Guest Blog: Sell Your Music
By Steve McAuliffe, MIRM, CSP
How many of you have seen the movie Rocky? Were you motivated? Did it make you feel good? Would you have been as motivated if there was no music?
Music plays a big part in our lives. Relaxing, Soothing, Motivating, Energizing. It reminds you of the good times, good friends, and beautiful places.
It comes in all forms, from classical to hip-hop to electronic, and effects each of us in different ways.
Any time a new community or neighborhood is about to be announced there is a lot of new information to digest and share with your potential buyers. Let’s be reasonable. You can’t learn everything overnight and even if you did, you wouldn’t have the time to formulate the information in to a concise and meaningful presentation.
That leaves us with our Music! People will buy your music before your words. What they are really listening to is your excitement, your belief, and your conviction level.
And this is true whether you are at the beginning or end of a project. Whether you are a hostess, secretary, sales professional, design coordinator, receptionist, or manager.
It’s your unique brand of enthusiasm. It’s a burning desire from within that people want to be a part of.
When you walk into a room you either brighten it or dim it. If you brighten the room, that’s part of this desire that is burning within you. People see it. They want to be a part of it. People are looking for someone to believe in… someone that believes in them. It comes down to just becoming aware. Keep your awareness level up and be aware of the energy you are portraying. I can’t emphasize this enough. Successful people are defined by their music, by their energy, and by the enthusiasm they show. I’m not saying to go overboard and become giddy. I’m talking about the ability to simply portray a relevant message.
Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Successful people live out of their comfort zone. Successful people play where the opportunity is.
Some of the wealthiest people in our industry stay intelligently ignorant. What I mean by that is they don’t get caught up in all the latest sales technique fads and concepts that are constantly being lobbed at them. Focus on your music, the rest will come.
Time For Band Camp!
Steve McAuliffe, MIRM, CSP, is Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for JMC Communities in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is past-president of the Contractors and Builders Association of Pinellas County, life director of the Tampa Bay Builders Association, director of both NAHB and FHBA, and licensed Florida Real Estate Broker (president of JMC Realty, Inc.). Steve served on both the IRM and NSMC Board of Trustees and served as chair of the MIRM Designation Promotion Committee for two years. A past SMC chair for FHBA and CBA, he has received NSMC Silver Marketing Director of the Year and MAME recognition over the years along with the John P. Hall Award at the 2003 SEBC.
www.jmcdev.com, www.twitter.com/SteveMcAuliffe and www.SteveMcAuliffe.wordpress.com
PCBC 2009 Round Up
I was turned on to this new plugin by Apture (Thanks Mike Matthews) which allows you to grab content from multiple sources and mash it up in a player (below). I thought I would test it out with some 2009 PCBC content. I loaded the Twitter stream with the hash tag of #pcbc09 and videos I shot from the show. Pretty easy to use. What do you think?
PCBC – Day 3 Video Post
It was a the last day of PCBC and I had the chance to interview two companies.
First was Lynette Rogers, Product Marketing Manager for James Hardie. The are by far the most active building supplier in the social media space. You can check out all of their efforts on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn They were also actively promoting their social media efforts at the booth and by tweeting updates from the floor.
We also hear from Jim Adams, CEO of NewHomesDirectory.com about their industry PR Site called NHDBuzz.com. A free site to post stories and releases.
#pcbc09 Tweetup Video Post
We had a great time at booth 2134 and the official #pcbc09 tweetup – spearheaded by Rob Bivens @rbiv from Golden State Lumber (yes, a supplier people!) I put together a quick video highlight of the event. I asked a few of the folks there how they and their companies were using Twitter.
At the tweetup:
@juliesenter
@allijb
@cassandragrauer
@rbiv
@jim_adams
@graphiclanguage
@carolruiz
@bialav
@hometeam
@wwpa
@summerhillhomes
@jonjonbailey
I feel like I have missed some. Were you there? Leave a comment.
PCBC – Day 2 Video Post
Another jam packed day on Thursday. There was a lot of energy and it was busy with meetings.
In this video Sarah Yaussi from Big Builder, the hardest working journalist at the show, gives her impression of the show (I definitely echo her sentiments). She is overflowing with information and knowledge .
I talked with James Honeycutt, Director of Sales for Builder Homesite (BHI) – the Newhomesource.com guys. They have other great products to complete the “digital experience” for homebuilders.
Had lunch with the Bokka Group from Denver, they are now global getting ready to do some work in Australia. (I had to bribe Paula Huggett to go on camera – she pulled it off)
Stopped by the Move.com booth and talked to my good friend Dan Sargent – had him talk about some great advertising options for home builders.
We also did a live stream online – first one for the homebuilding industry – I’ll dedicate another post to that later in the week.
Seth Godin – Marketing advice from PCBC – Video Post
Close your eyes (okay, mentally close your eyes). Picture a twelve year old girl who just won front row seats to a Hannah Montana concert. Now, picture Seth Godin presenting the keynote speech to close out PCBC. Now picture me, Mike Lyon, meeting Seth Godin. I am the Hannah Montana girl. For myself, my passion and business life overlap. The opportunity to not only hear him speak but potentially shake his hand was a large influence in my decision to fly from Tulsa, OK to San Francisco for the 2009 conference.
He was set up to do a book signing at 9:00am – 1 hour before his presentation. I set up camp at 4:00 a.m., not really, but I did make sure I was there early to ask a few questions, and maybe get a little bit of his genius to rub off on me.
Let me say – he dropped a few bombs, opened my eyes and even answered some specific questions I had pertaining to some clients. It was time well spent.
As far as marketing goes, it’s no secret that the homebuilding industry has a lot of catching up to do. We need to do things differently, now I know it’s not just me thinking this, but Seth too. I encourage you to listen to his words of wisdom in this brief video interview. My favorite quote “the low hanging fruit is probably the most rotten fruit” You’ll like his socks too.
So, how will you implement his advice this year? Leave a comment and let us know.
Here are some excerpts from the tweets I was blasting during his keynote:
- Opening line – We missed the warning signs and are here anyway We need to be congratulated.
- The market has made it easier for builders left to make through the dip.
- Comparing building business to record business – broke but not going away
- Perfect industry for the past 30 years. A house was also an investment. Now it’s different
- Home builders have been making brown cows. Average products for average people. Rethink building and selling.
- Timid trapeze artists are dead trapeze artists. Home builders need to be bold
- Tribes are built 10 get 10 get 10 enabled by Internet. Takes weeks not months. Only 1000 true fans needed.
- Seth Godin – he bought his house to die there.Homebuilding may be moving back to long term investments.
- Beatles did not invent teenagers, they just decided to lead them. We don’t need to create new tribes, just lead
- Fill your house with details that don’t match the spec sheets. If you treat green like a gimmick, you will kill the movement
- New home communities with tribes will outsell communities down the street with no tribes
- Tell a story – Connect a tribe – Lead a movement – Make Change
- Either quit today or make a commitment to do scary, patient, respectful things for 40 years
- Pick up the phone. Tell customers “I built that home you live in -do you like it?
- Do you have permission to market to past customers. Most likely not because you are afraid of getting sued for radon in the dirt.
- Make a pot full of money. Create and lead tribes while doing it.
PCBC Day 1 Video Post
Day one at PCBC – busy with some great conversations and great folks. Was able to talk with Robert O’Shaugnessy, Director of Online Marketing at Graphic Language and Chris Graham, Director of Product Development and Marketing at Constellation.
Will keep the video rolling. Getting ready for another great day tomorrow.
See you at PCBC 2009
Heading off to PCBC this week and looking forward to a great show. Please drop me a comment and let me know if you will be there. I’ll be flippin’ out (recording video on my Flip) so if you see me – make sure you are camera ready.
Internet Marketing Seminar with Dallas SMC
Looking forward to speaking the second year in a row at the Dallas Sales & Marketing Council. For all of my Texas friends – be sure to attend on Tuesday June 23rd. Details are below.
Thank you to the sponsors NewHomesDirectory.com and BuilderDesigns.com for partnering on this event. You won’t want to miss out – the first 50 registrants will receive a complimentary copy of Browsers to Buyers (provided by Buildtopia) and there will be $1,000’s in free advertising and prizes to give away. Be sure to let us know you are attending.
Find the Event on Facebook >>
Find the Event on LinkedIn >>
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
6:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m.
Home Builders Association of Greater Dallas
5816 W. Plano Parkway
Plano, 75093
Click Here for Event Details and to Register >>
How to Measure Your Traffic Sources
As you explore what new home listing services to utilize, it is extremely important to measure the results. It is not just about the amount of traffic but the quality of the traffic. Last week I created a poll and shot it out via Twitter & Facebook to over 1000 connections. The results are below.
Interesting results. Let’s look at the ways you can determine the quality of traffic using your website analytics. Here are a couple of key metrics you need to pay attention to:
- Visits
- Pages Per Visit
- Average Time on Site
- Percentage of New Visits
- Bounce Rate
Let’s use the example below to review.
| Traffic Source | Visits | Pages/Visit | Avg Time on Site | % of New Visits | Bounce Rate |
| Traffic Source A | 235 | 12 | 10:00 | 69% | 20% |
| Traffic Source B | 150 | 5 | 6:00 | 10% | 50% |
What story are these analytics telling you? Based on the key metrics, a visitor from Traffic Source A would be a more qualified unit of traffic than Traffic Source B. That doesn’t mean you need to cancel all traffic sources that don’t match the top producing sources. You just need make sure you aren’t paying too much for less qualified traffic.
You can also go one step further when you set up a "Conversion Goal" in your analytics. Basically, this measures conversions and tracks it back to the referring sources. This is another great metric to look at but you shouldn’t base all of the decisions on a conversion. Many people will find your site through a certain traffic source then come back later and fill out a contact form – making it hard to tie that conversion back to the actual source that they discovered your site through.
The web has given every marketing director a higher level of accountability.
P.S. I have been talking with a lot of builders lately who are presented with online advertising campaigns that are solely based on "impressions". Essentially, impressions refers to how many times the builder’s ad will show up in front of someone online. Be very careful, ultimately, you need to measure performance on click throughs – not impressions. That will tell you if your ad is getting in front of the right people. Showing an ad to someone looking at cars online is not your target audience.
