“Are these two roles blurred in your homebuilding operation? “

Kimberly Mackey, Anya Chrisanthon and Quint Lears presented a terrific roundtable discussion about these two roles. 

“And who’s job is it? “

Usually BOTH, with one being the leader and the other the collaborator. 

Kimberly stressed that it’s best if the roles are not blurred but kept separate—allowing both to be equally important.  And it allows each group to perform as an expert in their own arena.  An expert in Sales is unlikely to be able to Market most effectively, and vice-versa.  Anya, a new home sales expert was very clear that she didn’t want to revise websites or create Facebook ads.  However she was happy to provide from-the-trenches suggestions and ideas.

Clearly defining the leadership role and the collaborative role for each project can allow the two groups to work together smoothly and effectively. 

Many specific examples were given from the Sales and Marketing realms to show the possible roles:

• Facebook posts/ads –Marketing creates and then works with Sales on the best audience
• Events –Sales plans/executes and Marketing promotes them
• Sales tools –Sales collects and nurtures the leads and Marketing writes the drip campaigns to encourage conversion

 

According to Quint, a highly-successful new home sales guru, some major topics important for Salespeople and Marketers to work together on are:

Offers 

Marketers, Quint cautions you about promoting the lowest-priced home since this causes Sales to have to deal with “value” buyers (better known as bottom-feeders).  Salespeople, don’t cave in to value buyers who want a reduced price.  Instead say, “Reduced price? Oh its 2020 now and we’re fighting to keep the prices from going UP, and likely they will soon….”

Descriptives 

Marketers, don’t use the word “value” in your product descriptions.  Does a woman buy a fashion-statement purse because it’s a good value? Or because it looks expensive?  Would you say to your best friend that her new engagement ring looks like it’s a good value?  Or that it must have cost her fiance “a bundle?”  

Salespeople, you can use the “expensive” word in your presentations as a way to build desire – ask Quint how!

Of course, each homebuilder needs to define these roles specific for their own operation.  Hopefully these suggestions will make the tasks easier and operations more collaborative.