From the MBA Centennial Video: Helping launch the big dig. The team that knows how to shovel it!

I just received a glossy, full color 44-page “President’s Report” from the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties.  I wonder if these guys have gotten the memo.  Their members are hurting.  The New Home Industry is under siege!  I’m more optimistic than the next guy about good things lying ahead, but right now, I have to wonder why I’m paying these guys big dues so the “President” can report in the most old-skool of ways.  Here’s a suggestion:  try the Internet for Sam’s sake!  Email your report.  Post on the Association website.  Put it on Sam’s Facebook page.  Anything but print and mail a 44-page slick report that actually does little to address the core issues that face our industry.  And  if any MBA’ers are thinking I’m being a little harsh?  Be damn glad I didn’t choose to pick on the wretched, self-serving excess of that thick hard cover you published this year for the 100th Anniversary.  Can I find anything GOOD to say about the Pres’s report? The orange on the back cover is pretty nifty!

Social Media in the Workplace

One of the perennial questions for large companies these days is what to do with the emerging Social Media phenomenon. With the advent of Web 2.0, larger IT departments have placed some very strict limitations on the access their employees have to outside Internet sites. Being strong proponent of hiring adults, and then treating them like adults, puts me immediately at odds with that Old Skool line of thinking. (Of course, I disclaim: I have never had to manage an organization that numbered in the many hundreds, if not thousands.)

With that said, let’s get specific. You are running a new home sales team and now have to decide how approach a brand new tool: Social Media. We’re all familiar with the oldest tool, the intake form, registration card, welcome form, or whatever you call that sheet of paper where you try to capture information about your prospective buyer. We ask for a name, and some contact information. Maybe a price range, a number of bedrooms, an ancillary preferred feature or two. Where did they hear about us? Was it the website? Our expensive newspaper ads? But, of course, the only box most of them check is the one about “the signs.” Our next tool is discovery — the process in which we attempt to bond and learn more about the customer so we can professionally direct them to the right home at the right price. Here we want to know about interests, family, commute, favorite recreation activities, etc. Only when we do the discovery process correctly are we best equipped to serve our customer.

Now imagine the value of knowing even more about our prospective clients. Maybe before they visit, or when they return for a second or third look. What if they wrote us a long personal letter, shared who they were friends with, displayed photos of their last vacation and the awesome 10^th Birthday Party for their grandson? I’d venture that a new home sales professional would jump at the chance to glimpse that deeply into the lives of their customers.

What I’ve just described is Facebook! Now add to that the family videos posted on YouTube, the photo albums displayed on Flickr.com and the professional contacts shared on LinkedIn.

When a builder of new homes, a planned community or condominium community enters into a professionally managed Social Media campaign, the doors are opened wide to new kinds of relationships with their best prospects. Because of the public nature of the medium, those relationships extend beyond the prospects to include their best friends, family members and the people to whom they turn for validation. If you’re now thinking that sharing all that personal information is a little creepy, note that Facebook, if it were a country, would be the be the 5^th largest in the world, with 200 million active members who have an average of 120 friends each. One hundred million visit Facebook every day.* Remember that the information users post about themselves is voluntary. They want YOU to know about their lives.

Facebook (and Social Media, in general) can help you get to know your customers. As a two-way conversation, Social Media can help them to get to know you as well.

Now, back to the IT staff which wants to restrict access. My advice: it’s time to embrace Social Media, give employees access and open new doors for your company. Let senior management set some reasonable expectations for representing the company online and in public, then encourage your sales teams to get social. It’s the next step to getting more business.

For a wide angle view of integrating the Internet into the daily flow of business, I suggest reading Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

* Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Over the generations, just how much of our body of useful knowledge was traded at the neighborhood pub or bar?

One of our Fusionhappens, Bruce Woodstrom, was catching up with long time pals, Susan and Al Sipe. Bruce has this thing for the Zig Zag, a quiet and venerated bar between Seattle’s Pike Place Market and the waterfront.  Also home to Murray, Seattle’s favorite bartender. Recently, Susan has been asking a lot of questions about Social Marketing. She’s responsible for marketing many hundreds of new condos in premier buildings represented by Williams Marketing, a regional legend in condo sales.  Midway through their second round of cocktails (Murray’s Old Fashions are seductively good), Bruce noticed a group in the next booth.  Mixed ages, mixed genders, mixed ethnicities.  A perfect sampling of the metropolitan condo audience.  Here they were, face-to-face, and each member in the chatty group was also riveted to their iPhone or Blackberry.  “Those are your buyers, Susan,” noted Bruce, “and look how they’re connecting.”  Being the ultimate student of marketing, Susan seized the opportunity to join the table next door and conduct an impromptu focus group on the media habits.  The conclusion: it’s all about the “three screens”! If you want to reach the future (meaning this afternoon) buyer, you need to engage them on one of their three screens:  the iPhone, Blackberry or cell phone — always with them; their computer — where they spend the most time; or their television — where you can only conduct a one way conversation.

So, my question of the day is:  why the heck do so many of you still insist on dumping all those budgets on ineffective newspapers and glossy magazine ads?

Maybe it’s time to find your own local Zig Zag and conduct some person-to-person market research.

Results may vary.

Image by Free-StockPhotos.com

A world famous reader board on a peek joint about a block from my office, across from the Seattle Art Musem and next door to the brand new Four Seasons hotel and condos.

Most of us love metaphors. They are a tool to help us understand our world better by linking new and complex ideas to something much more familiar to us. When Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh computer in 1984, his team deftly built the interface around our very familiar desktop, complete with file folders, documents, adding machine keypads and more. It was an idea his team borrowed from the Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center. Now there’s Twitter, still in its infancy and now, according to A.C. Neilson, 7-million users strong, up 1,300% from last February. Twitter is a very limited form of communication, allowing a blog-style message that maxes out at 140 characters. Some “tweets” are as mundane as “Had a great meeting today with al_doyle.  Follow him and learn good marketing” to “KOGI is at NB 5 Fwy at Whittier Bl First 10 peeps get free Echo Park Blackened Quesadilla”. The first “tweet” was obviously from someone who was trying to butter me up, the second “tweet” from KOGI Barbecue, a Los Angeles based Korean Fusion Taco Truck that tweets its location and specials each day and has gained a huge following relying on only Twitter as their marketing medium. How is one supposed to describe or relate to a new medium like Twitter? Short messages displayed for an entire community? My brilliant friend, Kris Hoots, nailed it last week. Kris and her partner, Steve Thomas, run Oneicity, a fast-growing start-up consulting firm helping non-profits raise income. In a recent oneicity.com blog post, she used a stunning metaphor for Twitter!  The Reader Board.  According to Kris “So…while not everyone knows or understands Twitter, most everyone knows about reader boards. You’ve seen them in front of schools, stores, theaters, etc. for years. And essentially, this is what Twitter is. And like a reader board, you have a limited amount of space (characters) to communicate your message. And like a reader board, it’s very public.”

There you have it. Kris said it first, Twitter is the reader board for your community.  Who is your community?  Like a town, city or neighborhood, you decide who you follow on Twitter, and your community decides to see your reader board by choosing to follow you back.

Now, for the sake of all of us, keep those reader boards relevant and interesting!  Keep track of me at www.twitter.com/al_doyle.

Photo from jdbones photo stream on flickr by Steve Keiser  protected by a Creative Commons license.

We’ve been sending copies of Groundswell to our clients now for about two months. What’s been happening in the new home industry is a large burst of interest in what people are calling “Social Media” or “Networking” sites. Groundswell is such a good starting point for discussions around this topic because Groundswell provides an overview of a change of behavior among the general public from a management perspective. This is not a hands-on tutorial, or a “how to”, or even “Social Media for Morons” title. This book gives us all a quick fly-over of the whole scene from blogging to Twitter to Facebook to Flickr with a good look from a business point of view at why you should care, when you should get involved, and how to allocate your resources to make things happen. The part I like best are the short case histories of real companies facing the questions you and I face every day. Like what do I tell my clients to do with all those Facebook friends?  We have found that reading this book with our clients gives us a common ground from which to move forward.  Right now were starting some exciting new projects (of modest means) using what we call the Core Four of Social Media— Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter. We’ll keep you posted on the results.

If you want to connect with people, find out what they are passionate about.  About 5 p.m. yesterday as I headed to the ferry boat for my ride home, I “tweeted” a simple question, which also updated by Facebook status:

 “OK Seattle: the question is Dick’s Deluxe? Or, In and Out Burger?”

 By dinner time, I had over a dozen responses!  Clearly, my friends are passionate about their burgers! If you’re selling new homes, condos, (or anything for that matter), discover your customer’s passions, show some interest and then get out of the way.   By the way, marketing relationships of this type are only available two ways: in-person and through Social Networking media.  People can’t talk back to a magazine ad, radio spot or TV commercial.

 PS: The Results:  54% Dicks Deluxe; 46% In and Out Burger with several shout-outs by our California friends for “Animal Style”

On January 21st, I attended The Nationals awards banquet at the International Builders Show in Las Vegas. Since I had the privilege of helping judge this year’s entries, I was very eager to see and meet the people who did the great work. While surrounded in a sea of glitzy cocktail gowns and spiffy suits, I was reminded of what a powerful motivator recognition can be.

Peter Mayer and Lisa Parrish are the producers of The Nationals, PCBC and similar awards competitions and black tie extravaganzas all over the country and are recognition experts. They continue to teach to the fundamentals: recognition may be the most cost-effective form of motivation.

Recognition can be as simple kind word, a sincere note or card, or thoughtful gift. This is one time when you can rely on the old adage: “it’s the thought that counts”. Even the simple phrase “good job” or even more powerful “thank you” can pay huge dividends no matter what the market conditions are. And when market conditions are like they are in the new home industry this year, recognizing the hard work of ALL our team members is more important than ever.

To see some “over the top” Watch Mary DeWalt, Mary DeWalt Design Group, Inc. (nice dress!) introduce Adrienne Albert of The Marketing Directors, Inc. who was named Legend of Residential Marketing as part of The Nationals 2009 Awards Ceremony.

What random acts of recognition have you seen lately?

PS:
This is the inaugural edition of Sq. Ft. the Fusionapartners blog! We’ll be covering topics related to the creation and marketing of new home communities, with an emphasis on stewardship. We encourage you to comment, dissent and elucidate. This is intended to be a two-way conversation.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1071330550325&oid=47126317707

http://www.thenationals.com/

Every week I’m getting a batch of new Facebook friends over 40 years old. And they are actually using this surprising new media to send notes, invitation and even photo of their kids and dogs.

What does this mean for those of us marketing new homes and communities?

It means the “Social Network” train has left the station and we’d better be on board!

The paradigm is shifting. Facebook is no longer just a way for college kids to track their social lives. Linked-in is the new Rolodex for millions of serious business people. Millions of individuals and companies are sharing their photos on Flickr. YouTube is ranked #2
behind Google as the most popular search engine. And 100% of homebuyers form their first impressions of projects and communities from their time spent on websites.

Campbell Homes of Colorado Springs, CO is a great example and one of my new Facebook Friends. One of their staffers, Kelly Noble is their “internet concierge” and is doing a fantastic job of communicating with customers and real estate agents.

I’d love to add you as one of my Facebook friend. Head over right now and find me.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Al-Doyle/522492547