Solutions to Sagging Sales
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2001 5:49 pm
I want to reply to the question about this industry fixing itself.
Folks, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Sales are down everywhere for all kinds of goods. But the good news is -- if home-seekers are putting off buying a house because of the recession, this is the time to point out the great value and savings of a manufactured home.
Here are some other points as I see it:
1. Image! YOu've GOT to get away from that mobile home stigma! Until I walked into a manufactured home for the first time 6 months ago, I was living in ignorance. I was bowled over to find that the double-wide is bigger (and nicer) than my site-built home. But if people never go into a manufactured home, they'll never know and they'll never go into one if this fact isn't brought to their attention. Advertise! I've never seen a TV commercial for manufactured homes. Never seen a billboard either! Why not? You folks have got to get more visible. I'll bet you a lot of money, if one of the big manufacturers like Fleetwood or Palm Harbor produced a slick virtual-tour-type short commercial for their houses, sales would sky-rocket! Yet, I've never seen one. Why not? Show some real-life people who live in manufactured homes talking about the positives (there are many!) Advertise in a few select publications. Show pictures of the homes on permanent foundations with azalea bushes in front, etc. to banish that "trailer park" image a lot of people have. A picture is worth a thousand words, yet I've never seen a magazine ad for these homes either. (I realize all this advertising costs money)
2. Hammer away at the privacy angle. Your own home on your own piece of property, not in a sub-division. Surrounded by beauty - trees, greenery, maybe a stream. Peace and Quiet. There are thousands of people who're looking for this. Compare the manufactured home on its own land to the shoddy, cramped housing the site-builders are throwing up now - you know the ones I mean - the tacky little house sitting on a fourth of an acre with another tacky little house on either side and behind it. This is how rats live. Create a stigma-image for THAT kind of house.
3. Hammer away at the price-per-square-foot angle, while of course emphasizing the quality of construction.Throw out a few easy-to-remember facts, like the Hud code that the homes have to meet. Mention the inclusion of the refrigerator and if applicable, the washer and dryer. (This is a seemingy small thing, but you'd be surprised at the importance of that to lots of folks, especially when a refrigerator can easily cost a thousand dollars.)
4. Show those glamour bathrooms and huge kitchens. Those two things alone make me want to buy one.
And speaking of features, you manufacturers should add more and/or bigger windows! the natural light makes any house so much more airy and attractive. Look at the Skyline website and see their models with the huge floor-to-ceiling window on one side of the house. This is a huge draw!!
As for you dealers - don't interrogate us when we walk in the door as if you don't want to waste time with anybody who isn't going to buy today! Give us the key to the houses and let us look without a salesman breathing down our necks! Just give us a few facts - like the cost per square foot of a similar site-built home and then let us chew on that while we look at the houses!
And here's a real No-No for lots of consumers. Fleetwood is the main offender. A customer walks in the door and immediately they want you to fill out a form with your name, phone number, etc. Of course this means you're going to be put into some kind of database and possibly be called by a salesman in a month or so.
And finally, for those customers who do not yet own land, you salespeople ought to be out there beating the bushes finding land for sale. Get with the seller of a large parcel of land and see if he'll sell it piece-meal to your customers.
These houses are so great they ought to sell themselves - especially now with the recession and the rising (ridiculous) cost of site-built homes.
I think if you overcome the image problem and stress value, your sales will multiply and you might even get over that "depreciation" problem that just won't go away.
Folks, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Sales are down everywhere for all kinds of goods. But the good news is -- if home-seekers are putting off buying a house because of the recession, this is the time to point out the great value and savings of a manufactured home.
Here are some other points as I see it:
1. Image! YOu've GOT to get away from that mobile home stigma! Until I walked into a manufactured home for the first time 6 months ago, I was living in ignorance. I was bowled over to find that the double-wide is bigger (and nicer) than my site-built home. But if people never go into a manufactured home, they'll never know and they'll never go into one if this fact isn't brought to their attention. Advertise! I've never seen a TV commercial for manufactured homes. Never seen a billboard either! Why not? You folks have got to get more visible. I'll bet you a lot of money, if one of the big manufacturers like Fleetwood or Palm Harbor produced a slick virtual-tour-type short commercial for their houses, sales would sky-rocket! Yet, I've never seen one. Why not? Show some real-life people who live in manufactured homes talking about the positives (there are many!) Advertise in a few select publications. Show pictures of the homes on permanent foundations with azalea bushes in front, etc. to banish that "trailer park" image a lot of people have. A picture is worth a thousand words, yet I've never seen a magazine ad for these homes either. (I realize all this advertising costs money)
2. Hammer away at the privacy angle. Your own home on your own piece of property, not in a sub-division. Surrounded by beauty - trees, greenery, maybe a stream. Peace and Quiet. There are thousands of people who're looking for this. Compare the manufactured home on its own land to the shoddy, cramped housing the site-builders are throwing up now - you know the ones I mean - the tacky little house sitting on a fourth of an acre with another tacky little house on either side and behind it. This is how rats live. Create a stigma-image for THAT kind of house.
3. Hammer away at the price-per-square-foot angle, while of course emphasizing the quality of construction.Throw out a few easy-to-remember facts, like the Hud code that the homes have to meet. Mention the inclusion of the refrigerator and if applicable, the washer and dryer. (This is a seemingy small thing, but you'd be surprised at the importance of that to lots of folks, especially when a refrigerator can easily cost a thousand dollars.)
4. Show those glamour bathrooms and huge kitchens. Those two things alone make me want to buy one.
And speaking of features, you manufacturers should add more and/or bigger windows! the natural light makes any house so much more airy and attractive. Look at the Skyline website and see their models with the huge floor-to-ceiling window on one side of the house. This is a huge draw!!
As for you dealers - don't interrogate us when we walk in the door as if you don't want to waste time with anybody who isn't going to buy today! Give us the key to the houses and let us look without a salesman breathing down our necks! Just give us a few facts - like the cost per square foot of a similar site-built home and then let us chew on that while we look at the houses!
And here's a real No-No for lots of consumers. Fleetwood is the main offender. A customer walks in the door and immediately they want you to fill out a form with your name, phone number, etc. Of course this means you're going to be put into some kind of database and possibly be called by a salesman in a month or so.
And finally, for those customers who do not yet own land, you salespeople ought to be out there beating the bushes finding land for sale. Get with the seller of a large parcel of land and see if he'll sell it piece-meal to your customers.
These houses are so great they ought to sell themselves - especially now with the recession and the rising (ridiculous) cost of site-built homes.
I think if you overcome the image problem and stress value, your sales will multiply and you might even get over that "depreciation" problem that just won't go away.