| GPS - This Navigational trio yields Manufactured Housing Marketing Magic |
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by L. A. "Tony" Kovach, MHM
If people didn't know maps or directional skills well before, given human nature and the common response to new technology, Americans are less likely to learn them now with GPS use rising ever higher. But what - if anything - does this have to do with manufactured home marketing and sales? What does GPS do? GPS guides people to where they want to go. They may have a general idea, but they likely don't know exactly 'how to get there' and so they use a tool to get them to their desired destination. What do home shoppers today seek? Do they often want more home for less money? Do they want a greener and more energy efficient home? Do they need guidance in gaining financing? Are there a lot of needs and issues for them to navigate? Don't you to make it EASY for them to find YOU as they 'navigate' their many housing options? GPS is the answer. When it comes to manufactured home marketing, the three letters G.P.S. have an entirely new meaning! First for our manufactured housing discussion, GPS is short for Good Phone Skills. This GPS - Good Phone Skills - are a CRITICAL KEY to success in today's marketing and sales plan! In the intersection between marketing and selling, the transitional point is often the telephone. Like you, in our marketing, we use a variety of tools and media to make the phones ring! Let's review - for us - the basic process steps are… …to make:
GPS…Good Phone Skills. It starts with a direct or indirect marketing appeal that creates curiosity or interest, and what you want to do is make the phone ring. Once the phone rings, you use GPS - Good Phone Skills! - to connect with the customer and focus primarily on that connection with the customer to guide him to an appointment. That becomes your second GPS for today…Guide People Steps…GPS. Use that as your focus, using Good Phone Skills to Guide People's Steps to your sales center for an appointment. All professionals use solid, set appointments, and if you want professional results, you or your team needs to set appointments the same way that medical or legal professionals do. If you are using global positioning satellites, those GPS units need inputs, and those inputs come in the form of questions! Use questions on your telephone GPS system to 'guide' your customer into revealing his needs, wants, basic info and timeline. You are the pro. You guide the conversation. You share just enough to connect, ask just enough to Guide People's Steps to you for the firm appointment at your retail sales center. Too much information, and they may cross you off their shopping list, just the same as too complicated a mapping system will cause people to use something simpler! We won't go over the true to life facts we've previously shared in the interview with Sue Ziemnisky in 'The View from the Trenches,' blog post which recounts how Sue's use of GPS - Good Phone Skills! and Guiding People's Steps - helped her achieve some 70+ MH closings - by herself! - in less than one year! Not years ago, but in 2009, in the 'worst year' of the 12 year manufactured housing downturn. Please read that interview and get a better insight into the new way to marketing and using these first two parts of GPS to meet and sell more customers TODAY. People want and need guidance they can trust. Keep in mind that just as GPS guides people to their desired destination, you need to use a GPS approach that couples Good Phone Skills that Guide People's Steps to your location for a solid, set appointment. Your location is where the SELLING can take place! You and your team need a simple approach that yields a result that can duplicated. GPS - Good Phone Skills! and Guiding People's Steps - are the critical transitional steps to moving the client who has responded to creative 21st Century Manufactured Housing Marketing into your sales arena, where you, your sales team and your quality, appealing and affordable Manufactured Homes Lifestyle can produce the next step in the GPS…process…Great Profitable Sales!##
Tony Kovach invites new industry connections on LinkedIn, see his profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach and send him an invitation to connect at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |
You may be one of the millions who already use GPS technology to navigate from point A to point B. If you aren't you know people who do, including many of your prospective customers.
L. A. "Tony" Kovach, MHM, began in the manufactured housing industry in 1981. Kovach and his team have been involved in a number of successful start-ups, expansions and location turn-arounds at retail centers and community based sales operations. Tony operated his own retail center in Oklahoma, growing in 3 years to the top 1% of retail sales in the U.S….not during the oil boom, but during the oil bust in the late 1980s! Kovach sold his retail center to write and to offer outsourced marketing, sales and management services. Kovach currently does record setting marketing for Chicago based MHC operator Capital First Realty; Kovach and his team can do great ROI marketing for your firm too. Tony's specialty is creating location specific turn-around and successful marketing and sales systems that work even in 'down market' cycles. Kovach penned the November 2007 Merchandiser article, 
