Mary Lou Denny: Educating The Trade
Mary Lou Denny, co-founder and executive vice president, heads the public relation division of Walt Denny Inc., an advertising and public relations agency in Hinsdale, Illinois. She and her husband Walt, started the agency twenty years ago based on the credo to provide creative marketing solutions, combined with a high value on personal relationships and accountability.
Whether real-world or virtual, special events can do wonders to promote your company. They help you capture new customers, retain existing clients, and assist in building your brand. And here's the great news: the arrival of social media delivers outstanding new ways to promote these events.
Jane Meagher: Think Like A Consumer, Act Like A Retailer
Jane Meagher is President of Success Strategies, the nation’s premier design studio strategy, training, and consulting company, and the creator of many national award-winning design studios. Jane shares insights from working with leading builders in over 30 states and Canada, through extensive studies of consumer shopping behavior and retail-based on-site presentation, and from over 20 years experience in new home sales and marketing.
Operating a design studio is not cheap. But it is a smart investment, both financially and from a customer satisfaction standpoint. There are truly dozens of actions you can take to increase the profitability of your design studio. Let’s take a look at a few that answer the questions of what, how, and where to sell.
Builder Pulse
John McManus is an award-winning editorial director for the Residential Construction Group at Hanley Wood in Washington, D.C. In addition to the BUILDER digital, print, and in-person editorial and programming portfolio, the group includes strategic content direction for AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE, APARTMENT FINANCE TODAY, CUSTOM HOME, EcoHome, MULTIFAMILY EXECUTIVE, and residential architect.
Ready, aim, fire ... and just like that TRI Pointe Homes becomes a big-league buyer of lots in a field crowded with heavyweights.
Mollie Elkman: Modern Marketing
Mollie is president of Group Two Advertising, one of the largest homebuilder marketing and advertising agencies in the United States. Mollie¹s blog initiates thought provoking conversations within the building industry. She focuses on new and controversial trends in the increasingly Internet savvy world we live in.
How many times a year do you sit down with a group of 20 other builders or remodelers to share industry insights? If your answer is less than two, then you are not taking advantage of one of the NAHB's best kept secrets.
Hanley Wood Vice Chairman, Frank Anton, is one of the foremost experts on the residential and commercial construction market. In his bi-monthly e-Newsletter Frank delves into the current state of the housing market, what to expect in the future and advice about how to take advantage of short and long-term market conditions.
For as long as I can remember ... builders and Realtors have had an uneasy arm's-length relationship
Ted Cushman: The Ten-Penny News
Ted Cushman covers the home building industry as a freelance writer from his base in the hills of Western Massachusetts. His blog promises insightful, accurate, and practical coverage of home building techniques, building science, and housing economics.
Joplin really impressed me. I was sitting around the table with the HBA leadership in April, and I told them that I had seen a spirit of community, a strength and a resilience, and just an engagement with life that was rare in my experience — and I've been to a lot of places in this country.
Tim Garrison: The Builder's Engineer
Tim Garrison, the Builder's Engineer(tm), is the president of ConstructionCalc Software, Inc. He is the author of four books, including, Green Framing, An Advanced Framing How-To Guide. Tim stays current with industry trends as a practicing professional engineer.
What do I think of the old saying, “Measure Twice, Cut Once?" Not much, actually.
Mark Hodges: On Strategy
Mark Hodges is Principal of Blueprint Strategic Consulting, helping homebuilders plan for growth by facilitating strategic planning, helping to define core company objectives and create action plans needed to enable success, and developing the organizational mechanisms to ensure alignment at all levels.
I have an idea for a new award for the homebuilding industry – the Darwin Award. It would be presented to any homebuilder (or company that depends on homebuilding for its existence) that is still in business today. Sure, that’s quite a few companies, but a damned sight fewer than existed a few short years ago.
Patrick Duffy: The Housing Chronicles
Patrick Duffy has consulted for nearly 20 years for the country's leading home builders, land developers, investors, and lenders on residential, mixed-use, commercial, and industrial projects. An expert on local housing markets, Duffy offers his thoughts on what’s happening around the country.
According to a recent analysis of government data by the NAHB, the rise in student loan debt is actually a function of lower home values: with U.S. household wealth falling by 40% between 2007 and 2010, students who were formerly able to rely on their parents’ home equity lines instead took on a patchwork of student loans from both the federal government and private lenders such as SallieMae (the former GSE fully privatized in 2004), Citibank or JPMorganChase.
Chuck Shinn: Rx from the Profit Doctor
Charles C. Shinn, Jr., PhD, often referred to as the Profit Doctor, is the founder of the Shinn Group of Cos., The Lee Evans Group, and Builder Partnerships. His constant focus is to help builders and manufacturers to improve the performance of their companies, enhance relationships, and ultimately maximize their total profits.
Good, detailed estimates and purchasing procedures allow for better variance analysis and control.
Al Trellis: Ask Al
Al Trellis, the president of Home Builders Network in Mount Airy, MD, has over 35 years experience as a custom builder, engineer, consultant, columnist, and speaker. He’s known for his creativity and insights into improving profits and productivity.
Recently I had dinner with a nationally known speaker, whose work is completely outside the homebuilding industry. He mentioned that one of his commencement presentations focused on the theme of “The Good is the Enemy of the Best.” I responded by saying that I often talk about “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good.”
Housing Pulse with Paul Cardis
AVID Ratings is a full-service customer loyalty management firm, providing enterprise-level surveys, organizational strategies, employee training, and proprietary solutions that create delighted customers and drive increased profitability. Working with AVID means going beyond just surveys, it means solutions that significantly improve the bottom line.
June, to me, always meant the end of the school year. You took final exams and tried to prove to the teacher or professor what you had learned from your coursework. Before the summer starts in earnest, I thought that it would be a good idea to write down 10 things I think I have learned from this prolonged real estate downturn. It is kind of like my own final exam.