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
Hi, I'm here. This is six calls into the day Kevin!
Julie
That's a lot.
Kevin
My favorite kind of days. But I'm here. We're going to do it. And I guess feedback. Our producer, I think it was maybe just her feedback, but she likes spicy Kevin.
Beth
So I think we all love spicy. Kevin's spicy and like trolling. Kevin Oh, I live for it.
Kevin
Yeah, I remember the 10,000 hour thing. You school this on?
Julie
I think.
Kevin
So I just got exposed at this conference. That's about nothing other than learning. And the people are all totally different is again, that realization of like, I'm old because I care about things that my 20 year old self would have been like. Why does that have what does it matter? Why are we thinking about, you know, what is space made of like it's empty space, you moron, move on.
Kevin
But I'm here. I'm listening to this guy talk about the units that make up space and how that defines time and thinking. How does this apply to what we do? And I can make connections. And it's it's weird. Just I remember was like going it's it's this 10,000 hour thing of how do I translate that to someone who only has 100 hours in in a way that's meaningful because, you know, like I was trying to download our team about one of my takeaways and then I'm like, this won't mean anything to some people.
Kevin
Like though they will actually think, why did Kevin waste his time going to California to listen and learn about this? And so any time you're sharing, you have to understand your audience and and where they are. But it's it gets harder and some ways it gets easier. This is why now remember why I wanted to talk to you about this Julia is it's it's somewhat easier to process through the stuff like on the back burner of your brain, but it's even harder.
Kevin
Like I'm finding myself pausing more often, like I have a small seizure and it's because I'm it's not because I don't understand the material. It's thinking like, how do I reframe this or filter it for this person who's been in our industry for a month?
Julie
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah. That gets incrementally harder, I think, at least for me.
Beth
I mean, it's hard. I just had a call this week where I was like, I how? What did I just say? Because it was one of those challenging situations of like, how is and that's exactly what's happening to me. It was like there was a stop in my brain of like trying to filter out what was going on in my head and what was coming out of my mouth in a way that would be digestible to the person on the other line.
Beth
And it probably was to them. But to me I was like, No, that I need to get back on a rhythm.
Beth
But that's where the storytelling comes in and I think y'all are both great at that. Even when you don't realize that you're pulling in a story or an example or something. So I see that, you know. Kevin, if we're sitting in on a call and you're pulling from something, some example you've heard or a story, so I think that's what you're trying to attach, the two things you're trying to attach the concept to whatever rolodex of stories and examples are in there somewhere to connect them.
Kevin
Yeah. Here's here's the most recent example of this that I still am processing a little bit, is working with a rather I mean, a very large homebuilding organization who wants to create a new set of dashboards on a quarterly basis to give to their leadership team about marketing and online sales and how it's going and they showed an example of an old one that they've been doing internally.
Kevin
I think some other people were helping them and it was like 45 pages and we rebuilt one after much thinking and work. And it's nine pages, I think, or sorry, it's 11 pages. It's 11 pages, but the first four pages are just an illustration of the proverbial funnel illustrating at the state level, individual market level, etc., how everything is working.
Kevin
Like all of the important metrics, the conversion ratios and visually how they all connect and then as I'm thinking about the audience that they're going to give this to and, and this is a presentation format too, I think it's important, understand. So they're like the person who used to do this, they hated their life for that entire day because when I was there trying to stand up and talk, they went through all 45, 50 pages and watched everyone's eyes glaze over or start looking at their phone or, you know, they and we interpret that sometimes as how those people are.
Kevin
So rude. How could they not? But to me it was more like, actually, you should probably never get past these first five pages that are funnel analysis with this audience. If you get to page whatever, and it's a 14 way breakdown of how their Google ads are performing, something's wrong because it's not it's not the level that a CEO CEOs should be at ever.
Beth
Yeah, yeah. They need something to anchor on to. And with that visualization visual visually.
Julie
This.
Kevin
Just makes me feel so good about myself. I'm sorry, you're not supposed to.
Beth
The word with the funnel.
Kevin
There's many words.
Julie
Like.
Beth
Oh, well, it's something they can anchor to because if you just start going through numbers, if they're trying to connect, they're just going to grab a random stat number and get stuck on that and you're going to get into a weird hole of questions that you may not want to be into. So that gives them a good first thing to hang on to as you're taking them through the journey.
Kevin
Well, okay, I'm going to try to keep my brain and then we'll be we will move on to the real show here in a second. But one thing I through my brain is this is a bad idea. Like as a as a builder partner, they're going to hate this idea that I'm presenting of making the funnel the main part and then being able to break out why afterwards or during Q&A.
Kevin
But just really focusing on on funnel analysis. And I kind of saw a little bit like, oh, what if they're not comfortable hanging out at that level for 20 minutes? What the leadership team, there's some people are like, hurry up and get to the part where like I'm in every day and I understand and I know that I know more than they do about it.
Kevin
And so I feel comfortable presenting and talking and looking through versus staying high level with high level individuals sometimes can be intimidating. And so there is a little bit of storytelling and example giving that had to give them the confidence of you don't even have to know all the answers. You have to understand the relationships. But that's part of like this will work if they start getting excited and talking to each other about how come appointments are converting to sales in the same way as they were last quarter?
Kevin
Or why do we think so? So is this it's this weird thing of am I just shortcutting the shortcut or is this really the most important anyway, that's.
Beth
I think it's a matter of is the presentation as important as the dialog that occurs around it? You know, like if the presentation doesn't invoke an interesting dialog that can lead to change, then what is the point of the presentation in the first place? It's just another hour of someone else's time. This is why I love the fact that I'm married to my husband and I know that he is listening right now, so shout out might, but he does like he briefs for a living.
Beth
He briefs very important people for a living and he is phenomenal at his ability to take a very complex subject matter and articulate it in a way that not only gets people engaged and provokes conversation, at least this is what I get. I don't really know what he does. So this is just my perception of this.
Kevin
If he told you, he'd have to kill you, Yeah.
Beth
This is my perception of it. But it's fascinating. Watch and watching him talk about the art around the briefing. And it's just like us. Like it's the art around coaching. It's the art around speaking to high level individuals. It's there is an art about it, and you have to tailor what it is that you do to your audience in order to provoke conversation that will lead to change and it's fascinating how many people actually do that wrong.
Kevin
Yeah, senior leadership's perspective usually has. Why is this person telling me numbers that I can look at and see numbers?
Julie
Yeah.
Kevin
You don't need to be presenting like a first grader at show and tell.
Beth
Yeah. And it's like, how many times do we hate going to conferences where people are just reading slides? Yeah, like it's you. You've got, you got to make a conversation out of it. And just like in home and home, buying and selling and in marketing for our builders, we have to create emotion during the process because emotion is oftentimes a trigger to everything else that follows.
Beth
And so like the ability to do that with high level, you got to you got to like all somewhere to start that conversation.
Kevin
Yeah. And not be afraid of a little bit of.
Beth
Conflict.
Kevin
Conflicts. Right. Fact a lot of times as a marketer, you're that's why I keep going back to the example of Survivor. Like players who win Survivor sometimes are creating conflict artificially when there wasn't one or the amplifying conflict in another party sometimes. I mean it's it's it is such a good like like chess and poker good analogy. Okay a little palate cleanser before I start the show.
Kevin
Sean Carpenter texted me those. Sorry, Sean, you didn't give me permission to share it, but you texted me, so you should know better. He said It blew my mind today, listening to the podcast that Jenn wanted to be a vet when she was younger. I feel like this should be a like Red and Jerry Seinfeld voice. And so she ended up marrying her husband and now she still gets to hear Barkin all day at work.
Kevin
Dog emoji, laughing face Emoji. All right, let's get started.
Beth
Another thing that we like more as we get older, come you.
Kevin
Yeah. All right. I mean, I want to stand up, you know? All right. Welcome 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.
Kevin
Is there a topic you'd like us to cover or a question you'd like us to answer? We'll do it. Simply send an email to show at. Do you convert? Dot com. Welcome to episode 303. I'm Kevin O'Kelly. And with me today is Beth Russell and Julie Jernigan.
Julie
And so.
Beth
I.
Kevin
We don't have to yeah, we keep talking about this, but there's nothing else to say. We already said it, so we just go right into story time. All right, Julie.
Jen
Okay. I have a fun conversation with the builder this week, so she said, we have this great binder, high quality makes videos for us, but they're really expensive. And she said, we do. You know, that's kind of our company branding video as we do some community videos. But she was like, I want to do all these house tours and this and that, but they're so expensive and I don't have room in the budget.
Jen
So we had a really fun conversation around video and not just your very produced high quality video. The number one thing I would say, but this doesn't work for them is you need to learn internally how to do some of this video yourself and start doing it. But in this specific case, they are maxed out like their team just got smaller.
Jen
They all shift roles. They're all they're just doggy paddling, you know, trying to keep up with everything. So then we took it down to the level of finding multiple vendors for different things. So just like you might have a professional pay the big money for the main photo on your homepage, you can do the same thing with video.
Jen
You can take somebody who is fresh out of college or whatever to do your video. But what it all came back to is even that takes legwork. Like you're going to have to know. You can't just say, I want to do more videos, so we're going to do video if you are maxed out and everything else. So this whole conversation, that video and finding somebody else and that it may take a few people and you're going to have to be really specific at first about what you want it for and what it needs to look like and who's going to edit it and how they're going to know where to go.
Jen
And you're going to have to see if that in your priorities of the thing. So it was funny too, because the owner happened to be on this meeting and he was just sitting there quietly. So there's a whole conversation. So it was just interesting because in the end it's still all I love video. I wrote a whole book on content.
Jen
I think everybody needs more and better content, but in the end you only have so many hours, so many man hours and so much budget, and it's whether this is the time for that or if that needs to be on your 2024 plan and how you're going to set all that up. So it was a fun conversation to work through with them.
Kevin
Yeah, again, it's different perspectives, different levels, different insights, different priorities. But I think I'll intersperse some things that I took away. But but one of the people who spoke at a conference I went to is the CEO of Shopify, and he talked about how they created a tool that shows the cost of every meeting. So when you invite people, every time you invite more people to your meeting, it shows incremental cost to the organization.
Kevin
When you see, you know, $9,000 for a 30 minute meeting, you have to justify in a summary, if you call the meeting, why it's worth that much after it happens. Anyway, a little extreme, you could argue. But then he also started talking about how they every year they just delete all reoccurring meetings. He's going to start just randomly deleting Slack channels.
Kevin
And the idea here is if it needs to happen, it'll start again. But if not, you're just keeping things. And so just that idea of revisiting on a regular basis, why am I doing this thing? Could be video, could be Google ads, it could be anything. Why am I doing it? This is the reason that I started. So the reason why I should continue to.
Kevin
I need to take a different spend. Should I be doing this at all? That whole, you know, stop doing list is as important as the to do list.
Jen
Well, and on that level, it's really interesting because she has been there a while, but somebody else has been cut in the marketing director role and that person shifting out. So she's just adopting and she put that person was great at her job. Amazing. But it's somebody walking into something that's already existing. And so I think that's going to be a big job for her, is then figuring out what how.
Kevin
That's more fun. Let's just talk.
Julie
About that main event.
Kevin
Should she go and start making changes quickly? What what would you both tell someone who's dropped in that position of like taking over for someone who's done a great job but is is no longer in that role?
Beth
I think I mean, having just left somewhere and someone that I, I knew and worked with kind of walk into my position slightly, I think it's really interesting where it's kind of like a marriage of both where, you know, you want to go fast in terms of making your name and learn and get your hands dirty. But you don't want to make too many changes that are going to rock the boat because you might not know enough yet and go in the complete opposite direction.
Beth
So I think it takes that time, like Julie said, like taking that time to walk through the options and the realities of what is actually available when it came to video and what was realistic. Okay, I see a problem here. I see something that I could change. But at the end of the day, capacity wise, investment wise like this doesn't need to change right now.
Beth
I can do this later. It's not like a necessity for me to go in and just like rip everything to shreds. Essentially. This is me being dramatic.
Kevin
But yeah, joining me. Other thoughts?
Jen
Yeah. No, I agree that there's definitely a time period for keeping it as is and seeing how things work and really not making too many dramatic changes. Right when you walk in unless she's she's been in a role in the department so there are probably think she's familiar with enough the brand new thing she's taking over. Yeah I think it's worth some observation time before making any huge changes which I don't think she is.
Julie
Yeah. Listening to this.
Kevin
The first thing I always would tell someone is don't change anything for until you are certain you know what the issues are. And what I mean by that, one of the reasons you don't change anything is because it doesn't require any of your cognitive load. If you're maintaining it's a lot easier to maintain than it is to create or destroy.
Kevin
Maybe it's easier to destroy than anything. But that's I know I get off topic, but you're just letting things flow and and observing because one of the things you have to understand quickly is that the scoreboard is not the only scoreboard. So there might be some internal scoreboard or dashboard or whatever that says leads are up, good sales are up, good.
Kevin
But it all depends on the person you're working for, and it's a combination of that scoreboard and that person's perspective of everything. I've worked for people as a marketing director who have said, you know, like, we don't need more leads. I don't want you doing anything to create more leads. Leads aren't our problem. Go solve this other thing.
Kevin
And I'm like, I'm new here. But when they hired me, they told me my job was to create leads. So that's the risk, is you don't have street credibility for that position even if you've been in that organization. Everyone's looking to try to figure out, did they earn this title? Did they just get this title because other person laughs, What's going on?
Kevin
And so you still need to do an analysis of both scoreboards and look for the easy win opportunities that cause the least disruption for others. Because that's how you prove value is. I just made everyone's life better and you had to do nothing different. Do that for as long as you can before you have to start getting in the middle of everything else.
Kevin
Sometimes you don't get lucky and like the thing that has to be blown up is the fact that I'm I'm laughing. As I say this, it's only been true a couple of times. You're like, We just have to fire all the salespeople and start over. And I can show you mathematically and in the CRM why that's true, that would be a really hard place to start, but that sometimes that is the case.
Kevin
But if not for as long as possible, get the easy wins that have big impact on other people's roles. All right, Beth, what do you got?
Beth
Well, this week was my birthday week.
Kevin
Oh, happy birthday.
Julie
Thanks.
Beth
I'm doing all the sound effects today.
Julie
This is great.
Jen
You should have worn your tiara today.
Beth
I should have worn my tiara on my sash. That would. Except it ripped out my hair, which was not a pleasant experience. It's super pretty, though, so I really should have worn it. That would have been great. But yeah, I'm not typically one to reflect on my previous year. I'm just like, Oh, you know, another year, I'm another year older.
Beth
It's fine. But this year I was kind of it was somewhat unavoidable because it was on my birthday last year that it became abundantly clear that all the goals that I was working towards and the goals that I had set for myself in my professional career were not going to happen. I was I was not going to achieve them at my current place of work.
Beth
And this realization was dramatically catastrophic to me, and it forced me to take off blinders that I didn't even know existed. And it forced me into a period of serious reflection in my life. That period that that lasted from probably anywhere between four and six months, where obviously a lot of changes happened because now I am here. But it's interesting because I was in the mindset at that time before all of this happened that no matter what, I was going to stay on this path, I had my goal, I was going to achieve it, and I had already given so much of myself in order to achieve what I had achieved that the idea of
Beth
leaving that was so incredibly uncomfortable to me that I had basically avoided any thought of change.
Julie
Yes, fully.
Beth
Like those blinders were were up. But now I was in it like I was forced into a stage where I had to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. And for me there was nothing more uncomfortable than the thought of leaving some place I loved and that I had dedicated my time to. And that had brought me so much joy.
Beth
And I share this not just because, like for whatever reason, just to share it. I think it's because No, I know it's because that at one point in all of our lives, we we come to that place or to that crossroad where we have to get comfortable in the uncomfortable, whether it's in our personal life or our professional life.
Beth
We are at one point in our life going to come across something where we are forced to make a decision that we we never thought that we would make. And it is so incredibly uncomfortable for us. But the reality of it is that it's only through doing that are you able to make a change for the better. And what I learned during that period of my life was that change is okay and that it's important to not go through that alone.
Beth
I had I had to make that decision a very personal and selfish decision. I had to make that and come to that on my own. But I leaned on the people around me that supported me and not just the people that were going to nod my head and nod their head and agree with me or go into a period of self-pity with me or like crawl into that ditch with me.
Beth
But people that were going to force me to want better for myself and forced me into change and and forced me to ask myself questions that I had I had been previously avoiding because they were so invested in my success and they wanted something better for me. So in saying that, I mean, you don't have to do it alone.
Beth
Lean on the people around you, find people that will challenge you and support you, find good mentors.
Julie
And.
Beth
Just make that next change because I think this last year has been incredibly fulfilling for me. Incredibly, incredibly challenging. And I if you would have asked me this on my birthday last year about where I would be in my professional career, I don't think I would I would answer that. I'm a marketing coach. A do.
Julie
Right.
Beth
And it's been fun and exciting. And I'm so happy. I'm so happy that I'm here.
Kevin
Well, we are happy that you are here, but I skating part things that make me feel strange or uncomfortable, like self celebrating ourselves always makes you uncomfortable. Same thing. I mean, I remember the first time, not the first time. It was. It was the third year that Mike Lyon was like, Hey, Kevin, I think there's this thing and I think you could come work with me.
Kevin
And I was like, at the time I was 32 years old, I was running to homebuilding divisions for NPR. I had stock options that were worth millions of dollars. And Mike's pitch was, take a 70% pay cut and come work with me and we'll see what happens.
Julie
And I was like.
Jen
I have.
Kevin
Four. I have four kids. My my wife just gave birth to our fourth. What? None of this makes sense. But again, I'm going to keep doing this for a while probably. But this conference that I went to, one of the speakers is the CEO and founder of, I think the second most profitable options trading firm of all time.
Kevin
And she showed the slide like if you gave her $100 back in the eighties, you would have $3 million. Now, that's how much money her company has made for herself and her employees. And so now she started this nonprofit specifically trying to teach women how to play poker, because her argument is that women need to learn the skill sets of poker.
Kevin
And to her, one of the most important skill sets is knowing that it's okay to take risk. That risk is mandatory. You you have your hand of cards. You've got to make a calculation and decision of what should I do or not do. But also sometimes you if you just fold every hand, you're never going to win. And her take as a woman was just that women are never taught to take risk.
Kevin
And even in my own life, like I'm I'm definitely the Yeah, I'll just stay out of poker like just play super conservative, get that pot as big as you can and just like, hope you win by causing everyone else to die of boredom and just, like, irrationally go all in because they're just sick of sitting there like, that's that strategy.
Kevin
But so when I hear you talking about that story, I just to what I what I translate it to is part of it is chasing the goal that you had. And the other part is just saying like, that's too risky. But now on the other side, do you feel like it was as risky as it felt?
Beth
No, not at all. And I think, like I battle with the word risk slightly because I don't know if I necessarily felt like it was risky. I think perhaps a little bit it was like, okay, I just built all this. Like, am I willing to risk, like, completely altering everything I just worked for for seven years? Right? So I guess the other is there is a little bit of risk in there involved, but ultimately it came down to compromise.
Beth
It came down to how much of myself am I willing to compromise and what am I even living out? One of my mentors is bold. Eutelsat is also a very good friend of mine and he was the one that was like sat me down and he was like, What is your superpower and are you living it out right now?
Beth
And we had like a two hour conversation actually at some after hours about what that meant. And like he just started ripping out those blinders that I had. And I think it was just that I had compromised a little bit of what my superpower was in order to fit the box of what other people needed.
Julie
And yeah.
Beth
And it was it felt really good.
Kevin
On the psychiatrist psychiatrist couch together. So this is.
Julie
Great.
Kevin
I know you don't like the word risk, but what I think is probably happening is the fear of not getting to where you wanted to was causing you to put the blinders on in the first place.
Beth
Oh, yeah.
Kevin
If if if I don't put the blinders on, I'm not going to attain the level or position that I want to get to. And that's all I'm trying to say is, at the end of the day, the biggest risk that the speaker and I go back and talk to other people are look at my own life. It's like the biggest risk would have been not doing anything.
Kevin
Yeah, that's I always say that's the don't you're trying to sell someone the donut hole the cut out like not an actual small little piece of a donut but your sound the thing that doesn't exist and saying that's the problem so that's, that's the hard part about it. But taking risk is okay. And I, like any of my friends, personal friends who've been like, Hey, I'm thinking about starting my own business or doing my own thing.
Kevin
My answer is always do it always, because the risk is not like you're not going to die if your business dies, but you will know whether you actually want to run a business or not. You're capable or not going to do it. If death is not on the other side, it's worth trying. Now that also, like as an efficiency focused organization, which I would consider, do you convert like one of the ways I explain to people is we are an efficiency focused digital marketing organization trying to help builders get the best quality traffic for the least amount of money.
Kevin
So one of the things in there is like a lot of what we do is working and we might not be taking the risk for someone's money individually. So like builder A of 80 or a builder number one of 80, we might, based upon their resources and availability, might not be doing a lot of testing with them. But across all 80 builders, there's always different tests being done and that's a it's analysis of risk.
Kevin
And I feel like I should just write a whole blog on maybe a series on risk because it's not talked about enough. And as a manager, we know we have to manage people. We know you have to manage a budget. Managing risk is not talked about enough or understood clearly enough and it's really, really important. It blindsides people more than missing a budget.
Beth
Yeah, I would agree. It really takes us even for this.
Julie
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Julie
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Kevin
OC first story time. Just go the way Olivia reminded me that I want to talk about like things that we just keep repeating in our industry. And it's not really the thing. It's the it's the well, it is partly the thing. So one example would be and these are all things, by the way, I have said too, so it's not casting stones with glass houses, but I remember the very first presentation I gave at the Builders show and it PCBs.
Kevin
I talked about a backpack on Amazon having more content than a home builders quick movement, home. That was 14, 15 years ago.
Kevin
So let's just get more creative. And this again, this is for for me as as well as everyone else. Let's get more creative with our examples. If we've heard an example 30 times in the last ten years as a as a presenter or someone making content, I think we should all push ourselves to keep looking for more and different examples.
Kevin
And I'll give you one of mine that I've pushed, you know, so I've talked about pre-sell without fail and wrote the book and given all kinds of presentations and done it. And yet the audience and this is we keep repeating the same thing because we're like the audience hasn't heard enough and we know repetition is important. So we say it again and again, again.
Kevin
But I think my challenge is let's get more creative to try to find out if it's not just us. The presenter that's repeating the same thing. People have heard, but not actually finding a way to help them solve the problem. And that's why I use stories analogies is because my hope is that the person I'm telling that to can retell the story and get a similar outcome or help people's opinions or mindset change.
Kevin
So a lot of times builders on their on their home site maps or community descriptions are talking about, you know, faces one through 17 and all of them are on the map and they're on phase one, but they're showing everything. And so for me, the example is, you know, Apple just came out with the iPhone 15 and the 15 pro and someone tweeted immediately after, like, I'm on my way to Apple.com to order my iPhone 14.
Kevin
Can't wait for it. It's like, no one does that. As soon as the phones announce, the only people buying the 14 are price conscious folks who probably can't afford or wouldn't buy a 15 anyway. But it would be as insane for Apple to put on their website iPhone. I mean, I can do it now. I can. I can project into the future the iPhone 17 coming September of 2025.
Kevin
You would never, ever, ever see that on Apple's website because you can't buy it yet. And certainly in the process of launch in neighborhood there's there's a period where you're going to put that community out there and you can't buy it because you're building that list. But Apple knows how long they need to build their list, and it's about 2 to 3 weeks from the time we say it's here to the time that you can go online and order it.
Kevin
They figure it out through probably millions of dollars and out. And, you know, tons of research that that's the only window they need to have. So you got to figure out what your window is. But you don't need to communicate years or decades in advance. You're going to have Homesite 2312 available at some point. So just let's get creative because if if the industry isn't solving that problem, we can go back to content around the backpack if we have to.
Kevin
But the more interesting question that I think our whole industry needs to start thinking about is what are the barriers? Because the barrier is not anyone I talked to. I don't know if you two are talking to people, but I haven't heard anyone say no, we've got enough content on all of our stuff, like I'm good with it or pictures are all awesome, our descriptions are great.
Kevin
No one's happy with the content they have. So what's the real problem? And we keep pointing the finger. This is going to get me excited. We keep pointing the finger at marketers and. If you're interacting with marketers on a regular basis, you know, the problem is not that the marketer doesn't want the content. Maybe, and this is why I'm so big on high mark as a potential solution for this in our industry.
Kevin
You know, this is it. Them and Mark and Beth are doing a presentation at the summit Higher understands that the reason we have crappy content is because people who aren't marketers are constantly changing the product with your regard and no care as to whether we have content just made content. There's just like this little hidden space in every home building company where for people who have no connection to consumers or marketers are coming up with all these new things and changing stuff all the time and like, yeah, just figure it out.
Kevin
Just figure it out. Like that's the freaking problem. And using it addressed not how to hire a photographer. Did you know that you can get renderings that like for it's such baloney. That's not the problem. The problem is that there's these other morons changing things too often that no one's asking to be changed. Like if they're How often?
Kevin
How often do people redesign cars?
Julie
Right.
Kevin
It's usually on like a three year, 3 to 5 year thing, and there's little micro changes in between. They don't and they don't have 45 different cars available at Toyota to go buy for each. Kevin And then we're going to show Toyota's car car selection tool and they're like, this is amazing. Look what it can.
Julie
Do because there's only seven different.
Kevin
Car types.
Julie
Yeah.
Beth
There's like five is from.
Kevin
That's why when NPR bought Heartland and they we had 45 different floor plans and they said no, you can have 12. And after the initial freak out of that's not possible. We'll never sell another house again. Everyone's going to want something we don't have. I got so freaking excited as a marketer because thinking of of, okay, I'm going to defend my budget.
Kevin
I'm going to keep that same amount of money. But now I can develop content around 12 floor plans instead of 45.
Julie
Yeah.
Kevin
It was like Angels started singing. It was, This is going to be the most incredible thing ever.
Julie
Mm hmm. Yeah. So look for.
Kevin
Look for what's causing things not to change. Not just telling the people that it needs to change. Please.
Jen
I literally just had this conversation with a builder yesterday, and you were not on the call because I asked them what is because they're overloaded? What is eating up your time right now? And that's what that's what it was. That's what I want is this.
Kevin
For people in a room somewhere making changes without talking to anyone?
Jen
Yes. And all they're doing is updating floorplans and rendering and all this. So it's just funny that you say that because I literally just had this conversation with someone yesterday.
Julie
Yeah, well, and.
Kevin
I mean, at Idol, they have collaborative teams that work on such things at Style Craft, where you were both they have collaborative teams. Yeah. Cross department teams that work on this things. Yeah. But so many builders I interact with, I'm like, who does this stuff?
Beth
But it was still a problem like.
Kevin
Steve in accounting.
Julie
Commercial. Oh, okay.
Kevin
Steph, thanks.
Beth
Thanks, Steve. No, I mean, it would still problem though. I mean, we had a huge group of us coming across, like you said, from all different departments coming together to make these decisions with the changes that were still happening so often that I had to just eventually put my foot down and saying, I'm not changing it until this is an issue or I have this many changes or whatever, or if we're making this many changes, I need this to be the process that we follow because there's just no way that as a singular person or in our case, two people, that we're going to be able to maintain content across 40 communities with 40 different
Beth
floor plans, with 40 different variations of things happening, like that's just that is outside of the realm of reality.
Kevin
And there are answers coming. And here now to do it better and differently, one from other industries, two from products like High arc. And this is I mean, again, if you're listening and you're coming to the summit, you're going to hear it. It's not like you're going to not hear this talk.
Julie
But yeah.
Kevin
There are ways to get what we want and need.
Beth
And there's ways to go about the changes better, which again, I don't want to say too much about because we'll talk about at the summit and I have a blog post that I finally wrote a blog post and Julie edited it, shout out Julie. That is about different ways that we can go about making changes that are planning, planning things out.
Beth
Because I don't think that as an industry we're doing it the most efficient way.
Kevin
No, no, not at all. All right. First up from the news, will the mortgage rate spread narrow or not? That is the question from first imdb.com And this. Remember, I went on a tirade about like if you're a marketer trying to ignore what interest rates are and how they are determined, all that stuff, it's time to go to school.
Kevin
By the way, that was my actual story. I got distracted. I didn't share my story time, but one of the notes that I wrote down was Bill Gurley, a prominent investor venture capitalist, said that the idea of professional research no longer exists for most people, meaning when your teacher in school assigns you to do a research project on, you know, the Pyramids of Giza, you either lie and makes things up or today use GPT, or you go and read books, watch documentaries like you can see in this information.
Kevin
And yet the concept of professional research done outside of work hours is like, Are they paying me for news? I mean, I don't know, maybe you just want to find the answer or learn me because it's going to make you better, which will eventually pay you more because you are better. But it kind of goes along with this is a continuation of that rant from previous episode.
Kevin
Anyway, so this is an example of me. So I, I see this article posted in my first reaction as I've spent 200 hours learning about mortgage rates and how that determined all the rest. I don't need to read anymore on this topic, but what the heck, I'm stuck for 2 hours on a plane that's not taking off. So I'm going to read the article.
Kevin
And essentially what what the author argues is that one of the things that we're not thinking about that will keep rates higher for longer is the fact that rates being higher, where most people think they're like everyone's dating the rate, right? Everyone's waiting to refi. And one of the things that causes rates to be held higher is the belief that people are going to pay off their loans early.
Kevin
So if I'm buying a mortgage backed security that's supposed to be full of loans that are 7% for 30 years, what's the likelihood that those loans go for the entire 30 year period and aren't paid off early if rates go back down to five? Right. All those are gone. And so that risk of loans being that's a negative thing for an investor to have loans paid off early.
Kevin
And because of that negativity, there's extra costs being that then raise the rate because of that thing. Like I had no idea that that was part of the calculation, but it makes sense now. The inverse is also true on a coaching call this morning and the builder said, Yeah, you know what? We've noticed that buy downs are becoming less expensive for builders or this builder in particular.
Kevin
Why would that be? Because the inverse is also true. That's why I love learning stuff. It gets me so frickin excited. The inverse is true. Why would a buy down be less expensive? Because what's the likelihood that, yes, I am going to charge the builder money to buy down the rate? What if now that customer is going to get a 4.75% loan?
Kevin
What's the likelihood that they will carry that loan through to maturity? It's higher because if rates go down to six or five, they're not redoing that loan. So they were saying, you know, it still has three and a half, 4%, but it's used to be seven to buy that down. So it just never pays to continue doing professional research because it's just always insightful to me when I learn something new.
Kevin
It makes me excited.
Jen
And this article is worth reading because I do not get quite as excited as Kevin on all of this. But this one, when I read it, it was it did lay things out in a way that it was like little light bulbs went off and helped explain it. So if you're also struggling to make sense of all of this, this is a good one to go and.
Julie
Click on and.
Kevin
Read again because people will see something or say, Kevin's, you know, just a mad old man. No, I'm not saying you have to understand it. I'm saying stop trying to not understand it. That's all I'm saying. Like, keep trying to understand it. Don't just say huh.
Beth
Find new ways to explain what's happening in the industry other than the backpack.
Kevin
Yeah. All right. From Redfin.com, one in ten home sellers who found this one, by the way, they deserve a price because this one love this one. One in ten home sellers are moving because they're being called back to the office. We haven't found this article.
Beth
I'm looking, but.
Julie
I don't see I'm.
Kevin
Going to default to.
Julie
Friend. Thank you.
Kevin
Okay. Good job, Olivia.
Kevin
Return to office. Mandates are forcing some people to choose between selling their home at a loss or losing their job and turn it into a rental. Potentially. Roughly 20% of surveyed sellers say they're moving due to safety, crime concerns, a desire to live somewhere more aligned with their social views and or lower taxes. But 10% said they're moving because they have to go back to the office.
Beth
I mean, it goes back to I think it's an interesting, like granular data point of like because they specifically because they have to go back to the office, because we think about like relocation and things like that. And it says, oh, my work is moving me. But in this case, like, no, your work is forcing you to actually come in and now you need to live closer.
Beth
It kind of Did you see the Post from the New York Post article about the project by EIA in Montgomery County, Maryland? It almost makes me think about that a little bit because like they are doing a project that allows for lower income people to instead of doing that, the 10% or whatever, they increase it to 40% of lower income in this building.
Beth
And they are trying to increase the amount of available housing in a safe area that allows for us a closer commute. And the example in the article of someone who lives in that building is an individual who's like, I think she was like a nurse or a educator or something like that. I'm sorry, I can't remember what my head but she because this became available to her, her commute cut down from a 45 minute commute to a ten minute commute.
Beth
Now, for a little bit of perspective, even 45 minutes in the Montgomery County area. So anywhere around the greater D.C., Baltimore metropolitan area, 45 minutes is a win. So for her to be able to have 10 minutes of a win is is gigantic. And so these people that are are now trying to get to work and having to go to work every day and they're just trying to get closer.
Beth
They need to get closer. And it goes back to their need to move because their life is requiring them to.
Kevin
Yeah, remember, that's the fifth of the five days displacement that causes people to need to find a new home. And we're seeing this you know, we work with builders, I think, in 40 different states. And remember, if it's 10% in the survey that means in some markets it's lower. And in some markets it's higher. And one of the places they reference here is Boise, where two people work for the same employer.
Kevin
It sounds like to me it's Facebook or Meetup, but they're being told that they both have to come to the office three days a week or lose their jobs. They're probably gonna have to take $100,000 loss in their home in Boise And the home that they are going to end up buying in Seattle is going to be much smaller.
Kevin
So you just think about those markets. San Antonio is a relocation for remote work, heavy market. Boise was a big market for that. Northern Colorado. Some of these start to make sense. Now the question is, is this going to be it's going to be positive, you would think, for Seattle. And just because there's there's not still a lot available in Seattle from the from the used home market so for for prices in the market so people are being forced to move back to I think it's going to continue to push them higher.
Kevin
You know super interesting article. Thanks, Olivia, for finding that one. And you did this one I think from CNBC econ. Higher mortgage rates continue to impact the housing markets. Danielle hill, realtor.com chief economist this was you right, that found this one?
Beth
No, this is shout out, Becca.
Kevin
Oh, okay. Okay. Good job.
Julie
Here.
Kevin
But this is a video, so I don't know how to go into more of it.
Beth
We'll have to just embed the video into the show notes now.
Kevin
Well, time out. We'll just pick a different article. So it's like we can't put articles that are videos and. Sorry, that was. I should have thought that one. But we got to we got to be able to talk about it. All right. Next up from Pro Builder AECOM, where is the housing market headed this fall with buyers and sellers glued to the sidelines of a high priced undersupplied housing market, experts weigh in on what's to come.
Kevin
What's to come?
Beth
More of the same.
Jen
That's one thing. Those were kind of wild. You said, I don't think it's going to get any better, but I don't think it's going to get any worse because it can't get any worse. Number one, don't jinx us. Number two, we've seen it get worse. You know, we've seen it worse than this. So I was shocked by that vote.
Jen
I thought that was a little.
Kevin
Yeah. And promote our links to Realtor.com or the full article is we'll put that link in the show notes. But remember, they're talking about the housing market, meaning residential in its entirety. So when they say I can't get much worse, they're talking about existing home, the number of existing home transactions that are occurring. Remember, prices are not bad.
Kevin
It's the number of homes that are are transacting that he's talking about being so bad.
Beth
And guess who's still the bright spot?
Kevin
Yeah, I mean, what's the saying? I don't know if we can, but, like, tell this person in a room full of short people.
Julie
Because.
Kevin
Like, Yeah, I mean that's the thing that kind of it does affect my mental health a little bit. When people say, again, I'm talking to people not from our industry directly all the time who are like, Oh builders, man, this is just got to be like the best thing ever for them. They're loving now. There are we do have to, to working with who are having their best months ever.
Kevin
Yes but there are also a lot of builders who are, you know, eking by hitting their sales goals. Profitability is okay. But again, they're like, this is this is just infinitely harder than it used to be. And then going into the fourth quarter, it's like, oh, man, I really I'm not excited for what we're going to have to ride through here.
Kevin
So, yes, it is a bright spot in terms of, I would say availability of housing. Yes. So if you if you wiped builders off the map, there were no builders. The whole housing market would be you know, I think the kids say left.
Julie
Like.
Kevin
So homebuilders serve a really important purpose and we are there. But the costs of doing business for builders are not improving as fast as we wish they would, which means affordability is still a challenge.
Beth
Yeah, and while it's true that it remains market dependent, I think the builder to builder, it's also really interesting to watch. I don't know if you all have seen this, but we had a brief conversation of the doers versus the thinkers. And then there's the people that can think and do simultaneously, which is a magical little unicorn that everyone should have within their organization.
Beth
But it's a matter of like there's people that are in markets that are still doing well, but they just haven't gotten it right from the builder side because they're not sure how to take advantage of a market where they all where they are the tallest person in the room. They're not using the right messaging. They're not using the right messaging at the right phase of the funnel.
Beth
They're not getting creative in what they're doing. They're just riding the coattails. And then something blips and they're like.
Julie
Oh.
Beth
What do I do with my hands? And it's interesting.
Kevin
Yeah, And I love how it ends, actually. This is who is still buying homes today. The answer is you have to purchase a home. And I think Rob Hahn, who's another one of our speakers at this year's event, I think he coined the term the four D's, which were diamonds, death, diapers and divorce. I think we added the fifth D, which is displacement, which kind of talked about what the article terms of having to move back to a different physical location or move physical location.
Kevin
That's the only reason people are buying. It's not because that there's a red tag clearance sale going on. They're already in the market and that will potentially steal market share if you do that, right. But there's a lot more people being created by that activity. All right. Our favorites. Things we love and things we hate. Let's just rename it that next time.
Kevin
Olivia. Things we love and things we hate. Anything is up for grabs. What do we got today?
Beth
I hate unpacking.
Kevin
All unpacking. Okay, tell us more about that. Why do you have so much stuff that's you.
Julie
That's a.
Beth
Great question. And we keep purging. Julie and I were just talking about how like one of the beauties of moving is the ability to like it's a forced spring cleaning. And so you, you get to purge like I am still throwing things away left and right. And we did that prior to moving. But you know, it is just can I just can like all the boxes magically just, you know, like Mary Poppins into their place because that would make my life really look a lot easier right now.
Kevin
Yeah. It's I love talking about it because we went we're now done with it. Yeah. The whole mental connection that you have to your house and the things that you have to start thinking about again that you stop thinking about at your old house. There's all this emotional energy that's spent, intellectual energy that's spent for moving. What's the physical?
Julie
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin
Blood sucking leech like reality of unpacks in cardboard boxes. Yeah, It's not a good combination. Okay, that's good. You can hate that. Julie, What about you?
Jen
Well, this might be embarrassing. I don't know, but I've been listening to a new podcast, and it's John Delaney, and it's like the old school, like somebody calling in and asking for advice, like, Oh, my God. Like, yep. Or he's it's. That's what we should do, counselor. Guys, I'm like, I'm fast. It like I'm obsessed with it right now.
Kevin
That's what we should.
Jen
I don't know if it's cringing or where people really. Why don't you listen? But I know I love in it I'm into it right now.
Beth
Millennial need watched or listened to Love Line like let's be racy.
Jen
It's not racy like that. It is, but it's like just any kind of it gets like a little mini counseling session. And so that has what I've been listening to lately.
Kevin
There is a gentleman I can't remember his name, but it was on Redwood Studios, AM talk radio, and every day he would take like 3 hours of calls and he would play solitaire. So you'd hear him shuffle the card. Sometimes, like I've always answering people's questions, but every like nine out of ten answers or get a lawyer, he would call them questions and he would ask them on a question.
Kevin
Questions like, You know what need you need to do is get a lawyer. And this guy made a career off of telling people to go get legal advice. Now, is is.
Jen
This once more, go get a counselor like you need trauma counseling.
Kevin
So this is like real life crime podcasts. This is I haven't killed anyone yet, but I'm thinking about it.
Beth
Yeah, Yeah Yeah. Is it like a little touch of a Reddit thread? Am I the ahole?
Jen
Because, like, sometimes that's all I hold.
Julie
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Kevin
Mine is a podcast recommendation that I got from another podcast that I listen to called a compound in France. It's a stock market, one most of you shouldn't probably listen to it, but acquired is the name of it and they are, let's see, 3 hours, 4 hours, two hour. They're really long podcasts on a single company kind of giving there.
Kevin
What they do is they go and they read 8 to 10 books on a topic that interview people and then it looks like twice a month they do these three hour summaries in audio format. And it's I mean, it's it's all LVMH, the NFL, Nintendo.
Beth
Qualcomm, Marvel one or the.
Kevin
Amazon, of course, Altimeter, Sony, Peloton, FDX, Standard Oil like that's a really old company. Sometimes they do multiple parts, but it's one of those podcasts where you don't. I don't feel compelled to listen to all of them. But if there is a company that I really think does something well or I use like my own life and I'm curious about the background, it's just a really great it's like in between an audio book and a podcast, typical podcast in length and complexity.
Julie
Oh, that's fun.
Beth
I'm already Google, right?
Kevin
Yeah, that'll do it. Wait. Oh, you have another one, Beth, you want to complain about? Can you have something positive?
Beth
Yeah. Seriously, I just love the. I hate this way. No, the positive of our houses. I'm so like, by the time you guys see me next, next week, Monday, I should be in my office, in my new house, and I'm obsessed with the color that we painted it. And it was a little bit of a risk going back to that word, Kevin But it's a ripe olive by Sherwin-Williams.
Beth
It's a deep, moody green, and my crown molding is painted it. My doors are painted it, my walls are painted it, my panel, it is the whole office is this deep, moody, green, and it has a vibe. And I'm.
Julie
Obsessed.
Kevin
So you like cozy, like cave? Kind of like it's not going to be dark. No cream.
Beth
But yeah, it has. And it has has. The ceiling is white and the floors are white. Okay, So like, there's a balance, but I don't know, I just it gives that feeling of like an all leather bag.
Julie
Yeah.
Kevin
It looks like you should be signing the docket. Like the Declaration of Independence. Yeah.
Beth
Basically, I need a portrait of George Washington.
Julie
On the wall.
Kevin
Nicole, I learned something from my son, Hayden. He's in fifth grade, so he has to do a report on a president.
Julie
Mm hmm.
Kevin
And you could be lying to me, so don't. Don't at me. He's. And he got second choice, I think, to pick any president you want to do. And he picked Grover Cleveland.
Julie
Okay, Now.
Kevin
Either one of you know any interesting information about Grover Cleveland?
Julie
No. Nope.
Kevin
No. Apparently, allegedly he is the only president to serve two terms that were nonconsecutive.
Julie
Mm.
Kevin
He was both the 22nd and the 24th president of the United States and had an incredible mustache.
Beth
He did that. That is true.
Kevin
Oh, all right. That's actually it. We're done now. The show is over. Have a good week. We'll see you next time.
Julie
Bye bye.
