrew
I did find this. I was actually. So we reified with Rocket. I logged in, we revived like 20, 20, 20, 21 or whatever, whenever it was. And then I saw this as like an ad something like, Oh, they got me. They got me enough to share this with, with the team. Like, this is interesting and it just read the fine detail.
Andrew
So it, it essentially it is targeting it's first time buyers or if you're a repeat buyer, but you do have to fit certain income requirements they give you. You could put down 1%. That's all they're asking for, 1% down payment. They'll give a 2% grant as part of that down payment. So you're at three and you could only give up to 3%.
Andrew
So there's max down, payment is 5%. So they're making sure that like, okay, they they'll make more money with less down payment. They have more principle to have interest attached, attached to, but then there's no PMI on it. So that's really interesting. But the and the credit requirements to you looking at this, I'm not a mortgage broker. I'm not a finance person, but you're like, okay, 620 or better.
Andrew
That's pretty low. I feel like for like what seems in my brain like this seems to be like a higher risk product or, you know. Beth our team was like, This feels really familiar to VR alone in terms of requirements. Like it's it's kind of what the VA offers for military. But there are you know, there's that every mean something I'm not educated enough in this as far as like what does qualified income mean versus income on it.
Andrew
But it seems like it is targeting kind of like the middle ish class income levels and that kind of like in number, we're not probably a lot of people that are very great renters. They pay on time. They have no issue with that yet. They're stuck. They're kind of like, I can't get a down payment, I can't get a down payment on houses, keep going up.
Andrew
Interest rates are higher. I want to get out of renting. This seems to be the perfect thing for them.
Kevin
So, yeah, my niece, this seems like a product product for and it's not it's not just I'm almost positive this is a government for Fannie and Freddie have kind of somehow this has been devised and rocket does always a really good job of packaging things up. They do easily and simply for people but I'm pretty sure this option exists for from a lot of different sources.
Kevin
But my nieces, I think she's 24. She's made good money for a couple of years. She's lived with her her mom. She's getting married and she's like, I really want to buy a house, but I can only afford to put down or only want to put down X. Even though she has more money, she just doesn't want to put it on one.
Jen
Of the.
Kevin
Media.
Andrew
You want to have backup? Yeah. You're like, Cool. That which makes sense. Yeah. You think that'd be like, rewarded somehow? Maybe it is like less down payment.
Kevin
By banks because they know that's more risk for.
Andrew
Them. It is risk. But another thing I think a take on this too, is if you read it, I think most builders I'll be meaning for a second any incentives, they're usually not great at explaining them on their website. Intentional, not intentional. To me, I think clear is kind of the more direct you are with it, the better conversions you'll have.
Andrew
So I don't know if there's any like, Hey, just leave a little bit info out. People want to call. Well, that's not good because it's in the cards you get or confused. People like, Hey, I'm trying to read this thing, you know, online salesperson. Like, well, they didn't tell me either, so I don't really know. I don't really know.
Andrew
So I think I.
Jen
Read that deceptive. What itself what are you talking about?
Andrew
I think it's like 90% clear and at the bottom there are some like really? Well, that number does make sense. You know, about 6000 there but that's not reference in I was little details I think might not be the best.
Jen
Answer but it's just written the word incentive. Okay. We're like.
Andrew
Incentive.
Jen
Buying options.
Kevin
Home buying like.
Jen
New home options.
Andrew
Okay, I'm buying.
Kevin
I don't know if.
Andrew
I can tell if you're messing with me or not, because.
Jen
Options.
Andrew
Feels like a really weird word. Really? Oh, we should talk about that. And options versus incentives and do a Did you watch the story on Netflix? I'm really distracting this right now, but it's about words choosing words. It's about when oxycodone content was created and they did a group what's a focus group on naming the drug? Like what is morphine mean to you?
Andrew
They're like cancer death, my grandmother passing. What does this word mean to you? Oh, headache. What does this word mean to you? OxyContin, Breathing like oxygen and as all positive words. And they're sitting there and you're like, oh, well, this is terrible. Like, if you if you watch another person affected by it, you're.
Jen
Sitting there like, so and so and so it's it makes a big.
Kevin
Difference.
Jen
And will mean something rid of the word appointment of somebody is like thinking like I blow.
Andrew
My mind. I'm stuck in nerd corner only know what's happening.
Jen
And now we we were like don't even say appointment because that means that's transactional and the last more stressful. Like if you get an appointment like you're, you're going to go to contract basically what.
Andrew
Word to be like.
Jen
So like we don't even say that we were to discovery tours this Discovery tour community visit. If there's somebody who's really like, I don't know, like, Hey, how about let's just touch up with an informational session to get you started? Like, I.
Andrew
Hope they're not like, so, like an appointment. I feel like I'm Jerry Seinfeld, right?
Jen
But I guess softening that verbiage, that's when like, you know, anyway, I don't know how we.
Andrew
Got my language is.
Kevin
My grandma.
Andrew
Means something while.
Kevin
She's still alive. She's 104. So there might be something to this. But her and my grandfather used to take vitamin. Oh, Andrew.
Andrew
That sounds made up too.
Kevin
And it like had oxygen in it. And I, like, I was, I don't know, five at a time.
Andrew
I see it now.
Kevin
But I was so like, I'm pretty sure you can't put oxygen into powder form and shove it inside of a capsule.
Andrew
Like it's just hydrogen.
Kevin
And I think they're probably that's one of the jokers got away with that is they're like, well you're breathing, you know, you're breathing while you're taking it. So you're taking it out.
Andrew
I guess I need to know what's in this. I found.
Jen
It. It's like.
Andrew
Well, I found the Amazon thing, which is terrible. It's it's like a white he gets like a white and blue bottle vitamin. Know about it, But no ingredients. Ingredients aren't even.
Kevin
Yeah, well, my father in law also sells total shyster thing. He sells saltwater. It's a cure all. He's from West Virginia. Okay. Okay. And then my mom used to take Queen Bee Rock Royal Honey, It was. It was special honey in gel tabs that only came from Queen Bees because Queen bees have some ideas. Like, why do we all want to live for?
Kevin
Oh, wait, I guess that's insane.
Andrew
Say I'm quality over quantity. I don't know.
Kevin
If on.
Andrew
Any given time.
Kevin
I'll just be paying way more attention to cosmetics and vitamin companies. Yeah, because I know more and that's just make up more stuff. It's getting.
Andrew
Let's make it as.
Kevin
We have plenty to talk about. That's interesting to them that we don't have to.
Andrew
Make it and we have discovery tours. We could tell them about this information.
Kevin
Oh, it's I like this. I don't know. Do you like this, Kevin? Or do you hate this? Kevin, This Kevin could never appear another episode again. It's just too much cost me.
Jen
Have you heard today? Maybe. Is it too much or not enough?
Kevin
No, I think I think it's just the knowing that this is my last thing of today. And I get that you.
Andrew
So every Thursday for the month of September, I think it's month to September, Starbucks is doing buy one, get one fall drinks after 12:00. Oh they.
Kevin
Should be Stanley.
Andrew
They should be sponsoring me. Right. And that's why I went and got one before. Like this little thing doesn't look so little. I don't I'm not a big dude. I'm like, five, eight. But that's in this cup look so dainty. Like, that's a top, but it's the pumpkin cream cold brew.
Kevin
People always think this stuff is contrived and made up, but I will add a Starbucks card and all access you all can scan.
Andrew
And they better post a picture using it.
Kevin
But I'm just kidding. Ha ha ha ha.
Andrew
You better use.
Kevin
All right, let's move on to our favorites or things we hate either in either one. Oh gosh. What are your favorite shows? Books, Things you've watched. I'm going to give away one of my secret favorite thing I like. You know, I share a lot, but then I'm always like, Ooh, that person's got really good stuff. I can't share it with anyone, but I will.
Kevin
I will share it today. You want I start inter Yeah.
Andrew
You talk about West Virginia. So we were recommended. I'm not recommending this.
Kevin
I'm just West Virginia. You're you wonderful people. My home.
Andrew
Country roads. Shenandoah River. Right. It's a great place. So there's this documentary. I think Johnny, Johnny Knoxville made it so someone from East, right? But it's the wild and wonderful whites of West Virginia. Just watch on the Amazon. It seems like it's a high school project. Someone made an I'm movie and it's about this family the house and West Virginia and Boone County, Boone County, West Virginia.
Andrew
And it's just a train wreck of I mean, you don't watch it and try to figure out who the father is of any of these children. I think it's one person, the great grandfather or the grandfather. It's the craziest thing. But it's about this family that's they're all related interbred. So it's it's it's insane. I'm like, what are we watching right now?
Andrew
But someone recommended it to us. So sure enough, we watched it. I'm not advising to watch it or to not watch it, but if you need something that's a change of pace.
Kevin
You're doing this with, you're like, Hey, watch this thing.
Jen
You don't need to be. You don't need to justify your favorite. Oh, you're very handsome.
Andrew
This is definitely not I mean, this is about a ancestral family that's inbred. It's a little.
Jen
Weird. Are you favoring favor?
Andrew
I don't know. This is just.
Jen
Wild. It's.
Andrew
It's interesting when we finish this whole thing, if that says anything. So we didn't turn it off. I've heard people left.
Jen
It was like the train movie.
Andrew
Nobody watching it was a train wreck. You're like, Wow, this is real. Everybody. When I said West Virginia, so am I, my boom mic. But the boom, my boom arm that I got, the new one, it's perfect. It doesn't.
Kevin
Move.
Andrew
The other one's on the ground. I need to throw it away.
Jen
So not 20.
Andrew
Bucks. It works. I just need it. It's a lock in place versus have this tension, which would be perfect, but it just stays where I put it because it's a simpler design. So sometimes the better, the more expensive option isn't the best one. So that's it.
Kevin
Jen Just this.
Jen
Are my favorite. My favorite thing right now is got to be that college football is back just coming off of my weekend attack and my monarchs are back. I love college football, so.
Kevin
I do too. I don't have as much time anymore to watch it, but I still remember with fondness. I forget what I forget the exact year I think it was before we had kids. It must have been before we had kids. But I watched college game day every Saturday for the entire season and every state game. You guys, sometimes watch the second state games.
Kevin
I was that.
Jen
Why don't you go to the Ohio State Games?
Kevin
Well, there's like 110,000 people there. Yeah, I get that. Tickets are kind of expensive and I have a lot of people. And honestly, it's not a good environment to take like a nine and ten year old kid, too. I did take him to one last year. It started sleeting and snowing and they begged to leave in the middle of the third quarter.
Kevin
But I usually take like one or two people to a game. But it's not. Honestly, it's if I could go and watch the very beginning, like you're talking about, like watching the best in England come out or do script Ohio and the crowd cheering like, that's the best. Yeah, that's the best. I mean, I'm not actually a football person, but, you know, like, I can't stand watching high school football.
Kevin
We go to the high school football games. I can't stand it. It's the least interesting sport in the world to watch. I think.
Jen
It's yeah.
Kevin
At times college is better because you're higher up, you get perspective, whatever. But yeah, yeah I.
Andrew
Feel we watch but I'm not sure how I feel about the what's that and I and I know some of the players making stupid money like, I don't know, I'm just like I don't even though like, they're.
Kevin
All.
Andrew
They're making, like they're getting endorsement deals and it's legit. Yeah. Even though I'm like they are and that they have this stuff, it just makes me feel like So that guy is making some stupid money off on the field and these other 12, 11, whatever. Like or not, I don't know.
Kevin
No. The Ohio State quarterback last year bought like everyone on the team. It was either like a 500 or $1,000 gift card and told them all to get nicer clothes to wear during the walk that they do from like he's like, you all need to not be slobs. Like go, go get some nice clothes.
Andrew
That's nice. But I also feel like but look at you. You can afford it.
Kevin
Oh, let's.
Jen
Go get.
Andrew
Like, I'm not wearing those clothes because I resent it. Is that envy or jealousy? I don't know.
Kevin
I don't know what it is. But if you want to send me a gift card, anyone listening, you're welcome to. I'm not too good for it.
Andrew
I'll take it. You need like, a thousand for like, an Ohio State game, food, all that.
Jen
You're going to get. And I'm going to need to get a new suit for the summer.
Kevin
Time for that is the last one. I know, I'm kidding.
Jen
But I'm just saying, like.
Kevin
Now you've just I'm going to spiral. I'm going to do a, you know.
Jen
Now.
Kevin
Full on spiral now because like, I only see you all in person, if we're lucky, twice a year. I don't mean you. You do you. I mean anyone you ever see in person. Twice. More than twice a year. Yeah. Like, I mean, I'm sure you do remember what I wore last time, but also, there's pictures I don't grow anymore.
Kevin
And not. I mean.
Andrew
And they're expensive. I mean, like, nothing.
Kevin
Is on me for, like, my jeans, but she has no, she doesn't really care about suits or sport coats. I do get a lot of compliments on my hooded sport coat thing. We've seen that. Your junk. Now what is that? That's my favorite. Hold on. Sorry. I love you're going to edit this, but I can talk.
Andrew
So sport coats are expensive. Have you bought as a male? I don't have a female jacket. It's just as much.
Jen
Yeah, they're pricey. Probably not as expensive as yours, but I just bought or Sam had to get a new suit. Yeah, And I was like.
Andrew
You're like, Okay, yeah.
Kevin
So I don't know the brands. Sorry. Let's see if we can find it. Okay. This is a.
Jen
This is a jacket.
Kevin
Oh, no, can't count. This is a Alberta zimny.
Jen
Oh, it is jacket coat.
Kevin
It's a sport coat with a hood and whatever these are called. The hood can be unzipped.
Jen
That's great.
Kevin
It has like to, like.
Jen
Take the hood.
Kevin
Off. You can zip it and button it, or you can just button it or just zip it. It looks like it's got like three layers kind of built into it.
Jen
That's your favorite thing.
Kevin
It's really good. I get I mean, I know I ask people, especially strangers, because they don't know me. I'm like, are you just being nice or do you really like this? You know, you're going to be a little awkward, like, No, that's awesome. I got to get one of those for my husband or whoever. I'm like, Okay, cool.
Kevin
So now check that out. Now, my real favorite link is in the show notes is Kyla Scranton on YouTube. This is a younger lady who talks a lot about economics and human behavior. I don't I mean, she got she got famous via TikTok. I haven't watched her tiktoks and so she does some weird things. But this is a talk called how individualism Changes the economy.
Kevin
And what I like about it is it talks about how this idea was started in the United States around the time period of in between World War One and World War Two. We got to get people to buy more stuff. How do we get people to want to buy more stuff? And just some of the crazy things that ended up happening as a result of it, like two, three different people really formed this idea of using psychological all weak spots in our brain to get us to want things.
Kevin
And kind of the icing on the cake for me is it leads into how Guatemala, where we spend a lot of time as a family doing humanitarian work like we cause the Civil War because, you know, kind of like we're talking about the words the United States Fruit Company, I think, or the whatever, some fruit company that owned all the land in Guatemala, they were going to lose it.
Kevin
And and so they positioned through through the use of words and said, well, the communists, which in the sixties it was all like, oh my gosh, the communists are everywhere. You know, we're scared of of Russia and communism. So they just called these people who wanted to give workers in the fields a little plot of land if they work long enough, they're like, you should be able to get a place to build a house.
Kevin
And they called them communists. So then we started a war that split up a country. And it's just, you know, they had like 30 years of civil war and a bunch of people got butchered because the guy decided, hey, you know what? We could shift everyone's opinion of this. We just use a different word to a full circle.
Andrew
What words are important words? You know, a word.
Jen
Change up your language.
Kevin
Yeah.
Jen
Watch your mouth, Young, young man.
Kevin
But it's one of those things that I'm watching and my family walks in the corner and they're like, What are you? They just, like, slowly walk out hoping I don't notice. They're like, We don't want to sit down and watch this, but oh, I enjoy it. Oh, man. All right. That'll do it for this week. I'll do it.
Kevin
We'll see you next time. Actually, no, at the summit. No. One more and more, then we'll see you at the summit. Oh, Final, final. All unplug if you are all access. If you're in all access and you go to the event. So we have basically just under 400 people coming to this year's summit. And I think there is, I don't know, 40 or 50 people who have RSVP in all access.
Kevin
If you are happy that you're going in there, I'm going to run a separate contest with a separate prize. So you just got to go push a button, say I'm comin. You'll go see what else is coming. You can talk to them there. We've got the summit app coming out shortly, but go there and check that out and you might get invited for a happy hour in in Dallas somewhere.
Kevin
I like it just for this for special people.
Andrew
Okay. Houses and not the one after the first.
Kevin
You don't know about that one. You got to go on an all access special one. You might get invited for. All right. All right. I'll see you next time I get to go.
Andrew
See ya.
